For a community that prides itself on being “biblical,” it is shocking how out of focus our views of sexuality can be. A biblical view of sexuality is a profoundly positive, profoundly appealing, and profoundly life-affirming foundation from which to address the abortion problem. Evangelicals are fundamentally not anti-abortion””at the most basic level, we are defined by what we are for rather than what we are against. We are fundamentally life-affirming and sexuality-affirming because we celebrate the truths that are ours in Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, we start the formation of our young people’s understandings of sexuality tardily, anemically, ambiguously, and ineffectively. We are stuck in avoidant, negative, sub-biblical paradigms for thinking about sexuality. Our pastors avoid the topic except for the safest messages, which too often are shame-oriented, “just say no” litanies. We engage easily in negative culture-war rhetoric. Sadly, too many evangelical leaders fail to live up to the standards they proclaim and become very public examples of hypocrisy. Competing views about sexuality take advantage of these failures and seduce our youth.
It would be a helpful beginning if evangelical groups — as just one example Dennis Rainey and crew — would stop addressing the subject in terms of “PURITY.” I don’t think I could come up with a more off-putting word, or approach to the topic, far worse than anything out of the 1950s.
Purity is the term the Bible uses, and the standard set by God for Christians as uniformly expressed throughout the New Testament. Discarding of purity along with belief in sin is why churches are dying.