only test of purity in marriage bed is self-giving love. there are so many ways to be “impure” (or worse) in monogamous married relationships. sex is too complicated, too freighted with a person’s history (sexual and otherwise) to pretend that purity can be achieved by following a few rules. augustine said sex before eden was soooo much better. it’s a good thing, y’all, and hard for me anyway to imagine that goodness being vanilla. (though it can be for some and that’s great too)

christians haven’t kept old testament holiness codes since the very, very beginning when it was still an open question about whether following the resurrected jesus was something you could do in the synagogue, keeping the rules that were a huge part of jewish identity. jesus and all the disciples were jewish...but how to be jewish and believe the god of israel raised jesus from the dead? that questions is close to the heart of the entire new testament.

but today christians don’t think about the holiness code or markers of jewish identity. more often, in my experience, talk of purity is a way of keeping girls from having sex (boys too in theory) but in evangelicalism at least, teenagers/young adults have as much sex as non-christians and i think they may be more likely to get pregnant perhaps because birth control not an option. (it happened to sarah plalin’s daughter who i think had been a public figure encouraging abstinence. no judgment from me, just an example of what i am talking about)

the song of songs - which had more commentaries devoted to it than any book but genesis for the first 1500 years of the church - is a sex poem about unmarried teenagers. we read it at weddings (it was read at mine) but nowhere is marriage mentioned in the entire book. not sure the word “god” even appears. but the church, like israel before, held it in esteem as perhaps the most mysterious and powerful expression of the intimacy god desires with people (obviously in a metaphorical and not literal sense)

give yourself to your spouse in mutual care and faithfulness, with kindness and respect...i think that’s as close to pure as we can get. and it’s impossible to bat 1000.00. people are just too messy, broken, and needy. it’s inevitable this side of heaven. and i can’t see where purity talk has gotten us - doesn’t end well when people are overeager to claim any mantle of holiness.

good news is, we don’t have to. what holiness we can claim is only that which jesus shares with us. let us grow in self-giving love and throw ourselves with joy on the mercy of god who lets jesus take our place.

this is the first time i’m commented on an online forum. i hope my tone is ok. nothing but love from me to all of you!

just remembered the prostitutes in jesus’ family tree. and the scandal of mary’s pregnancy when the neighbors couldn’t see that holiness was hidden in the scandal!