{"id":2714,"date":"2019-07-29T23:40:45","date_gmt":"2019-07-30T03:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/troublerofisrael\/?p=2714"},"modified":"2019-07-29T23:44:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T03:44:53","slug":"joshua-harris-from-apology-to-apostasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/troublerofisrael\/2019\/07\/joshua-harris-from-apology-to-apostasy\/","title":{"rendered":"From Apology to Apostasy: Joshua Harris Joins His Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Joshua Harris, author of \u201cI Kissed Dating Goodbye,\u201d and inarguably the biggest name in so-called 1990s evangelical \u201cpurity culture,\u201d announced on Instagram last week that he and his wife are divorcing. Shortly afterward,\u00a0he renounced the Christian faith<\/a><\/u><\/span>. This comes after several years of apologizing for his early work, which some say harmed them or drove them away from Christianity.<\/p>\n

Anyone who believes a word our Lord Jesus said should mourn this news, whether they had a strong opinion about \u201cI Kissed Dating Goodbye\u201dor not. I don\u2019t know all of Joshua Harris\u2019 story. I do know he\u2019s suffered family tragedy, denominational scandal (for which he was not at fault), and decades of what I view as outrageous scapegoating over a book he wrote fresh out of high school. I feel sorry for him, and I pray that he returns to his First Love (not to mention his wife). Christ has worked greater miracles.<\/p>\n

What I want to say here has less to do with Harris and more to do with those who\u2019ve used his mea culpas as an occasion to re-air their grievances with evangelical teaching on sex and marriage. I\u2019ve written\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0about why I think those blaming Harris for their sexual and emotional dysfunctions twenty years later need to grow up. I\u2019ve written\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0on what that growing up looks like. I\u2019ve written\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0on the idea that \u201cpurity culture\u201d taught Christian girls that male lust is their fault.\u00a0Here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0in defense of the pedagogy often used by Harris and others to teach the importance of sexual purity.\u00a0Here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0in response to the straw-men raised about Harris\u2019 work. And\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0about how silly it is for Christians my age to trash \u201cpurity culture\u201d and then pine for the very things its best teachers offered.<\/p>\n

Through all of these entries, I have made one point more frequently than any other: what\u2019s being debated here isn\u2019t recreational dating, or a particular way of teaching the Christian sexual ethic. What\u2019s at issue is the Christian sexual ethic itself. Let me say this again in a different way, so no one misses it: I think many of Harris\u2019 loudest critics are either using his now-repudiated book and the \u201cpurity culture\u201d label as soft-target stand-ins for Christian teaching on sex, or else are too eager to re-adjudicate twenty-year-old gripes against their youth group to notice that this is what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

As far as the non-Christian world (and too many in the Christian world) are concerned, Joshua Harris has never been the one on trial, here. Neither has \u201cpurity culture\u201d (however you define that). For a watching world, Christian morality has been the thing on trial, and \u201cpurity culture\u201d has become a convenient shorthand for anyone who believes that the marriage bed should be undefiled.<\/p>\n

Two things convince me of this. First, several of those who\u2019ve written most prominently about Harris or \u201cpurity culture\u201d\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>,\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>,\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>, and\u00a0here<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0have either admitted to engaging in extramarital sex, or outright endorsed it. Of course, we all make mistakes. And not all of these writers are bowing before Nadia Bolz-Weber\u2019s vagina-shaped idol. But even the best of them\u2014those who still say they hold the church\u2019s historical view on sex\u2014talk of their failures with a breeziness that hints they think Harris\u2019 book was a far worse sin:<\/p>\n

\u201cI opted for more conventional forms of kissing and bade farewell to my virginity\u2026\u201d\u00a0writes<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0Abigail Rine Favale in the Catholic magazine, \u201cFirst Things.\u201d \u201cNonetheless, the ideas in Harris\u2019s book influenced me\u2014if not my habits, certainly my sense of self.\u201d<\/p>\n

She goes on to tell how his \u201cfear-and shame-based rhetoric\u201d traumatized her and an entire generation of her peers. We\u2019re left with no doubt who the real transgressor of the story is.<\/p>\n

Secondly, well-meaning critics like former \u201cChristianity Today\u201d editor Katelyn Beaty have\u00a0taken to the nation\u2019s top newspapers<\/a><\/u><\/span>\u00a0to condemn Harris\u2019 book and \u201cpurity culture\u201d before asking for alternative \u201cguidance\u201d in their \u201cintimate lives.\u201d One imagines the editors and readers of The New York Times had reams of helpful sexual advice to give. But this airing-out of in-house grievances before a secular audience is more than just distasteful. It\u2019s representative of the naivete displayed by so many Christians who celebrated Joshua Harris\u2019 apology for his book, only to mourn his departure from the faith.<\/p>\n

Although I make no claims about what ultimately led Harris to where he is now, we must admit that his apology for his teaching on sexual purity was a step on the road that led him to abandon the faith. Those Christians who cheered that apology, celebrated it in religious and secular publications, and even piled on Harris when he was at his lowest, should have known better. I am not blaming them for his de-conversion. I am insisting that what he wrote was innocuous, and that those who jumped on the bandwagon to condemn his book and books like it should have noticed where that bandwagon was headed, and how many of their fellow passengers hated Christianity.<\/p>\n

Caving to the spirit of the age always results in short-term validation. I\u2019m sure the endorphin rush was first-rate when many children of the 90s denounced \u201cI Kissed Dating Goodbye,\u201d \u201cvirginity pledges,\u201d \u201cpurity rings,\u201d \u201ctrue-love-waits diaries,\u201d and all of the humble kitsch of a church trying its level best to keep kids\u2019 heads above the cultural water. I\u2019m sure the pats on the head from secular betters were gratifying\u2014so gratifying that some didn\u2019t notice they were no longer abjuring a way of teaching purity, but purity, itself.<\/p>\n

Now that Harris has renounced Christianity, those who applauded his earlier retractions owe it to themselves to figure out when they should have stopped clapping. For the rest of us, this is a time to recall that Christian conviction was never supposed to make us popular with the world. Our beliefs\u2014quite apart from any book or youth group exercise designed to teach them\u2014are\u00a0strange.\u00a0<\/em>And if we find ourselves too often agreeing with people who hate those beliefs, we should ask whether we\u2019re exchanging this fabled culture of purity for its opposite.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua Harris, author of \u201cI Kissed Dating Goodbye,\u201d and inarguably the biggest name in so-called 1990s evangelical \u201cpurity culture,\u201d announced on Instagram last week that he and his wife are divorcing. Shortly afterward,\u00a0he renounced the Christian faith. This comes after several years of apologizing for his early work, which some say harmed them or drove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2783,"featured_media":2723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,840,44,61,52,51,258],"tags":[414,246,228,249,203,230],"class_list":["post-2714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-church","category-life-advice","category-parenting","category-relationships","category-sex","category-youth","tag-ethics","tag-i-kissed-dating-goodbye","tag-joshua-harris","tag-morality","tag-purity-culture","tag-sex"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Apology to Apostasy: Joshua Harris Joins His Critics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Too many who condemned "purity culture" ended up condemning purity itself. 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