Theology in the Raw - 754: #754 - Sex, Youth Culture, Pornography, and Why the Purity Movement Didn’t Work

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

Preston has his good friend Jason Soucinek on the show to talk about all the stuff referenced in the title. Jason is an expert in sex and youth culture, along with many other related topics. They talk a lot about porn in the first part of the podcast, but then get into purity culture, purity rings, Joshua Harris, and the relationship between sex and procreation. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I will be in Indianapolis next week, September 5th. I'll be in Fort Wayne, Indiana, two weeks after that, September 16th and 17th. And then in Richmond, Virginia, September 24th and 23rd, not in that order. I'll be in New York City, September 27th and 28th. And we get more hits from our website from New York City, which is why we planned a leaders forum in New York City. So if you're in the New York City area, which I know some of you are, then you'll want to check out that event if you're interested in faith, sexuality or gender. And then we'll be in Colorado Springs, October 7th and 8th. Then I will, or sorry, eighth and ninth. And then I will be in Minneapolis a couple of times in November. If you want to attend the Indianapolis event in particular,

you will want to sign up ASAP. In fact, I'm pre-recording this intro. So hopefully by the time it is released, the event isn't sold out. Cause we do end up, there is a cap on how many people can come and it is filling up. So hopefully there's still room, but just we will let you know if there's not.

But if you do want to attend the Indianapolis event, please sign up ASAP. And along with the Fort Wayne event, if you want to attend that event, I would absolutely recommend signing up sooner than later. Hopefully by the end of the day, we still have a few more days left in our August sale of the Digital Leaders Forum. The Digital Leaders Forum is a eight-hour e-course on faith, sexuality, and gender. It includes a lot of teaching from yours truly, also a lot of interviews of LGBT Christians, other pastors working through questions of faith, sexuality and gender. I'm super excited about this resource that we released. It's great for church leaders, for pastors, for nonprofit leaders or for any Christian that really wants a comprehensive learning experience on LGBTQ related questions of faith, sexuality, and gender, which hopefully includes most Christians. I mean, these are important ethical and relational and

pastoral questions that we are wrestling with. So hopefully this course can provide you with at least some kind of foundation of getting your arms around this topic. So we are running a sale. It's for the month of August, which is just a few days left. We have the sale is $15 off of the Digital Leaders Forum. If you go to centerforfaith.com, it will pop right up. You can click on the Shop Now button and take advantage of this. I don't know what it is, like 23.5% off the retail price of $65 for the month of August. You can get it for 50 bucks. So, uh, that's centerforfaith.com. All right. My guest today is a good friend of mine, Jason, uh, Soshnik. Soshnik. He's got the hardest name to pronounce. And guess what? My good friend, I've known this

guy for a few years now, and I absolutely butchered the pronunciation of his name on the podcast. So that's, I'm going to keep it. I was going to edit it out, but I'm like, no, this is the Algen Ra. When you butcher a friend's name, the pronunciation, you just, you keep it on the episode and let people laugh at you. So that's, what's going to happen. Jason is the executive director of a awesome ministry called Project 619. Project 619 helps train people on youth culture, in particular questions regarding sex and sexuality. He's a graduate of Whitworth University. He is an incredible speaker, super smart guy, and he teaches a class on hip hop at Whitworth University. And he's a white dude, like he's a really white guy.

But he is like an expert on hip hop. It's awesome. He's an awesome dude. You're going to love this episode. We talk about all kinds of things related to sex, porn, marriage, singleness, purity culture, purity rings, Joshua Harris. And the list goes on our worlds overlap quite a bit in what we do and so he's become a good friend over the years so please welcome to the show jason sochnik All right, we're recording now.

My family just decided to fire up the Vitamix. Do you have one of those as blenders? It's like a torrential thunderstorm coming through my living room. I don't know if it's going to come through. I'm in the basement. We can wait until they get done. Nah, nah, let's just go for it. In fact, I'll probably keep all this in the podcast.

So welcome to Theology in the Raw, where Vitamixes are abounding above my head. That's not even the right word. Anyway, I am here with my good friend and ministry partner, Jason Sosnick. My good friend. You're a good one. I love that you say I'm your good friend and you can't even pronounce my name correctly. I'm here with a Christian Sprankle. That's not fair, man. Your, your name is, yeah. What is your last name? What's the,

well, first of all, how do you say it? So, Sochinex. So I would say it's Soch and then a net. At least get me off there. I usually get it right. Usually.

Yeah, you do. You, you've gotten it right. Except for on your podcast, which I appreciate. Um, all right,

let's try to recover. Um, good friend, ministry partner. We met a few years ago you came down to boise out of nowhere you just said hey want to come hang love to pick your brain we hung out all afternoon at sockeye grill and uh they grew the brew pub and i was just like, man, we see so many things. So, yeah, you run an amazing ministry, Project 619. 619, 619? 619, yeah. Tell us about, well, first of all, tell us who you are,

and then tell us about the ministry you run, and then we'll just go from there. Yeah. So I've been working around the issues of sex, sexuality and relationship for probably close to 20 years, which is absolutely crazy. This is not what I ever planned on doing. Like when I was in high school,

I never planned on growing up and talking about sex. As I'm sure you never planned on graduating from divinity school and going on and talking about LGBT. So when I was in high school, I wanted to talk about sex all the time. But yeah, that was a totally different story. Yeah.

But I have now had the privilege of engaging in these conversations now for almost 20 years. I run a nonprofit, 619, that's dedicated to working with family schools, churches. a nonprofit 619 that's dedicated to working with family schools, churches. 619 comes from Paul's exhortation to Timothy, a young disciple, to take hold of life that's truly life. And in the context of his letter to Timothy, he's saying, you know, as for the rich that you're working with, they're going to find identity in the things they own,

but their true identity, their true life is going to be lived in Christ. And it's, one, been a lifer for me, but I've also found it to be something that speaks to, you could flip the things we own for the idea of sex and its ability to be an idol in our life and even to be an identifier in our life. an idol in our life and even to be an identifier in our life. And that's why we've chosen that section of the Bible or that verse to be the project that we work on, because what we believe is that we can use sex really to be the catalyst to talk about the one that created sex, to talk about a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so you'll notice if you ever go to our website that we have series called Greater than sex or greater than porn because what we believe is that there is something there is someone that is greater than

these discussions and the thing that really shapes those discussions is going to be the relationship that we share with jesus christ so i've had the privilege of engaging in these conversations for a long period of time and uh boy have they changed over the last 20 years. I want to get into some of that. So you help both churches understand issues around sex, sexuality also, but it's almost more specifically families too, right? I mean, you do things, talking to parents, talking to youth directly, but also talking to church leaders. Would that be accurate? Yeah, very accurate. You know, it's so crazy. So, you know, just quickly breaking down our audiences. So families, I'm working most directly with parents. I'm helping parents navigate many of the questions that they have. Some of which you deal extensively with, many of which I've

had to engage like pornography, even just the simple conversations, not really simple, but the conversation around sex. Like what is it? How do we define it? When do we start that conversation? Some of those things. And so we really believe that the parents should be the authority on this subject, that parents should be communicating their value to their children at a very young age. How young? What does that mean? um how young what does that mean well i always say it starts as soon as they come out of the womb with the way that you're engaging them talking to them modeling the christian faith uh that you're not really talking about sex until much later but you're really communicating how you walk out your faith from a very young age your kids are soaking it in so when you start the conversation around

sex, well, they've already been paying attention to every other aspect that influences how we see practice engage that one topic. And something just as simple as the anatomy of our body. Kids start looking at their body in different ways around three and four and five. They're, they're, they're, they're recognizing, Oh, I'm different than, than my sister. I'm different than my brother. What is that? And a lot of times what we've done, especially in Christian homes is we've, you know, we've called it a woo woo or a wee wee. You know, we, we don't want to use the, the, the technical terms that they're going to learn in school,

which is penis and vagina. And you know, technical terms that they're going to learn in school, which is penis and vagina. And, you know, just many other terms. Yeah. But here's, but, but like when they go to school, one of the things that you learn in anatomy class is that that is what that is. And so when I say speak authority with authority, it's saying, you know, here are the things you're going to learn in school. Let me teach you. And then also include my values or our values as a family, as we're engaging with what is going to be taught at a later age. So that way, when they go to school, it's like, Oh, my parents already taught me this. Oh, my parents already. So, so you've stolen any sort of authority, the school or anyone outside of your home has. I've often said, and maybe I got this from you that your kids will typically view as most

authoritative whom, who they hear about this from first. So if they're five years old, they're learning from their friends, maybe a teacher or 10 years old. And then if the parent comes in at 13 and starts to say, Hey, now let's have the sex talk for the first time we're talking about this. They will view as authoritative. They will, they will filter the what the parent is saying through the lens of what they're hearing from their first exposure rather than vice versa. Is that inaccurate?

That's exactly right. But I will say this, we should never minimize a parent's voice. I mean, this might sound bad. No matter how bad of a parent you might be, it's never too late to share your value. I always want to make sure that that's very clear because the data has changed a little bit over the years, but a parent's voice is still incredibly influential. And that doesn't matter if you've been a really bad parent and then you start sharing your value at a later time in life, you've realized that and you want to change things or if you've been a really good parent, but you just haven't really engaged this one subject. if you've been a really good parent, but you just haven't really engaged this one subject. This is something that teens want to hear. The story I often share is I didn't know my parents value until I was 21. And it was over a conversation. My parents had divorced. My mom

was making a dinner for another man that she was dating. And as she was making her meal, I'm there just hanging out with my mom. And my mom asked me, have you ever been intimate with a woman? And I'm like, mom, are you asking if I've had sex? I'm like, why can't you just ask me this? But my mom had never had that conversation with me. But lesser so, it was an influential moment in my life. From 16 to 21, I was sexually active and made a choice to start over. And that was one of two conversations that I had

that were tremendously influential in my life and ultimately having me recommit my life to the Lord. And so that's why I always say, parents, your voice matters. And it doesn't matter the age of your children when you share that value. So better late than never, but best case scenario start is early. Yes. Be the first one to be talking about these things. Totally. Yeah. And so we can go into more details of that. The other two things that we then do. So outside of families, we work with schools. So we're working to be a part of the overall comprehensive approach that a school district takes. We're just a supplemental. We fit into that approach. Um, we, uh,

essentially have four to five days within a two to three week program that schools use within sex education or human growth and development. The largest section, largest section is in ninth grade, most typically, at least in Washington state. Most states, it's ninth or 10th grade that students are getting their largest portion of human growth and development. And so we've developed a program that allows for us to come in, speak about the benefits of sexual integrity, waiting until you're married. we call it sexual integrity. The way we define it is choosing to be in a mutually faithful monogamous

lifetime relationship, usually called marriage. That's what we point to. But what we're doing is we're talking about pornography. We're talking about choices. We're talking about goals. The crazy thing is, and we've done this in multiple states, multiple economic situations, there's still a high rate of students that want to get married at some point in their life. Now, you know, we asked the question, you know, in 10 years, and you know, 10 years ago, we'd ask a student and say, you know, 10 years, what do you think you're gonna be doing? And many of them would say get married. Today, it's more like 15 or 20 years from the time that we're speaking and they're 15 average age for most men is around 28 29 when they marry um it's getting it's continuing to rise but what we find is that that is a goal so then like what can we do to get

to that goal like what are things that positively influence that goal? And the way we enter relationships influence that goal. The way we allow things into our mind. So, like, pornography. Pornography has an impact on relationship. This is just something that we know through a lot of science and data. So, we have this privilege. Everything you're saying right now is what you say in a public school setting.

Yeah, public school setting. Yeah. So, we're not sharing faith. We're simply going in and sharing the data and letting students parse through it and make a decision that allows for them to take responsibility for their sexual health. That's what we're trying to do.

Do you find that students, okay, so I want to go into like teenagers and sex in 2019 and beyond. Yeah. What's the, like, are students completely turned off or are they at what you're saying or are they a little bit intrigued or are they much more attracted to it than maybe people might realize um like are they attracted the conversation around sex no they attracted to a monog uh waiting to marriage and seeing the benefits of that? Or what's the response when you

talk? What's the spectrum of responses you typically get? Yeah, so typically, you're going to get a large percentage of people that have recognized that you're going to give an abstinence message. That's what we get labeled in, or, you know, put in the box of, or some students, if they have a faith background would say purity. And we say we're neither of those because that's just not the way that we engage. We are, our programs, we, the language we use both in the church and in the school is sexual integrity. Uh, and I think the reception that we often get is one of skepticism, um, because they're so used to, they, they think that it's going to be one of shame. They think it's going to be one of pointing down. And one of the things that I've really worked hard

with our speakers and our team and the people that go into the schools is we start by saying, listen, you have room to disagree. We want you to disagree. We want you to voice your disagreements. So that right off the bat gives them the place to be like pointing the finger, like this is bad or whatever. But what it does is what we're doing is empowering them and challenging them to engage the material. And what we find is, and then we also challenged them to say, it's up to you to take responsibility for your sexual health, regardless of what you decide, because not everyone in this room is going to decide the very thing that we're

talking about. And we say that that's okay. Our number one priority is that you take responsibility for your sexual health. So here's what ends up happening. We've, we've very rarely had someone that started out and was making fun of us at the end, making fun of us or making fun of us at the beginning, making fun of us at the end. They, they, they actually found something within it that challenged them, that allowed for them to engage, that allowed for them to take responsibility. We've had numerous individuals that have come up to us afterwards that, uh, we're a mandatory reporting state,

but have told us that they've been raped or abused and it's impacted the way that they see their sexuality. And so, you know, having the opportunity to go to a counselor and, and, and work with a school counselor or, or, you know, or other students that say, we've, I've just never heard anything like this. I didn't know that this is a choice you could make. So, you so you know what what are the steps that I need to make to make sure you know and it's just really fascinating so um I think it starts with skepticism and I think it it ends oftentimes with many students being optimistic okay because it stands out and we have

purposely put ourselves up against like condoms contrac contraceptives, all the, you know, the, the other material that you might, um, have. That's, that's, uh, I don't know the right way to say it, but it might be more progressive. It might be more liberal. It might be, um, and students always rank our stuff higher. Really? And it's really fascinating. So I think it always starts with skepticism. I think it moves to a place of optimism or empowerment how are you allowed to do that who who what secular let's have like a christian principal or something what school would want you to come in um and do this i mean is it i'd actually flip the question to say what school wouldn't want us to do this i mean like like well let's think what schools are supposed to be yeah i agree maybe i'm just more pessimistic about the state well uh uh i always say what school wouldn't want us to have

it because um my my belief is that when a student has full knowledge they're fully empowered like i i'm i'm not uh someone someone that is going to rally against comprehensive sex ed. Now there are moments and things within comprehensive sex ed that I am definitely 100% against or I abhor. Like, I don't think that it should be a part of it. But there, there are many things that just the idea of like, let's speak in the entirety. So, um, some of your listeners might know of the, the, the conversations around absence or absence plus, you know, education. Um, but for a majority of America, like it really is comprehensive where, where a student is learning the fullness and the breadth of education. And, and I, and I think that's true, should be true with all of education. If they

really kind of understand both sides, understand, uh uh conversations or points they have what i've found is that when the conversation is really honest and vulnerable and and gives them really good information based on the facts students often land in the healthiest and safest place right oftentimes now you're going to have your French students that are going to land somewhere else. But I would say, or at least I've witnessed that when we're pitted against multiple different messages, but there's a vastness of information that we actually have seen students be

empowered to make decisions similar to the ones that we're talking about. Tell us about the state of teenagers and sex. Obviously we can't even talk about that without talking about porn. How many kids are on porn these days? I mean, is it 90% and 10% are lying or is it, what's the. Well, I don't know. The smartphone is, is gotta be one of the

most culturally significant and potentially destructive things ever created and we're giving 13 year old kids access to the world i mean obviously porn's part of that but it's much more than that but i don't i don't know about you but if i had a smartphone when i was a teenager i never would have left my room i mean oh totally like i don't yeah i mean i just remember playing sega genesis and final fantasy i mean like and then staying up until like four in the morning like like um yeah what's crazy as a side note i don't know if you ever uh grew up with video games, but in high school, the game that was really popular was Myst. I don't know if you ever, but anyways, so our offices now exist in the very building where Myst and Riven, these games that you played on your computer that took and stole many hours of my teenage years. I'm now in the basement of no way i don't know what that

symbolizes but whatever um well yeah so the porn let's just call it an epidemic would you call it an epidemic or give us a real few minute kind of yeah on on teenagers and and porn right now so let me start with this so uh the average age of first exposure to pornography used to be 12 or 13. That historically is always what it's been. And that makes a lot of sense. Before the internet? your body is preparing or has gone through puberty. It's the age at which there's more arousal. There's more questions. There's more curiosity. And one of the things that would happen to around 12 or 13, you're having a lot more freedom. You know, I remember at 12 and 13, going over to friends' houses, and that was also an age where they were left alone in the home. And so what would they do? They would seek out their father's playboys.

Or I remember I first saw a playboy because I was walking down an alley on my way home from school and it was like sitting out of the trash. Or I remember in fourth grade, I remember, I won't give his last name, but Robert brought a playboy to school and it was madonna and we're in the corner looking at it like that was that was how pornography spread um but that's just not how it is today because the only way we ever saw any story and and if you want to compare that to what kids are viewing today, it's on a whole different scale. It's gone from like someone in a swimsuit to someone like having a sex act.

Like it is absolutely crazy at what pornography is today versus what it was then and what we were exposed to at the very early stages. exposed to at the very early stages. So today, the average age of first exposure is 11 years old, which is directly linked to the average age at which a son or daughter gets a smartphone. So the average age at which someone gets a smartphone now, a child, is 11 years old. Is it really? The average age at which someone is first exposed to a child is 11 years old. The average age at which someone is first exposed to pornography now is 11 years old. There's not a lot of data or I guess I should say studies that have shown this, but the correlation is there. The causation is there. And you're just

seeing an explosion of data that is saying that kids are being exposed to it at a younger and younger age, and the exposure rates or the rates at which they habitually look at it are continuing to rise. So if I look at, if I parse through the data over the last 10 to 15 years, what teenagers are looking at and how much they're looking at it has grown. Now, from one study to the next, it kind of goes all over the place. But this is what I often say to students. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And most likely, when I'm in a school and I'm speaking to ninth graders, I would say 90% of them have seen it. Now, I would probably guess 30% to 40%, maybe, maybe it'd be a little bit lower, are actively or habitually looking at it.

And I always want to say this, especially when I'm speaking about this to Christians. One of the things that happens in the church is with this one subject, we often talk about it being an addiction when the reality is it's only habitual. Like addiction, they have no control over. A majority of Christians, the ones that I speak to in churches, many of them, they have control over this. This is not something that controls them. If it controls them, that's an addiction. If it's something that they can have control of, it's a, it's a habitual habit. Can you give some step? What habitual is that? Like

once a week, I slipped up, looked at porn once a month or once a day, but I don't know if it's that as much as control. Like, do you have control over it? I mean, I think if you're looking at it once a month, it's habitual. Like there's some sort of control you have over it. I mean, I think if you're looking at it once a month, it's habitual. There's some sort of control you have over it. But if it's like, I have known and met individuals that it's like they've got to look at it in the morning before they go to work. They've got to look at it at lunch

during their break. They've got to look at it when they get home, and they've got to look at it before they ever make love to their wife. It has deep-seated control. that i would say is an addiction is it chemically addictive like tobacco alcohol drug you know cocaine or whatever it's it's your brain so rewired that you can't function most definitely i mean the the the stuff that you would look at the science around it uh would, would, would point to it being as addictive

as a drug. It, uh, the way in which your, your brain essentially rewires the more and more you look at pornography. Uh, so it rewires the way we think about others. It rewires the way we think about sex. It rewires the way we engage one another. Uh, and today pornography is much more violent. I there's, uh, I mean, we could go on for a long time on this, but let's just look at one area. There has been an increase in sexual or dating violence, dating assault, sexual assault in the high school. Like it is, it is increased exponentially. It's happened as well at the college level. I think it's now one in three women at the college level, maybe one in four are sexually assaulted. And most oftentimes it's by someone they know. And I actually think that has a lot to do with pornography because pornography today is incredibly violent. Everyone that is looking at, and I don't exactly know how you study this, except if you just watch it over and over, but all of the studies that I've looked at have shown that it, over these last several years too,

as the rate at which young people are looking at it, it's also gotten a lot more violent. And what have you seen? You've seen dating violence becoming more and more of an issue. 10 years ago when I was in the classroom, I never had to talk about pornography or I didn't talk about pornography. And I never talked about like sexual coercion or sexual assault or consent. Like those were never things that were something we taught. Now, did we need to teach it? That's up for debate. But four or five years ago, we were one of the first programs that said we've got to engage in this.

Like we've, we've got to start talking about these things because one pornography is influencing this. And if we can get to pornography, then we can maybe stop some of this and if we can talk about sexual coercion and sexual assault uh we can actually yeah maybe see a turn what's really interesting and you know this too but we've even we've gotten some flack for this but we've talked about like what it means to be uh to have courtesy to be a gentleman, to, to like, and the data actually would show that by teaching manners, it actually, uh, helps decrease any sort of assault or, uh, coercion

or any of those things, because women learn how to say no men know how to be gentlemen. They, they, they like to hear the no and to respond and say, okay, that means no. I'm responding because that's what they have said, that that is not something they want. I've gotten in a lot of trouble for that. Have you really? Oh, yeah. It doesn't surprise me. Leonard Sachs, you know Leonard Sachs?

He talks a lot. Yeah, he talks about it. Yeah, even when I read it from him i'm like whoa can you say that you know but it's like and he's not being prudish or even really very conservative but just like gosh like yeah that teach ladies to be ladies and men to be gentlemen and and respect women and yeah women to allow men to be men and and he doesn't overplay it like in some maybe conservative context where it's like you know women shouldn't drive cars or whatever and it gets really patriarchal and he's not totally nothing like that showing a decent respect of another human

being and also honoring and celebrating the differences between human beings um i i see it as empowering i just what i think it's just shocking to me how on the one hand our society is very progressive in terms of being anti-patriarchal or maybe not being but like the the preaching against misogyny and against patriarchy and and all these things and yet that same the same voices that would be the loudest there don't seem to be like condemning porn as much as it should like porn is it doesn't porn isn't it just profoundly misogynistic is it or is that like maybe maybe i you're asking me as if I watch it all the time.

High school days when you have the video set or whatever. But I mean, it's like, this was all about men getting their pleasure off of a, the woman was an object of, of pleasure. She always said, you know, it's like, and if you're saying that it's gotten way more violent, I'm assuming it's not violent towards men. It's probably violence towards women. How are we so – or is that – would that be an accurate – Well, I think it's – I do think it's a little – I actually don't know exactly how much it is towards men,

but it most definitely is towards women. Yeah. So, I mean, it's just training men to treat women in a much more misogynistic – Most definitely. – seem like, misogynistic most definitely seem like right yeah most definitely but i i will say this because historically the issue with porn has always been a male man issue yeah but one of the the fastest growing group of individuals that are looking at pornography are women really women i think, I think, ages 18 to 25. That's valid? Yeah.

What's the percentage? From what I can see. Give me some, do you have any off the top of your head data on maybe the age group and percentage of men versus women using porn? Well, it is still vastly different. I mean, there is still quite a bit of a gap. I think men, once you get past 18, uh, you're, you're looking at men, I'm going to say conservatively, conservatively, it's probably

60 to 70%. Habitually? Habitually or yeah, I don't, I don't know how that data would, would look. I, I mean, I, I'm thinking of like six different things right now as i as i say that so that that actually might even be a little bit higher than i then than it might be but but then let's say though for women it's like 20 to 30 so it's about half of what men are doing i would it's probably a better way of saying that um that's still a lot i think a third of every three women you see on the streets is yeah one out of four and i also think it's now i don't have a lot of information around this i've just this is what i've observed but i also think it's changed dating behavior i think it's changed the way in which uh men and women interact when it comes to a romantic relationship.

Because I think you could argue whether this is good or bad, but I think it's caused women to be much more aggressive in the dating and romantic relationship. I think it's caused men to be a little bit more passive. You know, what's crazy, gosh, I mean, we could even move into how this has impacted the romantic aspect. Aziz Anasari wrote a great book called Modern Romance that looked at a lot of the dating rituals and habits of millennials. influential I believe the internet and social media and specifically pornography have been in those uh behaviors because what what and what's ending up happening is uh you're you're you're finding that that women have become have had to become more and more um out there aggressive like asking for what they want because men just haven't done it. Abdicated, abdicated, and just not engaged in some of those, those, uh, those, uh, areas.

Well, that Mark, Mark Regnerus, I was looking at a book, uh, cheap. Yeah. Have you read cheap sex? No, no, I haven't. Oh, it's, it's, it's, it's exactly what you're saying. He said, I mean, in the wake of, and what I like about Mark, I think he's a conservative catholic but it's not a he doesn't he's a sociologist and he doesn't project his faith upon his sociology as far as i can tell but yeah so he just speak he's speaking to a you know a secular audience and he just said yeah in the wake of internet and porn you know um guys are no long guys that want to have sex in

the past have had to do kind of romantic relational things to get that like there were hurdles or you know women were the gatekeepers of sex and if if i know it's stereotype but it's the stereotypes are generally true right that um if a a woman is going to prefer sex in the context of some kind of relational environment whereas a guy is way less needing of that typically um in the past a guy would have to do all the relational stuff that the wooing the taking on a date whatever to get sex and what he's what he said and again this is just kind of from the sociological data um now if a guy doesn't get what he wants he can just go home and watch porn and it's going to be in some sense sensor sensory sensor how do you how would you adjective adverb that anyway his senses are going to be almost more satisfied

by going home and getting bored so it's like he's because that's how he's trained his brain yeah so he's making and plus even if he does get her in bed she's probably not gonna do half the things that or can do that he's gonna see on so he's way less motivated so he's gonna go and he's like you know you're gonna go down on me or not you know okay fine i'm if not then i'm gonna go home and do my thing and so girls girls are are seeing that so for it is again this is just from the sociological data in order to get the relationship it's almost like it's flipped around that um even even the the percentage of of teenage girls giving oral sex yes off the chart where it's almost like giving somebody a hug now at parties and stuff it's just not even considered even a

sex act but it's like well that's what i have to do to get any kind of attention. Because the guys are like, hey, take it or leave it. If not, I'll just go find it somewhere else. Yeah. And he said it's just, it's the ripple effects of how that bleeds into relationships, marriages, sexual relationships, romantic relationships. It's just, it's hard to even foresee the long-term ramifications of it. Oh, most definitely. I'll just give you one piece of information that I've learned that I think speaks to that very truth, is that by the time most boys turn 18, most men turn 18,

they've spent 10,000 hours alone either on the computer, their smartphone, or watching TV, all of which is alone i mean think about like what kind of social norms that creates what was that ten thousand hours yeah ten thousand hours isn't that i mean it's crazy if that data is true that speaks to the very truth that you're now talking about and i actually think it is because it just, it looks dramatically. I never would have thought. So we're starting to have this conversation around dating at the collegiate level. And dating overall is an issue. Whether you go to a Christian university or you go to a secular university,

there are still some core parts that are playing out. Now, Christian university, you've got purity culture. secular university, you've got the hookup culture, but there's still some core things that, that they're, they're wanting to address. And I actually think pornography and other issues, uh, the, the 10,000 hours, I think all of that influences those conversations and, and students want to talk about it because they want to know hours of porn watching necessarily, or 10,000 hours of porn watching necessarily. Or 10,000 hours alone for, you know, it's not all porn. But it could be video games, a lot of it's video games.

But if you're alone in front of a screen for that long, it's, I would conservatively get a high percentage of that is porn viewing. Yeah, I mean, I would probably gather that a lot higher percentage would probably be video games. But think of the content of some of the video games they're playing. I mean, some of the video games they're playing, I mean, if you're thinking of grand theft auto, let's just use that as one example,

very popular game, but how are they treating women? It's like, it's very misogynistic. It's like, and then they're murdering and killing. And I mean, they're, they're treating individuals as less than, and so that, that does have an impact. Are they having sex in Grand Theft Auto? Do they? Oh yeah. Really? Yeah. Oh yeah. Like they, I mean, they, they can hook up, like they, they can pay a prostitute and I mean, they get, it's. Has that hit the virtual reality yet? mean is that with vr vr

sex i mean is that being i don't know i i i i would say that it's it's i think we could look to japan to see how that's influencing it if it is i mean japan where japan's at is probably where we'll be in the next several years and you and and I have talked about this, like the idea, you know, the next big hurdle the church is probably going to have to tackle is sex with robots. So, I mean, which is absolutely fascinating. That's just how far the culture has gone. Given the trajectory of technology and societies,

you have sex by, by 2050 more people would be having sex with robots and with other human beings. Yeah. And that says like, no way, whatever. I go, okay. As long unless technology stops developing at the rate that it's going, there's no evidence that it's like going to like plateau or, you know, and is porn use getting less or more well everybody's gonna say well no technology is gonna keep developing porn use is getting more so just marry those two like if those two trajectories keep going they say by 2025

uh there will be a growing number of typically wealthy households home and families necessarily but but homes that have that will start buying um uh sex robots 2025 because by then the technology will be getting so good real it'll drop down the affordability because right now you can buy a sex robot i think it's i mean it's really expensive i've looked into it. Well, Houston's one of the first cities to open a sex bot brothel. Yeah. Like they're, they're, they're trying,

I don't know if it was successful. I think there was some legal ramifications or legal battles around it. But if you don't think this is real, just look at Houston. There's already an international conference every year. They're in their fourth year now, an international conference of sex with robots. If they meet every i didn't know about that i can check that out just they just had one last month and we'd have academic papers that come out of it and stuff

and like the pros and cons well i mean it's it is i'm thankful that there are several secular voices they're saying this might not be good for us, you know, like relationships, how it again, again, and again, objectifies women. I don't encourage my audience to Google too hard. But I mean, yeah, this is it is creating the fantasy of most, you know men and, and making this, this robot to kind of as a projection of that fantasy. And what's that going to do to how women view themselves and how men view? It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty insane. Let's, I got one more question on the porn thing,

then we can leave it alone. Is there a big difference between non-Christian and Christian use of porn? I've often heard that the percentages, whatever data you look at, it's not too different inside and outside the church. Have you seen, can you confirm or correct that? Yeah, I would like those that are viewing pornography. I've not seen anything that's different. Really? I've seen from what I can tell and what I've seen,

the data looks pretty similar. But I will say this. I actually think pornography, how it impacts a Christian versus someone who is not, I actually think that that's where you've got to look closely. You've got to look closely. I think that pornography, because of the way we've talked about sex and the way many men and women have grown up around the purity culture, there is a great deal of shame. And yeah, there's a great deal of shame that ends up being a part of this conversation. It's really fascinating. You know, one of the big things that happens in churches are these accountability groups like let's get an accountability group and the most common topic that would when i was in an accountability group was porn everyone was struggling with porn and first of all i always find it fascinating that you're in an accountability group with everyone else that's struggling with the same exact thing but whatever like it's another conversation but what was funny is that everyone would just have this talk.

There would be a slap on the wrist and say, okay, don't do it anymore. But there is this overwhelming sense of shame. And shame communicates this idea of I am a mistake versus I made a mistake. a mistake. And there's this propensity, I think, within the evangelical Christian culture that we do more looking to the thing that we don't want to do than to the very thing that we want to do. And oftentimes these accountability groups exist because what we're wanting to do is grow in our faith in Christ. But the truth is, is we spend more time focusing on the thing that we don't want to do, which is look at pornography. And I think that's a huge hurdle, a huge opportunity. I think it's a huge need to be able to start changing the paradigm of the conversation because we have so many church members.

And I think church members that are leaving the church because they don't know and have not been taught any other way except don't do it. they don't know and have not been taught any other way except don't do it yeah they've not been taught let's fundamentally change this and change the paradigm so that we're looking at the thing that we want to do which is growing our relationship with christ let's okay let's trans that's a good segue um you you i i don't know if it's still listening to your website or maybe on some material material you have that you say very boldly we are not a purity movement and you've even alluded to that saying you know you talk about sexual integrity not sexual purity so let's just go into the whole purity movement thing and i eventually want to talk about um joshua harris he was on my podcast six months ago and obviously there's been some changes in his life. Why do you say you're not a purity

movement? You're teaching kids to be, especially when you're in churches, to be sexually faithful, to be pure before marriage. What is it about the purity movement that you want to distance yourself from? Yeah. So purity and abstinence, I really shy shy away from but i shy away from them not because i i disagree with the heart of what's trying to be accomplished it's typically though the way in which they go about trying to accomplish that very heart issue so uh when i so i recommitted my life to lord at 21 one of the things the Lord just really clearly spoke to me was I really needed to spend time in Scripture, really trying to expose myself to this faith that I really had not exposed myself to any more than just through going to youth group and showing up at church. I just really hadn't read the Bible. And one of the things that was really clear to me was,

um, or, well, this is probably more something I wanted to do, but as I was going through scripture, I really wanted to know is like choosing to wait until marriage, even a thing in scripture. Like, is this just something that like people, cause it never, no one ever told me why no one really dived into scripture. No one really, uh, gave a theological argument for why we wait until marriage. It just was felt like it was always like the dare program, just say no. And we all know how well that worked. And so, um, I, that worked. And so, um, I, I, um, sat out to really look at what scripture had said just for my own life, not for anything else. But in that time too, I started reading all these books on purity and abstinence. And, and what I found was there was just, it was all about rules and regulations. It was about managing my sin more than, more than the grace that's extended through Christ.

The focus also was almost entirely on my genitalia. It was like, what not to do with my genitalia until I said the words I do. And then it gave me instructions for what I could do in the marriage relationship. So for me, I just felt like we're missing out on what I believe is a bigger picture. I believe that the reason we use sexual integrity is because integrity comes from the word integer, which is whole. And we really believe sex is something that's, that includes much more than your genitalia. When you look at scripture, even when you look at when it's first mentioned in scripture, the Hebrew, uh, way of it speaking about sex was, uh, it says in Genesis four, one, Adam knew Eve, right? Um, now some translations start have started using made love to Eve and, um, but, but the word, the Hebrew word is Yadah and, uh, Yadah, uh, is, uh, no, like it's

to deeply note to, to like mind, body, soul, spirit. And, and I always find that so fascinating. Like, why is it a relational word that's used for sex? Well, I think the very short, which really needs a much more extended answer, is that it's not just our genitalia. It's about the way we truly know someone. There was a professor of the school that I graduated from. I graduated from Whitworth University who said, you're not really going to know what real sex is until seven years into your marriage. I mean, just for a moment, I just want to have our, your listeners think about that. Like you're not really going to know what's real sex is until seven years in your marriage. And even being single, like that was profound because like, think about what you go through

in seven years. On average, you've, you've typically gotten to know the person quite well all the things that you like fell in love with are also maybe some of the things that are absolutely driving you insane um the the uh you're you've probably had a child or two that's typically what happens in those first seven years so you've done life like you've done great life and you've done the, the crappy parts of life. And I actually think that, um, in that you get to know someone. And I think that that's why, um, we, uh, have to speak about sex in a way that's much more than just genitalia. So we refrain from purity and abstinence, mostly because we wanted to get away from the rules and regulations. We wanted to get to the heart change. We wanted to get to the place where really, if we're going

to follow what we find in scripture, if we're really going to look at God's grand design as a sex maker and really follow that design, well, I think it has to be a heart change first, not a like mind change that leads to following rules like that that only lasts for a good period of time until finally we can't do it anymore the only way we really follow what we find in scripture is there has to be a holy change i always say holy and like holy you're like set apart but holy w-h-o-l. Like where it's, it's impacted and intruded every part of your body. Like it really is a part of your entire existence. And, and that's what sexual integrity is where it like,

it flows out of the essence of who you are because of your identity in Christ. What is, what is the purity movement? When people talk about the purity movement, purity culture, like where did that come from? And what are some of the negative effects results of that movement that you've seen? Yeah, so the purity movement kind of started in the early 80s. It really kind of started more as a thing that was happening in the schools in the south and um through some federal funding and some other stuff that you really it was kind of through some welfare um reformation stuff and it really got its big

kickoff um through the clinton administration which is really interesting but there's a whole lot of stuff that we could go into there that we won't but um the biggest the biggest explosion of the purity movement really probably happened with a true love weights campaign. Um, so the true love weights campaign, Josh McDowell, um, it became this thing where you signed a pledge card, you got a purity ring and you went, uh, they also then went to the, to DC and I think they, they put crosses down and it was like a pledge that they were going to choose to wait until they were married. Uh, and then it was right around that same time that just a number of other movements, uh, purity movements started purity riders started. So that's where Joshua

Harris, um, uh, right around that time, uh, was becoming popular. He, where he, uh, kissed dating goodbye. And then, um, you also had silver ring thing, which is a campaign to, uh, go around and do these lively, uh, concerts and conferences and, conferences and maybe not concert, but events, assemblies that got kids to put on purity rings and say they're going to wait until they're married. And it was just this movement that was trying to instill a moral, what I believe is a good moral decision, but it just was all about rules and regulations and less about the relationship with Jesus. It was a lot about virginity. That's probably the easier way to say it was, it was really about holding onto your virginity. I, and for me, I always cringed because I was, I was someone who'd already had sex, but was starting over.

And there just wasn't a lot of place for me. And I knew I was not an anomaly. Like I knew that I was not someone in the church. And so I always have thought like, what do you do with that? And there just weren't a lot of answers for that. And that's where we have kind of gone. But with regards to how it started, that was really kind of the crux of where it began. And then it became profitable because federal funding started kicking in.

The church really started promoting a lot of these different groups, and it just became a cash cow. I don't know any other way of saying it other than people, I think with the right intention, but, um, what, with some, some, uh, definitely monetary motive too, uh, we're able to start having these conversations, uh, around the purity movement and, you know, I, I, not all of it was bad. I, I, I want to be careful though, too, as a sexual, like when I say sexual integrity, I don't want to

overcompensate or overcorrect for what it did I actually think there's some really good things the purity movement did that we should not overlook yeah so I yeah in I've talked about I think when Josh was on my podcast I think I talked about it but I was never really that I don't really remember it the purity movement it's more like looking back and people talk about that like oh yeah I do remember that book or I guess I didn't remember that but I wasn't I feel like I was never a product of it nor did I experience some of the fallout but looking on from the outside at first when I kept hearing critiques of the purity of me I would say maybe

maybe eight or ten years ago when i was teaching i think at cedarville university when some professors were would kind of talk about the negative fallout of the purity movement i was kind of like what's wrong with that isn't that a good thing you know but the more i thought about some of their critiques i was like oh yeah that's yeah that's not good so um i mean obvious hopefully it's obvious, sexual, well, like not having sex until you're married is a good thing. We're not advocating for sex outside of marriage. We're not diminishing the profound importance of sexual integrity and the destructiveness of sexual immorality. integrity and the destructiveness of sexual immorality.

Like the Bible speaks really, I would say clearly and, and, and, and aggressively really against sexual immorality. But what, so what are, so affirming that, affirming that, yes, God calls us to have sex within the context of marriage. What are some of the negative things that you've experienced? Maybe unintentional things that have happened within that movement that have not been helpful. I think what, so let me point to one very important thing. I think that what the purity movement oftentimes missed,

which is so surprising is it used a lot of analogies and not a lot of scripture i think that they use scripture but they also then used a lot of analogy um and i think that that then lessened like i don't remember a lot of scripture per se like scripture like hebrews 13 4 would kind of be brought up you know let the don't let the marriage bed be defiled and uh it was just one-offs and it was used to make a point around a rule or regulation rather than allowing the scripture to speak the truth or allowing your faith in christ to be the thing that led to how you engage scripture and ultimately then led a life that was not sexually immoral. Um, it was kind of the, the idea of getting the, um, cart before the horse rather than the horse leading the cart. Uh, and I think that that's what's led to a lot of shame. So,

so one example would be, uh, Elizabeth, um, smart, who you might remember from being, uh, she was abducted when she was 12 years old from her home in Utah. Um, uh, she's the LDS Mormon, uh, and was then found several months later in, um, the woods just directly, I think, behind her house or pretty close to her house and, uh, was raped, uh, and, uh and but was brought back. And she was talking about how she grew up in this purity culture. She grew up in this conversation around abstinence. And she said, you know, when I was younger, they used to use this analogy that sex is like a piece of gum.

And when you chew that piece of gum, that's like you having sex. And then once you've had sex, who else is going to want to chew that piece of gum? So essentially saying that you're a chewed up piece of gum if you've had sex, not realizing that that analogy could impact someone that was abused or raped. Wow. that was abused or raped. Wow. So that was what was stuck with her.

It wasn't scripture. It wasn't something that was an identifier like her relationship with Christ. It was this piece of gum. And I think that what happened early on in the movement is there were a lot of analogy like this. You take a pink piece of paper and a blue piece of paper and they're cut out like a heart and you glue them together and you let it settle. And then you try to take it apart. And what happens while you leave pieces of the heart and okay. Like when

you're 12, that might be fine. But if that's the analogy that's left with you when you're 25 and you don't have any sort of tools to really engage the sexual frustration or sexual arousal that you have at 25, because it's totally different than when you were 12, then what are you going to do? And my thought, the biggest failure was that we didn't give students the tools to really dive into scripture well, to look at the Bible and allow the Bible to be the guide, the very thing that was going to be unchanging. Now, we all know that at 12, you might read a verse and it speaks to you one way. And at 25, you might read a verse and it speaks to you another way. And at 40, you might read the same

verse and it speaks to you another way. Well, that's just the essence of what scripture is. But what we find is that the words have not changed. Now, a few translations might look a little bit different, but the core words have not changed, right? Analogies, they'll change. And they don't speak to you the same way at 12 and 25. And I think that that's where the failure of the purity movement came in. And I think that that's what's led to a lot of shame. I think that we-

That's the biggest piece, right? The shame piece. Totally. Because, because what we did is all these rules led to your identity being in that you were a virgin or you were not having sex. But what happens if you had sex? What happens if you were no longer a virgin? Well, your very identity was stolen from you. The foundation of what you believed in crumbled. So what do you do? You believe you're a mistake rather than you just made a mistake, right? Because guilt is I made a mistake. Shame is I am a mistake. this, uh, effort to really help individuals manage not just, uh,

before, but also what, what you need to do. If something after happens, I think the other thing too, this kind of goes along with the analogy piece, but, um, I think we just had a prosperity sexual gospel. Yeah. And there was a lot of like my smoking hot wife and my uh like if you choose to wait to have sex until you're married you're gonna see new colors right like it was it was just like uh obscene stuff that just is not true yeah the truth is is we have christians that get married and they have horrible sexual lives the first year because they just like, it's confusing. They don't know what to do. They also have been told all their life that

no, no, no, no. And then all of a sudden you say, I do. And you can have sex as much as you want. And it's yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, your brain doesn't just flip on like that. And we don't do a lot of training with that. So there is just all these different things that I think that we set a generation up for failure rather than helping them achieve the very thing which we wanted them to do, which was to live sexually immoral lives. I hope that people don't ever use that phrase. Look at my smoking hot wife. It still gets used.

I'm telling you. It's so awkward. It like i know i've seen guys do that you know typically they're i mean young hipster you know whatever former driscoll disciples i don't know but like i want to welcome my stage my smoking hot wife and then everybody in the audience especially the guys are like yeah she is Or what do you smoke? You're smoking something, man. Your wife is ugly as sin. You know, like called to like examine this woman on stage and like from head to toe. And then they go further and they talk about their sex life and how they're having great sex. And it's like, dude, really?

Like, how is that helping a teenage boy? Yeah. Like, and what good is that doing? Like, how is that pointing to teenage boy yeah like and and what good is that doing like how is that pointing to the truth that we find in scripture so it's so bad you know um you know i go ahead you know you go ahead you go ahead well i would i i i think that this leads into that conversation around josh joshua harris right okay let's let's hold off i was gonna say a couple more so okay all right so the shame piece of of yes uh if if you mess up uh what does that say to your identity in jesus where is the cross where is forgiveness uh yes it's theologically destructive i think to say like the damaged goods the you're kind of done or you're like a flower petal that's been torn apart all this stuff like

it is so profoundly un-christian like oh man this is so bad um totally and also you mentioned it but just to reiterate i because i've heard this from a lot of people that um if you have sex you're a chewed up piece of gum what if you've been sexually assault what if you're among the 10 to 20 percent of say christian females who have had some level of sexual assault in their past like they interpret that of um and even psychologically apart from this whole thing it's common for especially women to interpret that as they did something wrong to bear the guilt you know even if you're not a christian but then add to that a legalistic atonement less gospel and that oh my gosh I've talked to women that you know they stare at their purity ring after they've been sexually abused um and sometimes by their father who gave them the flipping ring yeah and what that does to oh my gosh it's so it's so i mean yeah almost hard to describe irreparable you know

the damage that can do um but then also a big one for me too is that um we've talked about this the if you wait then you will get a spouse not only a spouse we have great sex with your spouse so just wait and god's going to reward you and usually the same movements that preach that message would critique the prosperity gospel i'm like all you're doing is sexualizing the prosperity gospel if you wait god will bless you with x y and z and so when people are 25 30 35 and didn't get that or they did get a mate and that mate turned out to be a real jerk or the sex life maybe there's a maybe it was a great marriage but the sex life was a train wreck you know totally get it up the woman didn't enjoy whatever um yeah i just there's it's hard because i i so value sexual and i'll

just say it i mean sexual purity is a good thing but it's one yeah piece of a much larger sexual ethic. And if you separate that piece from the overall arching sexual ethic, that can be really misleading, if not damaging. Totally. And I'll also say this. I mean, I could give you a list, but I'll just do this point too. I think one of the biggest failures of the purity movement is it focused too much on marriage. Yeah. Is that what the idealization of marriage purity movement is it focused too much on marriage. Yeah. I, I, is that what the idealization of marriage goes really? Yes. I think that we are now paying the

ramifications of that because singles, we, I think there's a growing number of individuals that are writing on singleness. I think there are a growing number of individuals that have recognized some of the mistakes. I think there's some great books out there, but I will say this. I think that we missed a huge opportunity at the very beginning to do more, to address singleness and we're having to now make up ground. I mean, we're just, we're having to own up to the mistakes and we're having to, uh, because that, that you, you brought it up a little bit there, just the dynamic of how we speak about marriage um that needs to change uh as well as does our uh number of times or increase the number of times that we talk about singleness because you know individuals are waiting much much longer to get

married yeah i think i read a few different statistics or sources saying the same thing that it might be for the in the first time in the history of human civilization that the percentage of humans of marital age who are still single is is now more than 50 percent yeah there's always been a percentage but now but people who are are at the marital age let's just say 24 to 37 or something. Yeah. To have the more than 50% of people with 24 to 37, not married, never been married. Maybe they will later on, but to have them there being single, that's just, that's just, that's off the chart. I personally, I think porn has a lot to do with that.

Yeah. If Mary, if you had to wait to marriage to get sex and you don't have to do that anymore. And if Christians are doing it at the same pace as before and important, I think can be, obviously it's much easier, but also less, there seems to be less guilt than actually having sex outside of marriage with another human. Um, I just wonder if that's why there's not as, as big of a rush to get married. But all that to say, I think that we are living in a really different culture right now where if we as a church don't know how to value, speak to, uphold singleness on par with marriage. Some people even say above marriage. We're going to be profoundly irrelevant to more than 50% of the people

that we're trying to reach. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, so Joshua Harris. I'm not going to give an introduction to Josh. I had him on the podcast a while back. He wrote a very significant book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I said I'm not going to give an introduction.

Here I am introducing them but um i had such a wonderful time talking with him on the podcast and so recently for those who don't know um you know he's that him and his wife announced to get into divorce and he also said that he's well and i want to talk to you about this he said he's no longer a christian but he he specifically said i don't know the quote in front of me by every standard of assessment that i know i'm not a christian and that caught me and i think we talked a little about this and maybe there's been an update so let me just throw out my thoughts and i was like okay i i wonder if i would be a christian given the sort of really conservative context in which I grew up and what

constitutes a Christian I mean in some context I grew up in like if you believed in women in ministry in a amillennial view the eschaton you might not be a Christian you know and I that's not what he's saying but I just wonder is he an atheist or agnostic or is he somebody that's Is he an atheist or agnostic or is he somebody that's really having his conservative worldview so rocked that he's just in limbo trying to sort things out? Cause I think those are two different places. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. I, I, you know, it's, it's difficult. I don't know. I don't know where he's at. I, you know, when you, when I first saw,

I saw that too too like it was just like one little piece yeah but it's like are you are you saying that you're you're uh identifying as a as a christian not by the standards that evangelicalism has done it or are you not identifying as a christian period because you have no more faith or belief in Jesus Christ. I really don't know. That's for him to answer, and I'm sure he'll answer in time. It seems like he would resonate so much with like a, I don't know, more of a progressive post-evangelical like a Pete Enns or, I don't know,

you know, the – Yeah, totally. I know a lot of progressive churches that I think if you went to, um, I personally, I wouldn't feel at home there and wouldn't necessarily recommend them, but I think, yeah, I don't know. Um, I think it seems like, but I don't know him well enough to even say that, but well, here's what I will say about Joshua, the thing that I've always really appreciated about Joshua Harris is he's always been one to own up to his mistakes. So I've followed his writing closely just because it has been an influential source within the purity culture.

And at least his first three or four books. So he had I Kissed Any Goodbye and then he had Boy Meets Girl. books so he had i kissed any goodbye and then he had boy meets girl and then he he had a another book called um the problem with porn is lust or something like that and the thing i always found interesting this does not happen a lot among christian celebrity authors where they own up to past mistakes that they might've had in their writing. Joshua always had this knack about him ability to be able to say, you know what? I didn't quite get it right here.

And I want to, I want to own up to that. So for me, I just never saw that in a lot of other Christian writers. I still don't. I think that once someone gets into a niche, they just don't own up there to their past mistakes for whatever reason, or they they're afraid to change anything because they've had a following and, and they stick with it. So when he said when when he first started

this journey about three years ago, and wanted to do the documentary around I kissed dating goodbye, and really explore the stories of people that have been hurt by it. I, I actually applauded him. I, for me, I I've never used his material as a, uh, as a source. Like I've, I've, I've always refrained from it. I didn't think that it was because of the very reasons we just discussed. I didn't think it was a, a great resource for, for many people, if they're really going to grow, um, especially in the area of, um, sexual wholeness. I just felt like it just really limited that picture. But the thing that I've always appreciated is he, he, he would always own up to his past mistakes. So like, if you compare his first book to that book on porn, they were different. Like you could tell that he had had some growth. And by the time he wrote the book on porn,

he was now a pastor of a large church. Uh, I think that he had learned some of the stakes. I, I, I actually would listen to some of his sermons. Um, and, and it was, it was really fascinating to hear him talk. I, so I, I always thought that that was really, um, I thought that was always really, um, powerful for me. I really appreciate when people can own their mistakes. I try to do that in my own life. Now, what's interesting is, uh, uh, it will be a point, like, I felt like this was no longer a part of the conversation, but now with the documentary and now with him walking away from his faith and then separating from his wife, all of these things, and then wholly embracing just an entire way of living that's just counter to everything that he's done,

it's just really fascinating to me. And what I really wonder is what's going to be the conversation in the year ahead. When I do forums, when we travel, when we speak to parents, like, you know, I don't know, it wasn't a part of conversation for the last three or four years, maybe five years, but now it's going to become a big part of that conversation. And that could be a really good thing, or it could be something that is going to dramatically reshape the conversations created but what I don't like is people all of a sudden saying see the purity culture doesn't work or everything he said was wrong it's like okay you can have that view that if somebody ends up

having a life change it goes against what he previously taught that what he previously taught is therefore wrong but nobody consistently lives by that. Come on. I mean, either what he said was true or partially true or not true at all, whether he ends up falling away from it later is that shouldn't support or critique the content of what he said. Right. Don't you? I mean, well, yeah, I mean, I, sure. I, I, I would critique some of what he's written. Like I, like, like fell away or not. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And I was doing that long before he ever stepped away from the faith.

Right. But I've always found him. I've had, I know you've had him on the podcast. I've had a couple of interactions with them. I've always found him to be pretty genuine. Yeah. And I think more than Um, I've always found him to be pretty genuine. Um, and, uh, I, I think more than anything, I just, I mourn for his loss. If he really has walked away from the faith. Um, I, I more than anything, um, I mourn for that. Like I, I, I, um, you know, I, I, I, there is something that has gone. Here's what I've known is, um, even though I may not have agreed with him and there are many others like him that were, um, I would say,

quote unquote, um, the godfathers of the purity movement or the abstinence movement. I may not have agreed with a lot of what they've done, but they've taken a lot of shots that I don't have to take any longer. Like I got to learn from their mistakes, essentially. And personally, I am grateful for that. Like I am grateful that there are people that have gone before me that have made mistakes and I've gotten to learn from them. And, you know, the truth is, is people are going to learn from my mistakes. They're going to like, there's going to be stuff that I do that someone else is going to come along

and correct or do differently. Or, and I think that's just the evolution of some of these conversations. That's just what happens. Um, I mean, hopefully it's not as much, hopefully like we're trying to do it in a grace field, theologically rich, uh, and honest and vulnerable way. But you know, history has a time of telling the story. I feel like the circles I swim in, whatever those are, or maybe the brand of Christianity that I paid most close attention to seems to be almost universally either somewhat critical

against the purity movement or whole or just outraged against it yeah but it's I we talked about you know I had a recent experience where I was in a context where there was um unqualified affirmation of purity without even seem to be even aware that there's been some fallout, which was kind of shocking. Do you see, where is evangelicalism across the country on this? I know you can't speak definitively on that, but you would be a better source than most people because you speak in different contexts on these issues. Are there still large pockets of evangelicalism that's still doing the late 1990s purity talk thing without even either caring or even being aware that there's been so much fallout with the shame and abuse and stuff?

Yes. I mean, the short answer is yes. I, uh, uh, yeah, I, I, I have individuals that have gotten upset because we don't use the word purity. Um, and so I, I would argue that there are still, um, segments that, that do that. I would actually argue that it probably still large segments, but I do the message at all. They learn from some of the mistakes. I mean, or, yeah, I think, I mean, definitely it's not, I mean, you're not going to find too many that are going to do the, be doing the same late 1990s, uh, stuff I mean, definitely. It's not, I mean, you're not going to find too many that are going to be doing the same late 1990s stuff. They've adjusted because the culture, the generations have changed. But there are still some that are doing, you know, quote unquote, similar messages.

Um, you know, I've had a chance to go through a variety of different sermons and, and, um, a series that other churches, other groups, other youth pastors have done. And there has been this, this, uh, I would say this evolution, but the overarching conversation around purity still continues to exist so much so that it still focuses a lot on the genitalia. It still focuses on, um, what not to do. Uh, and I think that that's, that's a big challenge. I, you know, when you've grown up with it, it's, it's a lot easier to mimic it when you're now the one that's teaching it. Um, unless someone's given you a new paradigm or you've spent the time to really dive in and find ways to do it a little bit different. Is anybody within the purity movement or maybe just talking about sex as a whole, is anybody talking like, okay, wait until marriage.

Don't do it until marriage. I agree with that. That's one piece. And yeah, one piece of a Christian sexual ethic, but who, who's, are people talking about what is sex for? Like, why did God, is it just simply mutual pleasure or even the pleasure of the guy and the woman it's her service to the husband. That might be more of an old school, whatever. What role does procreation play into this? Is any,

do you know any Protestant that is actually talking about that? I mean, we, we, that's a lot of what we do. Like, like one of the things that we often talk about is, uh, uh, so often what the, what we do as Christians is respond to the culture's definition of sex. So when the culture gives a definition of sex, we say no, but the reality is there is a very rich definition throughout scripture. And we should be the ones challenging the culture to be saying no to what we are saying. And that's just not what's happened. I would say we've, sorry, I'm going to cut you off. Yeah, go for it. It is yours. This is one, you know, Christians bemoan the sexual revolution, sexual revolution, this sexual revolution, that.

But we have almost blindly adopted the sexual revolution's severing of sex from procreation, hook, line, and sinker, except for the Catholics and maybe some liturgical Protestants. Go ahead. That's my little. Well, you know, you're right. Like that's true. You know, I'm trying to think of other individuals or other groups you know one of the things someone who i think has done a pretty good job of that is timothy keller keller has always done a phenomenal job of talking about what sex is for okay i've always appreciated the way he's engaged it um you know uh del keen um

who uh wrote the book sex in the World, I thought did a phenomenal job. But then also some of the other side writing and other things I've read from him, I've always thought is speaking to a lot of that. You know, I'm trying to think, as you put me on the spot, I'm like trying to flash through all the books and all the many people that um i come across i i uh well let me while you're thinking i when i say i'm not quite fully catholic in this yet i'm truly trying to search through it and i could even um even biblically uh sex is at least in part designed for procreation obviously in a fallen world that doesn't always happen and um obviously i would say obviously um pleasure and unity and bonding and oxytocin whatever is all part of it and even have like the song of songs

talking about sex from beginning to end doesn't mention procreation but the overarching and the new testament seems to downplay it to some extent and even that's kind of up for grabs but having said all that there is i think clearly through special revelation and general revelation a link a an undeniable link between sex and procreation. And all I'm advocating for is that Christians, in particular Protestant Christians, would start with the default position, sex is at least in part intended for procreation, and then move and explore, are there possible morally valid reasons for engaging in sex without the intention of trying to procreate maybe family planning health of the wife hey i got 10 kids i don't think 11 would help me do ministry you know whatever i don't know but but beginning with the default of not and i think my default growing up

as a protestant especially a non-denominational low church is obviously procreation is some completely separate thing from sex um now maybe let's explore do we want to have kids or not you know is it convenient for us and all these things i just think we we have approached the relationship between sex and children so unchristianly unbiblically really um yeah and it's just it's fast. I mean, I, this, these are questions that I haven't raised it up until about two years ago. I've got to know in the new Testament. I talk about sex all the time and sexuality. And I just recently I said like, you know what?

I think there's more to this procreation thing that I goodness, if I was that blinded to it, I'm sure a lot of other people are as well. Totally. Well, I want to add to that. I will say that that some work that's been influential, it wasn't Protestant, but it was Catholic. And it was the theology of the body. Yeah. I'm reading that right now. And Christopher West. Yeah. So like just,

which directly came from the sermons that Pope John Paul II had given. And very rich, very theologically deep. I mean, if your listeners or any, if anyone wants to really read some just really great writing around some of that very nature and so much more, I would highly recommend it. So real quick, that's Chris West, and he's got a theology of the body for beginners. I would start there. Yes. Before quick, that's Chris West, and he's got a Theology of the Body for Beginners. I would start there before wading through the 500 pages of – Yes, I would highly recommend that.

So let me start with procreation, and I've got two other things that I think are really important when it comes to sex. What's really interesting when I'm speaking to both adults and youth, I always say, if you want to know the power that lies on sex, let's just quickly look at one very important thing. And I show a picture of my family and it's like, boom, there you go. Like sex has the ability to create life. Like that, that is in and of itself, one of the most powerful, most beautiful, one of the most mysterious things we could ever talk about. Because I think that that's really important. I think procreation is something that is left out of the conversation around sex.

We have separated life, the ability to create life, from sex. That has been something that the sexual revolution has done a phenomenal job of doing, which is separating the very act of sex, which allows for us to create life and move that away. We've separated entirely. Which is a blip on the history of the church. Up until the 1960s in the West, in the Protestant West 1960s, nobody ever would have even entertained the idea that sex is a separate thing from procreation. Totally. And now this is the era that sex is a separate thing from procreation.

Totally. And now, now this is the era that we live in where, where sex is completely separated from any sort of, uh, ability to create life. I mean, especially in the cultural context. Uh, the other two that I'd quickly say is, um, the, the culture does this somewhat, but I think the church really needs to do a better job is pleasure. Like, like sex is meant for pleasure. Like we do have a God that is a God of pleasure. Like he wants for us, he gave us our five senses. The, the, the purpose of the five senses is to enjoy food, to enjoy the view when we're out hiking, to smell either that food or the very nature in which we're walking, to be able to touch the people that we love. I mean, just even thinking about the very act of sex and the genitalia and like the, the pleasure that is found in the nipples,

the pleasure that is found in the tip of the penis, the pleasure that is found in the clitoris. Like, I know I can say that on your podcast, but I was going to get a coffee, but I'm good. But right. Like, like pleasure is a part of this that we have to talk honestly, because, you know, when I, when I speak to students, the very first thing that they think about when I ask, why would one of your peers choose to have sex? It's always the last thing they say, but it's the first thing they think about, which is pleasure. Like it feels good.

Right. So I think that there, there is a deep, deep need to be able to talk about pleasure that, that is a part of this. And the other thing I would talk about when it comes to sex is protection. And, um, and, uh, God and his grand design did create a time and a place for us to engage this very thing that creates life that gives us pleasure, but in a very particular place. And that's, that's in the act of marriage. Now there's a whole nother conversation too, in the protection that we have as singles recognizing the power of the first two,

which leads to a ton of other conversation that we could, if we had time dive into, but I will say this protection. One of the illustrations that I often give is like a crucible, like a crucible was this mortar and, and stick that you got in science class. Right. And you would have to mix chemicals in that. And that was, that was always a thing that you were told, like, don't put it on the table because you'll burn the hole in the table,

you know, and being a punk teenager, what do you do? You put it on the table to see if it'd burn a hole or chip the paint. That's what it would do. Right. But like the crucible was this place where, um, you could mix these chemicals. I actually think marriage is one of those places that we're able to mix all of this. And there are others, but I think those are two very important ones, pleasure and procreation. And God gave us this protection. A footnote to pleasure though,

is it's pleasure integrated with bonding too. And we now know that from all the neurochemicals and stuff that happen between sex, right? And that's undeniable, right? Totally. Orgasms create bonding with the thing you're having an orgasm with or the person yep uh yeah or pornography if that's what you're masturbating to yeah right right um i i'm still i don't know the answer to this, but the relation, is there a higher hierarchy? Cause I want to affirm both. And from an evolutionary standpoint,

you can almost say, well, the pleasure is there so that we do it. It's like an old, right? I mean, all the good stuff that surrounds it is to, if it wasn't there, then we wouldn't procreate our human you know civilization would end in a few hundred years but um um but that that that would work well no i was gonna almost said for the male orgasm and not for the female no the female orgasm is going to motivate her to want to engage in it so yeah well almost wonder from an evolutionary naturalistic perspective you can or from as a okay as a christian let's just say natural law or general revelation there's these these truths of bonding of pleasure of procreation are all you

can you can see them there um if is there a higher i mean i have you thought more deeply through the relationship like could a married couple be morally is it morally valid for a married couple to say we are going to get married we feel called to marriage we're called to each other therefore we are going to engage in sex but we have zero desire to even try to procreate for no sort of medical reason like there's like you know what we don't want to we just neither of us really want kids but we feel called to marriage which will include lots of marital sex um i i've got a little short response but you're i'm looking at your head the wheel's spinning so yeah so i'd love to hear your response because i i i uh there was a question like this that was proposed a while back but i would love to hear my response isn't isn't it's not solidified i in typical press and sprinkle fashion i wouldn't really give a

black and white response because i don't think i don't know i'm not there yet but i would say i would just simply say the burden of proof rests on you to come up with a moral argument that that would be okay um that that's that's just where i'd leave i would say okay that that would be okay. That's just where I'd leave. I'd say, okay, that's an interesting position. It would resonate with most people in the West, most secular society and most Christians. Can you justify that from scripture? If you feel like you can and you've even been aware

that it's possibly at odds with God's design for marriage and sex, at least be aware of that. You've wrestled with it. You've come up with a good argument for why this could be okay. Maybe, you know, we really want to be released to serve God's kingdom in ways that we couldn't do with kids, whatever. Maybe there's an argument there, but at least recognize that the burden of proof rests on you not on me like if i said well let's think about that they said what what's to think about then i say no no no if you don't even think this is a possible moral dilemma then i think that's where i would be more black and white like i think we need to go back to scripture because

it seemed i mean i don't see in scripture marriage being primarily about simply having pleasurable sex and spending the life with the one you romantically have fallen in love with. Like all of those things are very modern. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying they're not. They're all biblical, not unbiblical, but all biblical. Marriage seems to be a vocation that God calls certain people into. And I would say at least in part, if not primarily for the creation of a family.

I'm 60% there. so don't tweet that. It seems like as I read scripture as unbiasedly as I can, it seems that marriage, sex, procreation are all kind of part of the package deal. Now through the fall, obviously there's infertility, old age, whatever, you know, like not every married couple, you don't need kids to have a legitimate marriage but a legitimate marriage does seem to be oriented toward the creation of offspring oriented toward part of the purpose part of the design not the whole design but at least part of

it to where if you say yeah want to get, but this significant aspect of the God's intention of marriage, we're just not even going to consider for no real valid reason. I would push back on that. Is that, I wasn't prepared to talk about this. I don't have any notes. No, this is, I, I, these are great thoughts. So I, the two things that stood out to me were I think it's going to depend on how you define what sex is. So the, the question of what is sex for, and then also what is marriage for? Um, I mean, those,

those, those two questions then will determine whether or not you think that's a part of it. I, I would, I would tend to agree with what you're, what you're sharing. I, the thing that quickly rushes through my mind are infertility. So what do you do with that? If that's such, you know, what do you do about the number of children that go unadopted every year? Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah.

And so, yeah. Or even if you follow my logic, it could say, okay, so is there no place where you say, okay, we're good. We have 15 kids. We're not going to try for number 16 um once you open up that this is me pushing back against everything i said once you open up a door to okay there is a place of having sex and not trying to have kids in that sex act which i think yeah i i would agree with i only have four kids so some people say i have three too many but um god last yeah i don't know i'm just no i think i you know uh one of the one of the dynamics that i think that is that is at play within this very particular conversation is the two questions.

And I think too, there, there is this dynamic of is, is sex or marriage and this is for both. Is it selfless or if it's, or, or is it selfish? If it's selfless, the way in which you go into it and the things that, that are the, the byproducts of that, I think then, cause I would agree. Like if it's, if you're, if it's meant to be selfless and it's meant to, like, let's just talk about pleasure. If pleasure really is about not pleasuring self, but pleasuring other, um, the same would be true about procreation. Like, is, is it more about us as a couple or is it more about um um the very essence of what marriage is supposed to be

and what sex has the power to do which is to create life right yeah and then and if that's true then then what happens if you can't create life and i mean these are all they're very fascinating i i think that that that is the um the infertility or sex in old age or whatever to me that's an easy one because that's like that's not a that's not that's part of the fallen world or whatever god god saying closing the womb or whatever like that's not um that's kind of out of your control and because i don't think sex is only for procreation i don't i wouldn't say hey you're infertile therefore as a married couple you got to be abstinent. You know, like, um, no, there are other, uh, values of, of a sexual relationship outside of procreation, but to say, but to just completely take procreation or let's

just say an openness to having kids again, uh, a couple falls in love. They want to get married. They come to me for marriage counseling saying we're called to marriage, but we are not going to try to have kids. We don't want to have kids. I would say I would question whether you're actually called to marriage by God. Ooh. So yeah, that's yeah. Can I just say whether that calling. So here's why I love this conversation.

And I think it goes back and circles back to some of the conversation that we've been having here on your podcast. These are the conversations that never happened during the purity or absence movement. Right? And these are some of the questions that students have asked and are asking and parents are asking and have asked. And I think that what we're doing right here needs to happen more in the church setting. Like I, like these are deep and meaningful questions and, and they

need room to have these conversations. I mean, I think what we're doing is essentially modeling the very thing that I, I would hope would be happening at a much, much more smaller micro level. Uh, cause I think giving the space to be able to ask these questions, I think gives them room to take ownership of their faith and in this area in a very rich way. Yeah, that's good, dude. It's been an hour and a half. I just realized the time. Probably wrap this. I could keep, dude, I could talk for hours, but the good thing is I get to and my audience doesn't get to.

So Jason and I, I haven't even mentioned this, but we're actually starting, we're working. Can I talk about the youth project? Yeah, go for it. I mean, it's not, we haven't signed on the dotted line. Well, informally, i guess we have but i mean we're um jason and i are teaming up this year 2019 2020 to produce a a um a robust thorough compelling beautiful resource for youth um and parents and youth pastors on sexuality, gender, sex conversations. So, you know, it'll probably be video based, a whole slew of short, super compelling, probably

really expensive videos that leaders, parents can walk through with their youth, with the person they're discipling. Because this has been my number one question is, okay, you know, pastors are now saying, okay, I know what books to read. I know how to disciple people in conversations about sex, sexuality, and gender. But what in the world do we do with youth? And youth pastors are typically at a loss of how to have these, how to instill a truly comprehensive, robust Christian vision for sex, sexuality, gender in a way that's not only true, but compelling. To me, I think that's probably one of the most significant needs in the church. So Jason and I are teaming up on that project. So yeah, any other thoughts? No, I think you've articulated

it well. I'm stoked to be able to do this with you. And I think it's a needed resource. The way I've described it is it's one of a kind. It hasn't been done. There's no one else that's created something like this. I think the vastness, I think the robustness, I think the depth with which we're wanting to tackle almost any of the subjects that we've come across when talking about sex, sexuality, relationships, gender, all of those things, it's in this series that we're trying to create. I say it's unlike anything that's ever been created. And I would say, honestly, kind of what I said, instilling a true and compelling vision for God's,

for sex, sexuality, and gender in a way that's going to resonate with teenagers. It might be one of the most important ethical things that we should do as a church in the West in 2019. Would you, I mean, I don't. Oh, most definitely. Especially in the wake of the smartphone internet and everything and just the way,

just the ramifications of sexual revolution and everything we've been talking about, about people getting pieces of the sexual ethic, but then not instilling a complete vision. And if adults are, it's hard enough for adults, how are we going to do this with, where's the church going to be in 30 years in its view of sexuality gender and so on if we've had minimal compelling training so i i just and i don't i don't say that because we're the ones

producing it this is the most significant i just if i if we both died tomorrow i would still say in heaven i guess but this is one of but greatest ethical needs in the church, not just sex, sexuality, gender, but especially for, for teenagers. Um, yeah. Um, I, I didn't plan on doing this, but if, if any of you out, you know, uh, I, I kind of mentioned in passing that this, it will be a very expensive project. So both you and I agreed, like either we're going to do this a hundred percent, it's going to be an awesome thing. Um, or we're just not gonna do it at all. I don't want to do something

halfway. I don't want to do something that's on a shoestring budget where it's just kind of crappy video quality and everything. So for me, it's like, what, what does it take to produce this thing? And then let's go find the money. So if there is anybody out there who's like, Oh my gosh, we would love to help you guys. What can we do? We are raising support for this. And in a sense, if we don't, if we don't get the support, we're not going to do it. Like I don't have the, I don't know, a hundred, $200,000 it might take to pull this thing off to do it. So until we get that, we would not be able to complete it. So if you are interested in contributing to this project, or if you have any more questions about what the money's going to go to and what the needs are, whatever,

you can email chris at centerforfaith.com, C-H-R-I-S at centerforfaith.com. Or do you have anybody on your end or they can email? It all goes in one pot. So it's not. Yeah. I would just have them email Chris. So that way it doesn't become an issue. And then that way we can, we'll be following up with one another. Yeah.

So if this is something that resonates with you, like, man, I would love to invest in email Chris, chris.centerforfaith.com. And we're an open book financially. You can ask us any questions. Where is this going to go? What's it going to do? So, um, thanks so much Jason for being on the show and we'll have to catch up probably in the next week or so again.

For sure. Hey, Preston, before I go, I just want to say thank you. You do some incredible ministry. I've always appreciated the work that you do, the conversations that you spark, especially here on theology in the raw. And, uh, you know, I've said this personally, but I want to make sure your listeners, cause I know your listeners believe this and that's why they listen to you you do a phenomenal work oh thanks man uh and you put yourself out there uh day in and day out and i just deeply appreciate you appreciate your friendship and i'm grateful for your voice in the midst of uh the craziness that sometimes can ensue so thanks brother vice versa. Also before I forget a project to tell us where people can

find you and you also have a podcast you do too, right? Yeah. So project six 19 six spelled out S I X one nine.org. You can go to drive time podcast.org just how it's spelled. It's for parents. It's specifically, yep. It's specifically for parents. It's a, it's a very short podcast. We only have two series so far. It's not quite like yours. Ours is just simply meant to equip.

And so we have conversations around sexual integrity and pornography right now and doing one on social media here this fall. Awesome. Jason, thanks so much for being on the show.

Appreciate it. Thanks, brother. I'm out. © transcript Emily Beynon