In the 1990s, a new movement grew in evangelical churches that promoted sexual purity as one of the most important aspects of Christian life. While Christians have always seen sexual intercourse as something limited to those who are married, this purity movement insisted on commitments from young singles, particularly young teens who were just beginning their journey to adulthood. The movement hit full stride with the 1997 publication of the Christian bestseller I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. One of seven children homeschooled in a Christian home, Harris encouraged young people to avoid dating and to reserve kissing for marriage.
Purity pledges and purity rings became a popular way to show others that you were serious about waiting for sex until marriage. Enthusiastic young teens promised to be faithful to their future spouses and, by extension, to God.
In Linda Kay Klein’s book Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free (Atria), she shares what she learned in interviews with women she knew in high school and others who grew up in churches that had similar teachings. While many Christian readers will be uncomfortable with some of her graphic stories and attitudes towards sexual ethics, the overarching theme hit home with me.
I went to a conservative nondenominational high school in the Bible belt in the early stages of the purity movement, and we had chapels about abstinence that could only lead a young woman to conclude that if she faltered sexually, no one would ever want to marry her in the future. “We all want new furniture, so why are we in the antiquing business?” asked one chapel speaker.
Klein explores that attitude as well as many others. Young women are admonished to be modest so as not to cause men to stumble, which leaves the responsibility for being treated with the most basic level of respect on women. If you believe that and then become a victim of rape, guess who is to blame?
Further, purity culture tended to define the ideal Christian woman as a lovely, pious, and supportive bride offered up to the man God has ordained for her. Women who waited and learned to deny their own sexuality found it difficult to suddenly be wholly sexual beings just hours after saying “I do.” And what if you aren’t chosen by a husband? What if you don’t fit the gender role described—perhaps you have dreams of a career or a call to ministry? And just imagine how this emphasis on purity would affect you if you are not attracted to a man at all.
Harris himself, as Klein notes, has changed his thinking, based in part on painful results of the purity culture some of his readers have shared with him. He noted this in a statement on his website and pointed out that his book “gave some the impression that a certain methodology of relationships would deliver a happy ever-after ending—a great marriage, a great sex life—even though this is not promised by Scripture.” He announced that he and the publishers came to agreement last year that they would no longer print the book.
Still, as Christian writer Katelyn Beatty pointed out on Twitter recently, the idea of being rewarded with all the good things in exchange for your purity remains prevalent. She shared part of Justin Bieber’s recent interview with Vogue magazine. After committing to celibacy as a way to focus on God, Bieber found his wife. “I wanted to rededicate myself to God in that way because I really felt it was better for the condition of my soul. And I believe that God blessed me with Hailey as a result. There are perks. You get rewarded for good behavior.”
The effects of our sexual purity ethos are not limited to women. The recent movie Boy Erased (Focus) is the film version of a memoir of the same title by Garrard Conley, renamed Jared Eamons for the movie. Garrard grew up in a Baptist home; his father was a preacher. Garrard, a committed Christian at the time, knew he was attracted to other men, but he didn’t know what to do about it. When events led Garrard to come out to his parents, his father calls in spiritual advisors. In the film, one of them bows his head, saying “We pray, God, that you make him pure.” They decided he should attend conversion therapy (a practice that the CRC eventually cautioned against in its own position on homosexuality). He was enrolled in an ex-gay ministry called Love in Action.
The movie depicts the program as a volatile environment where he was made to speak his most private thoughts and experiences in front of the whole group and then humiliated and shamed for it. The youth in the program were told that God wouldn’t love them unless they changed. They were unacceptable as they were. While there is some argument over film’s depiction of that therapy, it is undeniable that the message of being unacceptable and unlovable is heard by people in the LGBTQ community from churches all over.
Impurity is as old as time, at least in human terms. As soon as humanity had the opportunity to make the wrong choice, that’s exactly what we did. In the Old Testament, God provided ways for the Israelites to purify themselves. In order to approach him, they cleansed themselves in washing rituals. In order to atone for their sins, they sacrificed animals.
Christ ultimately came as the sacrifice for all of us. He atoned for all of our sin. Even as we stand in the grace of God, we wonder if our sins can truly be forgiven. And sometimes we are prone to wonder even more how other people’s sins can truly be forgiven. How can we go on as sinners and still be God’s beloved? How many mistakes does it take to cast us from his presence? As Paul tells us, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Regardless of how we feel about sex outside of marriage or homosexual relationships, we need to recognize that we all think and do things that are not pure. Take a look at the headlines about the #MeToo scandals or the horrifying abuse revealed in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church. The church is a long way from pure.
God’s love for us is pure. It is unaffected by even the worst of our abuses. His forgiveness is complete. We are called to love him wholeheartedly even as we realize that developing a Christ-like mind is a lifelong journey. Both Linda Klein and Garrard Conley still consider themselves Christians, though, without knowing them, I’m guessing they don’t fit the traditional profile. Rather than vilifying their perspectives or their faith differences, we can take this opportunity to examine ourselves and to see the church with the eyes of those outside of it. If the popularity of The Handmaid’s Tale series has anything to tell us, it’s that our culture is afraid of the church’s attitude toward women and those who don’t fit the mold.
The challenge for all of us who are in the church is to be honest about the planks in our own eyes rather than searching for everyone else’s specks. We need to stop idolizing an artificial ideal of purity that none of us can uphold and instead love our neighbors as ourselves. We should never allow idolization of purity to take precedence over the beloved handiwork of our Father in heaven.

When Linda Kay Klein was in high school, she broke up with her boyfriend, convinced that God had asked this of her. Her church had very strict rules about dating and clothing choices and she was often criticized for "tempting boys" with her curvy figure. She left her church after learning that her youth pastor had been charged with child enticement and he had done this at other churches without consequence. As a grownup with a boyfriend, she found herself paralyzed by shame, fear, and anxiety, so she went back home and tracked down her friends from youth group to find out how purity culture affected their lives and relationships.

This book is very, very in my lane. In fact, I had one of the purity rings that Klein describes. I am the daughter of a pastor and remember sitting in True Love Waits classes with the other teens in the church. Today, my sisters and I often talk about finding another way for churches to talk about sex and relationships that informs without shaming.

I think this is what I missed from Pure. Linda Kay Klein does a thorough job of outlining the experiences that she and her peers had as they grew from young girls who had been told sex would ruin them to women who wanted to have sex with their spouses or partners. She doesn't do a lot of embellishing; she records experiences, often without additional insight. But I wanted more--I wanted to know her thoughts, after talking to all of these people, on ways that parents and leaders in the church can talk about sex with our children. I almost felt like this was part one and we are desperately in need of a second part, that will help us to raise kids within the church who know that they are loved by God and by their community, whether or not they have sex.

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement
That Shamed a Generation of Young Women
And How I Broke Free
By Linda Kay Klein
Touchstone September 2018
353 pages
Read via Netgalley

Pure
Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
by Linda Kay Klein
Touchstone
Christian
Pub Date 04 Sep 2018
I am reviewing Pure through touchstone and Netgalley:



I must say this book leaves me with mixed feelings, though she does bring up good points mainly against the Purity movement which became an entire industry in the 90’s, an industry that came out of the white evangelical Christian Culture, and though agree there were negative ramifications to this movement, I think the idea of abstinence especially in your teen years is a good one, though. She does make a good argument about how the movement often traumatized girls, made them feel bad if they had any kind of slip up.


Sadly during this time a youth pastor was convicted for the Sexual enticement of a twelve year old girl, which caused Klein to question the movement.


I give Pure four out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

A very timely and important book, Pure looks at the fallout from the purity emphasis in the evangelical church. Told from many different points of view, it is a comprehensive look at the, while in many cases well intended, legacy of hurt that was laid on many women of that era. A must read for anyone working with youth today.

The cover of this book says it all, "Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free." Linda Kay Klein grew up in the evangelical church during the height of the purity movement. She spent 12 years interviewing friends, and strangers, who grew up in the same environment. During this time she was able to confirm her belief that she wasn't alone in, to be over-simplistic, sexual shame. Klein presents a group of individuals who all struggled with aspects of their sexuality and its relationship with their ideas of themselves, Christianity, and God.

Initially I was surprised by Klein's inclusion of the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris in her research. IKDG wasn't pushed in my church like it was in Klein's and some of her interviewees' churches, but it had a lasting effect. And not a positive one. It was eye-opening that so many had been damaged and broken by people using this book as some sort of all-encompassing rule book.

True Love Waits is the movement/culture/program I remember most vividly. Not only do I remember, I bought myself a TLW ring to wear after one overly devastating breakup in my late teens, early twenties (at least as devastating as it could be for a 19-20 year old). I was all "I'm married to Jesus now, y'all," as I held my left hand up like I had some fancy engagement ring. 

The church differentiates between regular sin and sexual sin. Regular sin is something we do that is wrong, sexual sin is something we do that makes us wrong. The first causes guilt ("I did something bad"), the second causes shame ("I am bad"). By the time a Christian female is allowed to have sex (as she is now married...to a man), her brain has been rewired to view sex and shame as the same thing. Klein discusses this concept with one of her interviewees, Jo, who is quoted as saying, "Somehow you have to be a lamb - chaste and pure as the driven snow until you're married. And then you have to be a tigress in the bed. The vows make that instant transformation somehow." She goes on to say, "...if you don't satisfy him, he will have an affair, or he has a right to chastise you for not being amazing in bed...because you are responsible for his sexual satisfaction and whether his eyes wander." I could go on, but I want you to read the book, I want you to see what's wrong and strive to change. 

Overall, I chose to give this book a 4/5 because of writing style - not because of subject matter. It read more like a dissertation than a standard book. The introduction was too long for my taste - though I enjoyed the subject matter. Klein's use of dialogue and magazine-esq interview surrounding descriptions often pulled me away from the content, rather than keeping me focused. I changed from reader to writer in these circumstances, using my imaginary purple pen (cause red is so blah) to strike through unnecessary and distracting text. 

(more in-depth review can be found on stefaniethelibrarian.wordpress.com)

Thanks to Touchstone and Netgalley for this ARC.

I grew up on the fringes of purity culture. It wasn’t part of my religious upbringing, but I was pretty well acquainted with the movement as a teen in the 90’s. Mostly I mocked it, as I did most things associated with the Christian Right in those days. Only after reading Klein’s compassionate and empathetic book do I realize how wrong I was to write off purity culture as some innocuous chastity craze. It has left deep scars on thousands? Millions? Only God knows how many lives.

As a practicing Christian, I am appalled by the lack of love shown in this movement, just as I have been appalled when reading about the experiences of former Christian culture “insiders” like Vicky Beeching and Jennifer Knapp. There is this attitude of “us” versus “them,” an exclusivity I cannot reconcile with the Gospel Jesus preached.

And the shame that haunts so many adherents of this movement! It is unfathomable to me that this guilt and shame has its roots in a cultural phenomenon that is supposed to be about waiting for “True Love.” Maybe it’s maturity or maybe after reading story after story of how negatively True Love Waits etc have impacted the lives of so many of my generation, I do not find this chastity craze funny anymore. It angers me. It disappoints me. It disheartens me. But it doesn’t make me laugh.

While I have no personal experience with the community being profiled in this book, I still found the stories of those who spoke about their experiences in this book to be powerful. It's possible that those who are members of the Evangelical Christian community will feel differently, but I didn't think that the book felt scathing- rather it reflected the wounds of the individuals and the systemic issues the author has identified in her many years interviewing and researching.

What a great book. This topic is very interesting to me personally, as I am a Christian. I found religion as an adult, so the whole concept of purity culture is strange and baffling to me. It saddens me that so many people have been hurt by false teaching and having the personal issues of pastors and church people foisted on them.

I liked the format of this book; interviews, personal anecdotes, research stats. I will be reading this book again.