Chastity: Improving the Practice

The one thing I most like about Lauren Winner’s book is the realization that we are fallen creatures. Often we, church types, assume purity is something we begin with and need to protect--something we can loose or we can save. Isn’t that the presupposition of those purity rings single Christians wear? (I’m not knocking the rings; I support my three single siblings who wear them. Like my wedding ring, it is a sign and reminder to be godly with our sexuality.) Winner, however, starts with our imperfectness. Chastity is something Christians learn. It is a spiritual disciple, “something you practice.” It is a spiritual action.

Let me use my life as an example. I am a 31 year old college minister. I married 9 years ago. So, I’ve practiced the disciple of sexual purity both as a single guy in abstinence and as a married guy in fidelity. I’ve done well, but I wouldn’t call my journey with chastity blemish free. I didn’t have sex before I married, but I don’t think I was a very good virgin. In my mind, being a virgin was drawing the “No Sex!!!” line in the sand. But I didn’t really get that it was a spiritual discipline. I wasn’t doing chastity as a spiritual practice. I simply viewed premarital sex as an avoidable evil.

I started college with the heartbreaking end to what had been a meaningful high school relationship. I choose to date casually my freshman year, you know with no real commitment. So, I dated several different girls. Many weekend relationships were physical in nature. I probably kissed twenty girls that year, but I kept the “no sex” rule.

My shallow relationships that year taught me to be physically free with my body, as long as I wasn’t having sex. Winner says the opposite, what you do does matter. We are trained by our actions. Casual making out instead of casual sex wasn’t real purity. It wasn’t intercourse, but it wasn’t well practiced chastity in a Christian sense. Chastity values intimacy, honors relationships, and practices appropriateness. Chastity teaches us how to behave appropriately in relationship. It’s about being rightly related to others more than drawing the individualistic “No Sex” line in the sand.

I think that chastity is really more a practice than a state of being. None of us simply start pure. Even virgins are fallen creatures and sinners. Some have fantasized, used dating for selfish reasons, or masturbated. Others have corrupted their own understanding of sex as something evil, like theft or murder. Non-virgins are maybe more aware of their failings. But we’re not all hopeless. It’s like rock climbing. No one knows how to make a climbing knot or use a wedge the first time out, but these are thing we can learn. In the same way we need to learn to pray, fast, study our bible, or rock climb, we should learn purity. The Spirit can teach us appropriateness in our relationships and how to be rightly related to our dating partners and spouses, and rightly related to those who aren’t.