Purity Culture
I Learned the “Good News” About Rape at a Christian Camp
A pastor told us it didn’t count
Located in the Sequoia National Forest about an hour east of Fresno, Hume Lake Christian Camp sits nestled in the trees up in the mountains, high away from the “persecutions” of everyday Evangelical Christian life in Southern California.
A life-long Christian school student, I had no “persecutions” to speak of, but camp provided a revival-type feel so I could “rededicate” my life to Jesus.
Two times a year, our church youth group piled into the ancient yellow bus and made the five-hour trek from the desert up to the camp.
During the day we did sporting activities and played games, but the real draw of the camp came at night. The huge chapel building felt like a ski lodge, with rows of pews for over a thousand people.
The stage included a huge screen with projected words to the songs, and above the center lectern stood a gigantic white cross.
It’s time for chapel.
The chapel service started with upbeat singing, with everyone on their feet clapping and shouting along to the praise music. As the evening progressed, the music became slower and more subdued, but not any less passionate.
The songs took us into a reverent place of internalized reflection compounded by the hundreds and hundreds of junior high kids singing in harmony.
As I sang, I closed my eyes and swayed, and raised my hands up to the Lord, declaring my commitment to him. The music continued softly and the pastor prayed again, this time blessing our time ahead, and asking God to make our hearts receptive to the message prepared.
After the prayer we sat down, and the sermon began.
The chapel speakers covered topics like witnessing to non-believers, honoring our parents, spending time with God daily in the word through quiet times, avoiding gossip and slander, and staying “pure.”
Ah yes, sexual purity.
Drilled into us regularly, the sin of sex topped the list of adult concerns about kids’ bodies. Chapels, school Bible classes, Sunday school, youth group, and now camp took a stand in the battle over our bodies.
The pastor shared verses about how the body of a Christian functioned as a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we should treat our bodies with respect and stay away from all temptation, including sexual temptation.
At this age, I had not even had my first kiss yet, but still, I felt the seriousness of the moment.
My Christian school taught us that any premarital sex ruins us for our future partners. Leaders used object examples to demonstrate the concept of purity: a new toothbrush used by several people, a piece of gum after it has been chewed, and a rose with the petals plucked off.
Church and school declared firmly that if you were not a virgin on your wedding day, you were used and dirty, incapable of enjoying a holy marriage.
I knew this message by heart even at 12 years old. Already I imagined sex as shameful.
Up in front of the podium, the pastor got revved up. Wearing a lapel mic and waving his Bible, he paced back and forth across the stage.
“How can you say that you love the Lord while you are sinning? How can you share the gospel with unbelievers while actively rejecting the Lord’s commands?”
He looked out at the crowd. We sat listening, rapt with attention.
“Jesus died on the cross for you. Jesus died to save you from eternity in hell, where you deserve to go. How can you spit in his face by committing sexual sin?”
I was definitely not planning on having sex before marriage. Later on in high school, I learned how to get creative with the sex rules in order to slide into heaven on a technicality. But during that camp in 1992 as an awkward 12-year-old, I never imagined it would even be an option to commit sexual sin because no boys wanted to be my boyfriend anyway.
Still, at that moment, I declared in my heart that I would stay pure for Jesus. I would live a holy life free from the sexual sin that could tear me from my walk with God.
The pastor said, “Who here will commit today to live their life with purity and holiness?”
Hanging on to his every word, we all raised our hands. He looked out at the sea of kids promising their future chastity to him.
But then, he lowered his voice, and said, “I need to share something with you all.” I sat forward, riveted.
He motioned to an unseen tech person controlling the A/V equipment, and said, “Can you bring the lights up? I have something very important to say.”
A murmur went through the crowd of kids. Up until now, the house lights had been down. Spotlights illuminated the pastor and followed him as he paced back and forth in front of the giant cross.
The auditorium lights slowly brightened, and we all blinked and looked around at each other. I shifted in my seat, suddenly self-conscious about my new Hume Lake sweatshirt I had purchased from the camp gift shop earlier that day. I much preferred the lights to be dim.
“We’ve been talking tonight about staying pure for the Lord. But there is something I need to say. In a group this size, the statistics show that there are girls in this room who have been sexually violated against their will.”
No one dared to move.
“It is a fact that girls sitting in this room right now have been raped.”
After a dramatic pause, he concluded, “If that is the case for you, I am telling you once and for all: in the eyes of the Lord, you are still a virgin.”
The room was silent. My mind and heart raced. I tried to comprehend what he was saying.
Girls in this room had been raped? How could that be possible? I knew what rape was from movies, but I never considered that it could happen to a junior high girl like me.
“You can bring the lights back down.”
The house lights dimmed, and we returned once again to semi-darkness with only the pastor and the giant cross illuminated.
“Let’s all pray together to commit ourselves to be holy and pure as a testament to Christ’s sacrifice for us.”
I bowed my head and shut my eyes tightly while trying to will my heart to slow. My mind tried to process this information.
By declaring that a victim of rape could still be considered pure in the eyes of the Lord, the pastor opened a new realm of purity. In a matter of seconds, my whole perspective on the dangers of sex shifted.
He meant it as a proclamation absolving victims of sexual abuse from the possibility of having their virginity “stolen” against their will. But his proclamation, in my mind, began in me a years-long obsession with the terrifying idea that virginity could be externally arbitrated.
The pastor at camp had just said that the toothbrush can be declared “not dirty” depending on the circumstances. The bare stem can still be considered a full rose. That didn’t make any sense to me.
How can you say the toothbrush isn’t used and dirty? How can you ignore the fact that the petals are missing from the stem? How can an external arbiter determine purity? I was under the impression that purity was an empirically provable thing. What did thoughts/circumstances/perspectives about the matter have to do with anything?
Yet another confusing question came to my mind. He had specifically addressed the girls in the auditorium who had been sexually violated. But what about the boys? He had to have known that (in his own words) “statistics” show that male victims of sexual violence existed as well.
But the pastor did not reach out to the boys with a declaration of their purity. Did he believe that there were no male victims of rape? Or did he believe that if a boy was raped, the victim was to blame, and therefore not pure in the eyes of the Lord?
My Evangelical culture’s obsession damaged my heart. I felt sexual shame before I even knew what sex was. In purity culture, everyone loses.
Ultimately, it terrified me to envision myself one day sitting before a man like this pastor and asking him to determine my purity.
I prayed that I would never be in a sexual situation, forced or consensual, so I would never have to be judged clean or dirty by man or God.
