Purity culture is just prosperity gospel in a white dress.

The real problem with purity culture wasn’t its commitment to abstinence. It was its promise of marriage.

Many of us grew up believing that if we saved sex for marriage, stayed “pure,” and followed the rules, God would reward us. But the reward wasn’t framed as deeper communion with Him. It was a kind of fairy-tale love that would finally prove we were whole, normal, and worthy of being loved.

That is not the gospel, or even holiness. It is a version of prosperity theology, dressed in white and waiting at the end of the aisle.

Purity culture replaced the mystery of discipleship with a formula. It offered us a transactional God who promised romance in exchange for rule-keeping. But Christ didn’t die to improve our dating lives. He died to make us His own.

As many Christians deconstruct the shame that purity culture produced, we still assume that romantic love is essential to a meaningful Christian life. We continue to build our hopes around a life that is couple-shaped, not cross-shaped.

Jesus invites us into something far better.

In Matthew 19, He affirms that some are called to singleness for the sake of the kingdom. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul describes vocational singleness as a gift that offers undivided devotion to God. These aren’t sad footnotes in the Christian life. They are sacred callings.

If Christians believed that, we would learn to ask, “God, I know what I want. But what do You want for me?”

That is where real discernment begins. And it’s how we start to view our sexuality as something to steward with joy and purpose.

The Church does not need to lower the bar on sexual ethics to become more loving. Instead, we need to raise our vision. We need to form Christians to discern their vocations, to honor singleness and marriage equally, and to build Christian communities where celibate believers find long-term family and support.

We don’t need a new ethic. We just need to believe the one Jesus already gave us.

And become the kind of Church where that good news can actually be lived.

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