Purity Culture: Good or Bad?

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome friends to the line of fire.

We've got an important discussion today. You can join in 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. That is the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH. What's your own experience with what is commonly called purity culture?

Is it negative or positive? Maybe it's a pastor or youth pastor. Maybe it's a young woman growing up, a young man growing up.

Maybe it's a parent today. When you hear the words, quote, purity culture, what comes to mind? Now, to some, like, what does it mean? It's certainly better than impurity culture, right? So, if we're talking about a culture that encourages purity versus a culture that encourages impurity, obviously, all of us who love Jesus want a purity culture, not an impurity culture.

But the term purity culture has a more narrow, more specific meaning. If you think of Josh Harris, who is the best-selling author of I Kiss Dating Goodbye, was a pastor for years and now has completely renounced his faith, is no longer a Christian, and regrets his teaching about so-called purity culture, he would be a name that would be associated with it. That there were strong morals taught to young people saying you don't have sex before marriage. Well, that's been a given in the Christian world for generations, for centuries. But in our age of promiscuity and sexual freedom, it was important to reinforce this.

Then some would say, well, you don't kiss at all before your wedding. And this is the best way to keep yourself from sexual sin and to keep yourself pure. That would be an ethic that people would think of associated with, quote, purity culture. Or a young lady would put a ring on and this would be her purity ring.

This would be her guarantee that I will remain sexually pure until I'm married. And then modesty was encouraged among young women to dress certain ways and to not reveal certain parts of their body. And then obviously, men were called on, young men in particular, to live godly lives and not to give way to all kinds of sexual sin or be some kind of sexual predator. In the circles in which I've traveled, there has often been, as a man, I can say this, a great call to men to be holiness, to live holy lives, to walk in holiness. Maybe it's because I've spoken at men's meetings versus women's meetings. Maybe it's because I've spoken to more men who struggle with porn, who struggle with other aspects of sexual sin and the temptations and problems.

So I've been constantly emphasizing that. At the same time, over the years, I've absolutely been part of movements where we strongly encourage modesty. When we raised our daughters, we strongly encourage modesty. We told them about the way guys are wired and the way guys think. Not to say to the young ladies that you have to cover yourself up from head to toe because these boys are such animals and you've got to protect yourself from them and not give them any cause to stumble, but rather to say, recognize that the female body is very attractive to men. I know it can go vice versa, but generally speaking, men are going to be more attracted. They're going to be more attracted by the eye. They're going to be more attracted just in a physical, carnal way.

You're more likely to have a woman attracted to a man because of his gentleness and his graciousness and his honesty and his compassion, even though he looks kind of plain, and for a man to be attracted to a woman for those qualities when she looks kind of plain. Of course, it happens all the time, but generally speaking, we understand that the industries of all of the swimsuit models and the industries of porn and the industries of scantily clad women, that's to appeal to men more than the reverse. So we would just remind our daughters about the way guys are wired, and this may seem somewhat innocent to you, but if you dress a certain way, and if you've got that low cut shirt, you know, the boy, this is going to be a boy at school trying to look down your shirt. And so if it's not quite as suggestive, if it's buttoned up a little bit better, so you're being modest, no need to show that off.

You're being modest and you're helping the guy in the process. At the same time, we're telling the guy not to look at the girls as objects of sexual lust and desire, etc. So to me, it always went both ways. But as things are now fleshing out years later, for many, the purity culture, as it's called, was very negative, was very destructive, was very binding, was very legalistic, was very much one-sided, all putting the emphasis on women, or much of the emphasis putting on women and girls, and as if they were responsible to not allow the guys to lust, as if that could happen and things like that. So many have been hurt.

And the last thing I want to do is deny that people were hurt, or to deny that there was legalism. I was talking to a young lady many years later, who was in our school of ministry, a friend of our family, and she was an attractive young lady. And she sometimes, you know, we had rules of dress in the school, and we said some of them are completely arbitrary. It's just completely arbitrary, but just what we chose so we didn't have to legislate. You know, it was capris, for example. The girls couldn't wear capris. Well, why? Because we thought guys were hung up with ankles, you know, so their pants that are a little short, that the guys were like, oh, no, they're going to be lusting after your ankles. No, no.

It's just when you have 1,000, 1,200 young people, young people, mainly young people. And, you know, you get capris, and the capris are shorts. And it's like, we just didn't want folks wearing shorts to class. We just said, no capris. But we said, it's not a holiness issue. The reason for no capris is not a holiness issue. Other things are holiness issues. So there were certain standards.

You know, a guy couldn't come into class without a shirt, for example, right? So anyway, this one young lady was telling, this is how many years later, as a mother and, you know, maybe in her 40s, she was saying that she would buy clothes that were a little bit too big. You know, she'd buy them a size or two too big so they'd fit her more loosely. So no one would think she was trying to be sensual. And she showed up for class one day and, you know, one of the ushers said, that's too, you know, what you're wearing is too suggestive. And it was frustrated and brought her to tears. So people get hurt like that.

These things happen. A woman ends up feeling ashamed of her body, ends up feeling ashamed that she's attractive or that she's well-endowed or whatever the thing is. Or some thought, if we can just keep ourselves pure before marriage, then we're guaranteed to have an amazing marriage and we're guaranteed to have an amazing sex life. And when that didn't pan out, it's like, I thought you reap what you sow. We sow the holiness and I was supposed to reap and blessing in this way. And so a lot of people got hurt.

And if you were one of them, I'd love to hear from you. How did you get hurt? What was done wrong? What was destructive? What was harmful? What could have been done better? What have you learned now in raising your own kids and your own families?

I'd love to hear from you. On the other hand, for many, this was just being biblical. This was just recognizing our bodies are not our own or our bodies, in terms of their sexual aspects, are made for our spouses and nobody else. That the last thing that we want to be doing is parading around in such a way so as to draw sexual attention to ourselves. We're not talking about from a spouse in private.

We're talking about in public outfits, whether you're married or single. That's the last thing we want to be doing as followers of Jesus, that many of you came out of the world, you were promiscuous in the world, you dressed certain ways, you acted certain ways, it was part of drugs and drink, you know, all sex, drugs, rock and roll stuff. And you got saved, you just changed. So your dress changed, your attitude changed. So you looked in the mirror and thought, that's not right.

Why am I doing that? I'll tell you an interesting story. It's a true story.

I have confirmation on it. In the early days of the Brownsboro revival, there were two Playboy bunnies who flew down to Pensacola, Florida. I believe they were from Chicago and worked with Playboy, Playboy bunnies have club, whatever it was, I believe in Chicago. They flew down to Pensacola to do a photo shoot on the beach. And what happened was there was hurricane weather, canceled the photo shoot. So they were just stuck down there. So that night they hired a taxi and they asked the taxi driver, where's the action in Pensacola? And he brought them over to the Brownsboro revival.

Kid you not, true story, many witnesses to it. So that night they responded to the altar call broken in tears, weeping under conviction. And John Kilpatrick, the pastor, happened to notice there's something that seemed to be almost extreme in their repentance, that they were just crying profusely and sweating from head to toe. So he went over to find out, hey, what's your story?

What's going on? And they said, well, we haven't really lived the best lives, told them their story. Well, what I only found out recently was that an older woman in the congregation befriended them that night, gave them Bibles. They went back home. About a week later, they called her and said, you know, we're reading our Bibles and we don't feel right about the way we're living.

I don't know if both of them moved back to Pensacola, but one of them did for sure. And one of my colleagues told me a week ago Sunday that he knew her, that she completely changed. He said, if you met her, you would never have guessed her background, the way she dressed, the way she conducted herself. She was vibrant. She was involved in ministry, in the church. Well, no surprise.

She got radically transformed. So for many of you, this was positive. And purity culture just meant following Jesus in every area of your life. So if this was something positive, or if you've learned to incorporate life in the spirit, a heart for purity and modesty without legalism, without making people feel ashamed of just their own sexuality and things like that, I'd love to hear from you.

866-34-TRUTH. What brings this up is, especially with Josh Harris first renouncing, I kiss dating by them, renouncing his faith entirely, it has caused a lot of people to talk about how they were hurt and bad experiences. And recently a youth pastor for on and off over 20 years posted a long post on Facebook where he wanted to apologize for requiring that on swimming outings with the young people that the girls had to wear one-piece bathing suits. And he goes through an apology with some humor in the midst of it, but the thing has really resonated. It's Pastor Bryce Burr, I don't know him personally, but it was posted July 11th on Facebook, and as of now it has 98,000 shares. I'm going to come back to that in a little while.

I'm actually going to read it to you, all right? But the fact he got so many shares, the fact he got so many comments indicates that he hit a nerve. In other words, that for many, that this was a harmful experience. I'm talking about for people who love Jesus, for people who want to honor the Lord, for people who want to walk in godliness, that the purity culture was very damaging for them, and obviously his post has struck a nerve, and they've said, yes, thank you for posting this. At the same time, I'm concerned about a reaction in the opposite direction. I'm concerned that in our generation there is so little understood about holiness, modesty, purity, from the inside out that will be seen on the outside. I'm concerned that we swing from one extreme to the other. That's what we're talking about today. You get to weigh in.

866-342. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on The Line of Fire. Yes, yes, yes, God has called us to purity, not to impurity. It's crystal clear in Scripture.

True followers of Jesus will love holiness, will love the beauty of holiness, will love to honor God with their bodies if they're true followers of Jesus. That's a far cry from legalism. That's a far cry from trying to change people from the outside in. That's a far cry from shaming people into living rightly.

And that's what happened to many in what was called the purity culture. So do I think it's wonderful that many young people say, hey, I'm wearing this ring, and when I wear this ring, it's a reminder to me that I belong to the Lord until I get married, and then I'll belong to my spouse. Beautiful. That was meaningful to them.

Beautiful. Just like wearing the wedding ring is meaningful to me. After over 45 years, it's still meaningful to me. Well, same way for many wearing the purity ring was meaningful. But you know what happened with some young people? They just said, okay, that means we can't have sexual intercourse, but we can have all other forms of sex.

Seriously. And they thought, well, we're still preserving our virginity. That's just empty legalism.

It doesn't help anybody. I've said for many years that legalism is laws without love, rules without relationship, standards without a savior. Legalism tries to make people holy from the outside in. God makes us holy from the inside out. But be assured that the outward appearance in many cases, if we intentionally lived and presented ourselves in worldly, sinful, rebellious ways, that that will change.

But then even there, it's going to be different for each individual. I remember one woman that a friend said to many years ago, you know, you're an attractive woman. This is one married woman talking to another married woman and said to her, you're an attractive woman, and you just need to be conscious that when you wear certain outfits, it, they are, you know, a little suggestive and so on.

And her response was, this is super modest for me. You should have seen me before I was saved. So the Bible does not give us every specific guideline, but there are principles by which we should live. And I hope we can agree on those.

Again, I'm going to take calls a little while, 866-34-TRUTH. I just posted this poll on Twitter moments ago. It's only got the first 133 votes. Do you agree with this statement?

A Christian man or a woman should never dress, meaning for the public, not for a spouse, in such a way as to intentionally make themselves into an object of sexual desire. Now, not everybody responding to this is necessarily Christian, but let's just say that all of them were. Right now it's running about 84% yes to 16% no.

I wonder where the 16% are coming from. But anyway, let me read to you this post that got so much attention. Pastor Bryce Brewer, I don't know him personally. If I was going to be attacking his position or criticizing him, I would have reached out to him privately.

I'm interacting with it, so I'm simply posting it here. He said, so I need to issue an apology. I'm using some humor here too. I've been a youth pastor on and off for over 20 years, and I've issued the ridiculous ultimatum to my female students at summer camp, one piece swimsuits only. First of all, I'm sorry. One, I'm sorry that I didn't teach boys to control themselves. Two, I'm sorry I laid the weight of purity on a girl's swimsuit while she was swimming, and none of the boys' responsibility to not be gross. Three, I'm sorry to all the girls that frantically search for an appropriate one piece so that some male youth pastor could deem them an appropriate story here. I accompany my fiance and her daughters.

We desperately look for a cute one piece that would be appropriate for camp. It was hard and it sucked. Number four, I'm sorry that we have deemed a young woman's body as something that needs to be covered and let young men's bodies be okay to be seen. Number five, I'm sorry I ever let this be an item in discussion usually led by men at any youth leader meeting.

This must have been awful for my female leaders and students to be part of. So there are lots of things that he realizes were uneven, unequal, abusive, unfair. And again, it's been shared almost a hundred thousand times and that's a lot.

And he doesn't have like a massive online following, right? So that's a lot. A lot of people are saying, yes, thank you for posting this.

This is so helpful to me. He said, I'm still a fan of the no produce rule. No buns, bananas, or breasts need to be seen, but why are stomachs overtly sexual? Why is a little cleavage sinful?

Why are women meant to feel they're responsible for men's actual sin of lust? So I'm sorry to all the students, especially female, that we subjugated to our rules. I'm sorry to my female students as they desperately tried to search for a swimsuit in the days leading up to camp. I'm sorry if you felt sexualized by us telling you to cover up. I'm sorry I didn't teach boys to be men and lay that responsible on young women.

Female students wear a swimsuit that lets you have fun. Male students stop being disgusting and control yourselves. Youth pastors, male especially, stop being chauvinist and making female students feel bad for having breasts.

Christians live like Jesus. Okay, so I appreciate so much of what he's saying, the spirit of it, especially saying I put all the emphasis on the women, not on the men, and the pressure that was put on women. Again, the fact that shared so many times, somebody saying amen to it, indicates a lot of positive. So may we all learn from his experience.

Same time, I have massive concerns when I read this, when I see how many others are responding to it. For example, okay, our standard would have been, if you're going to the beach as girls, our girls would wear modest swimsuits. I mean, they weren't super into wanting to flaunt who they were. But anyway, whatever the bathing suit was, the rule was, the rule was that you wore a long t-shirt over that when you're at the pool, et cetera, hanging around, and then when you go on the swim, you take it off.

When you come out, you put it on. And by the way, when we'd be doing like a joint thing with guys at the beach and gals, we'd have the guys wear whatever swimsuit they were wearing, and it wasn't going to be Speedos, but whatever swimsuit they were wearing, and throw a t-shirt over the same way. So we were kind of equal in that regard, all right? And there was a constant, every circle I've ever been in has been a constant emphasis on helping men to control their thoughts, and on helping men to grow in holiness and purity, and helping men to walk in discipline, and helping them to avoid places of temptation, which is why for many, they wouldn't go to a beach. For many, they wouldn't be hanging out at the pool because there's just too much flesh and temptation around them. And for much of the Christian world, they'd look at us like, what are you crazy?

You do mixed bathing? We would never do that. So just so you know, much of the Christian world would look at us as terribly immodest. The Muslim world looks at us as terribly immodest.

The Orthodox Jewish world looks at us as terribly immodest, and much of the Christian world worldwide looks at us as terribly immodest, just to let you know that some of these things are issues that come up more in like America, or Europe, or Australia, etc. Okay, but here's my issue. Female students wear a swimsuit that lets you have fun.

Well, what if that's a thong bikini? Is that okay? Is that okay for followers of Jesus? In public. In public. Is that okay?

You're going to be around people of the opposite sex. Didn't Jesus, the same Jesus who said to us that if your right eye caused you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away? Meaning, if the things that you were seeing caused you to sin, do something radical, which would mean maybe getting off internet because of porn, or get rid of your TV, or stand away from the beach. That's what it means. It doesn't mean pluck out the eye.

The eye itself doesn't cause anyone to sin. It's a metaphor. So, is that fine? And if any bathing suit's okay, as long as you're having fun and you're free, then why don't we walk around in our underwear? The underwear that we wear, most people, is more modest than bathing suits at the beach, yet we wouldn't think of that. All right, just come into church in your underwear. Who would think of that? Or the worship team.

Come straight from the beach, is going to lead us. You know, the guys and gals in their skimpy bathing suits praising the Lord. Oh, you're going to tell me no one's going to be distracted and no one's going to have a stumbling block put in front of them? The same Jesus that said, pluck out the eye, that offends, is the same Jesus who said, woe to those who put stumbling blocks in front of others. The liberty we have is a sacrificial liberty.

It's liberty from sin, not liberty to sin. So, if it's legalistic to say one-piece bathing suits only, and obviously you could have a sensual one-piece, but if that's legalistic, is it legalistic to say no thong bikinis? If it's legalistic to say what's wrong with a little cleavage, or to say, hey, let's ask that question, let's not be legalistic, what's wrong with a little cleavage? Well, what's wrong with a lot of cleavage?

Why is one question legalistic and the other not legalistic? And if, hey, we don't want women to be ashamed that they have breasts. I remember we were in Israel, I believe it was 1988, it was a large crowd of Jewish believers and Christians had come from America to be at this big rally in Israel. And on the first day we were there, we heard this, there was this commotion, we were at this massive hotel in Tel Aviv, and a bunch of the families had gone up to use the pool. To their shock, there were a bunch of ladies topless around the pool. And these were parents with their kids there, and they got upset, and they told the hotel, and the hotel had to ask the women to put tops on. The women were very offended and upset by that, because in their culture, it's perfectly normal, perfectly normal.

Well, isn't that legalistic then? Why do we tell our girls they can't be topless? So the issue, friends, is that we go from one extreme to the other.

Paul said in Romans 14, if eating meat is going to cause my brother to sin, then I'm never going to eat meat. In other words, I'm going to think of the brother or sister. So for me, as a male, understanding the way men are wired, understanding how much we can be drawn outwardly and how sexually we can be pulled to outward appearance and those kind of things, I am constantly going to be urging men to be vigilant. I'm constantly going to seek to give guidelines for holiness, for purity, for discipline. I'm constantly speaking to men about that. At the same time, I will always teach both men and women, but in particular women, where there's often more temptation or pressure, you have to look at it, you have to pierce it, you have to have the perfect body, you have to show some skin here and there. I will strongly encourage them never dress in such a way so as to make yourself an object of sexual temptation for the opposite sex.

I will always urge that. Holiness goes both ways. Our bodies are not our own, Paul wrote.

You're bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body. You get to weigh in. We come back, 866-344-TRUTH. Do you agree?

Do you disagree? You get to weigh in. Send it Lord. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the Line of Fire now by calling 866-344-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So I just typed in the words purity culture in quotes and did a search. The first article that came up, there are 207,000 results on Google. The first article that came up, March 28, 2021, Purity Culture and the Evangelical Church harms women. Then another as I scroll down, seven lies that purity culture teaches women. Then another, their generation was shamed by purity culture. Another, what is purity culture and why it is extremely damaging and it goes on from there. So when this term is used, it's used in a very specific way about a specific type of teaching and movement. And here, as defined on the Gospel Coalition, purity culture is the term often used for the evangelical movement that attempts to promote a biblical view of purity, 1 Thessalonians 4, 3-8, by discouraging dating and promoting virginity before marriage, often through the use of tools such as purity pledges, symbols such as purity rings, and events such as purity balls. Then again, the way it would break down, there could be good, there could be bad.

The fact that so many feel injured and hurt by it means we need to find out what did hurt them, what was bad, what was done wrongly, what could be done better. Because again, if we love Jesus, we should love purity. If we love Jesus, we should embrace sexual purity. If there's anything that would immediately mark Christians in every culture from the world around them, it was that they prized sexual purity and chastity and the world around them didn't.

I mean, this is common in history for 2,000 years, aside from their specific beliefs in Jesus. I'm talking about lifestyle conduct. This would certainly come up. So again, your experience, what have you learned, what was positive, what was negative? We're going to go to the phones, and then I'm going to give you some interaction we got online.

Let's start in Jacksonville, Florida, with George. Welcome to the line of fire. Thanks for calling. What's your take?

Thank you, Dr. Ralph, for taking my call. My take on it is that I'm a Gen X-er, so I was in purity culture before it was called purity culture in the church that I was in, and essentially what, thinking back on it now, is it was largely ineffective, it was unrealistic, and the reason I say that is the critique the world has about, at least the church here in America, about how we approach sex, that I think has some validity, is that people really talk about it in, or at least then, when I was in church. I mean, I think I only heard one sermon from the Song of Solomon.

You know, it's not where we're talking about it openly and what it, and its design, and what it was meant for, and the whole thing. Mainly the message was told, you know, just don't do it until you're here. Right, so the only association with sex was it's negative and you get to do it when you're married, but before that you stay away from it, so there was very little that was positive in what was being taught, etc. Let me ask you this. When you speak of it being unrealistic, do you think it's unrealistic to expect that godly couples will not have sex before they're married? Yeah, I was thinking about that very thing and I said, you know, that it's, maybe it's because I'm just, you know, I'm 52 now, and so, you know, maybe it's just because of just having lived a long time. I kind of think maybe it is a little bit unrealistic, but it's still something, a standard that you got to really, you got to really shoot for and adhere to, okay? I mean, it's just if you don't, then what do you have, you know? So I just kind of wonder about that, but it's still, when I say it's unrealistic, I'm talking about the environment or in the culture that we have, all those pressures. I just kind of wonder, though I'm sure plenty of people do pull it off. It's just really tough.

Got it. Of course, our culture now, young people are getting married at older ages, which means longer times that they have to be celibate during the times when their sexual desires can be at their peak. Let me ask you one more question. We know that the same god that says fornication is sin, so sex before you're married or outside of the context of marriage is sin. He also says that adultery is sin. Do you think it's unrealistic to think that a married couple could refrain from committing adultery? Yeah, okay.

I think you got me there, Dr. Brown. I think it is realistic that they should abstain from adultery. They're committed into a relationship that is, sex is a part of that. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, we have such an incredibly promiscuous culture.

Certain things may be changing a bit for the better, but it's just been saturation for a long period of time. Look, if you went back to the days of our grandparents, the norm, the norm for non-believing people was that women did not have sex before they were married. That was just normal in the world. Yeah, so the gal that slept around was a loose woman. That was not the norm. The norm was now it's the exception for someone to be a virgin until they're married.

And especially if you have some celebrity or well-knownness, they're going to get all kinds of flack for it. Look, in our grandparents' day, there was sin, temptation, like every other time, and we had our own, our grandparents had their own sets of issues and sins to deal with. But come on, let's be realistic.

You didn't have number one songs like, I'm going to repeat the name of it, just so vulgar and so sexualized that you can't even talk about it without being defiled. Anyway, thank you for weighing in candidly. Let's go to Cara from Cleveland, Tennessee. Welcome to the Line of Fire.

What's your take? Hey, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it.

So yeah, I grew up in purity culture and grew up in the Church of God denomination. How old are you, Cara? I'm 44. 44. Okay, perfect. Thanks.

Yes, sir. Anyway, I bought into the courtship ideas, and my now-husband didn't tell me he loved me until he proposed to me. And we never even had our first kiss until we were engaged. So some of the books that were written during that time were actually a really big help to me. But in talking to some of the college students at my church, they've heard of this whole thing, too, and they do feel quite damaged. And I think what you were hitting on earlier, the weight and the responsibility of purity just resting on the female and not resting on the male as well was quite damaging to them.

And you know, Cara, what's so interesting, I was just chatting with two young men on our production team here right before this. And in their minds, there's always the emphasis on the men and the call to the men, but women have to take responsibility as well. And in my mind, I'm primarily thinking about men and their responsibility as a male. And yet as this is playing out, as we're hearing more from more people who are hurt, clearly the feeling that women had was that it was all on them. So clearly there was something very wrong in the emphasis or the way it was presented in many circles.

Because if it's not a clear thing that both have to honor God and honor one another and be respectful, et cetera, then you're going to have all kinds of problems. So obviously what was positive for you, and you heard a certain way, either in other circles wasn't taught the right way or was emphasized in such a way that it was all laid on the women who then walked around in bondage and feeling, you know, feeling guilty for just being pretty or something, whatever it was. So that's obviously something we have to recognize and address. As a man, the way I would teach and preach on these things, I was always hitting on both, maybe especially dealing with men and sexual lust among men.

But obviously a lot of the weight fell on women in a way that was unhelpful and it's caused a lot of hurt. So I appreciate that perspective very much. I agree. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. You go, you go. I was going to say my concern though, even in having that conversation with these college girls, is that the pendulum has swung to the other side.

You have books by Nadia Bowles Weber talking about sitting in your purity rings and making the golden statue you have. And these girls are telling me, you know, we're under grace now. And that seems to be the word for, I guess, this permissiveness sometimes. And that's concerning to me.

Right. So the very thing that I've preached about for decades is don't run from legalism into license is exactly what's happening. That this is part of the hyper-grace culture. This is part of the culture that looks at any standard as legalism, any call to holiness or purity as death-giving and guilt-driven and doesn't realize that the grace of God calls us to a higher standard than the law does.

That the grace of God so transforms us on the inside that we're transformed on the outside. Let me ask you one last question. You're 44. You're around these younger women, now college age. Do you think that a woman, say college, we're not talking about a six-year-old, but a college-age woman or an older woman, you know, someone say in her 30s, do you think that she's aware if she dresses a certain way that she is drawing attention to certain parts of her body or that men will look at her a certain way? Or do you think that this younger generation is completely oblivious to that? And that's a good question.

I have a 16-year-old and I also work with my youth group. So I think in some cases, absolutely, yes. And then I think in some cases, they are so, you know, the crazy clothing starts at such a young age, you know, really, really short shorts and really, really great for little ones that they just, that's just how they dress and they don't think about it. But I think there has to be some level of awareness and some of the girls I've spoken with have seemed to indicate that as well.

Yeah. You know, my wife Nancy always says a woman knows and a woman understands. On the one hand, yes, the culture shifted so much that what one generation thinks is immodest, another generation may think is modest and vice versa. And yet, I wonder, you know, if a young lady gets dressed and looks in the mirror and she's got on something super tight, super low cut, is she not thinking that guys are going to look at a certain part of her body? Just wondering. And guys, they have their own responsibilities. Each of, here's the deal, each of us has a responsibility before God to honor him, to glorify him and to be respectful of our brother and sister.

Back with more of your calls and some results from Twitter. Let me just say this one thing as it is the Olympics. There is all kinds of sexism within Olympic standards.

There really is. You can see, someone posted this online the other day and it was the, I think it was, could have been Norway or somewhere else. Let's just say I don't remember which country it was.

It was European country. And they showed either the men's volleyball team compared to the women's or whatever it was. And the men are nicely covered and the women are in bikinis and like beach volleyball or whatever it is, it's two on two. They have certain requirements because I remember reading women saying, why are we required to wear these outfits?

You know, and skimpy bikini. Well, that's like part of the thing and that you're women. And so there's all kinds of sexism that still exists. It's no question about it.

And whenever we can address it and confront it, we ought to. But we have this whole culture in the church now. Be you. You be you.

You crush that religious spirit. You be you. No, no, not be you. Be submitted to God. God doesn't want me to be me. Me, I. That died when I got saved.

You. You died when you got saved. Now we live to do the will of God. If the will of God is that we preach on the street corner and are martyred, so be it. If the will of God is that we win the Nobel Prize in astrophysics, so be it. If the will of God is that we preach and live in obscurity, so be it. If the will of God is that we're the richest person in our community, so be it. But everything we have belongs to him. We do not live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and rose from the dead, 2 Corinthians 5 15. That's not legalism. That's the gospel. And that's what we have to deal with a lot in our culture today. All right, let's look over on Twitter. I asked this question on Twitter. When you hear the words purity culture, what comes to mind to describe your own experience or perspective?

Helpful, harmful, mixed. So I asked people to put their ages down. David, what comes to my mind is the upbringing I had to be pure until marriage, but I guess it means very different things to others. I'm 24. Caitlin, the heart behind it was good. In my experience, if the execution was poor, but in my adulthood, I found far greater depth in substance in J.P. Tousa, John Paul's Two Theology of the Body. She's 27.

I would dare say she's thought about these issues more deeply than many to be citing a source like that. Christian, I'm 37. For me, it was mostly positive. I was taught and modeled in a healthy way for the most part.

It was taught and modeled in a healthy way for the most part. The only real blemish that made it a little weird for me was the whole courtship thing. And that book, you know the one I mean, A Kiss Dating Goodbye, I never bought into courtship.

So courtship would be that you don't date, you pray you wait for the right person and you court them, as opposed to one culture would say, hey, we're not sleeping around, but we get to know each other, dating till we find the right person and then we get more serious. Micah, mostly harmful. I'm 29. Didn't read any of the books growing up, but in retrospect, I was definitely taught some of its content in church youth group circles and it wasn't good for me.

Susan, 34. I didn't grow up hearing too much on the topic. The little I did hear seemed somewhat helpful compared to growing up in a secular culture without churches really addressing the topic in much depth. Leslie, firstly, I would like to say that I appreciate your wisdom and the grace God has given you to have a voice in these amazing times we live in. Well, thank you, Leslie.

That's why we're here. Thank you. She says, I haven't met a lot of people who fit this culture in a biblical sense, but I do look up to a few, and she gives some links. I feel it's one of the greatest needs in this hour, Matthew 5, 8 being pure in heart, Psalm 24 being pure in heart, and a true manifestation of living in the Spirit. Cassin, 28, mostly good intentions, poor, and in some cases, horrible application. Greg, blaming the boys' sexual sins on girls' appearance, and girls who fall into sexual sin can never be fully redeemed.

I'm 62, and it took a long time for me to understand these things. Spencer, well-intentioned and not scripturally, but legalistic and not scripturally based, 20 years old. Robert, I don't believe in any purity culture, only Jesus is 100% pure age, 72.

I want me to emulate Jesus, though. Let's see, Reflections of a Lily. That's the screen name. 31 years old. I'd say it's been mixed, but I'm leaning more towards harmful because for me personally, it created some unrealistic expectations which have impacted how I've experienced relationships, and I feel it's partly to blame for me still being single. Now, Kathy, first thought is that it's using a form of legalism to achieve a noble goal. It's a sign of the times that purity isn't embraced.

I'm 61. Kathy, am I totally missing what the phrase actually means? I'm sure many are because it is a specific phrase that we've tried to define on the show. Candace, purity culture, blaming young women who are modest for young men's indiscretion and lack of self-control. So what Candace is saying is the way many experienced it, which is so wrong. Raphael, age 46, harmful is my answer. Civilization, determination, and purity without God's perspective will be destructive and continue to divide. Tyrune, good intention, misguided application.

There was no depth in the teaching for me, which meant there was no real understanding for me as to its importance outside of someone simply saying so. J-Dub, promise rings, lol. I think more helpful than harmful. 39. But did think it was fair that girls had promise rings, but guys didn't.

Overall good. Why would the girl wear the ring and not the guy? That's a good question. James, what comes to mind is the inevitable purity spiral like the French Revolution where eventually murder of the unpure is justified. I'm 42.

Obviously never got there, but I appreciate his comment. Brooke, age 29, it seems legalist movements become defined by hypocrisy, which is generally an unfortunate phenomenon. However, I think the purity movement was a reactionary panic that stole the innocence away from young people. I think only adults should be exposed to sexual topics. So that's the opposite of someone saying we didn't talk about sexuality enough to teach people what it meant to be pure. 40. Attic Man, purity culture means trying to be or thinking you're something you can't, excuse me, you have no ability to attain but want people to believe you can.

Age 48, UK. Danielle, youth-directed teachings of modesty that mostly place the prevention of sexual sin on women and how they act dressed to keep their brothers from stunning while giving little responsibility to said brothers. Okay, so let me shout from the rooftops that I categorically reject anything that puts an undue responsibility on women for a man's sins. Categorically from the heart, reject that.

Shout it from the rooftops. And let me also say that no matter what a woman does, no matter how she is dressed, the male, the man, the young person, that man, that boy is still responsible for what he does. In other words, if a woman is walking down the street in New York City in a super tight, super short miniskirt and super tight, super low cut blouse and she is well endowed and some guy jumps her or tries to grab her, he's broken the law, he's guilty, he's responsible, period. At the same time, I could not imagine for a split second a woman who loves Jesus dressing like that, drawing sexual attention to herself. She is sinning in the process and is causing men to stumble. At the same time, if a guy looks at her and decides to lust after her, he's a Christian, he's a God-fearing young man, but he's weak at that moment, he decides to look at her, lust after her, and takes those thoughts back to his home, he's guilty. He's sinned. Yes, she put a stumbling block in front of him, but he sinned.

He's guilty. So we're each responsible for our own lives. Each of us, we are responsible for our own lives.

Nobody can make you sin, nobody can make me sin. And I will always teach and teach regularly because of seeking to emphasize holiness and knowing the difficult culture in which we live. Look, I'm 66, I have to watch my eyes, I have to watch my thoughts. So I am always going to teach about the responsibility of what we see and how we respond and teach men, especially young men, what it means to be holy and pure and how they have to honor women and, as married, honor their wives and respect them. And I'll teach men how they have to lay down their lives for their wives, 100%, 100%. And I would be the first to tell a guy, if he says, you know, I'm so weak, you know, I go to the beach, I just get filled with lustful thoughts, I tell him, you're not weak, you're stupid, stay away from the beach, stay away from it. He says, is that how you live?

Yeah, of course, of course. If I'm at some hotel and they got some giant pool and everybody lounging around and all kinds of sensual outfits, I don't go there. If I'm going to take a walk or walk out on the beach, I go and there's nobody there. That's how I live, okay? I'm not telling you you have to live like that, I'm saying that's how I live.

So I will always emphasize the responsibility of the male, the female as well, but as a man, especially talking to men and knowing how we're wired, emphasize our responsibility. But you better believe I'm also going to urge women to dress in ways that honor the Lord, to dress in ways where they could not be ashamed to put a scripture verse next to it. I remember reading one person say, yeah, well, my job, I wear certain outfits and, you know, and they take pictures of me, I'm not going to put a scripture verse there. It's like, well, if you can't put a scripture verse there, then something's funny. If it's, if people say that and thought, see, see that picture and thought, I thought you were a Christian. I thought you loved Jesus. And I'm not talking about some judgmental person. I'm just talking about your average person, believer. The goal of clothes is to cover up, not to expose. Wow.

Great insight there, huh? But no seriousness friends, we do not dress in such ways so as to draw sexual attraction to ourselves. I'm talking about for the world, for the outsider. We do not do that. What a husband and wife do in private is between them and God. So friends, let us reject the errors, the extremes, the legalism, the imbalance of much of the so-called purity culture, and let's live pure and Godly and Holy lives to such we are called. Another program powered by the truth network.