No sex till marriage: the ‘purity guides’ that inflicted damage on some Christian youngsters
- Pro-abstinence superstar has revealed he no longer considers himself a Christian and is sorry for the messages he spread
- Most Christian purity guidebooks dish out similar advice. The golden rule: no sex before marriage
Joshua Harris was just 22 in 1997 when he published I Kissed Dating Goodbye, a dating guidebook for young Christians that advised them to do anything but. Dating was a “training ground for divorce”, he argued in the book, which sold almost 1 million copies worldwide.
It also made Harris a superstar in the Christian purity movement, a pro-abstinence crusade that began in evangelical churches in the 1990s and became well-known in the purity ring-wearing hands of Jessica Simpson and the Jonas Brothers. Many authors came after Harris – John and Stasi Eldredge, Hayley DiMarco, Tim and Beverly LaHaye – all of them in the United States, where religious publishing is worth US$1.22 billion a year.
Now 44, Harris made headlines this week when he revealed he no longer considers himself a Christian. He has been issuing apologies for his own books during the past decade, even making a documentary called I Survived Kissing Dating Goodbye.
On his Instagram this week, he wrote: “I have lived in repentance for the past several years – repenting of my self-righteousness, my fear-based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views of women in the church, and my approach to parenting to name a few.”
Dianna E. Anderson, who left the purity movement in her 20s and is the author of Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity, says its relationship guides have inflicted lasting damage on young people desperate to preserve their holiness while battling hormones.