Wow. A fresh look at purity culture critics. I'm a mother of six adult children, and encouraged sexual restraint as they grew. At least one blames me for a twisted form of purity teaching I did not even believe (so how could it 'leak' into my parenting?). The perception that the criticism of the part is actually a rejection of the whole, rings true to me. Our hearts are sinful. We don't get to say, as adults, that we are innocent, victims of our upbringing. Our desires are mixed. Wise essay.
THIS is the type of synthesis we need in this moment. I appreciate your thoughtful assessment. Always enjoy your writing!
What is at the heart of both the purity culture critics and the groypers? Rebellion. They think it is rebellion against the man, the church, the culture, or whatever "boss" they want to take down, but ultimately, it is a rebellion of the heart against God. No different than what each of us is born into and can be saved from by the blood of Jesus.
Your characterization of the Purity Culture discourse is off base. In hindsight it may look like we were on our way out from the start, and maybe some of us were, but many of us were hoping to call our fellow Evangelicals to account and find the healing and reconciliation Christians are fond of giving lip service to. Instead our efforts to point out the harm and seek help were met with indifference and even distain and it became clear that the our churches didn't want our input. They saw us as the disruptors. We wanted help but all they saw were people who were asking too many questions. We were asking for help and all they saw was how disruptive we were being. We couldn't go along with the program anymore, and they weren't going to take our trauma seriously so we saw it was time to move on and find a community that could accommodate our healing. The dismissive attitude you expressed in your piece confirms that we made the right move. You don't really want to correct the harm cause by Purity Culture. You add insult to injury in this piece, so it's clear you don't understand our struggle.
By the way, Purity Culture is one of many reasons I left Evangelicalism. I could go on about racism, politics, theology, and science. Another time perhaps.
You are doing the very thing Samuel claims of you, throwing around vague accusations about purity culture and vague claims about the response.
Help for sexual sin is very plain.
1. See and believe that Jesus paid for all your sins on the cross.
2. Repent and confess. Call sexual sin what it is, sin. And decide that you want to turn away from it.
3. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God. Know that you sins don't define you but your new heart by the Spirit and your position in Christ defines you.
4. Fight hard to put away sinful sexual practices and put on self control and contentment.
5. As you stumble in many ways return to point 1 and start over again.
I'm curious why you felt it was necessary to outline the process of repentance. Do think I missed that lesson in my over three decades of church attendance and earning a batchlors degree at Pensacola Christian College? And what relevance does it have to anything I said?
"Too many evangelical critics of purity culture failed to specify their targets, refused to ground their points in Scripture, and prioritized testimonials at the expense of both doctrine and reason. Asking for careful definitions was too often considered an attack. Insisting on not lumping issues was called gatekeeping. From the very beginning, the anti-purity culture discourse suffered from a systematic lack of honesty. Whatever genuine problems were raised were frequently lost in a mudslide of bad logic and motivated reasoning. And the motivations themselves became clear over time."
Your comment serves as a perfect example of the behavior described in this paragraph. My thanks.
Overall this is excellent and timely. I do think it over-simplifies the “purity culture” critique a bit; and I say that as one who wholeheartedly believes that purity is both a good thing and a Christian imperative. But for those outside of the conservative, American, evangelical tradition, it can be difficult to appreciate just how dramatically the ground has shifted in just one generation, or how disorienting the shift has been for many millennials and zoomers who grew up in that milieu.
Mothers who once sent their daughters’ friends home for wearing pants are elevating Melanie Trump and Ericka Kirk as role models to their granddaughters. Parents who wept when Barack Obama used the s-word, colored over Botticelli with permanent marker, and reprimanded their little boys like dirty old men for lifting their eight-year-old eyes to the Barnard sculptures in front of the Pennsylvania State House, were suddenly dismissing the infamous Access Hollywood tapes as trivial “locker room talk.” You mentioned legalism and contempt as potential sins of conservative evangelicalism, but I think the “purity culture” critics have been influenced at least as much by hypocrisy.
There is no question that complaints about “purity culture” – like many other excuses that apostasy finds useful – are largely driven by rebellion against the Creator’s standard. But the Moral Majority generation has given the rebels a whole lot of ammunition.
Not just on the issues you have mentioned, but on the entire structure of this 'purity' paradigm.
Whether it be 'sexual purity', or 'political purity' or any other Puritan agenda, the fundamental flaw is that it sets itself up as an idol.
Yes, some things are not helpful and not conducive to a Christian lifestyle. These unhelpful inclinations need to be named and their faults shown. But the same paradigm, judgmental rather than pastoral, pops up in most aspects of our life as a community under God.
'Doctrinal purity' is one such. I have argued in other places that all our doctrine is metaphorical rather than literally and objectively 'fact', and been pilloried for that. Even by those who agree that calling god 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' is a metaphor taken from human experience! That doesn't stop them from demanding that doctrines be taken as their preferred metaphor demands, exclusive of all other formulations.
But I would not blame only the 'Right' for this. The 'Left' also likes to demand that their own metaphors and the resulting political/social application is also the only 'genuinely Christian' position.
Both sides need the one key ingredient; the humility to acknowledge that God is bigger than their categories. But so long as we fail to admit that our own ideas are only our ideas, and not Absolute Truth, we are making idols of our own fantasies. We are all idolators at heart, and the only way forward is to admit that God is bigger and infinitely more than our own mental 'images'. A metaphor has its uses, but it must never be proclaimed to be the one-and-only 'Truth'.
This reply is actually born out of a written prayer to God that turned into what I say now. I hear what you’re saying about the claims being vague. I think that’s because the precise points of purity culture which caused harm are confusing. And it takes awhile to pinpoint the ways it did harm. Some people don’t have the capacity to specify, which makes it seem like the problem didn’t exist especially if the result is a large group of those critics exiting Christianity altogether. It seems that self interest and sin are ultimately cause for protest against purity culture. So, as you conclude, it’s no longer that we agreed on the problem, just not the solution. You say, now we disagree on whether the problem existed to begin with. I’ll do my best to articulate my understanding of purity culture and why it was harmful. I believe so not because I wanted license to sin or because I disagree on the doctrine itself, but because I personally experienced the harm and have reflected deeply upon it.
I define “purity culture” at its simplest as saying nothing else but “no sex before marriage”. I don’t disagree on the orthodoxy or goodness of the doctrine. But because that was only what was taught about sex, it led to a mistrust of any pleasurable physical sensation. (My stomach gets tight every time I even use the word “pleasure”) What was my body allowed to feel? Pain or tension became a marker of safety. These were protection. I subconsciously distanced myself from anyone who wasn’t on the exact same page as me doctrinally. My classmates were talking about dating, but they must be having sex before marriage because they’re not Christian, right? Be on guard. When my body persisted in tightening, it felt like moral protection, but it caused substantial digestive and vocal issues. And being on my constant guard socially, albeit subconsciously, I endured a sense of social isolation. All of this heightened depression and anxiety. And while seeking to remedy these emotional states, I couldn’t see why to do so. These were protecting me. Why feel better? Wasn’t I supposed to be in pain? Without being taught what to do with natural attraction, it became merely a threat to breaking this one singular sexual creed. The body was a threat. And pain wasn’t an indicator that something was wrong, only that it was guarding you against that threat.
The long lasting impact of this has been that I still deal with vocal and digestive discomfort even though I colored within the lines before marriage and have safely arrived there. The singular sexual teaching of “no sex before marriage” was a blunt instrument heavily steeped with fear and was ignorant of the impact on the body’s complex system of pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure are necessary information for issues beyond sex. Purity culture was about preventing the greatest cardinal sin of sex before marriage, but didn’t tell us what was good to feel and so we felt we needed to shut the whole bodily system down or get out of the church environment entirely. Those who left likely have better functioning digestive tracts, a healthier relationship to enjoyable food, easier relationships, but are lacking the goodness and anchoring of a robust life shaped in the way of Jesus. The great irony is that saying that last phrase causes me to seize up because it’s still connected to the harmful “pain is safe” message. And yet when I remember how that more fully translates, I remember it is the very reason I can know a flourishing life. Jesus wants me well. Purity culture taught me otherwise.
I wonder about the 2nd half of your column - about the Right's purity culture - are the two approaches separate in the sense that the Prog Left attacked the conserv;. church directly and the Right the US political culture? Apples and oranges?
I don't see the general Evan. church swinging in any great degree to Fuentes, Tucker, etc., though some may certainly do so. The Left was attacking and looking to downgrade the conserv. Evan. world. not convert them. The Fuentes crowd is looking to convert the unaware, per their lights.
The Left was and is a clear threat to God's church and there is no equal or same threat from the Right, unless one is looking to paint a synergy Ying and Yang so to speak?
" Fuentes wants Tucker Carlson and the heirs of Charlie Kirk to believe there is an oppressive purity culture that must be toppled if young men are to flourish. He’s wrong. Simple as. And it’s OK to not take his premise seriously, because it’s wrong, and wrong premises can be labeled such with no offense to freedom of speech."
I think a key distinction I'm unclear on is if Fuentes and you are referring to "oppressive purity culture" situation for young men within the right, within Christianity, or within Western/American culture broadly. I think there is definitely a case to be made for the latter, particularly with regards to the k-12 education system. I'd agree that the critique seems out of place for the former, individual instances perhaps withstanding.
Wow. A fresh look at purity culture critics. I'm a mother of six adult children, and encouraged sexual restraint as they grew. At least one blames me for a twisted form of purity teaching I did not even believe (so how could it 'leak' into my parenting?). The perception that the criticism of the part is actually a rejection of the whole, rings true to me. Our hearts are sinful. We don't get to say, as adults, that we are innocent, victims of our upbringing. Our desires are mixed. Wise essay.
I too was concerned by the Nick Fuentes interview...
https://jonathanbrownson.substack.com/p/a-profitable?r=gdp9j
I am heartened, however, by your consistent, biblical and prophetic voice. Thank you for this piece.
THIS is the type of synthesis we need in this moment. I appreciate your thoughtful assessment. Always enjoy your writing!
What is at the heart of both the purity culture critics and the groypers? Rebellion. They think it is rebellion against the man, the church, the culture, or whatever "boss" they want to take down, but ultimately, it is a rebellion of the heart against God. No different than what each of us is born into and can be saved from by the blood of Jesus.
Your characterization of the Purity Culture discourse is off base. In hindsight it may look like we were on our way out from the start, and maybe some of us were, but many of us were hoping to call our fellow Evangelicals to account and find the healing and reconciliation Christians are fond of giving lip service to. Instead our efforts to point out the harm and seek help were met with indifference and even distain and it became clear that the our churches didn't want our input. They saw us as the disruptors. We wanted help but all they saw were people who were asking too many questions. We were asking for help and all they saw was how disruptive we were being. We couldn't go along with the program anymore, and they weren't going to take our trauma seriously so we saw it was time to move on and find a community that could accommodate our healing. The dismissive attitude you expressed in your piece confirms that we made the right move. You don't really want to correct the harm cause by Purity Culture. You add insult to injury in this piece, so it's clear you don't understand our struggle.
By the way, Purity Culture is one of many reasons I left Evangelicalism. I could go on about racism, politics, theology, and science. Another time perhaps.
You are doing the very thing Samuel claims of you, throwing around vague accusations about purity culture and vague claims about the response.
Help for sexual sin is very plain.
1. See and believe that Jesus paid for all your sins on the cross.
2. Repent and confess. Call sexual sin what it is, sin. And decide that you want to turn away from it.
3. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God. Know that you sins don't define you but your new heart by the Spirit and your position in Christ defines you.
4. Fight hard to put away sinful sexual practices and put on self control and contentment.
5. As you stumble in many ways return to point 1 and start over again.
I'm curious why you felt it was necessary to outline the process of repentance. Do think I missed that lesson in my over three decades of church attendance and earning a batchlors degree at Pensacola Christian College? And what relevance does it have to anything I said?
"Too many evangelical critics of purity culture failed to specify their targets, refused to ground their points in Scripture, and prioritized testimonials at the expense of both doctrine and reason. Asking for careful definitions was too often considered an attack. Insisting on not lumping issues was called gatekeeping. From the very beginning, the anti-purity culture discourse suffered from a systematic lack of honesty. Whatever genuine problems were raised were frequently lost in a mudslide of bad logic and motivated reasoning. And the motivations themselves became clear over time."
Your comment serves as a perfect example of the behavior described in this paragraph. My thanks.
Overall this is excellent and timely. I do think it over-simplifies the “purity culture” critique a bit; and I say that as one who wholeheartedly believes that purity is both a good thing and a Christian imperative. But for those outside of the conservative, American, evangelical tradition, it can be difficult to appreciate just how dramatically the ground has shifted in just one generation, or how disorienting the shift has been for many millennials and zoomers who grew up in that milieu.
Mothers who once sent their daughters’ friends home for wearing pants are elevating Melanie Trump and Ericka Kirk as role models to their granddaughters. Parents who wept when Barack Obama used the s-word, colored over Botticelli with permanent marker, and reprimanded their little boys like dirty old men for lifting their eight-year-old eyes to the Barnard sculptures in front of the Pennsylvania State House, were suddenly dismissing the infamous Access Hollywood tapes as trivial “locker room talk.” You mentioned legalism and contempt as potential sins of conservative evangelicalism, but I think the “purity culture” critics have been influenced at least as much by hypocrisy.
There is no question that complaints about “purity culture” – like many other excuses that apostasy finds useful – are largely driven by rebellion against the Creator’s standard. But the Moral Majority generation has given the rebels a whole lot of ammunition.
Samuel, you have nailed this one dead centre!
Not just on the issues you have mentioned, but on the entire structure of this 'purity' paradigm.
Whether it be 'sexual purity', or 'political purity' or any other Puritan agenda, the fundamental flaw is that it sets itself up as an idol.
Yes, some things are not helpful and not conducive to a Christian lifestyle. These unhelpful inclinations need to be named and their faults shown. But the same paradigm, judgmental rather than pastoral, pops up in most aspects of our life as a community under God.
'Doctrinal purity' is one such. I have argued in other places that all our doctrine is metaphorical rather than literally and objectively 'fact', and been pilloried for that. Even by those who agree that calling god 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit' is a metaphor taken from human experience! That doesn't stop them from demanding that doctrines be taken as their preferred metaphor demands, exclusive of all other formulations.
But I would not blame only the 'Right' for this. The 'Left' also likes to demand that their own metaphors and the resulting political/social application is also the only 'genuinely Christian' position.
Both sides need the one key ingredient; the humility to acknowledge that God is bigger than their categories. But so long as we fail to admit that our own ideas are only our ideas, and not Absolute Truth, we are making idols of our own fantasies. We are all idolators at heart, and the only way forward is to admit that God is bigger and infinitely more than our own mental 'images'. A metaphor has its uses, but it must never be proclaimed to be the one-and-only 'Truth'.
This reply is actually born out of a written prayer to God that turned into what I say now. I hear what you’re saying about the claims being vague. I think that’s because the precise points of purity culture which caused harm are confusing. And it takes awhile to pinpoint the ways it did harm. Some people don’t have the capacity to specify, which makes it seem like the problem didn’t exist especially if the result is a large group of those critics exiting Christianity altogether. It seems that self interest and sin are ultimately cause for protest against purity culture. So, as you conclude, it’s no longer that we agreed on the problem, just not the solution. You say, now we disagree on whether the problem existed to begin with. I’ll do my best to articulate my understanding of purity culture and why it was harmful. I believe so not because I wanted license to sin or because I disagree on the doctrine itself, but because I personally experienced the harm and have reflected deeply upon it.
I define “purity culture” at its simplest as saying nothing else but “no sex before marriage”. I don’t disagree on the orthodoxy or goodness of the doctrine. But because that was only what was taught about sex, it led to a mistrust of any pleasurable physical sensation. (My stomach gets tight every time I even use the word “pleasure”) What was my body allowed to feel? Pain or tension became a marker of safety. These were protection. I subconsciously distanced myself from anyone who wasn’t on the exact same page as me doctrinally. My classmates were talking about dating, but they must be having sex before marriage because they’re not Christian, right? Be on guard. When my body persisted in tightening, it felt like moral protection, but it caused substantial digestive and vocal issues. And being on my constant guard socially, albeit subconsciously, I endured a sense of social isolation. All of this heightened depression and anxiety. And while seeking to remedy these emotional states, I couldn’t see why to do so. These were protecting me. Why feel better? Wasn’t I supposed to be in pain? Without being taught what to do with natural attraction, it became merely a threat to breaking this one singular sexual creed. The body was a threat. And pain wasn’t an indicator that something was wrong, only that it was guarding you against that threat.
The long lasting impact of this has been that I still deal with vocal and digestive discomfort even though I colored within the lines before marriage and have safely arrived there. The singular sexual teaching of “no sex before marriage” was a blunt instrument heavily steeped with fear and was ignorant of the impact on the body’s complex system of pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure are necessary information for issues beyond sex. Purity culture was about preventing the greatest cardinal sin of sex before marriage, but didn’t tell us what was good to feel and so we felt we needed to shut the whole bodily system down or get out of the church environment entirely. Those who left likely have better functioning digestive tracts, a healthier relationship to enjoyable food, easier relationships, but are lacking the goodness and anchoring of a robust life shaped in the way of Jesus. The great irony is that saying that last phrase causes me to seize up because it’s still connected to the harmful “pain is safe” message. And yet when I remember how that more fully translates, I remember it is the very reason I can know a flourishing life. Jesus wants me well. Purity culture taught me otherwise.
Excellent, Samuel. Even if most people in my church could not identify Fuentes, your concerns, analysis and warning are timely and needed. Thank you.
Great insights as usual - thanks!
I wonder about the 2nd half of your column - about the Right's purity culture - are the two approaches separate in the sense that the Prog Left attacked the conserv;. church directly and the Right the US political culture? Apples and oranges?
I don't see the general Evan. church swinging in any great degree to Fuentes, Tucker, etc., though some may certainly do so. The Left was attacking and looking to downgrade the conserv. Evan. world. not convert them. The Fuentes crowd is looking to convert the unaware, per their lights.
The Left was and is a clear threat to God's church and there is no equal or same threat from the Right, unless one is looking to paint a synergy Ying and Yang so to speak?
"But where sin isn’t named, it tends to evade capture. The more abstract our language, the more slippery our repentance."
This is a good line, and could probably be expanded into a full post if you wanted to search for more examples.
" Fuentes wants Tucker Carlson and the heirs of Charlie Kirk to believe there is an oppressive purity culture that must be toppled if young men are to flourish. He’s wrong. Simple as. And it’s OK to not take his premise seriously, because it’s wrong, and wrong premises can be labeled such with no offense to freedom of speech."
I think a key distinction I'm unclear on is if Fuentes and you are referring to "oppressive purity culture" situation for young men within the right, within Christianity, or within Western/American culture broadly. I think there is definitely a case to be made for the latter, particularly with regards to the k-12 education system. I'd agree that the critique seems out of place for the former, individual instances perhaps withstanding.