During the 90s, a movement known as the purity culture took the evangelical world by storm. Its goal was to encourage young Christians to remain sexually pure until marriage. Unfortunately, this movement espoused questionable methods and eventually collapsed.
Today, the Church rejects the teachings and practices of purity culture. But some took it too far and abandoned the purity movement’s few biblical truths. So much so that many Christians, especially young Christians, treat purity flippantly.
So Dean Inserra, a teen during the purity culture era, wrote Pure: Why the Bible’s Plan for Sexuality isn’t Outdated, Irrelevant, or Oppressive. In this book, Inserra reflects on the purity movement, reminds us of God’s good design for sexuality, and shows us how to recover these truths in the disastrous aftermath of purity culture.
Inserra says, “I fear we are experiencing an overcorrection to the failures and flaws of purity culture. Missteps by fallible human people do not erase or alter the infallible design of the holy and perfect Creator…We must figure out how to uphold sexual ethics in not simply an anti-purity culture world, but amongst anti-purity culture Christians. Waving the white flag of surrender over something so clear and precious in Scripture as God’s design for sex and marriage cannot be the answer to correcting purity culture. The answer is to recover and pursue God’s design as He continues to restore broken people to Himself, and to believe that this is far better than what any pledge card or deserving spouse has to offer.”
Pure has three main parts. In part I, Inserra briefly explores how purity culture fell short of biblical truths and caused more harm than good. In part II, Inserra demonstrates how Christians can live as citizens of Heaven in this sex-obsessed world. He does it by exposing seven worldly beliefs anti-purity culture Christians are embracing. These include lies such as sex is expected, my bedroom is my business, and cohabitation makes sense. And in part 3, Inserra reminds us of the precious truth of the gospel, its hope for the broken, and where Christians can go from here.
As a 90s baby from Africa, I knew nothing about the purity movement except that it was terrible. Though this book is not a thorough analysis of the purity movement, it sheds enough light for those unfamiliar with it to understand its premises, flaws, and failures.
I enjoyed rediscovering God’s beautiful design for sexual ethics and appreciated Inserra’s teachings on it. He covered many important topics, such as sex before marriage, cohabitation, porn, modesty, and adultery, with scriptural faithfulness.
Inserra also constantly reminds us of the hope we have in the gospel and the preeminence of God’s glory. No matter how much we have soiled our garments, we can always wash them clean in the blood of the Saviour. And we must flee sexual immorality for the glory of the God who redeemed us, not a hypothetical future spouse.
Overall, Pure is an insightful and exciting book! I delighted in reading it and heartily recommend it to all Christians, especially younger ones. We live in a sex-obsessed culture, resolved to disregard God’s design for sexuality. And we must ground ourselves in the clear teaching of the Bible to not get carried away by false teachings surrounding us. Inserra provides a helpful little guide filled with biblical truths to do that.
Moody Publishers graciously gave me a copy, and this is my honest review.
Grace and peace to you!
