I never read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, but I was raised in the 1990s evangelical culture that was permeated by ideas of sexual purity that came out of this and other similar books. For years, the church's view of sexuality has haunted and challenged me. With the recent questioning by Joshua Harris of his book, and after reading this blog by Addie Zierman reflecting on the single narrative that permeated Christian culture in the nineties, I was challenged to share the thoughts that have haunted me for so long.
I was raised attending a Christian school and youth group every week. Overall, this was a positive experience for me that challenged and made my faith stronger. It gave me a strong network of friends and leaders that supported me and my family through difficult times. I am very thankful for that and I wouldn't change it. However, I would have appreciated a different or at least more comprehensive narrative of sexuality.
I was encouraged to save myself for marriage. I was told that kissing, being alone with a guy, (and jokingly, dancing), led to babies. I was admonished that as a girl I should dress modestly so that I would not cause my brothers to stumble, because only guys are tempted by pornography and masturbation and struggle with lust. It was ingrained in me that sex outside of marriage was bad. And deep inside, I started to see myself as bad because I longed for everything I "shouldn't" have. Since I believed only guys struggled with these things, I couldn't tell anyone. I felt like an anomaly and a dirty person... I felt like my sexually impure thoughts were also making me spiritually impure... It wasn't until college when I was finally able to share with a dear friend these struggles that I found out that I was not alone. We started reflecting together how Christian romance novels had tainted the way we saw and understood sex, love and marriage. We still wanted to save ourselves for marriage, but we began to realize that the lines of what that meant were not as clear as we were taught. And that is where I wish I had heard other narratives...
After college, I began my first real relationship. This guy who claimed to be a Christian pushed all the boundaries I held. The first time we kissed laying down on the couch I felt like I had done something horribly wrong. In some ways, the fact that he challenged these strict arbitrary boundaries was good because many were unnecessary, and it made me think about why I held them. But because I had only heard one narrative of sexual purity, I was left alone once again trying to figure how far was too far when I had already crossed boundaries I was told not to cross in high school. I was plagued by guilt in everything I did, like laying down to kiss.
I want to back up for one minute. I think saving yourself for marriage, especially in high school, is a healthy boundary. Sex is a powerful thing and especially someone's first sexual experience sticks with them forever. High schoolers and junior high schoolers are balls of emotions and hormones. Avoiding sex at that stage of life is good, especially when "dating" often lasts a few weeks. But instead of just saying don't have sex because its bad, I think honest conversations need to happen about why we create boundaries and then help teens decide what boundaries are important to them instead of telling them not to cross some arbitrary line. There should be a safe space for people who are "struggling" with something or want advice, no matter their gender or age. We need to improve the narratives available and open up the conversations within the church and Christian community.
Which leads me to another issue that has bothered me about the Christian church for far too long. Sex is often seen as the ultimate sin. It is put on a pedestal. Struggling with lies, greed, pride, hate or any other thing is normal, but sex... committing sexual sins is horrible, topped only by murder. Yes, some may say that sex and murder are different because these sins affect other people while the others are personal. However, I would argue that all sin is bad and when any one sin takes control of a person it can lead to division in the church and hurt among people. Sexual sins, like all sins, inhibit our relationship with God, but sexual sins need to be taken off the pedestal. Only then can we have open conversations about the type of purity God wants in our lives and only then can we also recognize all the other sins plaguing the church today.
Back to my story... this boyfriend ended up pushing me to do things I never wanted to do. Laying down on the couch to make out was fine, but the pushing continued and continued until I gave it all away and the pain and hurt seeped deeper and deeper. According to the sexual purity culture that I was raised in, I was now broken and impure. But the truth? Through this experience, I learned the truth of what unconditional love is. A few dear friends, and even my mom, came around me at that time and showed me love despite my "mistakes." They told me they still loved me for who I was, even the "broken" parts, which to them weren't really broken. That love was a glimpse of the love God has for me. Through these friends, I experienced God's grace and forgiveness. In God's eyes I still was his beautiful child that he loved immensely, more beautiful than the flowers of the fields. The pain and hurt of the relationship lingered, but it wasn't the sex itself that caused the pain. It was the disrespect and dishonesty I experienced from my boyfriend and the guilt that plagued me for so many years. Do I think it would have been better if I kissed dating goodbye? I would have been saved from some pain, but I learned so much through dating. So no, it wouldn't have been better. After that boyfriend, I was able to go on dates, have fun, and figure out what I wanted in a guy. That relationship helped me see my own insecurities and grow into a stronger woman from them.
Fast forward to the present. I am now in a healthy and loving relationship with my husband of three years. Thankfully, in our dating relationship my husband and I had open communication and figured out the boundaries that worked for us, so that pain did not wedge between us. Neither of us pushed the other to do something we were uncomfortable with, which built deep trust and respect. These boundaries were very different and much looser than the ones suggested by the Christian purity culture, but they were the ones that worked for us and the ones we felt that were honoring to God in our situation. And this is what I have learned, the boundaries for sexual purity are not black and white. What is right for one couple, might be wrong for another. What is wrong in high school might be okay in your twenties. What we must ask ourselves is if what we are doing is preventing us from growing closer to God? If it is, then something is misaligned and a change needs to be made. In my Biblical study of sexual immorality, the only clear boundary I found was that God desires us to have a pure heart. Anything that comes between us and him is a sin. It seems like some sexual practices in the Bible are not ideal and cause unnecessary pain, but it all comes back to being in relationship with Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. Anything that inhibits that, is where we should draw the line.
So what am I trying to get at? It is time to open up our narratives. We need to listen to one another and figure out together how to talk about sex in a healthy way. Life and marriage is not all like a Christian romance novel and that's okay. Some people might have that story, but many don't. I haven't figured out all the answers and what this all looks like practically, but I am thankful that these conversations are finally out in the open. All of us who were raised during the nineties at the peak of the sexual purity culture, now have a chance to talk about this with others and discover what narrative(s) we will share with our own children. I don't think our parents, pastors, authors or other Christian leaders should be blamed. They were teaching what they thought was best. They lived through the sexual revolution and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and were just trying to figure out how to raise children who loved the Lord as society was quickly changing all around them. And now we, the children of the eighties and nineties, face the same challenge. Will we keep the narrative that we were raised with or will we present multiple narratives? Will we live in fear of the changing society? Or will we seek ways to engage with the culture around us and live as Christians in new and different ways?
I don't think there is one right answer, but we now see that living by one single narrative of purity is not the answer. Instead of being rigid in our boundaries and beliefs, we have a chance to share God's grace and love in new ways. Let's keep talking. Let's share how our God is not a god to be feared because of his rules, but a God of unconditional love, redemptive healing, forgiveness and grace.
