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# Salvation Through Purity?
- URL: https://thepulse.org/en/salvation-through-purity-purity-culture/
- Published: 2026-07-01T10:25:59.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-06T18:36:04.000Z
- Description: Purity culture: from “True Love Waits” to deep wounds. And how you can talk with teenagers about sexuality in a healthy way today.
- Author: Gabriel Kießling
- Tags: Articles, #topic-sexuality, #target-leaders, #age-teens, #age-young-adults, #target-parents, #translation-pending

*The good intentions of purity culture and where it fails*

> “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.”

> Signature: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Date: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

In 1993, 53 teenagers at Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Hermitage, Tennessee, signed this pledge. A year later, during the Youth for Christ conference, more than 211,000 of these signed pledge cards were planted in the lawn of the National Mall in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC. The True Love Waits movement (TLW for short) was born, and its influence grew internationally as well. These public commitments to sexual abstinence were followed by TLW Bibles, Bible study aids and bestsellers like *I Kissed Dating Goodbye* by 21-year-old Joshua Harris (1997). At so-called “purity balls,” daughters publicly promised their fathers that they would wait until marriage to have sex. Prominent teen idols of the time, such as the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Emma Watson, very publicly wore the “purity rings” of the Silver Ring Thing movement. The rings served as placeholders for a future wedding ring.

All of this comes into view when people talk about “purity culture.” Its roots go back even further. And even though its most influential heyday is long behind us, its effects can still be seen and felt in some places: in certain statements on sexual ethics and theology, in attitudes and in sermons.

Ever since that same Joshua Harris distanced himself from his bestseller in November 2017¹, agreed with the harsh criticism already leveled at it and finally took it off the market in 2019, the movement’s dark side has come to light more and more. Especially on social media, young women who were affected report abuse of power, spiritual pressure and hostility toward the body that severely damaged, or even destroyed, their lives, their faith, their relationships and their sexuality. The term “purity culture” comes up again and again.

What exactly is meant by this culture of purity covers an enormous spectrum:

- from the biblical and ethical conviction that God’s idea of sexuality is inseparably linked to a committed, loving, public covenant (“marriage”),
- all the way to meticulous rules (for example on clothing, public pledges, bans on looking and touching, dating rules …) meant to keep you, as a good Christian, from falling out of God’s grace or leading others into temptation.

Christians who want to talk about sexuality in a way that is effective and connects with people have to come to terms with purity culture:

- Which concerns of purity culture deserve recognition?
- What negative effects can be seen in the life stories people are telling?
- What can we conclude from this for how we approach sex, “topic number one”?

These are the questions I explore here.

## The good intentions of purity culture

At first, purity culture offered many young believers guidance in an oversexualized world (think “sexual revolution,” the rise in sexually transmitted diseases …) and a clear compass that created security, commitment in relationships and a mindful approach to sexuality. The movement gave many teenagers a community and a positive alternative to society’s expectations. Where young people were confronted with a noncommittal, consumer-driven picture of sexuality, abstinence until marriage became an expression of freedom: the deliberate choice of sexual self-control, integrity, the capacity for relationships and a long-term view. This freedom seemed to be pushed into the background by liberal sex education and the growing access to contraception in the wake of the sexual revolution.

Today, too, teenagers report feeling pressure to “have sex” as soon as possible, as often as possible and in as many ways as possible. At the same time, they vastly overestimate how many of their peers have already had sexual intercourse². The original heartbeat of purity culture wanted to meet this experience with an alternative, biblical vision: sexuality is made for marriage. Without such an audible, countercultural voice, teenagers today are missing an important source of values in this phase of growing up.

## Where purity culture fails

However honorable the motives of the central leaders of TLW and all its successor organizations seem (and indeed are), numerous testimonies tell of the excesses and their painful effects, above all on young people.

⚠️

What they all have in common: purity culture turned the Christian faith into a religion of sexual and moral performance. In the area of sexuality, experiencing God’s closeness and grace suddenly depended on human performance: “stay pure.”

In concrete terms, this showed up in the following ways:

### Negative language about sex

This includes metaphors for promiscuous sex: the piece of tape that has been stuck on and ripped off too often and has lost its stickiness; the two sheets of paper glued together and torn apart, each still carrying shreds of the other. Violent images that stoked fear of the harm sexuality can do. Sex is dangerous first and foremost and therefore needs strict regulation. The sometimes apocalyptic rhetoric about God’s wrath and the coming judgment as soon as you stray even a little from God’s path hit an area already loaded with shame and fear, and stirred up even more of both. What was missing: that sex itself received God’s seal of approval, “very good.”

### Theological contortions

Besides explicit sexual acts, thoughts, desires, dreams and emotions in particular came into focus. [Matthew 5:28](https://www.bible.com/bible/111/MAT.5.28.NIV?ref=thepulse.org) (“anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart”) was interpreted like this: merely feeling sexual needs is sinful and calls for repentance and asking for forgiveness.

The term “purity” kept coming up and became a central character trait. Virginity was the most important gift for your future husband or wife. The flip side made it clear, spoken and unspoken: “Otherwise you’re impure!” Many young Christians who failed at this automatically saw themselves, and others who lived differently, as spiritually impure and unworthy of God’s grace. The consequences often ranged from existential crises of faith (questioning, leaving the church …) to inner repression and distrust of your own body to an outward double life (for fear of being excluded from the church). In every case, an enormous burden. Teenagers who were already sexually active or did not want to follow these guidelines were told they weren’t “true Christians.” They were seen as spiritually, mentally and physically too weak. Passages in the Bible that oppose dividing Christians into more sinful and less sinful ones (for example [Romans 3:23-24](https://www.bible.com/bible/111/ROM.3.23-24.NIV?ref=thepulse.org)) were ignored.

### A spiritual and moral bargain

Purity culture implied the promise “Give it up now and gain even more later!” and raised enormous expectations of the first sexual intercourse after the wedding. Without people realizing it, the achievement of abstinence demanded a reward from God, namely that he would especially bless the marriage that followed (and the sexuality within it). If these hopes were not (fully) met, people looked for mistakes in their own behavior, in God’s promises or in their partner’s heart attitude, instead of looking for ways forward together.

### Blind spot

There is no automatic rule along the lines of married = good sex. Purity culture reduced knowledge about sexuality to exactly this formula. What came afterward didn’t matter, because it happened within marriage as God intended it. As a result, people closed their eyes to sexual problems, but also to abuse and any kind of violence. Other important topics of sex education were pushed into the background as unimportant, unspiritual or dangerous, and became taboo.

### Shifting the responsibility onto women

Even though purity culture sets out rules of behavior for both sexes, it’s mainly young women who report the painful effects. Although men were considered more sexually “needy” or “unbridled,” there were more rules for women. Men’s sexual desire was not to be aroused; in fact, it was to be kept in check. More revealing clothing, for example, was seen as an attempt at seduction and was therefore frowned upon. That makes the tradition of “purity balls” seem doubly paradoxical: fathers had their daughters promise to live sexually abstinent lives, and in turn promised to protect that commitment. Inwardly, the woman was responsible for the man’s sexuality; outwardly, it was now the man after all. Here we see a dynamic that is reminiscent of patriarchal structures and at the same time reduces men in their nature to sexuality, and so devalues them.

## What we can conclude

How can we prevent the terrible consequences of purity culture when we talk with teenagers about Christian sexual ethics, without falling silent or endorsing sexuality detached from relationships?

Even if in some circles you get the impression that purity culture is to blame for every conflict and question in the area of sexuality, I don’t see the main cause of the painful effects described above in WHAT is said about sexuality, but in HOW it is said.

The conviction in sexual ethics that, according to God’s idea, sexuality can best grow in a faithful, loving, public, lifelong partnership (= marriage) does not automatically lead to ruin. Rather, it’s the language used (and the lack of language), group dynamics, and the spoken and unspoken rules within the youth group and the church that create spiritual pressure to perform, fear of failure and a basic distrust of your own needs and of yourself.

As soon as the HOW (apocalyptic, violent, intrusive rhetoric) expresses something different from the WHAT (God’s vision of sexuality), it inevitably changes, or even distorts, the WHAT on the listener’s side. The WHAT is downright warped by the HOW, and the message doesn’t get through.

When a young couple tells their pastor in a counseling conversation about the heavy, guilty conscience weighing on them because they have been intimate with each other, his reaction is crucial.

Does he shame the couple with probing questions and conclusions (“Did you use a condom? Then it was a deliberate sin, because you were prepared for intercourse!”)? Does he impose harsh consequences on their place in the church (removing them from serving …) and build up spiritual pressure (forcing them to confess in front of the group, threatening them with separation from God if they don’t confess …)?

Or does he openly ask why they chose to open up to him (“Why are you telling me this? What can I do for you?”)? Does he offer them pastoral support as a couple and help them start talking about biblical values and personal needs?

The way he reacts speaks loudly about what he wants to say about sexual ethics.

People, their relationships and the situations they find themselves in are too complex and too different for the same sentences to be appropriate in every case, let alone bear good fruit. The following steps help get young people excited about the value of biblical sexual ethics and help you be seen as someone they can trust to walk alongside them:

### Reality check: Question your own assumptions

Identify your inner beliefs about teenagers and sexuality and test them against reality. Many people carry around this conviction, for example: “Teenagers want more and more, and they’re having sex earlier and earlier.” In fact, the age of first sexual intercourse has remained relatively stable for over 20 years, and is even dropping slightly³. Instead, teenagers worry about their first time: pressure to perform, fear of not measuring up, fear of being rejected or shamed. As their most important sources of sex education, teenagers don’t name social media or pornography, but sex education websites, classes at school or personal conversations. It matters to them what adults say about it. In fact, they are looking for well-founded information from role models they can trust.

### Theology check: How much perfection does Jesus demand?

Jesus meets each person individually, in the way he or she needs. The WHAT is always God’s love and his coming kingdom. The HOW differs depending on the circumstances and the person. In [John 8](https://www.bible.com/bible/111/JHN.8.NIV?ref=thepulse.org), for example, he doesn’t lecture the woman in front of the mob of men ready to throw stones, and he makes no demands. He makes sure she is ready to listen and that her inner fear (“Now I’m condemned!”) no longer has any power: “Then neither do I condemn you.” The WHAT, namely God’s loving view of her, becomes visible through the way Jesus acts. Let’s not forget how much room the Bible gives to this dynamic when we think we have to demand perfection from someone: “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

### Learn to talk about it yourself: Support sex education

(Young) children, teenagers and young adults need a good, age-appropriate foundation on the topic of sexuality. Age-appropriate sex education prepares them to handle sexuality responsibly and with self-determination. Knowledge empowers, in sexuality too. That’s why it isn’t enough for a church to check the topic off with the sentence “You have sex in marriage, and then it’ll all work out,” however convenient this “solution” may seem to some.

### Talk about sex positively: And it was veeeeery good

When it’s no longer the beauty of God’s creation that dominates, but the fear of being excluded or shunned within the community, along with shame, because your own behavior and your own desire are judged as dirty and flawed, then spiritual leaders have done a bad job. The hostility toward the body in our church history is a heavy burden.

💛

Sexuality is a wonderful, complex, dynamic and (yes!) even hot gift from God. It is not dangerous first and foremost; it is very good.

Even though the Bible and we humans know the dark depths, what matters at the foundation is not losing sight of the beauty.

Purity culture deserves criticism, harsh criticism. Teenagers need attentive, individual support with questions of sexual ethics, through courageous testimonies and values that adults are willing to argue for. Anyone who knows that teenagers today increasingly think “I am a mistake” about themselves, instead of saying “I make mistakes,” won’t confront them with a list of demands, but with questions. I wish every young person had adults like that at their side. Jesus already is.

## Notes

- ¹ “Strong Enough to Be Wrong | Joshua Harris | TEDxHarrisburg” ([on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kV4ngi7J4&ref=thepulse.org), accessed April 9, 2025)
- ² The usual estimates in Christian youth groups of how many 16-year-olds have already had sexual intercourse range from 75 to 95%. Statistically, however, it’s just under 35% (*Jugendsexualität*, 9th wave, 2019, a German study on youth sexuality by the Federal Centre for Health Education, BZgA).
- ³ Cf. *Jugendsexualität*, 9th wave, 2019: fact sheet “Einstieg in das Sexualleben” (in German; English version: [In Focus: Becoming Sexually Active](https://www.sexualaufklaerung.de/fileadmin/user%5Fupload/08%5FPublikation%5Fpdfs/Faktenbl%C3%A4tter/Faktenbl%C3%A4tter%5Fengl%5FJuSe%5F9%5FWelle/2023%5FFactSheet%5F07%5FYouthSexuality%5FBecoming-Sexually-Active%5FVS%5F1-0.pdf?ref=thepulse.org))

*Gabriel Kießling has a background in religious education and social work and is a subject-matter expert and youth minister at Weißes Kreuz, an organization in Germany that offers information and counseling on sexuality and relationships.*

*Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.*