Purity Culture
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Week 23: Purity Culture
Christianity and purity culture. Let’s deconstruct abstinence and the perspective of sex in the Christian culture please, I was walking around with perpetual guilt from YoungLife Purity culture for a hot second.
This is a very personal, difficult conversation for some. I want to say in advance that if anyone needs to leave for any reason during the conversation, feel free to do so. This is for what you need, and if you need to leave, walk around, call a friend, do so. Secondly, because purity culture exists in a gender binary, I will be talking in male-female gendered language. A major issue with purity culture is the way in which gender is understood. This is in no way me acknowledging that gender is only male-female, but using the language in which purity culture exists. Finally, at the end, we will have a few different options for discussion. If you would really like to have conversation about purity culture, and discuss what we talked about, you can come with me, and we can talk in the adjacent class room. If you want to have general processing questions about this semester, how you feel about going home, crew topic you've enjoyed etc., you can stay here!
Nadia Bolz-Weber, author of Shameless: A Case for Not Feeling Bad About Feeling Good (About Sex), writes, "If you were to draw a circle that represents all the people on the planet, and then inside it draw another small circle to represent the people who live according to 'God's plan,' then, well, very few people on the planet fit into that circle…Not included in the circle are [trans people], divorced people, people in unhappy marriages, people who have sex before marriage, people who masturbate, asexuals, gay people, bisexuals, people who are not Christian, people who are gender non-binary…If that's 'God's plan,' then God planned poorly." In many ways, the harm of purity culture is taking away the choice and discovery out of sex. We are told that there is one option, and that is for you to wait until marriage and get married to someone of the opposite sex. This cuts so many people out, and leaves people in a place of questioning, filled with shame. Everyone is harmed by purity culture. Regardless of gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, nobody is winning.
In her book, Bolz-Weber talks about the temperance movement in the U.S. The movement started out of a place of care and quickly snowballed into a really extreme movement with propaganda put in school text books. Just like the name, the movement started from a place of temperance instead of abstinence. The conversation was around rehabilitating broken families, preventing abuse, and getting help for alcoholics. The movement quickly escalated, and alcohol was banned in the U.S. This didn't stop people from drinking, instead it created a culture of secrecy. In a letter opposing the 18th amendment, a pastor said, "No good ever comes from the absolute shall." There is so much wisdom in this. Instead of having conversations about shall, we need to have conversations about how to make choices for ourselves based on our limits and experiences.
Chapter 9 of The Deconstructionists Playbook does a wonderful job reframing purity culture. In Decolonizing Sex, Jo Luehmann, breaks down the biblical notion of purity. She looks at the word used for fornication in Matthew 15:15-20.
Then Peter spoke up, “Explain this riddle to us.” Jesus said, “Don’t you understand yet? Don’t you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer? But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart. And that’s what contaminates a person in God’s sight. Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God’s sight. But eating without washing hands doesn’t contaminate in God’s sight.”
In this story, Jesus and the Pharisees are arguing about the notion of purity. Jesus said it is what comes out of the heart, the Pharisees believe it is tied more to physicality and action. In verse 19-20, Jesus goes on to say, "Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and insults. These contaminate a person in God’s sight. But eating without washing hands doesn’t contaminate in God’s sight.” The word for sexual sins in this passage is "porneia" meaning illicit sexual intercourse. But what is illicit sexual intercourse according to scripture? Leviticus believed a number of things to be illicit, but they were all specifically related to inheritance and legitimacy of the family line. Luehmann goes on to say, "The obsession with policing women's sexuality and bodies had everything to do with inheritance and very little to do with sex and sexuality. The obsession with ensuring men had sex had everything to do with passing down an inheritance, and very little to do with sex and sexuality."
Similarly to our discussion last week on Queer Theology, we cannot use the Bible as a proof text for creating a sexual ethic. That doesn't mean the Bible, and the narratives of God relating to human kind, of Jesus's justice and mercy, can't inform our ethics. We just simply don’t have a verse that can say with certainty what our ethic should be. In Shameless, Nadia Bolz-Weber goes on to propose a new sexual ethic. It is partly informed by the World Health Organization's definition of sexual health, and partly informed by faith. That ethic is: enthusiastic consent (not just absence of no), mutuality, and concern. Rev. Bailey Brawner writes, "You deserve to use your brain to make decisions about sex yourself, rather than be told to look at a very cherry-picked sentence or two to determine how you are to use your body," (Purity Culture & Asexuality, The Deconstructionists Playbook).
Purity Culture Discussion Questions:
Have you been indoctrinated to believe that sex is bad unless it is between a married man and woman? How has that belief harmed your relationship with sex?
How can we ensure sex is not used as a weapon against us and others?
Look back at the Matthew 15:15-20 passage. How does our view of purity change if we think of it as a condition of the heart and not a series of laws?
General Discussion Questions:
How have you experienced connection in the following areas: with God, with yourself and with others?
What has faith looked like for you this year?
How have you redefined faith this year?
What has been a crew topic (or question) that stuck with you?