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The Harmful Consequences of "Purity Culture"

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TW: this could be triggering so read with caution, please. I am doing a lot of reading, praying, thinking, as well as a lot of talking with young people, parents, and leaders around the globe these days. I am not a therapist or theologian, so these are my personal observations as someone who has been around a long time. I will not be discussing what we now call “purity culture”. That has been explained at length and there are many great resources out there. If you are not familiar with purity culture, please go and study it first before forming an opinion on what I am saying. “Purity culture” is not healthy teaching about purity. It is something different and unhealthy, something too often taught in churches. Again this is not about one particular church. It happens across the board. Today, I am writing about the unexpected and often unintended consequences of that culture. It usually takes years for those to surface. I have only become aware myself recently, especially as young people...
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Now is the Time!

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Over the last couple of years, significant efforts have been made to counsel and support victims of spiritual trauma. More and more Christian leaders study counseling and trauma therapy. There are many resources aimed at healing church trauma or trauma in general, recovering from abuse, etc. Some also try to manage the trauma response and coach victims on how to react. While some of those efforts are very helpful indeed, others can unfortunately come across as damage control or tone policing.  What is sorely missing is training and coaching on how not to inflict trauma and not abuse people in the first place. In all my years of church leadership, I never heard a single lesson on the topic. And now that I am using my voice to address the elephant in the room, I am receiving a lot of support, but I also get labeled as being “too liberal”, “too progressive”, or more kindly I am told, “You are such an empath!”. Truth be told, I am not. If I were such an empath, I would have realized ev...
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