Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1087: Non-Toxic Masculinity and Responding to Purity Culture: Zach Wagner

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Zach Wagner is a writer, researcher, ordained minister, and is currently pursuing a DPhil (PhD) in New Testament studies at the University of Oxford. He also serves as the editorial director of the Center for Pastor Theologians, where he co-hosts the CPT Podcast. His first book, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality, was published in 2023 with Intervarsity Press and is the topic of our conversation. In this episode, we talk about the pros and (mostly) cons of purity culture, explicit and implicit messaging from that movement, the damage its done, and what healthy male sexuality looks like. If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information!

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is the one and only Zach Wagner. Zach is a pursuing doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University. He's an ordained minister, writer, researcher, and the editorial director for the Center for Pastor Theologians, an organization that's just off the chart awesome. He's also the author of a quite provocative and very, very good book, Non-Toxic Masculinity, Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality. I had the opportunity to grab a lunch with Zach while I was in Cambridge, England last month. He drove out from Oxford. We hung out for, gosh, Zach, what was it, like three, four hours or something? We got to know each other. Just an awesome individual. And he gave me a copy of his

book. I read it on the airplane ride back home and just absolutely loved it. Definitely is thought provoking and is going to stir up some really good conversations. One of which is the one you're about to listen to. So please welcome to the show for the first time, hopefully not the last time, the one and only Zach Wagner. All right. Zach Wagner, author of Non-Toxic Masculinity, Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality. Even the title is provocative, which I'm going to ask you to define toxic masculinity, define purity culture. But I'll just say this up front, man. You graciously gave me a free copy when we hung out in the UK and I read it over the next couple of days. Most of it, I got about 80% of the way through it. And it is so good. I mean, not everybody has the advantage of talking to the author first and then reading the book. So I was like, I'm already

going into it. I'm like, ah, I think I'm going to love this book. And it really, not only did I like it as if my opinion matters, I thought, I think it's going to be incredibly helpful for the church. Incredibly helpful. So thank you for that. Why don't you give us a background into why you decided halfway through your PhD in New Testament, which maybe I'll have you back on to talk about that. Halfway through your PhD, you decided to write a pretty, you know, step into pretty volatile conversation. What led you to write this book, Zach? Yeah, two streams. One is personal. One is the kind of broader cultural, church cultural, broader culture, whatever, whatever you want to define it as. So maybe I'll start with the broader one, which is just coming out of the Me Too

movement. Obviously, there's been a lot of conversations about sexual violence and masculinity and quote unquote toxic masculinity. And then a few years down the line, there's been this kind of parallel movement of the Church Too movement and abuse scandal after abuse scandal. And, you know, I could catalog them here, but I don't know if we need to. And I just, you know, just in the past week or two, there's always, you could point to, well, and another one and another one. So it's a pattern that I saw emerging that came to a head personally for me after the Atlanta spa shootings in early 2021. shootings in early 2021. So this is a young man who went on one of these mass shootings, which happened all too often. But this one in particular, after he was arrested, he was being questioned by

the police as to his motive. And he said, I'm a sex addict. And I was, quote unquote, eliminating my temptation. And he viewed this as kind of a public service that he was providing by going around to these three different massage parlors in the Atlanta area and targeting women in particular and women of East Asian descent in particular. Kind of as the story unfolded, come to find he's a raised Christian young man, baptized member of a Southern Baptist church in the area and had been participating in their youth ministry, if I'm not mistaken, as recently as like a year before the shooting. And there was something about that event in

particular that stuck in my mind. Um, because this, obviously he carried it to this grotesque logical extreme of these women are causing me to sin. There are occasions of temptation really dehumanizing. And he took it to this extreme of literally killing them and viewing that as the solution to that problem. And while it was a logical extreme that this young man took it to, there was some perverse coherence to this idea that women are temptation and the solution to a man's struggle with sexual sin is to create some distance between himself and women. There was a coherence with the way that I had been raised in various modes of discipleship and books and things that I had read to think about my sexuality, think about women, think about my sexual desires and things

like that. So that stuck with me. I ended up writing a little article on the connections that I was beginning to see between purity culture and sexual violence. That's kind of the, Purity culture and sexual violence. That's kind of the, that, and, and that article got a little bit of traction and through some conversations with people ended up reaching out to IVP and talking about the possibility of doing a book and whatnot. Our mutual friend, Todd Wilson, who is partially to blame for the fact that I actually decided to try to write the book during my PhD program. Because I was like, Todd, I'm really just torn up about this stuff. But I, you know, I thought maybe sometime in like my 40s, I might write a book on masculinity or something like that. But I got to finish my PhD. And he just kind of pressed. He's like, okay. And I mean, you know, Todd, he's not one to kind of back

down from a challenge. So he's like, well, if you feel like the Lord is telling you to maybe do this now, don't, don't ignore that just because it sounds like a lot of work. Um, so he connected me with some people. Um, and that's, that's how that panned out. And then the personal side, which is my narrative, um, my story, my marriage, which I talk about at some length in the book, is that I grew up very much in the midst of quote unquote purity culture, much in every way that was influential in the way my thinking was formed around my sexuality. And then in my marriage, you know, my wife and I were good. We followed the rules.

We weren't intimate until after we got married. And oftentimes, whether implicitly or explicitly, and it is sometimes said explicitly, in purity culture, things are framed up as the path to this kind of shame-free, fulfilling, intimate life in marriage is to hold off. And then once you get married, everything's going to click. It's going to be great. This is God's beautiful design to your best sex life and greatest joy and fulfillment and intimacy. And that immediately was not panning out for us. And in the kind of process of writing the book, that's not uncommon. You know, many people who grew up in this church context where they're encouraged to save themselves, quote unquote, until marriage, then it will be really great and easy and kind of flow freely and

be joy filled. That's a common trope. And that was the case for us. be joy filled. That's a common trope. And that was the case for us. I always lead with this question. This is always the first question in podcast interviews, and I cannot figure a way to answer it succinctly. So bear with me. But a few years into our marriage, we were finding that the struggle with our intimate life was just reaching a crisis point. And through some therapy and reevaluation of some parts of my story, parts of Shelby's story, we came to realize that she is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, church-based sexual abuse. And that was a big piece of this story for us, as was this kind of residual shame that I was dealing with in my own life, having to do with pornography use, masturbation, and as well as kind of in a really interesting

cocktail mixed with these purity culture messages that I'd received as a young person. So just decided to do something really silly and interesting and write a book while I was doing a PhD, like I said, and here we are a couple, couple of years later. Um, and, uh, we're talking about it. Yeah. Well, I, again, I, I am, it's, it's just such a good book. I was telling you offline, you know, there were, there were things that you said in the book that like, I'm like, I already felt like I was on board with, it made sense. I just didn't have the precise language or research behind it. And in other things that you said that I kind of wasn't aware of, like, oh my gosh, that, that is, that makes so much sense. I think we talked about this in, in, in Cambridge, um, a couple of weeks

ago, I've never read a book on, from the purity movement, even though I was Ray. I mean, I, I grew up right smack dab. I mean, I, you know, I got saved it in 1990, I don't know, six or seven or something. Um, I do remember hearing about Joshua Harris's book. I kiss dating goodbye on my very conservative Christian college campus. Never read it. Just kind of heard about it. I was too into theology. And then I immediately wanted to study Greek and Hebrew at the seminary and then got into the PhD. So I was really into like, as you are, I mean, into Pauline theology that I didn't have, to me, I was like, I can't be bothered with Christian living books, you know, like I need to read, you know, dead theologians or, you know. If only more people felt the same way.

So I guess, but I'm sure there were implicit messages that I've absorbed. I'm not denying that at all. I just did the direct lingo, kind of like, I didn't read Every Man's Battle and I didn't even know, I didn't even hear about that book until like five years ago. And I immediately thought, who titled that? Like, I don't even know if it's a, I mean, you critique the book pretty extensively, but just the title alone, I'm like, really? Every Man? So wait, if you don't have that,

if you're the one per, if you're, if there's an exception, one exception to the rule, then is that person not a man? Like if, I mean, just the title alone is like, where was the editor on that? Anyway, I apologize if I'm offending the editor, but that, that was a very, but can you summarize what purity culture is both Both, I guess maybe both the, what are kind of some of the explicit messages and maybe some of the unintentional or implicit signals that maybe some of these messages send? So I think those are kind of two related, but different things, right?

So can you help us understand what purity culture is? I know it's a big, broad movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think you can define it, first define it kind of sociologically in terms of purity culture is a subcultural movement within, you know, mostly white American evangelicalism that then filters out and affects a lot of other parts of the American culture and the world. But it starts as kind of a white conservative evangelical thing, subcultural movement in response to a broader cultural movement, i.e. the sexual revolution. So the way I trace it in the book is that you kind of have the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s. And then through the 80s and 90s, you were seeing a lot of, and I think it's important to say, that there were genuine negative kind of cultural ills that were resulting from the sexual revolution.

everything that resulted from the sexual revolution was all bad, but, you know, rises in teen pregnancy, out of wedlock births, rise in abortion rates, as well as rise in STDs, and there was all the AIDS scare, and all of these things. I think in response, Christians wanted to advocate for more traditional quote-unquote family values as well as commend a um i think it's fair to say a historic christian sexual ethic uh that teaches that sex and marriage go together to the next generation of young people kind of coming up after the the wave of the sexual revolution so i think that's what purity culture is in a sense. So I have a definition in my first chapter. I won't be able to produce it verbatim here, but it's something like it refers to the kind of theological teachings, rhetorical strategies, discipleship materials that conservative Christians produced and commended in response

to the sexual revolution in an effort to commend traditional christian sexual ethics to young people that's so page 19 i have it right here that's paid yeah yeah almost word for word good job great okay okay um and i think it's characterized by a few main things uh thinking back uh people will remember this. Certainly a strong emphasis on young people, quote unquote, saving themselves for marriage. Do not have sex until you are married. And then certainly opposition to, you know, teen pregnancies and hooking up and things like that. hooking up and things like that. But a strong emphasis on the kind of centrality of God's vision for heterosexual marriage in Christian discipleship, obviously bracketing out of

other forms of sexual expression other than, you know, heterosexual marital expression. And an emphasizing on the goodness and beauty of heterosexual marriage, where those were kind of just, uh, juxtaposed in the sense that like sex is bad and terrible before marriage, but it's wonderful and beautiful in this gift after marriage. Um, I think that summarizes a lot of, a lot of, um, kind of the main message and the main point. Um, I'll pause there that, that gets at kind of the first half of your question, but we can get into the second half. Yeah, no, no. So, um, I mean, first of all, I love how you're framing it in an, in a kind of

a neutral, you're just describing it, not in a disparaging way. And it sounds like you would, I mean, a lot of words in your mouth, would you say there were, what are, well, let me just ask the question. What are some good things that purity culture as a whole was doing, or maybe at least trying to do? Yeah, I mean, I am, and this is, you know, a controversial statement, and plenty of the kind of purity culture critics may strongly disagree with this, but I am of the view that a, uh, traditional sexual ethic, historic Christian sexual ethic that does, I actually want to add, um, that children into the mix. Um, but marriage and sex and children go together, um, which is to say that marriage and sex is for children and children are the result of sex

within marriage and marriage as an institution is intended to safeguard the well-being of children as well as be a context for sexual intimacy i want all three of those things to go together um frankly and i do think those three things when they're tied together is make for a really kind of strong foundation for a beautiful and life-giving sexual ethic so purity culture in as much as it was attempting to commend the appropriateness and the beauty of the kind of uniting of those three things is attempting at something very good, it seems to me. And it is the case, you know, what I was saying before, that there was a, by certain metrics, it's not unfair to say, an uptick in certain types of human suffering after the sexual revolution, and negative outcomes associated

with single parenthood and things like that. Purity culture was reacting to something that was like actually not great in certain ways. So that I think is something that's important to keep in mind. You know, I think on balance, my book definitely leans much more into the critical than kind of like celebrating the good intentions of purity culture or something like that. But I try to, you know, acknowledge places where I see some value and places where I certainly can identify good intentions and things like that. Yeah, I felt like that. I mean, it's definitely critical of purity culture, but I mean, in as much as you're actually representing what was taught, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's some stuff to be very critical about, which while we just go there, what are some, so yeah, I do want to talk

about explicit messages and implicit messages maybe. So let's start with the explicit. What are some explicit things that were said within purity culture that you find problematic for whatever reason? Yeah. So I guess we can start with the kind of Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye book. I really don't want to beat up on Joshua Harris, the poor guy. He's repented so hard. Yeah, he's recanted all this. But I think there was this idea of hold off as much as you possibly can

until marriage like don't even get the first don't go past first base maybe don't even don't yeah like yeah exactly because it's all if if you're feeling sexual feelings is the implicit message you're potentially doing something wrong at worst at best you're playing with fire is the way that this, this is kind of framed up perhaps. Uh, and I think in as much as like a certain paradigm of courtship or, you know, how do people pair off and get married was kind of elevated as the quote unquote biblical one. Um, that I think is pretty unhelpful. Like, let's just say the, let's just take the book of Ruth. Is the book of Ruth, like a guidebook to finding your spouse, like in all times and cultures? No, it's not. And like Ruth does some kind of like interesting and potentially like threshing floor.

What's going on there? Just kind of like presenting herself to Boaz. And Boaz is the one who's like, whoa, hold up. Like, you know, there's different interpretations of what's going on there,

but I'm not sure. It's like oiled up. It goes and snuggles up for sure. And yeah. And Orpah is like, yeah, get dolled up and just like lay at the foot of his bed after he's been drinking.

I don't know if we want to commend that to any young women. After his heart is merry. Yeah, yeah. He's been, yeah. After his heart is merry, why don't you go into the bedroom of a man who is, you know, at least 20 years older than you, looking as good as you can possibly look. Like, it's just a bit silly. I mean, I got a little sidetracked from the purity culture thing. Like, it's just a bit silly.

I mean, I got a little sidetracked from the purity culture thing. But I think a lot of, like, culturally situated ideas about courtship, marriage, sex, and whatnot were packaged as if they were just the obvious, quote-unquote, biblical teaching. That, to me, is pretty unhelpful. A lot of explicit messaging, honestly, this like damaged good theology like if you are sexually intimate or have a sexual history going into your marriage um you are then of less value to your spouse you have given a gift away that they deserved and um who would ever want you and like all of this, you know, and it's usually not said quite that way in the books. But a distinction that I think people don't always realize is that, yes, this was happening in the books, but it was also happening like in youth groups constantly.

And like parents were saying stuff and friends were saying stuff to each other and uh you know campus ministry and like a lot of this stuff that isn't a lot of it seems to me the most damaging stuff is not on record although you can you can certainly find stuff um in retrospect you know reading every man's battle reading passion i've heard about the the flower metaphor like that people literally would take a flower and pick off the petals. Is that, that that's actually a thing that's not purely culture. 100%. No,

no, no. So the, the, the chewed gum, the flower past the flower around the room. Yeah. It's like you put a stick of gum in your mouth and you chew it up and then

you're like, Hey, this is really good. And then you try to hand it to somebody else. It's like, Hey, I know this. So,

so that's damaged goods. That's that's, I mean, yeah, it's, it's this damaged goods metaphor. And like tape is only sticky when it's never stuck to anything else before. So if you take tape off of a surface and try to put it back on, it won't stick as well, which is to say, if you've been intimate with someone, you're like bonded to that person and you'll actually be less able to bond for life to a

marriage partner all of just all of that stuff real quick on that on that i mean i've dabbled a little bit in the science of it is there some truth to that is it oxytocin or whatever there isn't there like a bonding hormone that's released through sexual encounters or something or yeah i'm sure i'm pretty sure orgasm releases bonding kind of yeah i'm not saying that's a good way to go about that but that that maybe it might is it based on i think but i don't know if it would be fair to say and you and i are both speaking kind of out of our lane in this in in this moment i don't know if it would be fair to say that you are necessarily less able to bond with someone in the future because you had been intimate with someone else in the past. I think that's

the case. Yeah. And then in terms of implicit messages, a huge one is this centering of sexual discipleship, where the kind of like everything of teenage kind of growth in Christ was about whether you were staying above board in your relationships, whether you had slept with someone or not. Your sexuality was the be-end and end-all of what it meant to follow Christ. And that's not just limited to teenage discipleship. I think that's something that the church kind of can fall into in the cultural wars broadly, where we kind of exceptionalize and center sexuality, both in our public engagement, as well as in our kind of personal fulfillment. Fulfillment's not the right word. Our personal walk with the Lord, I suppose. Fulfillment. Fulfillment is not the right word. Our personal walk with the Lord, I suppose. Where if I feel I have a subjective sense that things are going well as it relates to my sexual integrity or discipleship'm a farce i'm a joke of a christian everything is is just a joke and i'm terrible and um disgusting

and all of this like you could be like a 16 year old could receive the implicit or explicit messages well a blend of both probably that you know while they are laughing at racist jokes while they're kind of dehumanizing women and they can care less about the poor and they're being misogynistic but man they haven't looked at porn in a month so they're not they're not kissing their girlfriend so they could they could say wow so i'm being an amazing christian is that you're saying that purity culture kind of fostered that kind of messages? Yes, yes, precisely. And, and, uh, something I talk about in the book that I think is indicative of this, and you know, this is just speaking for me, but I think a lot of people who grew up in the kind of conservative evangelical church, when they hear the word purity,

they think sexual, like it has, it has become this term, at least purity in context of like Christian discipleship. It has these sexual connotations. And that's not to say biblically that language around purity, both in the Greek and the Hebrew, does not sometimes clearly have sexual connotations. It absolutely does. have sexual connotations. It absolutely does. But that is one component of a broad category of different types of impurity that can include, I hope I don't get this wrong, Isaiah 1. There's kind of this indictment leveled against the people of Israel that says you guys need to cleanse yourselves. And I think when, you know,

someone who's kind of raised in the purity culture environment, you hear a prophet telling God's people that they need to, they're impure and they need to cleanse themselves. It's like, oh, they're probably looking at porn and sleeping with their girlfriend before they get married or something like that. But it actually is not the case. It is, you are oppressing the widow

and you're meeting out injustice and all sorts of categories like that. So I think there's an unhelpful narrowing of even the language of purity that causes us to miss even what the biblical text is saying. So when I hear as a young person, how can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to his word? I literally think in my brain, my brain goes straight to how can a young man like not masturbate by watching or by memorizing Bible verses or something like that. Or when Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart, that obviously has, in my mind, sexual connotations. When there's nothing in that passage to suggest that it's a narrowly sexual thing that Jesus is talking about. And the entire kind of language of purity in the Bible, which is very rich and multifaceted and nuanced and broad in other ways,

kind of unhelpfully just gets narrowed into sexual categories such that we are overlooking egregious patterns of sin that scripture speaks at length about because whenever we hear purity, we just kind of think sex. Yeah, that's good. I think one of the, and you point this out in your book, from my vantage point, kind of looking back and kind of hearing how people describe messages they got from purity culture, I think one of the most damaging messages was that sex outside of marriage is bad, sex inside marriage is good. Automatically. marriage is good. Don't have the bad stuff. And then God will, and I don't know, I want to hear from you. I don't know if this wording was exactly this, but if you save yourself, then God will bless you with a spouse, first of all, which is a lie. There's no single promise in scripture that God will give you a spouse. Number two, that that will include, you know, a great sex life and all

this amazing, you know, sex, whatever, which has so many layers of problems even framing it that way. And this is something, so even though I didn't read it, I very much, if I think back, that was the message that I absorbed somewhere. Was that singleness is a stage to get through. It's not if, but when you get married. And if you just save yourself, the more you save yourself, you know? Yeah. Just don't go past first base. Go nuts. Yeah. Maybe go past, the more bases, the more home runs you get, like the worst is going to be on the other side. So the motivation is, is, is the least amount of

sexual activity you can have as a single person, the greater it's going to be on the other side. And then when you'd probably know the percentages, I don't know, 20 to 40 to 50 percent of people that that doesn't work out for many different reasons. Then all of a sudden, that's a faith crisis. Well, wait a minute, God. I did all these things for you. You didn't deliver. Or maybe I'm 38 and still not married.

And God's like, I didn't promise you to get married. How come you haven't taken advantage of your singleness all these years of serving? You've been holding out for some spouse that I've never guaranteed. Anyway, am I? No, I think you summarized it pretty well, to be honest. cultural preoccupation with sex, particularly after the sexual revolution, and a preoccupation with quote-unquote sexual fulfillment, as sex is something that is, whether it's a human right, or something that every human should have access to, or something like that. And this obsession with having the best sex you can possibly have. And it just baptized it and Christianized it and said, the path to your best sex life is actually following the rules of Christianity, our traditional sexual ethic, and save yourself till marriage, and then your sex life and marriage will be great. and save yourself to merit till marriage and then your sex life and marriage will be great and again in my story and i talk about this all throughout the book that that did not pan out

and um i think yeah that i just people that i've talked to who have been willing to open up this part of their lives to me that's a disaffecting thing that's a fate you know if you feel like your pastor or your parents or it was all just hyped up and it was made into this thing and you felt like God promised you something, even if the word promise isn't stated explicitly, there's the, well, why are we doing this? Why are we holding off? The culture around us is going nuts, but we're kind of keeping it boundaried. nuts, but we're kind of keeping it boundaried. And the why of premarital abstinence or just abstinence in general was so often to guarantee a better future outcome, not just of Christian discipleship, but for your sex life. Maximizing your sex life after marriage is kind of the Yeah, absolutely. So it's a down payment on your future sexual fulfillment in marriage.

is kind of the motive. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a down payment on your future sexual fulfillment in marriage. So you're saying that that wasn't necessarily explicitly stated, I can say from the little eye, but was definitely implied like that. For sure. Strongly implied, if not explicitly stated. Yeah. I mean, and going back to the damaged goods stuff, it's so there's a carrot and a stick in purity culture. There's the kind of carrot of your best sex life later is kind of my cheeky way of saying it in the book. But then there's also the stick of like if you screw this up, you're destroying your future marriage or you'll never be able to get it back and all of these types of messages as well. And ultimately, it's just kind of sad because more than kind of sad, it capitalizes on a cultural idolatry of sex and just Christianizes it. It doesn't actually preach the gospel to people and say that there's

something better than quote unquote sexual fulfillment. I had a second thought there, but we can just leave it at that. It just capitalizes on idolatry and it doesn't make people worshipers of God and of Christ, it seems to me. The damaged goods piece, didn't women bear the brunt of that a lot more than men? Yes. My anecdotal experience here is going to be more after the fact. It seems like the majority of people I talk to that have been legitimately like really hurt, harmed, whatever, by the purity messages almost, or most of, not all, but many of them, most of them are women. produced ongoing problems in in in yeah their sex lives and marriage or whatever like that that really sunk deep is that would you say that the messages were more directed at women being damaged goods or on the damaged yeah on the damaged goods point absolutely although that's

not to say that men can't experience that. Men can and often did, I think. But this ties into the prized bride virgin kind of fetishization thing. That goes back way more than just the kind of last 40 years of Christian discipleship material. So that's a much broader thing, the way virginity for women in particular is prized and you can get into kind of that that's first century too even that was a unique thing with christianity requiring you know even even men you know shouldn't have sex before outside of marriage like that that was a shocker in the first century that someone would say that yeah and you know i've heard it and i've read that you know whether you want to describe it in terms of evolutionary biology or sociology or the history of these and different things there's a certain you know there's always

ambiguity around um male parentage that is not the case for female parentage so you need to like be more guarded if you're a woman because like everyone knows when you're pregnant and have a child um but you can always there's always certain ambiguity around male parentage parentage what do you parentage like that you've got somebody who's the father of the child oh right okay so i'm just saying so i think that i've heard described as a reason why female purity quote-unquote and virginity was especially guarded because it's just much more of a delicate thing, and there's a higher cost to even becoming pregnant. So let's just say this. Let's just say first century.

Who knows? First century, if your teenage son goes out and gets somebody pregnant, there's always plausible deniability there. But if someone comes and gets your daughter, your teenage daughter pregnant, there's no way around that. Like that's a ruined quote unquote scenario for her future marriage and life prospects. So, yeah, we're getting off on that a little bit. But to get back to the kind of purity culture, I think it's right that women bore the brunt of that. bore the brunt of that. And I think it's interesting that in terms of kind of a dozen or more books that have been written kind of as, quote unquote, deconstructing purity culture or something over the last six, seven years, almost all of them have been written by women.

And I think that is itself indicative of the fact that I think women, you're right, bore the brunt of this. But one of the things I wanted to highlight in my book, while certainly acknowledging and granting all of that, was that there was a unique, different, but unique type of harm that I think was more commonly experienced by men. Namely, the kind of absorption of this vision of male sexuality as this out-of-control, vision of male sexuality as this out of control, animalistic, can't be contained force that you just needed to create boundaries around and keep it penned in until marriage. And then marriage then isn't a covenant relationship of this beautiful mutuality, visioning Christ in the church or any of these really robust theological

categories, it literally just becomes a God-approved context for a man to unleash his sexual urges. When men and young men in purity culture would find themselves, one, they would be kind of given this vision of male sexuality as this kind of raging thing that could barely, if at all, be controlled. Number one. Number two, when they kind of experience sexual feelings in their body before or outside of marriage, that's like this terrible, dark, subhuman thing about them. And there was a relatively less of an emphasis on the goodness and beauty of human sexuality, even outside of marriage, by which I mean, like, whether you're married or not, your sexual, your sexness, your sexual desires, your existence as an embodied sexual creature is a good thing. It's not like that's

a bad thing about your humanity until you get married and then it becomes a good thing about your humanity. Because that implicitly idolizes marriage too. Because it's like, what do single people do if they never get married? It makes marriage salvation. It's actually what it does. Like Jesus is no longer the source of salvation. Marriage is the source of salvation. Marriage is what rescues you from your sinful sexual desires and gives you this kind of like release into a fully human way of existing. That kind of vision of, this is a key theme in the book, that vision of male sexuality as this dark thing that needs to be contained, I worry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, number one. Number two, I think because of that, a lot of men experience a lot of shame around their sexuality in Christian spaces.

So if women are shamed for causing others to experience sexual desire, men are shamed for experiencing sexual desires themselves. And something I say in the book is that if women are viewed as objects, they're dehumanized because they're viewed as objects. Men are dehumanized because they're seen as animals. they're dehumanized because they're viewed as objects. Men are dehumanized because they're seen as animals. Or last one I say is that if men are sex machines, then women are just like machines for sex. They're toys in a way. And men are just like these robots that need to follow their programming. And given the certain circumstance and stimulus, they'll just won't be able to help but indulge in that.

And this is itself a baptizing of certain cultural stereotypes. I know it's Billy Crystal. And it's not like I'm not the generation that grew up with Billy Crystal. I just know this is a line from him. Where there's the joke that women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place. I think I said this to you when we were hanging out. And I think that's this kind of cultural idea that men are just these meatheads that will attack sex like red meat, like a dog would attack red meat or something like that.

That messaging given, especially to young men, I think sets them up for a sub-Christian vision of what it means to be a mature male. So what is, okay, so that's the negative side. What is the, would love for you to kind of reconstruct now, like what is a healthy male sexuality then? Yeah. So one of the big things that I try to do is replace this purity paradigm with a paradigm of growing up into maturity and Christ likeness. So in a purity paradigm, you enter into your sexual experience, you know, what do you want to say at adolescence, as kind of perfect. It's an Edenic state where there's no sin that has corrupted you or stained you. And then the goal becomes to make it to the goal of marriage as intact, as kind of close to your Edenic state as you possibly can. And then you kind of unleash your- Yeah, 100%. You've made it. Yeah.

You unleash your Edenic state onto your- Yeah, go nuts. But that's just not how life works. Who arrives at their marriage with no regrets about any of their choices or their formation sexually in any way whatsoever? No one does. No one ever makes it in this kind of, quote quote unquote pure state because that's just not how life works in a fallen world and then importantly it doesn't even allow for the possibility that even before that sexual awakening at puberty there's a tragic percentage of the population that is has sexual experiences forced on them um through abuse and exposure to things that are before their time and things like that so that

doesn't work in a purity paradigm like there's no kind of way of humanizing people who are sinned against in this way and commending them to beautiful expression of their sexuality that honors the goodness of it and this and that and the other thing. Did purity culture, because that's it, I mean, if someone was a victim of sexual abuse, did purity culture kind of mishandle that? Did they make them feel like damaged goods? Or that surely couldn't have been an explicit message. No, not an explicit message, but sexual abuse is almost not on the radar at all in these resources. And if you go and read, you know, Emily Joy Allison's Church Too, Rachel Welcher's Talking Back to Purity Culture, Linda K. Klein's Pure. These are all these women authors who kind of broke through on this topic. this is a constant theme is that there's no existence in the kind of purity culture paradigm of people who are survivors of of childhood sexual abuse or adult adult sexual uh uh violence and

abuse for that matter just 20 to 30 percent of people yeah so it's yeah i mean when i put out you know a few different channels and just through different networks and relationships that there were people that I wanted to I wanted to talk to men about their experiences in purity culture. You know, several of the men I ended up talking to had experiences of sexual trauma and whether episodic or one off or constant or and that that forms you in a certain way and purity culture has nothing to say about that other than you did the thing or the thing was done to you that shouldn't have been and that's bad news and sorry about that and now you're kind of ruined this episode is sponsored by faithful counseling okay so i used to think the only people with serious mental health issues are the ones that need counseling, but I so don't believe that anymore. Almost every single healthy person I know has either been to counseling or seen a therapist, and not just when they're in crisis mode.

We all need to talk to someone, and Faithful Counseling can help. They offer online professional mental health therapy from a biblical perspective. You can log into your account anytime. You send a message to your counselor and you can schedule weekly video or even phone sessions. So you don't have to be on camera if you don't want to. One of the things I love most about Faithful Counseling is that it allows you to change counselors free of charge until you find the right fit for you. And it's more affordable than traditional offline counseling. And on top of that, financial aid is available. So continue growing into the best

version of yourself. Visit faithfulcounseling.com forward slash T-I-T-R and get the professional faith-based counseling that you deserve. They've even got a special offer for our listeners right now. You can get 10% off your first month at faithfulcounseling.com forward slash T-I-T-R. Thanks again to Faithful Counseling for sponsoring this episode. One of the things I so appreciate about your book that I've seen absent in when I hear people talk about purity culture is just people who are not straight, you know, like gay and lesbian people are just completely left out of the discussion. And if this is, well, I, yeah, well, two massive oversights. It's like, you talked to like gay people now that are raised in that. And it's just, it's horrific. Like they're well, one, one kind of comical examples. My friend, Greg Coles grew up in the church. He's gay. And, um, you know, he was told he calls with like, you know, like

12 years old, they would separate the boys and the girls. And then like, you know, he knew like, here comes the sex talk. And he's like, okay, guys, this is every man's battle. Every, every man is going to be, you're going to desperately want to look at naked women and just don't do it. Just don't do it. And then my friend's like, like dude i'm like the holiest person here i have no desire to look at naked and he thought he was like the most holy closest to jesus person until he started to hear messages of oh but even worse than that is if you oh gosh so it's just layers and layers of just not just poor well poor theology but theology, just feeling like he's not even human, let alone a Christian, because he's not experiencing what every human apparently

experiences. But I love that throughout the book, you constantly come back to that. It is so, so, so helpful. So yeah, yeah. And I do think the kind of paradigm of masculinity, certainly in purity culture, but in the church broadly, is kind of heteronormative, which is to say that part of our performance of, quote unquote, true masculinity in the church is at least acting like, you know, gender is performance. That, you know, this is the influential theory on what gender is. But if we think about gender as something we perform or we live into, the way we perform masculinity, a key part of it is at least acting like we really badly want to have sex with women. Or we're extremely attracted to women that the cultural context around us tells us are extremely attractive. Or the men that we're in relationship with are modeling to us that

they are extremely attracted to or something like that. Even men who don't experience their kind of innate sexual desire that way are socialized, especially in the church, to act out, like act as if you are desperately like trying not to indulge in a lustful fantasy about these people around you. Whereas in the New Testament, like where on earth is that in the New Testament? It's nowhere. And in fact, like the two, like top two heroes, quote unquote, of the New Testament, namely Jesus and the Apostle Paul are like single men. And like, they're not, they're not performing like an out of control heterosexual desire and i think like that's the message that i want to be sending to gay and lesbian people in

the church um and this doesn't even need to fit within like kind of a traditional stance on sexual ethics it's just like look at you don't need to live into this kind of like heteronormative i need to end up in a straight marriage if I'm going to be a godly person. There are alternate models of masculinity that don't fit this kind of hyper erotic script, it seems to me. And that can be pretty destructive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've talked to several friends. I mean, not, you know, some that are gay, some that have experienced, especially men that have experienced underage,

whether childhood or even adolescent sexual abuse, it has really messed, like one of my friends, he's pretty, he's, he's, he's still straight, but he's almost kind of asexual in a sense,

like just does not have that at all. Like the raging sexual desire, whatever, or much sexual desire at all um another friend of mine he was he was kind of coaxed into i mean almost seduced into a consensual i shouldn't call it consent it was an older boy coaxed him into doing sexual things that weren't like physically forced but just more manipulated and again he's not same-sex attracted, but he's also, it's kind of messed with his sexuality in ways to where, yeah, it's even hard to describe. It's just, you know, but anyway, there's just like, even if it's less than 50%, even if it's 20%, that's a high enough percentage of men in particular, even, let alone the women who experience much more sexual abuse, that they don't fit that paradigm, right?

All right. Well, so, okay. Let's, I got to find something to disagree with here. I do. I feel like I never finished my thoughts. So maybe while you're, particularly on the paradigm replacement. So replacing a purity paradigm with a growing up in Christ paradigm. So what I try to do in the second half of the book is,

which is, sorry, I didn't mean to say, no, you're not allowed to disagree. Let me talk about something that we agree on. I try to do in the second half of the book is create a narrative where sexuality and the virtue of chastity even as a way of thinking about it is something like all Christian virtues that we grow up into. So, it actually creates certain ways of thinking about your sexuality or acting out. Yes, they're sinful, but we can also describe them as immature. And because they are immature, we can exhort young people in particular to grow out of them and to grow into a more adult, humanizing, respectful, God-honoring, Christ-like way of living out their sexuality. So an analogy that you might offer is, is it a sin for a toddler to throw a temper tantrum? It's like, well, yeah, but that's kind

of like not the most helpful way to frame it. It's just like, that's, that's something that toddlers deal with. And like what toddler is going to arrive at age 10, never having, having never like thrown a temper tantrum and like hit their sister or hit their brother. That's, that's almost impossible. Um, and like that, I think is almost what we're trying to do sometimes with the purity paradigm is like raise toddlers to young adulthood, having never like gotten mad and hit somebody. Young men, let's just say, will perhaps find sexually explicit materials and pornography enticing and have to work through that or might be developing unhealthy habits around masturbation or something like that. things wrong yes and unhealthy yes but they're also marks of a certain type of sexual immaturity that we want to exhort men to grow up out of as they mature um and then similarly like if you're looking at women in a certain way that is dehumanizing you find yourself sexualizing all the people around you you can't have a conversation with somebody without, you know, getting preoccupied with like what it would

be like to have sex with them. I think it's like, it's not just that's the inevitable part of being male. You say that's extremely immature and dehumanizing and you need to grow up because that's a childish kind of like adolescent way of thinking about bodies. And that's not every man's battle. That's actually a profoundly dehumanizing way of being in the world, both to you and to the other people. So I think that gives a little preview of, it really developed in lots of different ways, but what I'm trying to do in the second half of the book in terms of replacing the purity paradigm with a maturity growing up paradigm. All right, let me try to play devil's advocate on that point.

Would you say the same thing about other sins? For instance, racism, rather than saying, you know what, telling a racist joke as a 15 year old, yeah, I guess that's sin, but it's also immature. And like, we should be okay with kids failing. Of course, they're gonna, you know, like don't, we shouldn't shame them for being racist as kids.

You know, of course they're gonna, you know, say things that are, you know, mean towards people of a different color, you know like don't we shouldn't shame them for being racist as kids you know of course they're gonna you know say things that are you know mean towards people of a different color you know um or yes misogyny is wrong dehumanizing women's wrong but you know it's we should be more okay with them it's gonna happen they should not be told they're sinners but it's also just a mark of immaturity i would not say that audience that can't handle this, I don't necessarily agree with my argument. I'm just trying to have a more interesting conversation here. No, no, no, no. Well, a couple things that come to mind. One is that there's a developmental arc to sexuality where you're innocent of it.

And I don't mean, again, in a purity paradigm way. of it. And I don't mean, again, in a purity paradigm way, but, you know, ideally young kids, you know, my kids are all six and under, they're very much innocent of sexuality in a certain way. Like they know about body parts, they know about the differences between boys and girls in that sense, but they are completely innocent of eroticism and sexuality. So as they grow into those forms of body and brain development, there's a certain kind of figuring it out that needs to happen. And then to go back to the anger analogy or the temper tantrum analogy, those are modes of, well, I don't know if I want to, just because I'm not an expert on it, I don't know if I want to volunteer too much there. But here's what I would say to connect it to the racism thing. I think it is part of human nature

and a part of human nature that often gets bent to be tribal or to notice differences and other people and that's something that kids do actually from a very young age they notice someone that's wearing different clothing than they're used to seeing people um wear and they kind of will say oh that's weird or that's yucky or i don't like that or something like that and and that's the teachable moment where you can form that natural tendency in a certain direction that is tribal and dehumanizing or respectful and honoring of the beauty and diversity of creation or of other people or something like that. Um, so I would say racism is not an innate sin just as like sexual sin is not innate. It's actually a bending of a certain aspect of human nature. It's a qualification of human nature towards a vice.

Yeah. I'm not sure if that fully addresses, but those are some things that, that came to mind. Yeah. No, I thought that's, that's, that's a good response. I think I did. I literally just thought of that as you're talking too, because I'm like, it is an apples and oranges thing. I don't think it's always good to say,

well, if we're addressing this kind of sin struggle in this way, therefore we should do every sin struggle in the same exact way. It's like, well, everything's different too. So what would you say to somebody that says, well, wait a minute. So are you not like swinging the pendulum now on the opposite?

So, you know, purity culture swung it too far this way. And then now anti-purity culture, maybe we swing it too far to where rather than putting so much pressure on people not to engage in sinful sexual behavior. Now we're swinging it the other way to where it's like, we're kind of almost saying like, yeah, it's going to happen. Just, you know, let's just kind of grow up. Like, have you gotten that accusation yet? I mean, I'm sure you will. If you know that it's. happen just you know let's just kind of grow up like have you gotten that accusation yet i mean i'm sure you will if you know that it's if i haven't yet um like sexual immorality is treated among other sins you know pretty seriously in scripture like it doesn't

yeah no and i think that's a thing that if i were to critique some of the critics of purity culture i don't want to paint with a broad brush here, but there are some who will make Christianity into itself a kind of tool of sexual liberation in a way that, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful to that perspective, but in a way that I find hard to digest relative to scripture and to the Christian tradition. Like to your point, sexual immorality is a thing. It is a thing that scripture speaks to, a thing that scripture condemns, and it is not really sustainable to say that that boils down to something like consent. It certainly includes that. I think

the logical kind of theological foundation for consent is human dignity and the Imago Dei, certainly. But Christian sexual ethics have always been more robust than that. And it should also be said that Christian sexual ethics have gone awry too often in their undervaluing of things like consent and, you know, the agency of women and things like, you know, women's pleasure. And that's a common thing that's critiqued and talked about today. And I think that's a very good development. I don't pretend the book is not reactionary. I think that's a very good development. I don't pretend the book is not reactionary.

Like it's definitely reacting to something, which was reacting to something. And there will be another reaction to whatever I'm saying here. Yeah. So I don't pretend it's not that. permission to indulge in um things that i believe scripture and the christian tradition would fairly unanimously uh say are outside of god-intended telos for human sexuality um i definitely err on the side of like let's just chill out a little bit in the sense of Let's just chill out a little bit in the sense of not make sexual ethics like the sum total of Christian ethics and not pretend there's not actually space for disagreement and debate on what Christian sexual ethics can and should be. While also being forthcoming about like I still take, you know, pretty traditional views on most things. So I definitely, I, I err on that side, but I think that's to my primary audience, which is people who grew up with this kind of purity culture

narrative. I'm trying to give them space to work through things without just saying, you know, the Bible is clear and you're in rebellion if you've indulged in this or you're ruined if you've done this. Because I genuinely think that so often just pushes people away from the faith and pushes people into visions of, you know, sexuality that, you know, in my view, aren't life aren't life-giving, um, in the ways that I think a healthy expression of Christian sexual ethics can and should be. So I do want to draw attention to that. And this is maybe to give you opportunity to maybe clarify, because when we talked in

Cambridge, like you, you described kind of your audience as a, as a more broader audience, not just a kind of conservative audience. And that was, that was so helpful hearing that going in, because I read the book through that lens and it, it made total sense to me, but I could see somebody that didn't know that going in. So like, there's several places where you say like on page 139, you know, for those who decide together that they'd like to hold off on sex until marriage, you know, and you're like, wait a minute, can't we just say that they shouldn't have sex before marriage, you know, but you're writing to an audience that might not hold to that view.

Is that, is that, because you said that several times where you make it kind of open-ended that, Hey, here's one view. Don't have sex until marriage. But for those of you who don't hold to that view, like you're trying to include people who don't hold to a traditional sexual ethic. It sounds like. Yeah. to a traditional sexual ethic, it sounds like.

Yeah, because I think there are Christians who don't hold to a kind of premarital abstinent norm of sexual ethics, and increasingly so. And you have them, they're part of the audience you're writing to. They're part of, and I want them, you know, they're part of the church. I want them to be part of the conversation. I don't want to kind of, you know, and there's a book that I could have written that would have been a robust defense of everything that I believe about sexual ethics. This is not that book. I try to be honest, but also respectful to different viewpoints at various points. And I think that's what you're seeing there. You know, like, I feel like that's a pastoral choice in terms of the writing style

on my part. And I can see criticisms of it from other perspectives. I can't remember if you clarified that up front. You might have clarified that you're right. I don't know. I clarify early on that I still hold to a traditional ethic. Yeah, you said that. Yeah, that's very clear. But I immediately followed by saying, I don't think that's the most important thing about being a Christian. And I think that's a secondary, these are secondary issues. And I think it's important actually that they remain secondary issues if we're going to – and here's the thing. Man, sexual violence and sexual abuse in the church is a cancer that we badly need to have all Christians on board in addressing. And that's really the heartbeat of this book in a lot of ways, or at least it's trying to be.

It's like, oh my gosh, for crying out loud, if the progressives and the conservatives can get together on one thing. It should be this. It should be that sexual violence is terrible and we should all be working hard to think of solutions on how to address it. on how to address it. And it doesn't seem to me like agreement on whether or not sex before marriage is tenable within a Christian sexual ethic is essential. Like sexual violence is terrible no matter what you think about premarital sexual ethics. And I think there is also, we can agree that like men should not be thinking of themselves as like out of control in terms of their sexuality. They should not be blaming women or policing women's clothing as a kind of mode of like, I hope that conservatives and progressives can find

some common ground there that whatever this toxic masculinity or however you wanted to find it should not be reproduced and represented in christian spaces in the way that we're sadly too often seeing that it is so like man if if you can't lock arms and have a conversation with another brother or sister in christ on something like preventing sexual violence in the church i don't know man that's that's hard that's good that's that's helpful i hope i mean i hope people read it with that as a writer i mean you know like i figuring out who is your target audience is huge every everything is kind of determined on you know the publisher always asks okay if you pick one describe to me yeah yeah who's a conglomerate of your audit is it a 37 year old you know, the publisher always asks, okay, if you pick one, describe to me a conglomerate

of your audience. Is it a 37-year-old, you know, heterosexual pastor or is it whatever, like who, and who are your kind of secondary, third, tertiary kind of audience? So that's just so important. But sometimes people, they read books without even that kind of lens. So I would have, if you haven't already, i can imagine you're going to get critiqued on that from a more conservative audience that for sure yeah there may or may not have been a review published at a certain website with some olive green branding that um not olive green what is

that like like a neon green branding that uh raised some of these points i said i didn't read it but i saw that it exists maybe i'm so um i don't i don't but yeah you're you're not you're not completely off base to suggest that okay so that critique has been stated oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah and you know and then i would imagine i i don't while i again i've got the advantage of talking to you and have you once you explain it's's like, oh, totally. That makes sense just from a writing perspective. I can see someone that didn't have that clarity maybe. Another, okay.

So on page 155, and this is a legitimate question. This is not me playing devil's advocate. Maybe I need more convincing here. You say a pastor who needs blocking software to not look at porn or needs the Billy Graham rule to avoid sexualizing interactions with women is quite simply not fit to be a pastor. There's two things going on there, the Billy Graham rule and the software blocking. The software blocking, I don't know. I initially thought that was a little harsh. Obviously, I don't know what the percentage is these days of men that either wrestle with porn, struggle with porn or habitually watching. I mean, it's pretty, pretty high.

Could a blocker not obviously putting all your sanctification faith in a blocker is not doing the deep work that needs to be done. So maybe that's your point. But to me, I'm like, I don't, again, maybe I'm wrong here, but like, yeah, we should be doing deep discipleship, put blockers on, we need temporarily, kind of like an alcoholic that can't even go into a bar is obviously not fit to be, well, maybe there's several things that need to be put in place to help foster the sanctifying process. So. Yeah. Well, I think so often our approach in terms of accountability has and motivations and, you know, being transformed internally so as not to indulge in sinful behaviors. So what I'm trying to look at porn, will have no internal self-control recourse to not do so.

That is what I am describing. So it's not simply having the blocking software as a holistic part of the situation. It's not saying having blocking software is bad. Blocking software is bad. It is to say that blocking software is more akin to kind of the alcoholic not having alcohol in her home. You know, that is not to say that there aren't godly people who, because of their formation in history, may deem it wise to have certain blockers and boundaries in place, but it is no replacement for learning to just grow in self-control because that's what guardrails do. They're not self-controlled, they're outward control of you. And what Christian virtue is developing the ability to actually control yourself. And even when you are faced with a sexually charged situation or a sexually

explicit thing that happens across your view or something you're watching or something you're online doing, you can actually just reject that and move on. You don't need... So that's, I think, that's what I'm trying to get at there. Like depending upon this external guardrail without doing the hard work of cultivating... It just means as soon as you find yourself in a situation where the guardrail is not there for whatever reason, if that's your only recourse for not indulging in sin, you're actually increasing the likelihood that you will stumble into that. Because you can always get around blockers. You can always, you know, whatever things, whatever things you do to try to prevent that, if your heart is such that you will indulge in that, you're not doing the hard and deep work that you need to.

So maybe if I was going to edit this, I would probably, you know, a pastor who relies solely on blocking software to not look at porn might be a... Yeah. Second edition, Preston. I'll let you know. And just for the record, I will read my book. I've got one coming out in a couple months. And I actually hate, and I don't do this because it's so frustrating, because I'll read a book after it's been through loads of editorial whatever. And the second it's in print, I'm like, ah, should have said this or this.

So anyway, I'm not ashamed at all. No, I won't volunteer then. But there are about two or three things in this book where they're just annoyances, where I'm like, man, that sentence. If I could just go and just tweak that sentence i would feel and i like i like more provocative writing than hyper careful writing personally so i don't i don't again i'm reading this and i'm like i know zach i probably know what he's you know getting out here but uh yeah i like to kind of kick in the gut a little bit like oh this is you know um so so with

the billy graham so help me the billy graham rule not being a whatever not being alone with the opposite sex or maybe a person you're you would be sexually attracted to to include gay and lesbian people in the conversation you know no that's part actually part of the point is that it's not it doesn't include gay and lesbian like like part of the problem with with the billy graham rule is that it's heteronormative number one number two it sexualizes all opposite sex relationships or it eroticizes all uh opposite sex relationships and it doesn't allow for the possibility it's like maybe there's sinful indulgence and if there's sinful indulgence in opposite sex relationships perhaps there could also be in same-sex relationships here's here's where in as much as the billy graham rule

is well i guess that predates purity culture i don't know it's it's related i guess that's totally related that that's something that i definitely did grow up um maybe it's because that was explicitly taught in seminary i never knew it was called the billy graham rule till again a few years ago but it was man, I deliberately remember sitting in class at seminary and a whole class lecture on never being alone with the women. There's a vivid, one of the only things I remember from seminary is like Greek Exodus Jesus class and an article they gave us about you're a pastor, you're a guest speaker, you show up at a church, it's pouring rain outside and um you're way you're early so you're waiting and there's a woman that um is also in the rain standing in the rain waiting for church what do you do do you

invite her in the car and they say no you bring her in the car and you get out of the car and you go stand in the rain was was the was the response that was like the the magic solution that was like you don't want to be showing up to all of a sudden like getting out of the car with another woman who's not your wife as you're getting ready to preach at a, especially if she's all wet, supposedly. Yeah. But I, I, um, I would say I I've moved away from the strict kind of Billy Graham rule, but I still, I still do want to ask, I don't know. Like I, it's one of those like pendulum swings. Like if I was going to tell my wife, like I will not let me just put it out of my own personal situation or I can throw it on you. Like if you're going to tell

your wife, Hey, I'm at a Preston's in town, you know, I'm going to go out and grab dinner with Preston. Can you watch the kids? She'd probably say, Oh, sure. Hopefully. I mean, but what if, what if you had, um, a single woman that was in town that was a friend and would you have your wife watch the kids while you go have a one-on-one nice steak dinner with split a ball of wine or something with a single woman like would that be and i and i'm not saying no you shouldn't do that because you're obviously gonna jump in the bed yeah let's just leave it just that alone like sure is there any like what does that look like yeah i don't i and my other follow-up question is like i feel like

sometimes guys in a catch-22 because there's some high-profile people who have been kind of attacked for upholding the billy graham rule on the one hand then when they violate it then they're attacked on the other side it's like a kind of a no-win situation and i don't know i can't i can't well here's what i can't do i can't offer and i and I try to say this, critiquing the Billy Graham rule, you know, who and how you spend your time with. Of course it does. You know, the things that I find problematic are some of the things I've already said. where the assumption is that men can't help but indulge if given the opportunity and women are temptresses or seductresses or something like that are just not Christian ways of by default orienting ourselves to other people is like, is this person trying to have sex with me

or not? Like that? I don't know. Like if they, if, if, if they are trying to have sex with me or not? Like that, I don't know. Like if they are trying to have sex with you, it will become clear. Sorry, we can say more, but yeah, go ahead. Well, I was gonna say, I get this. So the soul, like it's all about like, you're just gonna hop in bed together and this person's just gonna seduce you. Like I get that.

But then there's also like the wisdom and the perception piece. Perception, maybe. I'm not a big like, what will people think kind of person, but not necessarily, although, well i want to come back to that it's but what about like even developing emotional bonds aside from the sex that like what if i knew that somebody was a married woman that had a very unhealthy marriage it's very very just not that he's like being abusive or something but just maybe just a

deadbeat not not like a good christian guy whatever like and then i knew and and i sensed that this woman maybe is just really craving like just a strong emotional bond and and i'm like should i at all be concerned about filling that emotional need that somebody has without even thinking like, oh, this is going to end up being a sex. This is leave sex off the table. What about just forming emotional bonds with somebody who's not your spouse that might – is there a place to even ask the question, could that be a concern? Well, the fact that you're raising it as like a specific like hypothetical situation, and this is far different than like the woman getting drenched in the rain scenario, which I think people who I know who have pastored for a long time have at times found themselves in situations where they do need to be emotionally guarded and create certain boundaries. But that's not just even like a pastoral or sexual wisdom

thing. That's just like relationship wisdom is there are boundaries around relationships that I don't know if need to be like sexualized in the way they often are with the Billy Graham rule. The other thing that I'll say is like for clarity, for clarity, Zach. So the Billy Graham rule is more explicitly about. It's about two things, as I understand it. It's about avoiding avoiding the actuality of sexual scandal. understand it it's about avoiding avoiding the actuality of sexual scandal like if you are one on one you are more you are more likely to form these kind of emotional bonds um like you could be propositioned or something like this or the appearance of scandal is it's a it's framed up as like this is about being above reproach you don't even want to give someone

the opportunity to think that you were you know hanging out with this person and driving somewhere together like that's that's itself bad news and i get like there are public figure dynamics like for politicians like politicians probably want to avoid avoid being photographed in a car alone with someone who is not their spouse if they're in a heterosexual marriage, for instance, with someone who's opposite sex. Like, there are just optic situations that people are concerning. up and made into this kind of standardized rule, the most important thing is that women end up on the short end of this and that women end up being excluded from spaces, being excluded from conversations, being given second tier pastoral care and are not given the respect that they deserve because some guy has the wrong idea that she's like trying to sleep with him. And she's like, no, I just want to talk about my, like this situation in my life. And

I want to talk with someone who can offer me wisdom about the scriptures and this and that to address that. I've heard that a lot from secular, from a female scholars in Christian settings where they're the one of the one or two women on the whole Bible faculty, theology faculty, and guys may go out to the pub after and hang out. And then the girls misses out on kind of these rich, just down to earth relational conversations. Yeah. So I think, yeah, in some, I would say something like, critiquing the Billy Graham rule, one, is about the way that it dehumanizes women, it excludes women, it's a disservice to women, women are excluded from conversation spaces, pastoral care, and are viewed as somehow like the enemy or made to feel like they've been doing, they've done something wrong just because they like, oh, is this just like I'm a woman and I have a woman's body that this is inappropriate for you to be having this conversation with me in this space? Like, how does that feel as a woman?

No good. Yeah, just on the other side of it, just that's to say that you don't need to be boundaried in relationships. But I don't think that needs to be narrowly sexualized. Like a hard and fast rule about – Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just be wise. Nah, it's super helpful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just be wise. Nah, it's super helpful. Be wise with every individual relationship that may or may not cultivate some health unhealthy or, you know. Yeah, the last thing I'll say about this is that, like, the way that relationships within the church community are described is familial sibling brother-sister relationships. It's not to say that it's a perfect metaphor, but like if my sister is visiting, like I'm going to go out to lunch with my sister. It's not to say that you should never consider whether it's a good idea if you're a married person to be one-on-one with someone of the same gender as the person you're married to. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying the Bible commends an intimacy of relationship and a kind of openness of community that is akin to a family for the Christian community. And it just, just, this is what Jesus modeled in his ministry as well. A radical kind of openness to being in close proximity with an intimate relationship

with women. Thank you so much, dude, for being on the show. It's been great getting to know you in person and now via Zoom. Usually it's Zoom first and in person second, but we did it the right way. So yeah, your book, once again, Non-Toxic Masculinity, Recovery and Healthy Male Sexuality. It's out wherever books are sold. I would highly, highly encourage people to go read it. I mean, it's so readable, so practical, and yet you are a scholar. So like you have the scholarly kind of backing and precision and research without it feeling that

way, which is a really, that's a hard space to write in and you do it very well. So thank you for your work in this book in particular. I hope everybody listening buys it and reads it. Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Preston. This was a lot of fun. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.