If you were a teenager in church during the 1990s and early 200s, you have likely been influenced, unknowingly, by what has been called “Purity Culture” (PC from hereon) that was prevalent among evangelical youth ministry at that time. A couple of catalysts for this movement are the “True Love Waits” campaign (remember the Purity Ring!) and Joshua Harris’s book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” (and his follow up book “When Boy Meets Girl”). There was good that came out of this movement. An emphasis on sexual abstinence before marriage was one. God intends sex to be within the married relationship (Genesis 2:24; see this article here too). Guarding one’s self against sexual temptation is certainly a wise and Biblical principle (1 Corinthians 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:22). Also, an emphasis on involving the advice of one’s family and/or community about one’s married relationship (rather than a “it’s-just-you-and-me” type of decision) is, I believe, wise guidance as well (Ephesians 6:2; Proverbs 15:22).
For today, however, I want to talk about one of the greatest lies to come out of PC, and it is this: “Sexual Sin is the Worst Type of Sin!” What follows from this idea are all types of implications that have long-reaching consequences for individuals who have believed this. For one, if you have any type of sexual sin or sexual brokenness from your past (and we ALL do!), then if you believe it’s the “worst” type of sin, you will have a more difficult time walking in full forgiveness from God (& from others!) because of this sin. If sexual sin is the “worst” type of sin, then it will be, logically, the most difficult to forgive and the most difficult from which to receive forgiveness. One might say, “The darker the stain, the harder to remove the stain!” So, if sexual sin is the “worst” type of sin, then the fallacy states that the “stains of sexual sin will be the most difficult to remove.”
What do I mean by “sexual sin” within the context of the PC? What I mean is that those who have, in their past, some sort of sexual sin with which they’ve dealt, and with which they may be currently dealing. This can be pornography, adultery, and fornication (sex or sexual acts before marriage) at least! Other sins could be listed, but what I want to deal with is people who have found themselves caught up in porn, adultery, and fornication, and the guilt that follows those particular sins. I want to show that PC has overemphasized the guilt and shame on those sins at the expense of other sins. I also want to show that freedom in Jesus Christ for both forgiveness and sanctification can be found for the aforementioned sins or any other sin one might be dealing with, or has dealt with in the past.
“YOU ARE DUCT TAPE THAT LOSES IT’S ‘STICKINESS’!”
What also follows from believing that sexual sin is the worst type of sin is the damaging belief that one cannot recover from this type of sin, ever. One might remember some well-intended, but unbiblical object lessons that helped to illustrate this principle. The first object lesson is the ever-popular “duct tape” illustration. The speaker would say something like this, “If you use a piece of duct tape over and over, then, after a while, it won’t work anymore because it’s ‘stickiness’ will be gone. Sex is this way. If you have sex over and over again, then some parts of you will be ‘broken’ and ‘won’t work’ anymore.” The idea here is that there is irreparable damage to the individual who has failed sexually. I believe this is a well-intended, but seriously misguided illustration that has caused many to view themselves as “irreparably broken.” Have you done sexual sin in the past that haunts you and makes you think, “I’m irreparably broken!”?
“WHO WOULD WANT A BROKEN, CRUSHED AND REPEATEDLY-USED ROSE?”
Another objection lesson is the popular “Crushed Rose” illustration. The pastor, for example, takes a perfectly formed rose and hands it to someone in the congregation and says, “Here, pass that rose around while I talk a little bit!” And while the pastor is speaking on some matter of purity or sex from a biblical perspective, the rose is being passed around and jostled and handled. Towards the end of his talk, the pastor then asks to see the rose again. The rose, which was once perfectly-formed, is now tattered and worn. Most of its pedals have fallen off and the stem is broken. What’s the point? The pastor says, “Who would want THIS ROSE after it has been handled so much?!?” He is saying that once one has had sex “so much” or maybe sex at all (before marriage), that you are “broken beyond repair” and that “no one will want you” after that. Sexual sin, then, does the most damage, according to this belief. You are “damaged goods.” You’ve lost something you can never get back. You are irreparable. You are useless, unwanted, and forever tainted, according to this illustration. It’s worth listening to Matt Chandler’s now infamous reply to this “rose-illustration”: “Jesus Wants the Rose!”
With both the duct tape and the rose illustration, some may want to point towards 1 Corinthians 6:18 to show that sexual sin is the “worse” type of sin. Paul says, “18 Flee sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.” One point is this: Just because sexual sin is a different type of sin does not mean that it is a worse type of sin or that it is less forgivable than other sins (ala Juli Slattery from the podcast mentioned at the end of this article). There is fair exegetical evidence that Paul is actually quoting someone from Corinth when he says, “Every other sin a person commits its outside the body, but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body,” and is not even making that point himself for us. You can look here and here for that discussion. Regardless, the point stands from Slattery: Just because sexual sin is a different type of sin does not mean that it is a worse type of sin or that it is less forgivable than other sins.
“DO WE BELIEVE THAT GOD CAN FORGIVE AND RESTORE AND REPAIR A SEXUAL SINNER?”
Furthermore, the duct tape and rose illustrations are unbiblical because they hold up a view that says, “God CANNOT repair you and make you new. Sanctification is NOT POSSIBLE for you if you have failed in this way.” This view diminishes God’s power and His capability to restore and repair lives which have been broken by sin, specifically, sexual sin. We are telling God, “God, you are incapable of working in THAT person’s life.” This is false. God saves to the “uttermost” (or “completely” from Hebrews 7:25). In Jeremiah 32:27 God says, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?” Are we telling God that THAT person and THOSE sins are “too hot to handle” for God? Are we telling God that those TYPES of sins are too hard for God to forgive? I think not! Also, “17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Do we believe that THOSE TYPE of people who are in Christ are only “partially-new-creations” or are they fully “new creations” in Christ? Do we believe people are partially forgiven or FULLY forgiven, in Christ? Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient to cover all sins and any sin for any person, anywhere. “Come, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.'” (Isaiah 1:18). We shame the blood of Christ when we say that some sins are too deep or too dark for Him to forgive. Christ can make us, “White as snow” with no spot or blemish, in Him, before God.
A THOUGHT ABOUT “THE BAD KIDS” IN SCHOOL & IN CHURCH AND “SINFUL HIERARCHY”
Maybe you remember going to school and having a set of kids called “the bad kids.” Typically, this set of kids was those who, maybe, bullied others, said curse words, smoked, did drugs, and, worse of all, had sex! Whenever you saw a group of teenagers doing “those sins,” they were the “bad kids.” Yet, what about the kids who gossiped? What about the kids who cheated? What about the ones who defied authority? What about the teens full of pride? For whatever reason, we always put “the bad kids” or, maybe, even “the WORSE kids” in the category of those who had sex. And, while not excusing sinful behavior of any kind, I cannot help but wonder why we did this? Where did we get this idea that those who “had sex” were the “worse” type of kids while kids who did other sins were “not so bad”? What’s ironic about this scenario is that church kids were viewed the same way. You might have had teenagers at one church who were more doctrinally sound, “sexually pure,” but more smug, arrogant, and proud, yet they would be seen as “good” kids. While, on the other hand, you might have teenagers at another church across town who were serving the poor, giving their time for the “least of these,” but who might have been a bit looser on their sexual ethic, yet we would call these “bad kids.” Again, I’m not defending any immoral behavior, it is just curious to me that we view others in such a way. All sin is bad, but we almost always tend to think, “But if they do THOSE TYPES OF SINS they are WORSE SINNERS THAN WE ARE!” I just don’t see this type of “sinful hierarchy” in Scripture, and I believe that the PC movement has contributed some to this mindset.
DOES SCRIPTURE SUPPORT THE IDEA THAT SEXUAL SIN IS THE WORST TYPE OF SIN?
It is clear that sexual sin can have great and obvious consequences that will make life complicated, such as, pre-emotional attachment to a horrible partner, the feeling of “divorce” after a breakup whenever a couple isn’t even married (this is what happens when you have sex as an unmarried couple), children (while they are ultimately a blessing, if a couple us unmarried, then this can lead to great instability for both children and the couple), and others. My point is not to understate the consequences of sexual sin, but to change the label on it as “The Worst!” and to release Christ-following Christians from a past that Christ has forgiven.
We are all broken, sexual sinners, whether there is porn, fornication, or adultery or not (paraphrase from Ray Ortlund). Everyone is broken sexually and we must continue to walk through what Juli Slattery calls “Sexual Discipleship” and work to retrain our minds to think about sex the way God would have us to think about sex. If we believe that sin has touched every part of our being, then we must also believe that sin resides in how we view sex as well. We must be discipled in the area of our sexuality as well, or sin will overtake us. We must “be killing sin or sin will kill us” (John Owen), which includes our views on sex as well.
Do we believe that God cringes more at sexual sin than any other sin? God, in fact, is angry at all sin, but we do not seem to get as angry at other sins as we do sexual sin. There is no doubt that sexual sin can be egregious, yet, in Scripture, sexual sin is often side-by-side with a host of other sins that we aren’t nearly as bothered about like gossip, slandering, and disobedience to parents.
“26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.28 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. 29 They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 32 Although they know God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.”
Why don’t we fall into deep guilt over envy or quarreling with others? Why do we not mourn over being proud or untrustworthy or unmerciful? Yet, we tend to take all of the guilt we feel and apply it only to sexual sin, thus, making it into an “Abominable Sin-Man” that even God cannot defeat. Do we have such a low view of God that He cannot forgive sexual sin? Do we think so little of God’s love that we think that He cannot love us even in our sexual sin or with our sexual sins in our past? Do we think that God’s forgiveness is so weak, or that God is so disgusted at us, that He cannot bear to bring Himself to forgive our sexual sin? Certainly, we should mourn over our sexual sin, repent of it, and ask God (and others!) to forgive us, but it is not the unforgivable sin. We must walk in God’s forgiveness and love and not fall into the trap that the stain of sexual sin is a deeper, darker stain than any other sin in our lives.
SOME RESOURCES TO HELP YOU
One resource that helps to sort out the good, bad, and the ugly with PC is Trevin Wax’s “Deconstructing Faith” Podcast on Episode 4 here. For a helpful resource on thinking more clearly, and biblically, about married sex, I would recommend the “Awesome Marriage” Podcast, Episode 578, where Dr. Juli Slattery brings some sane, biblical thoughts on these matters. I would also heartily recommend Dr. Juli Slattery’s ministry “Authentic Intimacy” in general as a sound, God-focused resource on thinking rightly and biblically about sex. I would also recommend Zachary Wagner’s book “Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality” for an excellent evaluation of PC in chapter 1 (“What is Purity Culture?”) and in chapter 2 (“The Great Sex Prosperity Gospel”). In Wagner’s Endnotes he cites many helpful books critiquing PC as well from a variety of sources.