"Be fruitful and multiply."
Genesis 1:28 — God's first command regarding human sexualityShortly after creating Adam and Eve in His image but prior to anyone formalizing marriage as an institution, God issued the very first command regarding sexual morality. This command involved no marriage ceremony or legal contract. There was no extended period of abstinence. To the contrary: it was an affirmation of humans as sexual beings, and a commission to act on it — immediately!
Purity culture never quite explains that.
Abstinence until marriage is presented as a simple, necessary, easy-to-live, undebatable biblical truth. It isn't. Institutions never debate the subject because the theology is remarkably flimsy when honestly challenged.
⚠ Content Warning: This debate contains discussion of marital sexual coercion. The pastor being debated argues from 1 Corinthians 7:3 that a spouse has a binding sexual duty to their partner — a position that has been used to justify spousal rape. If this is a sensitive topic for you, please exercise caution before watching.
Nemeth, Scott M. vs. Pastor Gene Cook Jr. — The Narrow Mind apologetics podcast, 2009. A live debate on fornication, premarital sex, and the key proof-texts of purity culture including 1 Corinthians 6–7, Song of Solomon, and 2 Corinthians. Recorded but never published by the host.
The Text Doesn't Cooperate
Independent voices have been making this case for years. In Sexuality and Scripture, Rev. Dr. Debra W. Haffner argues that the lovers in the Song of Solomon — Scripture's most vivid celebration of human sexuality — are:
...unmarried.
Rev. Dr. Debra W. Haffner — Sexuality and Scripture, regarding the Song of SolomonHaffner, Debra W. Sexuality and Scripture. Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, 2003. Available at: huumanists.org (PDF, freely available).
"The Song of Songs is a delightfully erotic, sensual dance between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is almost by definition, a statement of a sexually healthy relationship: the lovers' desire for each other is mutual; their passion is mutual; their fulfillment is mutual. The emphasis is on passion and intimacy; there is no discussion of marriage or fertility."
Schellenberg, Annette. "The Description of Solomon's Wedding: Song 3:6-11 as a Key to the Overall Understanding of the Song of Songs." Vetus Testamentum, vol. 70, no. 1, Brill, 2020, pp. 177–200. Peer-reviewed. Schellenberg argues that the wedding in chapter 3 belongs to Solomon — a separate character used as a foil — not to the lovers themselves. The lovers are distinguished from Solomon explicitly in 8:11-12, where the woman contrasts her beloved directly with the king. This means the two lovers remain unmarried throughout the entire Song, before and after the royal wedding procession. Vetus Testamentum is one of the oldest peer-reviewed journals in Hebrew Bible scholarship.
Princeton Theological Seminary — OMSC. Commentary on Song of Solomon, 2023. Princeton's own theological commentary describes the Song as centering "on romantic love between two apparently unmarried young people" — noting that the church has long been uneasy with exactly that reading.
Scripture quotations in Haffner's paper are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
That single observation is institutional kryptonite. They'd sooner change the subject than address it. The Song of Solomon is not a solitary exception — not even close.
- The Book of Ruth — The threshing floor scene in Ruth 3 is striking. Rather than advocating the purity culture narrative of "waiting on God," Naomi instructs Ruth to lie with Boaz in the night. Biblical scholar D.R.G. Beattie of Queen's University Belfast argued that what transpired that night went well beyond a simple conversation.
- Tamar and Hagar — The lives of these women are in serious opposition to institutional purity standards.
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The New Testament proof-texts — A white paper applying AI analysis to one of purity culture's key New Testament proof-texts reveals how ambiguities are being interpreted in a biased manner — favoring institutional narratives over more textually compelling readings. The same analysis exposes how the primary word translated as fornication or sexual immorality is being stretched far beyond what the text and historical context actually support.
Nemeth, Scott M. The Fellowship of Thy LLMs. Zenodo, February 27, 2026. Preprint. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20737458
This study administered identical prompts to six major AI platforms — Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, Llama, DeepSeek, and one uncensored control — analyzing the contested biblical text of 1 Corinthians 6–7. Every platform's default output silently resolved every ambiguous term in favor of a single interpretive tradition (conservative evangelical). Every platform's steelman output produced a more textually rigorous alternative from evidence already in its training data.
63% of recommended commentaries across all platforms came from a single theological tradition, with zero social-historical scholars represented. In at least one case, the study exposed that AI content filters are used to promote a specific theological interpretation. The machine wasn't just translating. It was taking sides.
The paper is freely available at Zenodo under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Sometimes It's Just About Politics
In 1990 the newly formed Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a document called Vision and Expectations. It was created shortly after four seminarians publicly came out as gay to their candidacy committees. This document imposed a new standard on ELCA clergy. In short, married ministers were to confine sexual intimacy to marriage. Unmarried ministers were to abstain. Gay ministers would not be allowed to marry and were required to abstain permanently. A Church Council member from that period later said everyone on the Council knew the document was written to forbid the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy.
Affirming Lutherans who tracked the ELCA document's use noticed a pattern: single heterosexual candidates were sometimes removed from candidacy for sexual activity outside marriage. But there was consistent enforcement applied to those identifying as gay.
The PCUSA did something similar six years later. A moral standard had been denomination policy since 1978 but was never ratified as law — until conservatives — worried a future General Assembly could simply vote the standard away and open ordination to gay clergy — took action. They codified the standard and elevated it into the denomination's constitution. The 1996 "fidelity and chastity" amendment flatly prohibited ordaining any sexually active unmarried Presbyterian as a church officer, regardless of orientation. Ministers, elders, and deacons alike.
That is not a denomination deriving doctrine from Scripture, nor is it intended to nurture or protect the flock. It was a calculated political defense of the institution.
To be clear about where this site stands: qualified gay and lesbian ministers belong anywhere the church sends its leadership, including the pulpit and the mission field. They belong there partnered or not. Their spiritual leadership deserves the same honor as anyone else's. The argument here is not that the net caught the wrong people. It is that the net should never have been cast — and the scriptural condemnations used to justify it don't survive scrutiny.
ELCA — Vision and Expectations, October 1990 — Adopted by the ELCA Church Council. It followed the January 1990 ordinations of three openly gay and lesbian pastors by two San Francisco congregations, and traces back further to four Berkeley seminarians who came out to their candidacy committees in 1987. A first draft dealing almost entirely with homosexuality was circulated and rejected; the version that passed was built around the four questions of the Rite of Ordination and covered everything from stewardship of time and possessions to being exemplary stewards of the earth's resources. Married ministers were to give expression to sexual intimacy within a marriage relationship that is mutual, chaste, and faithful. Ministers homosexual in their self-understanding were expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships. All ordained ministers were to refrain from sexual relations outside marriage, with marriage defined as between a man and a woman.
What the Council knew — An ELCA Church Council member from that period: "I think everyone on the Church Council knew Vision and Expectations was written to forbid ordination of gay and lesbian people in the ELCA rather than about care of elderly parents or avoiding excessive spending." Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries documents that the paper was used almost exclusively until 2009 to remove gay and lesbian people from candidacy despite its many other provisions, and that while single heterosexual candidates could be and occasionally were removed for sexual activity, there was no widespread enforcement of that provision.
ELCA — the reversal — The 2009 Churchwide Assembly opened rostered ministry to people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships. In March 2019 the Conference of Bishops acknowledged that the document's application had been uneven and inequitable, and expressed regret for the times it was misused to single out, marginalize, and block people seeking to lead when their peers were not always held to the same expectations. The Church Council voted to remove it from use in 2020.
PCUSA — G-6.0106b, 1996–97 — A similar standard had been church policy but not law since 1978. In the early 1990s conservatives, fearing the 1978 Definitive Guidance could be countermanded by a future General Assembly vote, moved to make it an authoritative interpretation in 1993 and then a constitutional amendment. The 1996 General Assembly approved it 313 to 236; a majority of presbyteries ratified it the following March. The text required officers to live "either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness," and applied to deacons, elders, and ministers of the Word and Sacrament. The PCUSA's own later description: a provision flatly prohibiting the ordination of sexually active unmarried Presbyterians as church officers.
PCUSA — the reversal — Attempts to remove the clause failed at the presbytery level in 1997–98 (57–115), 2001–02 (46–127), and 2008–09 (78–95). Amendment 10-A finally succeeded in May 2011, taking effect that July — fifteen years after the standard was written into the constitution.
And Sometimes It's an HR Excuse
Ramsey Solutions is the personal finance company founded by radio personality Dave Ramsey. It is a for-profit employer of roughly a thousand people and not a religious charity. The corporation defines what it calls a "righteous living" policy that bars its employees from ever having sex outside marriage. The policy is enforced with termination of employment when infidelity or premarital sex is discovered, at least for some. The handbook grounds this in traditional Judeo-Christian values, a phrase that assumes a consensus that isn't there. Substantial and growing parts of Judaism and Christianity teach a sexual ethic built on consent, honesty, and the treatment of the other person — not on marital status.
In a March 2021 court filing, the company stated it had fired at least eight employees for premarital sex over the previous five years. One of them was Caitlin O'Connor, terminated in June 2020 a week after requesting FMLA paperwork for her maternity leave. O'Connor alleges she was fired for being pregnant. The company says she was fired for violating the policy against premarital sex and denies discriminating. In June 2025 a federal judge ruled her claims could proceed. In September 2021 a second former employee, Julie Anne Stamps, sued alleging she was terminated for being a lesbian; that case settled.
This standard creates one perverse incentive. An unmarried employee facing an unplanned pregnancy has one clear and obvious choice that keeps HR from ever finding out and preserves her income — at a company whose Christian branding apparently stops short of miraculous conception. It is the same structure a denomination uses to block ordination, running here on an at-will employment contract instead of a book of order.
As one might guess, the standard is not applied consistently. Unsealed court documents reported by Religion News Service showed Chris Hogan, a company personality with his own radio programming and multiple books, was not terminated over conduct described in those documents. Leadership arranged a restoration plan for his marriage instead.
I have watched this same spin in church after church when a ministry leader strays. The response is a sermon about the importance of restoring godly marriage and then blaming the culture. So many temptations out there. The tired logic of blaming marital infidelity on everything and everyone, from the LGBTQ community to yoga pants. Godly marriage would work if everyone else did their part to help an honorable man. A man so attractive and virile that resisting is an ongoing heroic epic. We shouldn't judge too harshly if he regrettably failed once… or twice.
Whether a man keeps his marriage vows or has a sleepover is none of my business. Whether his corporate or religious standards mean anything is. And a rule that fires an administrative assistant and bends for a company frontman isn't a Judeo-Christian value. It's a cost-cutting measure.
The policy — Ramsey Solutions, legally the Lampo Group, maintains a "Company Conduct" provision stating that the company's image is held out to be Christian and that conduct inconsistent with traditional Judeo-Christian values would damage that image, subjecting a team member to review, probation, or termination. The code of conduct incorporates the "righteous living" policy barring premarital and extramarital sex. Ramsey has said publicly that he fires people for infidelity.
The company's own count — In a March 8, 2021 filing, Ramsey Solutions stated it had fired at least eight employees for premarital sex in the prior five years in addition to Caitlin O'Connor, noting most were not pregnant at the time and that five were men. Court filings reported by The Tennessean indicated roughly a dozen employees were fired or resigned after discipline for sex outside marriage. The company argued that a private, for-profit employer may terminate for any reason so long as it is not discriminatory or retaliatory.
O'Connor v. Lampo Group — O'Connor was hired in 2016 as an administrative assistant in the IT department. She notified HR of her pregnancy and requested maternity leave paperwork; she was terminated the following week. Her suit alleges violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act and sex discrimination. A district judge initially sided with the company, then reversed on a motion to reconsider, ruling in O'Connor's favor on June 12, 2025 and allowing the case to proceed. The company denies the discrimination claims. The matter remains in litigation.
The uneven application — After a federal judge ruled in mid-2022 that redacted discovery documents could be filed without seal, Religion News Service reported from them that the standard had not been applied uniformly. Chris Hogan, a company personality with his own radio slot and multiple books, was not fired; Ramsey and other leaders arranged a restoration plan for his marriage. Depositions in the case, including testimony from the head of human resources, describe the scrutiny applied to employees' private lives.
A second suit — In September 2021, Julie Anne Stamps sued the Lampo Group alleging she was terminated for being a lesbian. The company settled that case.
The outside verdict — Inc. had named Ramsey Solutions a 2020 Best Workplaces honoree. After learning about the "righteous living" policy and how it was applied, the magazine removed the company from the list, stating the policy was incompatible with its standards of organizational excellence.
Abstinence until marriage is not a biblical mandate and never has been. It is an institutional cattle prod, used to keep the sheep inside their assigned pens. A control mechanism that manages public image at the cost of real harm to real people, and one that doesn't survive honest engagement with the text.
But how has the institution maintained it so confidently for so long? The answer lies in the careful management of language — key Greek and Hebrew words stretched well beyond their original meanings to manufacture fear and compliance.