Harding University: What Bible Students Are Being Taught (Part 2)
This series of articles concerns some of the ideas being taught at a “Christian” university. When hearing about a “purity culture,” one might imagine something along the lines of positive peer pressure and that it would be a good thing. But alas! such is not the case. Rachel Holloway introduced the subject when speaking to her husband’s college class at Harding University on October 30, 2020. The students consisted of both adult women and men (see the article from December 6, 2020). She introduced the “purity culture” concept in connection with their mission work in Africa:
I’m in Mozambique, but having to walk through, um, uh, the seasons and situations with a friend, um, where the, “Just don’t have sex until you’re married,” uh, message from an awkward and sometimes harmful purity culture that this friend got in her home church, um, that did not help her at all. It was insufficient, and, “Just don’t have sex till you’re married,” from within that purity culture; it did not deliver—it does not deliver the resources, the ethical resources and transformation that is needed for my friend, and I think for us—um, uh—the transformation and resources that are needed to handle extremely complicated situations that we find ourselves in, in 2020.
The “Just don’t have sex until you’re married” message is apparently harmful. A “purity culture” seems to be insufficient. Extremely complicated situations? How long has lust been complicated? Does the person breathe who does not know the way lust works? Even in the Ten Commandments, the last one states: “You shall not covet.” As it is used in Exodus 20:17, the idea is for a person to not desire that which is not his. What kind of things are on the list that people should not covet? The first one is a neighbor’s house. The second one is his wife. God knew full well a man would covet another’s wife and a woman would covet another’s husband. He forbids not only the actual act of adultery—but the desire expressed in the coveting. Was God trying to form a “purity culture” in Israel?
Perhaps Bible students should remind themselves of the kind of holiness that God demanded of His chosen people, as expressed in Leviticus 18-19. Consider Leviticus 18:24, after God has prohibited several unauthorized sexual liaisons: “Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you.” How can we conclude otherwise than that God was forming a “purity culture” within Israelite towns?
Was He serious about not committing adultery (Ex. 20:14)? Leviticus 20:10 tells us that “he who commits adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.”
So why is the wife of a Harding professor denigrating the purity culture that God seems to desire among His people? Yes, this is the Old Testament, but adultery remains a sin (Heb. 13:4), and Christians are warned: “Flee fornication!” (1 Cor. 6:18-20). Why is God’s Word “insufficient”? All of us ought to agree that Christians need to be “transformed by the renewing” of their minds rather than to be conformed to the world (Rom. 12:1-2), but what is wrong with communicating to young people that they should “wait until marriage” to seek sexual fulfilment? Why does that not help at all? In case anyone missed it, Rachel got onto this topic again:
I think there’s a lot of churches who thought that the only conversation they needed to have was, “Don’t have sex outside of marriage.” And usually that was in a purity culture context that often did harm, and that conversation is stunted….
Rachel takes time to berate churches for not doing more to educate teens on the subject. Is it the church’s job to teach more on the topic, or does it fall under the sphere of parents to do so? The church can do certain things, such as examine the history of fornication and adultery, to notice how it was frequently part of idolatrous religious celebrations, and to consider the consequences of disobeying God. But some questions and answers are best dealt with by parents, not in a Bible class.
This writer once found 25 reasons that the Bible gives for not committing adultery. Obviously, this effort far transcended the “Just don’t do it” message. Would presenting all of this information to young people satisfy those seriously contemplating the sin? If not, what would? Consider the next quote:
And so, I think that churches need to wrestle really hard, um, to develop a robust sexual ethics for training our communities in faithfulness. And that cannot be just a list of rules or a shame-based purity culture. It needs to come from a vision of covenant faithfulness, um, that we get from a kingdom that is the Kingdom of Heaven that we are trying to make real on earth.
So, now we’re not just dealing with a “purity culture,” but “a shame-based purity culture” with “a list of rules.” It’s too bad Moses didn’t know better than to give “a list of rules” to Israel. So, are churches evil if they attach shame to bad behavior? What are we supposed to do—say congratulations? “Oh, you’re moving in together to live in fornication. Far be it from us to try to burst your bubble or make you feel ashamed. We won’t even quote you a list of rules that present God’s view on what you’re doing. Just enjoy your new home.”
What’s the Alternative?
So, if church members should not read off a list of rules or try to shame anyone, and if a purity culture is insufficient and even harmful, what is the alternative? That’s an excellent question, but the answer is a bit vague. There seem to be two answers: The Holy Spirit and Christian community. After saying that the Sermon on the Mount “is literally too hard if it’s just a set of rules” (although no explanation exists for this assertion), Rachel adds: “We need empowered discipleship, I mean, inhabited by the Holy Spirit in community with other people inhabited by the Holy Spirit.” Okay, but what does that mean? Another comment follows later:
We are inhabited by and empowered by God’s Spirit, and what that means is, as we are together discerning an ethic of sexuality with the Holy Spirit, we are not alone. There is no burden to figure this out by yourself. Um. This is meant to be communal discernment of kingdom ethics, um, so that we can love God with our whole lives, and the, we, yes, includes the, me. I wanna love God with that kind of faithfulness, with my whole life, including what I do with my body, including what I think about other people, including learning not to objectify others, um, or the act in my fantasies. Um. I want to love God back in the context of a community that is learning to love God and imitate that whole consuming love, um, that includes loving God and loving our neighbors.
What do all of these words mean? How does the Holy Spirit empower us? Many brethren believe in the literal indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but what is the empowerment that is supposed to be taking place? Also, everything seems to be tied to the Christian community or kingdom. Why is it never referred to as the church? In another sentence, she adds: “I need God’s help, I need God’s power, I need God living inside me with the Holy Spirit to be that enduringly faithful.”
The implications of this sentence are interesting. God is living inside her with the Holy Spirit. Well, we certainly don’t want to exclude Jesus from being in there, do we? Paul said that Christ lived in him (Gal. 2:20). It only seems fair and equitable to have the whole Godhead living in us. The implication is that if the Holy Spirit was not living inside her, she could not be faithful to her husband. (You know how boring and insufficient rules are.)
But, wait. Was not the Holy Spirit living within David? When David prayed his psalm of repentance, he requested of God: “And do not take your Holy Spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). Nevertheless, he sinned with Bathsheba, even though he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14). None of these advantages kept David from sinning. Are we to infer that, today, the literal indwelling of the Holy Spirit keeps the Christian from sinning? Then whose fault is it when we sin? If we sin anyway, how does the Holy Spirit help?
But there’s more: “And so churches need to be training gyms. Um. I really think a gym is the best metaphor. If the Holy Spirit is our personal trainer and we’re doing this together. Churches need to be training gyms….” Most of us have never thought of the Holy Spirit as our personal gym instructor. Aren’t these university students lucky to get this information? But there’s still more:
What kind of practices do you need to have in your communities, um, your small groups?
I want my community to help me be ready for complicated, complex desire, um, and so, um, there’s a vision, there’s a big picture and I think it’s also, uh, an invitation to be really practical with your small groups….
Here small groups are mentioned in connection with community. Apparently, the Holy Spirit (living within) and this sense of community (small groups) are supposed to help the Christian overcome the sexual temptations that come their way. Rachel assures her audience that they will face them.
…I promise you that you will experience out of bounds desire. Um. And so, I think—nobody told me that, in that really direct way. When I was a teenager, when I was in my 20s, um, that I think was part of being an embodied human with the biology and the chemistry that God gave us in these bodies, and these bodies are good. Um. You will experience out of bounds desire. I hope for you that you also experience desire that is, uh, fulfilled. I want that for you. Um. So, I’m not talking about that won’t happen. So, I’m saying, even if you are having a lifetime of, uh, physical desire that is fulfilled in faithfulness, you will still also experience out of bounds desire. This has been true 100% across the board with all the conversations we’ve had with our peers in the last 15 years. And so, we need to be talking about that. We need to plan for it—just practically—we need to plan for it. What kind of practices do I need to have in my life individually? What kind of practices do you need to have in your communities, um, your small groups? Your churches need to plan for your actual, practical responses when those out of bounds desires happen in your life. Um. We need to be honest so we can be practical because they will happen. Um. Uh. We think about it now. What do we do with desire? How do we shape desire in the community?
Rachel’s husband may throw light on the emphasis regarding community. In summarizing her presentation, he commented in part that to defeat lust: “It’s definitely gonna mean life in community and having people that you can be accountable to and pray with, to have you escape the gravitational pull of lust and instead get caught up in the orbit of God’s kingdom.” Is this a form of Crossroads-ism—where a Christian confesses to others his sins—his inmost, personal sins? And then the group prays for each other. How are they accountable?
Those who do not know what they are saying shouldn’t be:
And is this a wise practice? Guy N. Woods correctly wrote in Volume 1 of Questions and Answers as part of his comments on James 5:16:
Sins known only to God should be confessed only to God; sins known to one or a few, should be confessed only to the one or the few, as the case may be; public sin, sin known to all, should be confessed publicly and before the church. It is a practical rule, clearly grounded in the premises above that the confession should be as public as the sin—but not more so (212).
Amen! We do not know precisely what kind of practices are being conducted at Harding University, but we are fairly certain they will not stop lust. Professor Holloway mentioned that two of the six families that went to Mozambique were now disintegrated for reasons of lust. We might assume that these were spiritually-minded dedicated Christians who were going to a foreign country to spread the gospel.
But the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh prevailed. It might also be mentioned that pride and selfishness are also involved and that one’s emotions play a role as well. No magic formula or community to whom one must give account will stop lust from occurring. Only God and the human will can defeat it.