Goodbye “purity”, and good riddance.
Anonymous asked: A little over a year ago, I was raped by a good friend who I thought was a Godly man. Now I’m not sure how to tell a future boyfriend about the loss of my purity, or how it will affect our relationship. How would I go about talking to him? Sexual purity has always been a big deal to me, and I don’t want to disappoint my future husband.
Unka Glen answered: That does it. [blowing loud whistle] Alright, everyone out of the pool. It’s over. This “purity” thing? That’s over. We’re done. No mas. Has anybody out there had an impure thought, an impure sexual desire, or wandered over to a website you shouldn’t have? Okay, I see everyone’s hand. NONE of us is pure. None. So, WE ARE NOT USING THIS WORD ANY MORE.
Tell me, my sister, who it was that told you that you would “disappoint” your husband because of something that SOMEONE ELSE did that somehow makes YOU impure? Give me the name, give me the address, because me and a vanload of the brothers from my day job are going to “lay hands” on somebody.
Don’t ever let anyone talk to you like that. And don’t let the enemy even finish his sentence when he tries to put that thought in your head. Find your pastor and tell him, we don’t need to hear about protecting a perfection or a purity that none of us has (Romans 3:23), we need to hear from you about boundaries, and about healing from mistakes we’ve made, and especially (in this case) about healing from mistakes that others have made towards us.
This is the thing with bad doctrine, it starts out with an idea that you wouldn’t think to reject, like purity. Purity is good, you should be pure. And you say, “right on, sounds good.” But purity is the unattainable goal of perfection we strive for, to think of purity as something that anyone (other than Jesus) is actually walking around with, that’s just bad doctrine, plain and simple.
At best, this “purity” talk inspires pride in people for doing nothing, and at worst, it condemns people in a way Jesus NEVER would.
Ministry isn’t about merely telling people: here is the ideal, live up to that (Luke 11:46). It’s about saying: we’re all imperfect and impure, and we’re all dealing with problems… some problems we created, and some were handed to us, but let me show you the road back to good spiritual health. Your future husband, I promise you, will be dealing with his own past. And of all the things that might make you impure my sister, you being raped is NOT one of them. Period. The End.
Any man who would reject you because of something like this, is someone you shouldn’t associate with, let alone date. Sexual assault is part of my wife’s public testimony, and I can tell you without ANY hesitation that I NEVER felt anything but love and sympathy for her past, and nothing but admiration and respect for the courageous woman she is today.
She deserves nothing less.
Amen, amen, and amen.
If this was a boxing match against the devil, the devil got KO’ed in the first ten seconds.
