If you're here, you're probably carrying something heavy — or concerned about someone who is. Questions? Wounds? Perhaps a sense that your faith community wasn't being entirely honest with you? Whatever brought you here, you're not alone and you're not broken for wondering.
I started this project in 2008, after my own crisis of religious deconstruction and rebuilding. For years I had been involved in singles ministries across a variety of churches. I watched up close what happened to my brothers and sisters who sincerely, desperately tried to live out heavy-handed purity dogmas. White-knuckling their way through it, trying to shoulder a millstone that was falsely presented as the righteousness of God — and devastated by shame when they failed. Many didn't make it, emotionally, spiritually, or in a couple of cases... unspeakably.
Having spent time around church leadership, I witnessed their occasional double standards. Behind closed doors, some leaders ridiculed the very people who had sincerely lived out their teachings and remained virgins. On a couple of occasions some leaders were publicly caught in affairs — scandals quietly swept out the back door by their peers. Declared healed by prayer and counseling, and never mentioned again. These were the same voices who would brand our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as abominations, and condemn those who had premarital sex.
Over the years I've managed to forgive these people. As infuriating as it was to witness, I know it wasn't their intent to cause harm — and their personal indiscretions weren't any of my business. They were genuinely generous, faithful Christians in almost all other ways, and I don't want to hold a cloud over them. This is why it's often counterintuitive for us to directly question the underlying theology of purity culture. It is usually presented by those who are sincere and carry real moral authority.
If you've struggled with or been wounded by these teachings, you are not alone. What happened to you is not your fault, and you deserve to be at peace. I try to help anyone willing to listen and open to honest conversation — even if they're convinced I'm dead wrong. Some will say I'm promoting sin. I'm not. I'm trying to prevent the kind of real harm that religious institutions are very reluctant to discuss.
I'd love to see a genuine reformation inside Christian institutions — a denomination, or even a single church brave enough to break the mold. But I'm not holding my breath, and neither should you. Institutions are allergic to looking in the mirror, and their thought leaders often seem to value scholarly opinion about the text over the text itself.
Credentialed scholars prefer talking among themselves. Christian media wants predictable, cookie-cutter narratives. Affirming churches tend to dress the theology in kid-gloves packaging that doesn't hold up for anyone seeking the backbone of God's righteousness. If you're waiting for your denomination — or your local church — to change course on any of this, they are perfectly content to let you keep waiting. And waiting.
I still believe this message is right, and that it could even help these institutions revive if they'd let it. But I'm not counting on that. The institutional ivory tower dismisses my approach as amateurish and presumptuous, just as I dismiss them as aloof and detached from their own theological derivatives.
I don't run this site for any institution's benefit, or in the hope of approval I'll never receive. They can dismiss, insult, and laugh. Neither this site nor my life runs on their approval — and neither should yours. I hold this message for individuals trying to make hard decisions about their relationships, including their relationship with their faith community.
For example:
- The young man or woman at the end of their rope after "failing" at conversion therapy.
- The friend or family member caught between their faith tradition and someone they love.
- The parent weighing whether to pull a child from sex education, or whether it's alright to let their teenager be prescribed hormonal birth control.
- The person deciding whether to walk away from a controlling faith tradition before it takes anything else from them.
- The person who has been told that marrying someone outside their faith tradition is a sin against God.
- The pastor or counselor who realizes the guidance preached from the pulpit is incomplete — or simply wrong for the unmarried Christian sitting across from them — and needs to quietly offer something better.
- Or just the person trying to understand these things more honestly.
These are the kinds of stories that sometimes reach me, and they are why this site exists — why I keep going, and why I believe this message matters. I want you to know that you matter. Your eternal soul matters more than any institution, and dare I say, more than any form of liturgy. If things aren't working for you, try something else. I have faith that God will ultimately hold these institutions and their functionaries accountable — but that is not your burden to carry today. You don't have to be crushed under their millstones to be a good and faithful servant.
"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." — Matthew 11:30