Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Within American Christianity, we’ve seen the rise of “purity culture” in the last generation. At the heart of this movement are the best intentions. The goal was to keep our children from the devastation that results from sexual sin, including unwanted pregnancy and disease.
Purity culture places a lot of emphasis on sexual abstinence until marriage. As a father who raised daughters, I did the same. One of my goals for them was to make sure they didn’t fall prey to charming scoundrels. Y’know, young men who are just like I was.
Purity culture has its downfalls, though, and they are serious and damaging. Two books that have been very successful in Christian circles exemplify this. One is “The power of a praying wife,” by Stormie Omartian and the other is “Every man’s battle” by Arterburn, Stoeker, and Yorkey.
Together, they teach the worst tenets of modern purity culture. Those are, that men are hard-wired to see women as sexual objects. They can’t control it, and, to some extent, they can’t be held responsible for it. They remain all their lives as slaves to what they see.
The other pillar of purity culture is that women and girls must take responsibility for the consequences. That is, since men have no real control over themselves, and cannot be expected to, it’s on the ladies to make sure this ever-present fire doesn’t break out and burn everything down.
These ideas (the slavish inability of men, and the great responsibility of women) combine to create an environment of abuse and victim-blaming. This is exemplified in the documentary series, “Shiny happy people.”
Even young girls are trained to dress modestly, covered from neck to wrist to ankle, for the sake of not enticing the men around them, including those in their churches and their own families. If a woman is sexually abused, it’s common for her to deal with accusations that she must have tempted her attacker. It’s all on her. She’s the sexual gatekeeper, and the man is hard-wired to constantly storm the gates. He can’t help it.
In marriage this becomes “duty sex,” where the wife is obligated to be the outlet for his uncontrollable urges, whether she wants to or not in the moment. She must keep him on the straight and narrow. He can’t be moral on his own, for Pete’s sake!
If he’s a villain, addicted and abusive, it’s on the Christian wife to pray harder; have more faith; do a better job submitting to his authority, and, have more (and raunchier) sex with him. If he doesn’t get better, or he gets worse, she’s not doing enough.
To top it off, you can’t leave or divorce him. If you do, you’ve failed God. She can’t go to her church for help because they’re the very ones teaching this nonsense.
Purity culture combines unrelenting male domination with inescapable female culpability. It mocks the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which promises power to change, and the faithfulness of God to make it happen. Even for men. Go figure.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.” 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4
Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at: