Biblical Purity is not best represented in the True Love Waits Campaign: "What happens after the relationship foul matters in how we frame God's nature of redemption."

Introduction

The way I frame life is fundamentally different now than when I was a teenager in 1992.  Parenthood (a great show by the way) does something to a person’s worldview, or to use Charles Taylor’s language, one’s social imaginary.  Social imaginary is a term that describes the cultural and social filter by which all individuals process life.  Put differently, it is impossible to separate a person’s belief system from their social imaginary.  This is especially true for the first Christians in the first century.  Evidenced in Paul’s occasional letters to groups of believers, he is working through real time issues and life challenges with the understanding that his readers are bring to his message their own cultural framework or social imaginary.  

When it comes to parenting, a person’s social imaginary are shaped by the residue of their own social and cultural upbringing.  I have distinct memories of the various campaigns that were deployed to shape my framework on issues of culture, faith, and sex.  For example, I remember living next door to some kids that were avid Dungeons and Dragons players.  It is funny how some thirty-years later D&D is harmless compared to the video games and the virtual role-playing games and equipment on the market today that are accessible to kids and teens.  But back then, it was ingrained in me that D&D along with other fantasy games were evil (pronounced eeeeeeeevvvvvvviiiilllll). 

Similar tactics to keep me away from fantasy role playing games were also deployed to keep my CD collection free of such bands as AC/DC, Motley Crüe  RATT, and the other hair bands of the 80s.  A less than sophisticated campaign by the Southern Baptist Convention and their dealing of “Behind the Music” genre VCR tapes to churches and parents had me convinced for about a month that Black Sabbath was sending me subconscious messages through the amazing technology of backmasking.  Thirty-years later and the most significant technological advancements in the history of humankind, backmasking has to still be one of the seven wonders of technology.  These church VCR tapes were popular at youth retreats and camp meetings.  We would all be scared out of our mind convinced that Satan was somehow messaging social destruction through the hair bands of the 80s. 

I should provide the following explanation.  Yes, I concur that a lot of the music that was targeting the youth culture when I was growing up had content that was less than savory.  With that said, my point here is only to illustrate that parents have always been deploying scare tactics to offset the indigenous youth culture/social imaginary of their children.  Off the top of my head, I am unsure if any campaign has successfully worked widespread. 

The campaign that seemed to sweep the country was the True Love Waits Purity campaign that started in concept in 1982 but came to market ten years later in 1992.  On October 23, 1992, Lifeway submitted the theme of True Love Waits for consideration in their newly developed sex education curriculum.  On January 13, 1993, the first True Love Waits campaign took place in Nashville.  Twenty-years later, there are still remnants of the True Love Waits purity campaign.  Similar to the backmasking campaigns of the 80s, the purity campaigns of the 90s had good intentions but left a residue of really bad theology.  A residue that for many who lived through the failed Purity campaigns of the 90s continue to struggle with their own sense of acceptance and approval with God.  

In this essay, I am interested in re-framing purity in a biblical context that is not contingent on behavior modification/perfection.  Instead, purity as defined as God’s continued work of making holy those who are in Christ Jesus throughout their entire life on earth.  One or even a series of actions does not pollute this concept of purity.

Social Narratives

The social narrative around the various abstinence/purity campaigns is based on very well intentioned church leaders, parents, and Christian educators.  In its inception, the TLW curriculum and messaging seemed to work.  Teens by the hundreds of thousands were signing virginity pledges, wearing reminder bracelets and rings, and even developing relationship covenants.  The theological narrative that catapulted this campaign is the message that God made humans to be pure.  And this purity is what grants access to God’s approval or disapproval.  Any sex act before marriage compromises this purity while concomitantly (at the same time) compromising God’s approval.  Therefore, in order to remain a pure child of God, one must remain a virgin until marriage. Or something to this effect.  You get the point.

In concept, I can now see how this messaging worked for many for a period of time.  While this essay is not necessarily about the failed purity campaigns of the 90s, it is important to note that the fail rate of those who signed virginity pledges, donned bracelets and rings, and attended the local and national campaigns were high.  So much so, that the TLW folks started a subsequent campaign that focused on second chances and virginity renewal pledges.  This too had a high fail rate.  Please let me qualify that if you are reading this essay, and you held firm to your pledge until marriage.  Amen! 

In a recent parenting workshop hosted by another Christian organization that is led by teens from the 90s, they share a different message about our purity and God’s approval.  Instead of focusing on sexual promiscuity as the gate keeper of what it means to be pure in God’s eyes, they re-enlist scriptural support that in Christ Jesus we find cleansing.  The advice to us parents was to be careful we are not setting our children up for a major let down in their faith and in the way they view themselves. 

Purity

There are a handful of references to purity in the Old and New Testament.  You can goggle the occurrences and context.  It is generally understood that the Greek root word from which we get the English translation for “pure” or “purity” means unclean or polluted.  What is interesting to me as I read about Jesus’ interaction with polluted, unclean people, he never denied access to himself because of a person’s unclean baggage.   In fact, over and over again we see Jesus targeting those whom the “clean” religious society deemed “unclean.”   

One of my favorite Jesus encounters is found in Mark 1:43 when the man with leprosy asks Jesus, “If you are willing, make me clean.”  The text tells us that Jesus reaches out his hand, touches the unclean man, and makes him clean.  It might be easy to read over the small detail of the human touch exhibited by Jesus.  Of course, Jesus already demonstrated the ability to heal simply through verbal commands without human touch.  But here, Jesus wants the unclean person, who may have forgotten what it was like to experience human touch since the social stigma of the day around leprosy created entire colonies of “untouched” people, to remember again what human compassion, acceptance, and love felt like.  

As a side note, the medical community informs us today that leprosy is a degenerative disease that attacks the nervous system.  Over time, the leper develops the inability to feel pain because the nerves no longer send the critical information to the brain.  As a result, many lepers suffer from very serious self-inflicted wounds.  Touching a hot stove without realizing it before the burn is sever, walking with deeply infected sores that over time lead to loss of appendages, and in some cases injuries that are fatal.  With this background information in mind, I can’t help but to wonder if Jesus realized that for this person, the act of touching and being touched was no longer welcomed because it was dangerous not to be able to discern good touches from bad touches.  Jesus being the great physician who came to heal the sick provides a touch that gives this man a restart on life.  He is now free to leave his colony of marginalized and return to his family. 

As it relates to being unclean, it is as if Jesus is attracted to unclean individuals because he desires to bring healing.  This is a powerful message of hope that still resonates over two thousand years later.  In my humble opinion, when we as parents and church leaders deploy hell tactics with our children as our gambit to keep them from engaging in immoral behaviors that also send the message that Jesus’ approval and His power to continually cleanse and make pure is compromised, we are creating a social imaginary for our children that frames the way God relates to them in a context that is based on their ability to avoid certain behaviors and perform other ones.  This is not consistent with the biblical concept of righteousness or purity.

Without doing a full exegesis on these topics, I direct your attention to the number of biblical examples of the numerous ways God continues to exercise grace through the lifelong work of purifying us to Himself.  Romans 5:8-9 reminds us that, “If when were sinners (helpless to save ourselves; unclean; polluted) Christ died for us, then how much more willing is he to continue to save us (justify us) now that we are saved?”  I think all parents, including me, wish for our children to avoid the social and relational pitfalls that our culture celebrates and glorifies as a lifestyle of happiness.  But, if in our parenting tool kit we are using tactics that leverage away God’s power to accept, redeem, and cleanse for the sake of making sure our teens don’t hook up, then I would recommend a different set of tactics. 

There is no simple answer that will work for every teen and every family.  But there are effective ways of teaching our children about living a virtuous lifestyle without shaming them into thinking that if they take their relationship beyond set parameters they are somehow less pure than they were before the relationship foul.  Biblical purity is tethered to the nature of Jesus and not defined by one's actions.  Of course this is not to suggest we have an excuse to continually engage in immorality.

Side note, the pursuit of purity does not end on one’s marriage night.  It is almost comical the messaging around abstinence based purity.  The message is, "Just wait until your wedding night as if that is the end goal of all things pure."   I would say the journey of pure living just get’s going after marriage. 

One of the best metaphors that I came across recently on this topic is that of a curving mountain road.  In the church, we have convinced teens and young adults that the road is dangerous and one wrong move behind the wheel (intentional double-entendre) will lead to a careening off the mountain down a steep precipice that is next to impossible for recovery.  How about this same metaphor that clearly teaches our teens that, “Yes there are certain decisions that have major life changing implications and some that could even be relationally catastrophic, that will take you off the road.  But thankfully, God knows us better than ourselves and has provided plenty of on-ramps to continue our journey.”  This is only meant to be a simple metaphor of God’s willingness to forgive and restore. 

Conclusion:

I think the message of abstinence is still relevant and much needed in our hyper sexualized culture.  But be prepared to also have a plan “B”, “C”, “D” etc.. with your teens and young adults that allows them to hear the wonderful love story of the Bible.  How God did not allow our pollution to distance Himself from us, but instead, He demonstrated the ultimate love act by rescuing us from ourselves by becoming just like us (without sin) to die for us. 

The lyrics from the song “How Can It Be” by Laura Daigle is a great reminder of the psychological hang-ups we develop when it comes to allowing God to rescue us.  After all, I suspect a large number of this readership understands first hand what it is like to fail on a pledge (virginity or not), and because of our own harsh self-abasement we resist the love gesture of Jesus reaching out to touch us over and over and over again while on our life-journey of purity.  Daigle, in her song, finally comes to the realization of just how amazing God’s love is that he would willingly enter into relationship with her knowing her own unclean baggage.  Her story in the song is not much different from my story. 

Last, it is a bit ironic that Jesus enters our world in the form of a baby to a virgin mother who had not yet had sex.  The life and birth of our Savior is wrapped in a narrative of impurity, failed virginity pledges, promiscuity and fornication.  Of course, that was not the case, but for a period of time Mary and Joseph had to work through these sets of stigmas.  May we not forget that the very bloodline of Jesus is full of both men and women that were unable to keep their sexual pledges (David and Rahab and many others)?  May your children see you celebrate God's work of restoration and recovery over and over again so they grow up realizing that perfection is impossible.  My educator side is coming out with this next statement, "Human beings only learn by failing."  It is no coincidence that our human race learns by failing and the Savior of the human race loves by forgiving and giving second chances.  What a combination!