Jake’s a great guy. He’s a friend of 20 years, husband to an amazing wife, father of some incredible kids and pastor to a growing church. That’s why I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had to be a mistake—there’s just no way Jake would be arrested while trying to pick up a prostitute. It just couldn’t be true.
Jake grew up as a pastor’s kid in a strict fundamentalist church. When he entered his middle school years and began to struggle with things such as lust, masturbation and pornography, he was terrified to tell his father or anyone at the church about his internal battle. As he continued through high school and college, he secretly carried a great deal of shame about his sexual desires and habits. Lust and sexual desire consumed his life, but through all his struggles he never once reached out to talk with his parents or church leaders for fear of their response. At a time when they should have been helping guide him into a healthy ontology, the culture of his church told him “just to hold on and hang in there until marriage. Then everything will be OK.” In high school, his church hosted a purity retreat, at which a speaker specifically said, “Biblical purity is about not having sex before marriage. If you can avoid that, then you’re going to be OK!”
Jake wasn’t OK, though. After years of struggling, he finally reached his wedding day. The weight of his shame was heavy, but he didn’t share it with anyone. He never told his dad or church leaders, never shared with me or his other friends, and certainly never shared it with his beautiful new bride. He thought he had crossed the finish line. He was married now, and the guy at the purity retreat said once he was married all his sexual desires would be fulfilled within that relationship. Yet it didn’t work that way.
Jake brought all his shame and all his sexual addictions with him into his new marriage. In the shadows of his life, that sin and shame continued to grow and eat away at him. Confused and frustrated, it continued to grow in him until he finally reached the breaking point, and he sought the comfort of a woman other than his wife. Thankfully, that woman happened to be an undercover police officer, and Jake began one of the hardest but most rewarding journeys of his life—a journey of restoration and healing.
Jake’s story is not uncommon. While Jake and others are responsible for their own actions and need to repent of their sins, I can’t help wondering if part of the blame for their failure lies with you and me. For years, Christian culture has taught purity as the goal for teens, but we’ve twisted true biblical purity into a single moral directive and narrowed it down to one little rule: “Don’t have sex before marriage.” What about porn, masturbation, lust, oral sex and other things we don’t want to discuss out loud with one another? We tell kids not to have sex before marriage, leaving everything else in a nebulous void and them wondering if engaging in these activities really matters.
Worse, what about the kids who mess up sexually? What about the ones who have had sex? What about the ones, such as Jake, who are struggling with these issues and we don’t want to talk about? We’ve set the goal as purity until marriage, and we celebrate it with silver rings and purity retreats. Do kids who fall short then turn in their purity rings? We talk about second chances, but we do it in a way that heaps more shame on the kids who have messed up. When kids mess up sexually, they don’t need more shame; they need more hope.
We need to change our language. Words such as abstinence aren’t helpful anymore. Instead of our distorted view of purity, we need to point students to holiness. Don’t give them a list of things not to do; instead, give them something to strive toward. Holiness as a goal is not something we pursue until marriage; holiness is a lifelong pursuit. We need to change the shame culture that exists in churches today and move toward open and honest conversations. We need pastors and leaders who believe, as Andy Stanley has said, the local church should be the safest place for students to talk about anything—without fear of shame or judgment.
I wonder what would happen if our churches were truly places where students could flesh out their identities without those fears. What if more churches were guiding students effectively into a healthy ontology instead of feeding them banal Christian catchphrases? I wonder what that could mean for our students. I wonder what that could have meant for Jake and others such as himself.
