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Purity

In Blog, Book Reviews, Sexuality on
June 26, 2022

Pure

Purity culture has left quite a bad taste in the mouths of believers and unbelievers alike. If you type the phrase into Google, you’ll find numerous negative articles regarding this movement, some even published by Christian websites. While the proponents of purity culture started with good intentions of helping their youth to pursue purity and godliness, they made a lot of mistakes along the way and taught several very unbiblical ideas to thousands of teenagers all across the nation.

As more and more people are standing up and exposing the lies they were taught and the hypocrisy they witnessed within purity culture, it seems the pendulum is beginning to swing too far the other way. Instead of encouraging dating for the purpose of marriage and abstaining from sex, many people (including some professing Christians) are encouraging our youth to sleep with whomever they’re interested in to see if they’re “sexually compatible.” While this idea may agree with the ways of the world, it certainly does not agree with the Word of God. As Dean Inserra argues in his new book, Pure, Christians must stick to God’s design for sex.

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Sanctification on
March 20, 2022

The Hole in Our Holiness

According to Barna Research Group in 2006, only thirty-five percent of Americans believe that God call us and expects us to become holy. Less than half of self-proclaimed born-again believers agree with this.[1] And I imagine that over the last fifteen years or so, those numbers have decreased quite a bit. It’s evident that we live in a culture that doesn’t prize holiness. People today do whatever they want to do, whatever feels good and right to them. Even many Christians are throwing biblical values to the wind and doing whatever the world around them is doing: watching inappropriate movies, listening to explicit music, wearing revealing clothing, scrolling through Twitter or TikTok for hours on end, and engaging in actions that were once unheard of.

According to Kevin DeYoung, there’s a hole in our holiness, and it needs to be addressed now.

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In Blog, Purity, Theology on
December 6, 2021

Pursuing Purity

Growing up, I mostly missed the purity culture movement within the evangelical church. I did sign a True Love Waits abstinence pledge in middle school, and my parents gave me a purity ring when I turned thirteen. But I never attended any purity events, or read any books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye, or listened to talks that compared girls who had sinned sexually to used cars, expired food, or a wilted rose. I was never hurt by “purity culture,” but I know many Christian women who lived their teen years before me were.

While many bad things happened as a result of this purity movement, I fear we are now moving too far in the opposite direction. In response to purity culture’s flaws, many people, mostly those who fall in the progressive Christian camp, claim that God doesn’t really care what you wear or who you sleep with. He doesn’t care about purity or modesty. Want to wear crop tops and tight miniskirts? That’s fine! Want to sleep around before you settle down and get married? That’s good and even healthy.

But the Bible actually has a lot to say about purity and its importance in the lives of believers. Instead of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, we should examine what God’s Word teaches us about purity and determine how we can foster a culture of true, biblical purity in our families, churches, and communities.

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