Ok. Next thread: Purity culture.
Some say that ‘sexual abstinence outside of marriage' is identical to ‘purity culture’. This is simply not the case. The early church’s revolutionary sex ethic was that sex was only for within a mutual, whole-self-giving, super-consensual 1/8
Some say that ‘sexual abstinence outside of marriage' is identical to ‘purity culture’. This is simply not the case. The early church’s revolutionary sex ethic was that sex was only for within a mutual, whole-self-giving, super-consensual 1/8
life-long covenant. Sex is not for people who only give only a part of themselves (the physical, or maybe the emotional), but the whole self to the other—legally, economically, socially, emotionally, spiritually. The Greek word porneia (‘sexual immorality’) was infused with 2/8
new meaning by New Testament writers. It meant any sex outside of marriage. It was based on a radical egalitarian principle that the husband’s body belonged to the wife, and the wife’s to the husband (1 Cor 7:4). That meant that anyone who within marriage exploited or abused 3/8
was violating the Christian sex ethic just as much or more as those who had sex outside of marriage. This ethic replaced the (wrong) Greco-Roman model of sexuality-that men of higher status, even if married, were allowed to demand sex with anyone of lower social status. 4/8
The first laws vs rape & sex without consent grew from this Christian ethic. See Kyle Harper, From Shame to Sin. Since then, every branch of the Christian church-orthodox, Catholic, & Protestant—in every culture and in every century has taught the ethic of sexual abstinence 5/8
outside of marriage. “Purity culture” is a more recent phenomenon in some churches, that originated around the 90s book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. The teaching went far beyond the Christian sex ethic to argue that you should not ‘date’ or even kiss someone unless you were sure 6/8
you were going to marry them. Sexual thoughts, most physical contact, and sex outside marriage were elevated to "unforgivable sins." However, to say sexual abstinence outside of marriage is automatically “purity culture” is at best historically naïve and uninformed 7/8
and at worst deliberately dishonest. They are not the same. Those who are angry at the abuses of purity culture are right to be so. It has done harm and it should be called out and lamented. There is a difference. 8/8
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