With all the emphasis on virginity as virtue's Holy Grail, if a Christian woman isn't a virgin when she marries, she's made to feel that she has somehow disqualified herself from God's greatest blessings and callings.
That's how Sarah Bessey explains the unfortunate subtext of much of the purity speak that is happening in our churches in her recent post "I Am Damaged Goods."
"In the face of our sexually dysfunctional culture, the church longs to stand as an outpost of God's ways of love and marriage, purity and wholeness," she wrote. "And yet we twist that until we treat someone like me… as if our value and worth was tied up in our virginity."
Implicit in what I'm reading about purity from Bessey, and a host of other women, such as Elizabeth Esther, Rachel Held Evans, and Carolyn Custis James, is a broad concern over how the church handles and presents God's teachings on sexual sin. This topic matters a great deal, considering that nearly 80 percent of self-proclaimed Christians are having sex before they are married.
The church has been pushing purity standards for ages. Esther refers to the shame she carried with her as a virgin into her marriage because she'd kissed a couple of boys before her husband and because she had masturbated. Esther would argue that the church's restrictions are becoming more rigorous, and by outlining its own capricious rules, the Church has inevitably constructed a "new and improved virginity."
But is there such a thing as hyper-purity, a sexual standard more rigorous than God's? Referring back to Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount, where he insists that lust is equivalent to adultery (Matt. 5:27-30), I'm not so sure. God's purity standard is effectively impossible to meet.
We can, though, fall guilty of making God's grace small by making sexual sin big, whenever the church insists that non-virgins are cast beyond the reach of grace. Sexual promiscuity is not the unforgiveable sin. Let's not forget those featured in Jesus' genealogy (Judah, the man who slept with his daughter-in-law, mistaking her for a prostitute; David, the king who murdered the husband of his mistress), nor those winning mention in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith (Rahab, the prostitute who sheltered the Israelite spies, and Samson, the man with a weakness for beautiful women). The Bible, in weaving its long history of redemption, is not a storybook of heroes. Failure, even sexual mistakes, has not once tied God's hands. He accomplishes what he wills through the worst of us.
But unfortunately, virginity has arguably become a modern-day idol of the church. According to Tim Keller, idolatry is fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Virginity, which is rightly good, has unfortunately become ultimate, idolized in some churches as, in Bessey's words, become "a barometer of our righteousness and worth." Virginity is not a moral merit badge. Whether or not we have had sex before marriage, we are all lawbreakers (James 2:10). None can feel superior ¾ not even the virgins among us.
But all of this may beg the real question: How do we talk about sexual sin in ways that don't shame and yet stay faithful to the biblical truth that sex outside of marriage is, after all, sin (Heb. 13:4)?
For me, that question is not merely a philosophical one. Just days ago, my 11-year-old daughter stood looking over my shoulder and reading my current book manuscript. "You slept with your boyfriend?" she asked me incredulously, her eyes widened by the shock and dismay at my printed words of guilt.
I was 15 when I lost my virginity in the back bedroom of a strange apartment. He was my boyfriend, and I loved him. This rendezvous was not something we had planned, but my boyfriend's father, months previous, had offered him a box of condoms, "just in case."
Because let's be honest: Can we hope for purity with horny high school kids?
There are the three people I've had to work hard at forgiving over the last 20 years: me, for having made what has felt like one of the worst decisions of my life, my boyfriend, for having ever proposed the idea, and his father, for having had so little faith.
Strangely enough, though, I have readily accepted God's forgiveness, which isn't to say that I don't sympathize with the profound shame that many women with similar pasts are subjected to.
I have always planned to tell my children of my sexual past, not least because I believe God's grace is bigger than that history of shame. I have also wanted them to know what I believe about sexual sin, something that I fear isn't being mentioned in our blogosphere of grace. Sexual sin, although not unforgiveable, visits upon us categorically different consequences than other kinds of sin.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians (a church, which floundered as we do in a culture of promiscuity), warns against sexual immorality: "Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body," (1 Cor. 6:18). When someone has sex outside of marriage, she corrupts herself, even her sexual DNA. This doesn't mean that sex, as holy and right and pleasurable, can't be this when we marry. Nor is this to say that redemptive healing isn't possible. It can mean – at least it has for me – that having enjoyed illicit sex once can make us vulnerable to that temptation again.
Jesus rescued me from myself. This is what he continues to do because this is what grace always does. God keeps infinitely short accounts. While this is to me gospel, I do not want for my daughter the choices I made and have come deeply to regret. Virginity isn't everything… but it's still something.
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Crab Grass
@ Rachel Simko said, "postmodern-tendency for people... to insist that the Bible "doesn't explicitly say sex outside marriage is a sin." || Thank you for mentioning that, I've seen that too time again by Non Christians and more theologically liberal Christians on blogs. They like to pretend that the Bible does not condemn sex outside of marriage, and they really dislike the word "fornication." I think this phenomenon is an over-reaction to the patriarchy guys and the extreme sexism and double standards in much of conservative Christianity, which I don't like either. But just because some self professing male Christians teach obnoxious things about females and sexuality and cling to double standards doesn't mean women should then run around claiming the Bible has lax, to no, standards about sexual behavior for males and females.
Crab Grass
@ Anne Acker. I am a 40+ year old female Christian virgin, but sadly, it's not just secular culture who mock and make fun of older virgins, it happens among Christians too, and they make insulting assumptions, such as you must be homosexual, even though you are not. BTW, married people engage in sexual sin - a staggering number of married Christian men have admitted to being addicted to dirty magazines and web sites, and some Christian married women have confessed to they do as well. Some married Christians have affairs and see prostitutes as well, but preachers never offer sexual purity sermons to the married couples, only the singles - the rest of the time they ignore singles. It's condescending and hypocritical.
Crab Grass
Hmm, it's articles such as this one - decrying the tendency of some churches to make virginity into a "holy grail" and that have an emphasis on "sexual purity"- to make me wonder why I bother remaining a virgin at 40+ years of age? (I've never married and was waiting for marriage to have sex.) I actually see the opposite in Christian culture these days: an over-emphasis on the thinking, "we expect you will have sex outside of marriage, nobody can remain a virgin past age 30, so when you do have sex outside of marriage, and we know you will, that's perfectly fine, because God is happy to forgive sexual sin." I see no reason to remain celibate, considering both those views. Nobody, certainly not Christians, respects or expects Christians to remain virgins into their 40s and older, or respect those who have accomplished it.
Julia W.
I found the point of this article wandered a bit for me. The majority of the piece is about the church making virginity an idol, which I agree is not a good thing. The author concludes, however, by talking about the regret she feels from the way she lost her virginity and not wanting her daughter to experience that. Maybe this is why many churches seem to make a big deal about virginity, because often people do have regret over becoming sexually active prior to marriage. This should be an important part of ministry to middle and high school students who are living in a culture of sexual promiscuity. I am part of a church that barely mentions virginity or chastity, and I feel it does a disservice for mature Christians to avoid the issue, to those young people who are making those choices. They should know what God's word says about sex and God's plan for it within a marriage relationship, whether men and women are virgins or not.
Anne Acker
Pat, Is there a passage about pre-marital sex in the Bible where it is considered a good thing? On what basis would we say then that it is "not cut and dry?" Mar komus: The church may prize virginity, but pop culture promulgates something I call The Myth of the Forty-Year-Old Virgin. It's the stereotype of virgins as losers, rejects and nerds who can't get a date. I know because I bought into the put-down and let the enemy shame me for making good choices. Maybe that's not what you meant by "not marriage material," but don't let the enemy jerk your chain. Just because you were called to singleness doesn't mean you wouldn't have been a great spouse for someone. The problem is that the world puts sex and sexuality on such a pedestal that it is sometimes hard for Christians to spot the lie that sex is the most important thing in the world. It is not, nor are we merely the sum of our biology. I get to be about so much more than my sexuality regardless of my choices.
Hannah Anderson
Thanks for this piece--you successfully navigated the extremes of idolizing virginity and minimizing sexual purity. Because really, the focus shouldn't be on our specific sexual history at all but on Christ and His grace. A true understanding of the Gospel will never minimize sin OR make it greater than redemption. Great work!
Rachel Stephan Simko
Unfortunately, I see the church going in two opposite directions on this issue: one is idolatry of virginity, which you addressed here; the other direction is the postmodern-tendency for people (especially, I've found, in my generation) to insist that the Bible "doesn't explicitly say sex outside marriage is a sin." Both are dangerous and sad, and tell a different story than the Gospel. (evenonesparrow.blogspot.com)
mar komus
40th year of life. Single, never married. Virgin. Bad example, though, because I'm not "marriage material"
John Holmes
As we are all equal before God, the emphasis on female virginity seems to me to be some what out of step with that teaching. I find it interesting that during Victorians times in London, and similar periods in the USA, the number of prostitutes increased dramatically. Time to drop such gender based ideas and get real. Sexuality is a major driver in humans, funny about that, we would not exist with out it, so good open discussion and teaching about the role of sex both the mechanics and much more, the role of, in our relationships is needed. Consider the relative numbers of teenage pregnancies/abortions in Holland cf the USA, perhaps 10% of the other. Time to toss out any residual ideas that sex is only for procreation and that it is dirty etc. Yet also maintain the teaching re fornication as the consequences are as outlined above, make loyal marriages / good child rearing much more difficult.
Gina Dalfonzo
A thoughtful, well-balanced contribution to the discussion. Thanks, Jen!
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