The Case for (a New) Purity Culture

I’m very honored to share that I have an essay in this month’s issue of First Things magazine. It’s titled A New Purity Culture.

This essay is my attempt to do three things.

First, I want to share some of my own experience growing up in the kind of conservative evangelicalism that’s been at the center of many fraught conversations about parenting, ministry, and sexual purity. While a lot of debates over Christianity are generally applicable, the discusison of purity culture touches on the very branch of evangelical identity that I inherited and still inhabit. This topic means something to me.

Second, I wanted to bring as objective a viewpoint as possible on the problems of evangelical purity culture. They are real, I have seen them, and others have experienced them more viscerally than I. Part of what I came to believe is that the debates over 90s and 2000s purity culture are handicapping many evangelicals from charting a renewed course. We are struggling to articulate convictions and strategies for our children partially because we are paralyzed by the questions faced by our parents. The essay is partially an attempt to bring these questions out into the light, address them honestly and fairly, and tell the truth—not just about what our mentors got wrong, but what they got right.

Finally, the essay is an exploration of what a new purity culture might look like. I argue that we need a renewed purity culture, because, for all its faults, the purity culture of our teens was a significant plausibility structure that beautified chastity and fidelity. Private commitments to abstinence are not enough. We have to press against the world as hard as it presses against us. The question is: How do we do this?

Here’s an excerpt from the essay:

If the evangelical purity culture of the 1990s had issues, why use the term “purity culture” at all? Isn’t it too compromised? “Purity culture” is a term worth salvaging, because purity culture was a worthy endeavor. The word “culture” denotes something bigger than one best-selling book or theological tribe. Purity culture encompassed families, denominations, parachurch organizations, and popular music.

What I experienced as an evangelical teen was not fundamentalist separatism, but a habitat that made Christian conviction feel natural and normal. Christian books, music, and conferences are often accused of watering down difficult or unpopular doctrine in order to make Christianity cool or relevant. But the best expressions of Christian subculture beautified theology, trying to bridge the gap between the truth we confessed and the experiences we felt.

The purity culture of the 1990s was a plausibility structure, a system of language and habits that made chastity and faithfulness feel good, true, and beautiful. A new evangelical purity culture must do the same. It must captivate, not just condemn.

In the coming weeks I hope to write a couple pieces here that expand on what I was able to say in the essay. For now, though, I hope you’ll read the piece and share your thoughts on it.

More soon!