I’ve been a Christian for a little over three years and I have firsthand experience with the kind of torturous insecurity that develops when one adopts the mindset most Christians have today. Before I became a believer I had, in fact, had sex. I was only a sophomore in high school and I had little knowledge of theology, so to me sex outside of marriage was just another rule to break. Still to this day, even after knowing what I know now, I feel so guilty about that. I shouldn’t, but the wound is too deep. I’ve been led to believe that losing my virginity left me with a big, ugly scar. It’s so sad that the Christian culture I accepted told me something that wasn’t true at all. It told me that I wasn’t worthy of my perfect, godly, future husband (who doesn’t even exist). And I believed them.
Know that I’m not demonizing the church. I love the body of Christ and I believe in it. Unfortunately it’s run by imperfect people who are just trying to get things right. The church’s intention wasn’t to make me feel like that, they’re just trying to save people from the heartache that comes from taking sex out of context. Our faith says sex was strictly meant for marriage. The Bible says when two people engage in it they become one and breaking that bond is heart shattering. I promise, the obsession usually comes from a place of love from God’s people. But like everyone else in the world, we tend to screw things up a lot.
1. We’re telling people that their value decreases once it’s gone (it doesn’t).
I’ve heard more than one Christian my age say things like, ?I refuse to marry someone who’s not a virgin?. There’s a lot wrong with that statement, specifically problems one and two on my list. It’s degrading and objectifying, two adjectives Jesus strongly opposed. Hearing things like that while trying to figure out the whole ?Jesus thing? wore me out. I never felt like I was good enough because of the mistake I’d made. I can’t tell you how many times I’d wish for a time machine so I could go back and fix my sin. What I couldn’t understand was that if I was a Christian, didn’t that mean Jesus had fixed my sin? Wasn?t that the core of all of Christian theology?
2. We’re objectifying God’s children (not cool).
James 2:10 says that if you fail in one thing, you are guilty of all sin. We’ve all sinned and we’ve all committed every sin. When James wrote that, he made it impossible to degrade anyone. If you tell a white lie, you’re no better than adulterers, homosexuals, and murderers. If you believe in the Bible, you believe we’re all equally sinful. When you ask your future spouse to be a virgin you’re objectifying them. You’re looking at them like a piece to have. A puzzle piece to collect for your perfect, righteous, Christian lifestyle and future family. Look, I’m all for abstinence. But if your honeymoon is more about the sex than the fact that you’ve promised your entire life to someone, you’re missing the point.
3. We’re being self-righteous (which is stupid).
Obsessing over the status of our virginity and the virginity of others comes from a place of self-righteousness. Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. The original word used for the term ?polluted garment? was a synonym for ?menstrual garment?. Isaiah is literally saying that you’re good deeds are nothing but a filthy tampon in the eyes of God. That’s why the people Jesus frequently argued with in the Bible weren’t the sinners, they were the Pharisees a.k.a. the religious people of his day. The Pharisees were trying to use their good deeds to get in good with God. But Jesus was trying to teach them about grace.
Yes, we should stray from sin because it’s destructive. Sex outside of marriage can and will break your heart. God commands us not to do it because he knows that. We don’t sin because we believe Jesus is better and more satisfying than sin. We shouldn’t however, believe that God will love us anymore if we are virgins and if we marry virgins. The status of your virginity does nothing to change your status in Heaven. Christian, are you abstinent because you want to obey God, or are you abstinent because you want to impress God? Go ahead, show him your bloody tampon and see what he says.
4.?It’s down-right creepy.
My fourth reason on the list is to Christians who have taken things a little too far. I’ve read about ceremonies where dads walk their daughters down the aisle and pledge responsibility for their daughter’s virginity. What? I know that isn’t a common thing to do but Christians, let’s encourage our brothers and sisters to not be creepy. The reality is, growing up in a Christian home does not guarantee that you will make all of the right decisions when it comes to life. Chances are, teenagers are going to make mistakes. That shouldn’t be accepted, we should definitely raise children in Christian homes, and we should encourage abstinence. But we also have to teach them about the God who redeems. We have to teach them about the God whose love doesn’t change, even when the love of Christians does.
So wait until marriage, raise your kids to know Jesus, but stop being mean and oppressive. Jesus didn’t like it and neither do non-believers. Stop obsessing.
