Pure Weddings?

I'd like to start by saying thanks to Dan for his insightful comment on my posting about prayer. He really hit the nail on the head, and I have no doubt I'll explore his remarks more at a later date.

On to the post...

Just when you think you've heard it all, someone hits you with something you can hardly be expected to believe. I heard something last night that I have to admit angered and shocked me, and I thought it was worth exploring, as it illustrates many of the points I make on this blog. Without divulging too much detail, some old friends of mine who moved to the Bible belt last year recently returned to Seattle for a visit. I didn't see them, though a mutual friend did, and from the sound of things, the Bible belt has wrapped itself around their unsuspecting waists and slipped up to their necks where it has begun to squeeze their minds into small perspectives I would consider unpleasant.

While they visited with our mutual friend, one of them commented, "Our girls know we won't be paying for a wedding that's not pure." I almost exploded. Now, it's not that I'm against pure weddings. I'm all for them. It's just that the small-mindedness of that statement infuriates me, particularly in light of the fact that neither of the parents in question was even remotely "pure" when they married.

Sexual purity is a big deal in the church, and I can understand why. I stayed sexually pure for a very long time (I was nearly thirty), but as I've shared once before, I was weak and made a decision to give myself to a man I was dating. I share that to say that I know very intimately the emotional and spiritual issues that spring from sexual activity outside marriage. I also know how very easy it is to go from absolute innocence to the loss of that innocence literally in the course of one night. Contrary to what most Fundies think, it's VERY easy to do, even when you have every intention of sticking to your convictions. And let me tell you, my convictions meant a great deal to me. So in light of what I know from personal experience and in light of the exposure and pressures young people face within their culture (greater now than perhaps at any time in history) and in light of the battles they must fight purely on the level of natural human desire even without these two other factors, it's not surprising that the vast majority of Christian young people don't make it to their marriages "pure." I commend (and sometimes even envy) those who do, but I'd be the last person to judge or condemn those who don't. And I don't think any less of them for being weak. I made it through the trials of youth and was well into adulthood before it happened to me, but I'm not sure that counts for anything.

I realize that these parents have taken this stand with good intentions. I understand they want to give their daughters every possible motivation to wait. I'm all for encouraging that in young people, but I think this method is grossly in error for several reasons.

Let's start with one of the more obvious: how does one define "pure"? Does it mean that both the bride and groom are virgins? What if the bride is a virgin but the groom isn't? Is it still a pure wedding if the couple has engaged in oral sex? What if they've just fooled around a little (making out and touching)? What if they've managed to avoid these pitfalls but one (or both) of them masturbates? Are they still pure? Or what if they're both virgins and they've kept their hands off each other, but one (or both) of them has fooled around a little in a former relationship? Is it a pure wedding if the guy has looked at porn once or twice in his life? Is it pure if the bride indulges in sexual fantasies or reads sexually explicit novels?

Do you see my point? What makes a wedding pure? Now a Fundy would say that neither the bride nor the groom should engage in any of these behaviors in order for the wedding to be pure, but let's get real. We live in the real world. People have real temptations to wrestle with, and those people make mistakes. They have moments of weakness. They do things they later regret. I'm not saying those errors should be glossed over or excused, but they happen and that's what the grace of God is for. If we apply the strictest possible Fundy definition for a pure wedding, every bride who marries would hear her daddy telling her she's gonna have to foot the bill. Even if she's managed to overcome every temptation and is absolutely, inhumanly pure, I have serious doubts that her love munchkin has arrived at the altar as unscathed. Sorry, folks, we're dealing with reality here. I repeat, that's what the grace of God is for!

Here's another issue that such a stand raises: once a person has given up purity, whether through the loss of virginity or through a lesser trespass of boundaries, is there any hope that purity can be restored? Depending on who you ask in the Fundy church, the answer is yes. In fact, Lisa Bevere, a highly respected author and speaker among the Fundies, shares her story in one of her books of how God restored her spiritual virginity. One of the great reassurances the church gives to young men and women who have gotten sexually involved is that God can forgive and restore them spiritually and emotionally to the place that it is just as though they never became sexually impure. So if a young person makes a mistake and then makes it right with God, does that person then get to have a "pure" wedding or is that one of those "unrestorable" things? I, for one, don't think so. I'm not sure how my old friends would feel, but I'd hate to be a girl living in a home where no room is left for mistakes, where a mistake God forgives and forgets might still prevent me from having a "pure" wedding.

A third issue that presents itself is the impact such a stand can make in a girl's relationship with her parents, particularly if this is an issue she's struggling with. Frankly, she's more likely to hide and fight her battles alone than to risk being honest with her parents and face judgment or a hefty wedding ticket. And should she commit the "unthinkable" and actually have sex with a guy, her parents have put her in a position where she can't feel safe in coming to them. As I said before, I believe parents should do what they can to motivate their young people to choose sexual purity, but I don't believe they should do so by promising that a punishment of that nature awaits the weak. A young man or woman who's been raised to value sexual purity feels enough personal shame and sorrow when innocence is lost; heaping more shame and judgment on that person is one of the most unkind, destructive responses a parent or leader can make, as I know all too well from personal experience.

There are some who would argue that when parents don't take a strong stand with their children they encourage or endorse them to practice behaviors that are contrary to the values they want to instill. To some degree I agree, and there is a fine line that a parent must walk when guiding a child into the kind of lifestyle that pleases God. However, having been raised in a very sheltered, traditional environment, I saw more than one close friend dipping into behaviors their parents would have been horrified to learn of. I have to wonder if the strong stand taken by those parents did more to teach their children how to justify wrong behavior and deceive in order to conceal it than to empower their children to overcome temptations by offering a haven to discuss temptations and failures with the knowledge that disclosures of that kind would be greeted with compassion and mercy. Perhaps some of the misconduct I witnessed in my teenage years could have been nipped in the bud and halted before it became serious if my friends could have been open with their parents without fear of embarrassment, disgrace and punishment.

I'm no expert on these matters, and I don't claim to be one. I do, however, see that such systems don't work and have to wrestle with the questions about what alternatives would work. And having known a harsh hand myself, I understand that, to a vulnerable person, a harsh hand may be the worst possible response.