Talking Back to Purity Culture
Talking Back to Purity Culture: Rediscovering Faithful Christian Sexuality
By: Rachel Joy Welcher
“Ours is a culture of sexual confusion, oppression, and slavery that masks itself as a culture of sexual freedom. In reaction to a hypersexualized world, the Christian purity culture was born. While well-intended in some respects, the purity movement would, not unlike its sexual revolution counterpart, overswing the pendulum and become its own version of a culture of shame.”
“Sex works a lot like fire. When removed from its protective boundaries, it burns us and leaves scars.”
[Scott Sauls, Foreword]
I was very interested in this book.
‘Purity culture’ has been under attack. So many people have been hurt by this Christian subculture of shame regarding sexual purity. I grew up during this movement but I don’t bear the scars so many others do. I wasn’t even aware of what ‘purity culture’ even was until just recently.
So what happened? What did I miss?
I wanted to hear others’ stories and see where the church went wrong. Sexual purity is a good thing, so Scripture must have been mishandled/misapplied/distorted to cause the fallout it did.
I didn’t read this book to feel satisfaction in tearing down the church. And thankfully, it’s not Rachel’s goal in writing it. The church is made up of imperfect people and unfortunately a place that should always feel safe, sometimes doesn’t. That doesn’t mean everything spoken in the church should be trashed.
I think we can all agree that our bodies matter and what we do with them matter. So we are responsible to discern what is truth, not based on our feelings or on who said it, but based on Scripture. The boundaries God gives regarding sex and sexuality are for our good and protection. But even as God gives us commands, he also offers grace and forgiveness. All of these components are important as we approach this topic.
[Siednote: Sam Allberry’s book What God Has to Say about Our Bodies is a wonderful book to read along with this one!]
Rachel recommends to read this with a group of people and I strongly agree.
I read it with a group of 4 other women and I’m glad I did. We all had our own experiences, influences, and interactions to discuss the topics Rachel brings up and look at what Scripture has to say.
We realized that this is a deconstruction book. Deconstructing purity culture rhetoric. It is always good to think critically about our beliefs. Especially because so many are often shaped as cultural responses. The downside of this formatting is that Rachel wants us as readers to do the work of rebuilding according to biblical standards. This may cause frustration for some readers because she doesn’t spoon-feed us the answers.
She wants us to wrestle with our experiences and our preconceived ideas or subconsciously held beliefs and make sure they have been shaped by God’s Word and his commands for us.
My group discussed how reading it only a chapter at a time with a week or two in between was often discouraging. The last few chapters are the hope and the way forward, but when you’re slogging through the rest it’s easy to become cynical and focus on all the bad things. We tried to make sure we came back to Scripture, to the love and hope of Christ and to remember the gospel message.
I was so glad that Rachel begins her book with the disclaimer that she loves the church and does not write this book to tear apart the bride of Christ.
“My desire to reevaluate purity culture teachings is out of love for the church, not a vendetta against her.”
This was important to me.
Having recently read Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, which is also a deconstruction book of sorts, I was wary of Welcher’s posture toward the church. Jesus and John Wayne is a strong critique of the failings of the evangelical church in many ways. There is much to say about that that I included in my review of it, but what was disheartening was KDM’s lack of love toward the body of Christ. There was no Scripture, grace, hope, or love in her message. Not so in Talking Back to Purity Culture. Rachel loves the Church and God’s Word and her book reflects that.
No matter where we fall in our beliefs about purity, we are all image-bearers of God and we need to treat each other as such.
As Sauls stated in the foreword, purity culture was borne out of a reaction to the sexual promiscuity of the culture. Rachel says:
“Evangelical purity culture was not a wicked movement but rather an earnest response to the age-old problem of immorality and the modern crisis of STDs and teenage pregnancy. As with most earnest, human responses, we didn’t get everything right… I won’t get everything right in this book either.”
I appreciate her honesty here. Just as purity culture was a response, the reevaluation of purity culture is also a response.
We have to be critical thinkers. She quotes from an interview with a man named Jay who said that he didn’t feel manipulated or lied to by the movement but that he “was able to ‘eat the fish and spit out the bones.’”
I think this was my experience. I had a purity ring, but I didn’t read most of the books she critiqued or go to purity conferences or balls. I didn’t feel the pressure or shame that many did.
With everything we read, we need to listen and interpret through a biblical lens. Even if things are said by a Christian, no matter how well-known, we hold it up to Scripture and see if it stands. Eat the fish, spit out the bones.
I won’t go into detail about all the things she said. I encourage you to read it for yourself and grow with others in your community.
What I’ll do instead is share this table I created. It’s not exhaustive by any means, but here are some things that came up as we reflected on what we read. We wanted to compare what purity culture says to what the Bible says.
Purity culture’s emphasis of sexual purity comes from Scripture’s many many commands to be sexually pure and its teachings of sex being between one man and one woman in the bounds of marriage. What got distorted in practice was the message of grace, redemption, and the motivations for our pursuit of purity.
“‘Purity culture unwittingly told me I was already broken, yet simultaneously gave me a crushing weight of maintaining my own righteousness.’”
In this table, the left column demonstrates what people influenced by purity culture heard from their pastors, youth leaders, or parents. While purity culture didn’t necessarily overtly teach them or even agree with these statements, they were some of the general effect of how sexual purity was communicated and handled.
The right column is the ‘clarification’ and shows what the Bible actually says. Purity culture was trying to uphold the biblical teachings but their fear of the culturally acceptable sexual freedom made the communication of these truths presented as a prosperity gospel focused on ‘following the rules’ rather than focusing on loving and following Jesus.
Welcher tackles many topics like lust, divorce, abuse, porn, masturbation, modesty, virginity, same-sex attracted people, female vs male responsibilities, infertility, and singleness.
Turns out purity is more complicated than just ‘stay abstinent and you’ll have a healthy marriage and kids and never struggle with impurity.’ Purity culture often simplified things that left people struggling, shamed, and motivated by the wrong desires.
Finding sexual fulfillment at any stage in our life can become an idol and a worship of self and self-fulfillment. The most important part of this book is Rachel reminding us that pursuing sexual purity (and all of God’s commands) is an act of worship of a holy God. That makes all the difference!
Not only did this book draw good discussion with my female friends, but it made for interesting conversation with my husband. I got to ask him a lot of questions about how he, as a male, thought about things or the messages he felt like he was taught or what things influenced him.
This was good for us to grow in learning more about each other and how we can help one another pursue purity, even after marriage, and how we should be teaching our kids about purity in our home.
I admit, there were definitely times where I struggled with her presentation of certain ideas or beliefs where it seemed like she was advocating for something I disagreed with. I’m not sure if our picture of how this looks in the church is the same.
I’m sure we differ on some of the details, but Rachel upholds a biblical view of sex, marriage, and purity and grounds everything in the gospel message that our purity is already won in Christ. So I can get behind that!
Conclusion
This spurs on discussion and biblical study of purity.
It is transparent, challenging, and gospel-centered.
It is a valuable read whether you’re dating, married, parents, childless, heterosexual, or same-sex attracted.
Our bodies matter and what we do with our bodies matter. Therefore, what we think about purity matters.
Christian purity culture didn’t get everything right, but the Bible gives us what we need to know. It’s worth studying so we can worship God with our bodies in obedience and love.
“Marriage is not the goal of purity. Family is not the goal. Sex is not the goal. God and his glory are the goal of purity. Practicing purity is a form of worship, another way we get to praise God through obedience with our bodies, hearts, and thoughts… We are called to purity because we are called to be like Jesus.”
A few more quotes:
“You are a precious image bearer of God. Your purity has already been won for you in Christ, and your dedication to pursuing sexual purity is not defined by your virginity but by your surrender to Christ and dependence on the Holy Spirit today. Today is a new day to pursue sexual purity out of love for the God who rescued you and brought you safely to himself in Christ.”
“The desire to be the god of your life— of your sexuality— is still a serpent in the ear, a lie in the heart. We are not above falling for the original sin over and over again. Recognize that self-worship is behind every act of disobedience, even the ones we try to justify or minimize. Every time we sin, we are saying, ‘I choose to be my own god.’”
“The solution is not necessarily to talk about sex more often but more honestly, and in community.”
“Too often, purity rhetoric hyperfocuses on what we should and shouldn’t do instead of what Christ has already done. It neglects the gospel and places personal striving above the finished work of Christ.”
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