Why Obama isn't the Antichrist

I'm not the greatest fan of our president, but lately someone showed up on a Christian forum where I'm an admin purporting to be a prophet, revealing with absolute certainty that Obama was the very Antichrist prophesied to come in the end times.

His name has been removed, as has is post and account, but let his argument live on as a shining example of how not to study prophesy in the Bible.

Original Post:

100% PROOF THAT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST AND THAT WE ARE ALREADY IN THE GREAT 7-YEAR TRIBULATION!!!

Why would Jesus pray this if it was God's will that we be raptured out instead of going through the tribulation? If it wasn't God's will that we remain on this earth, then it would mean that this prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father was a sin, and we all know that Jesus was sinless. Like I said, the tribulation already began a few years ago, and it won't be long before Jesus arrives on His white horse with ten thousands of His saints (See Jude 1:14-15).

The Tribulation Will Soon Be Over and Obama Revealed as the Antichrist!

By Prophet/Evangelist [name redacted]

Matthew 24:27-31 "For as the lightning (HEBREW WORD FOR LIGHTNING IS "BARAQ") cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west (HE WAS BORN IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THEN CAME TO BE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA IN THE WEST); so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together (WHERE THE CONGREGATION OF THE DEAD IS, THE ELECT, THE ONES WHO ARE WAITING ON THE LORD, WILL MOUNT UP WITH WINGS AS EAGLES). Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

In fact, Jesus even gives the antichrist's full name in Luke 10:18 "And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Remember what I said about the Hebrew word for "lightning" being "baraq"? Well, the Hebrew word for "fall from" is a simple "o" and the Hebrew word for "heaven" is "bamaw." So, put them all together and the actual pronunciation that Jesus said in Luke 10:18 was "I beheld Satan as baraq o bamaw."

Isaiah 24:22-23 "And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

Hebrews 11:32a "And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae;...."

Hebrews 11:35b-40 "......and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."

Revelation 6:15 "And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;"

1 Samuel 13:6 "When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits."

Obama has secret underground bunkers all throughout the United States which house the 30,000 top-secret guillotines along with the millions of plastic caskets that he has purchased. This is where the missing people of the United States are beheaded including children so that Obama can harvest their organs for money. He is pure evil! These next verses tie into Hebrews 11:32 up above:

Daniel 7:3-4 "And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it."

Daniel 7:8 "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things."

Yeah, there's a lot of great things that come out of Obama's mouth, but they're all lies!

Daniel 7:17-21 "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom."

Daniel 7:25 "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time."

Yeah, Obama has nothing good at all to say about Christians, and he's worn out a lot of saints because of it. He's attempted to rewrite the constitution since he was elected. "a time and times and the dividing of time" = 3 and a half years.

Revelation 13:5-7 "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations."

Obama's most famous blasphemous statement is "The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet Muhammed."

Revelation 13:15-18 "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Yeah, Christians who won't worship the "image" of the beast which is the fake god "Allah" are being beheaded! Also, Obama has a mandate for all humans to be implanted with a microchip in their right hand or forehead by the year 2017 or else they won't be able to buy or sell. This chip will contain GPS and he will be able to hear anything the people say. The ones who are Christians, he will have them tracked down and beheaded. His plan is to collapse the U.S. economy before the next election so that martial law will be declared, allowing him to remain in office indefinitely!
Obama calls same-sex marriages and abortions good, and those who condemn them he calls evil. Here is a verse about him:

Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"

Matthew 24:15 "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)"

Mark 13:14 "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:"

(WHEN YOU SHALL SEE THE "OBAMA NATION OF DESOLATION")

2 Thessalonians 2:8-12 "And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

Yeah, let those who read this understand.........Hold on till the end of the tribulation, saints!

Daniel 12:10 "Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand."

For those Christians who are mourning the death of loved ones whose heads have been cut off by the evil Muslims, here is what Jesus said:

Matthew 5:4-5 "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

Psalm 37:9-15 "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken."

Matthew 24:13 "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."

Revelation 20:4 "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

Revelation 2:26-28 "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."

Revelation 6:9-11 "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled."

Hold on saints! It won't be much longer! Wait on the Lord! He will be worth the wait, and then everything will be worth it!

Isaiah 40:31 "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Jesus in John 16:33 "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Not satisfied with plopping this boisterous tome on the forum by itself, the self-proclaimed prophet then added the following instructions for forum members:

Please, no comments without first reading the entire message. Everyone who reads it ends up having their jaw dropping wide open, their eyes getting really big, and saying something like "Wow! I see what you mean now!"

Normally I'd ignore drivel like this, but this time I wrote up a response.  While the reply never made it to him, as he was banned by another admin too quickly (and yet not quickly enough!), it too will live on here, for the sake of anyone who might actually get drawn in by the words of such a charlatan.

Okay, well, consider my jaw dropped for all the wrong reasons.

 First off, the use of Matthew 24:27-31 is an excellent example of how not to use scripture, ignoring context. By context I mean that little verse that comes just AFTER the end of the quoted section, Matthew 24:36, wherein Jesus says, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." In a parallel passage, Jesus says that even the SON does not know when the end times will take place. By putting forth this essay, the writer has implicitly made the claim to know more about prophesy and the end times than the Son of God.

The writer has then helpfully dismantled his own claim by making a number of major mistakes that render his entire argument absurd.

First, at the very start, the writer attacks the “pre-trib” view of the end times by referencing (but not citing) John 17:15, which reads “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”  The writer takes this to be emphatic proof that Jesus was not in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture for believers.  Unfortunately the writer forgot to check his context on this one, because the section of the prayer where Jesus prays for believers today (John 17:20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;”) doesn’t start until 5 verses later and this section is devoted to the 12 disciples who were alive and following Jesus at that time (hence the reference to the loss of Judas in John 17:12: “none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled”—same “they” as in verse 15).  While the writer’s argument is at least a decent attempt, it is far from being as watertight as he’d like to believe it to be.

 But I digress.  Getting back to Matthew 24, the writer not only ignores the very critical verse 36 by determining to know what no one but the Father knows, but also butchers the meaning of his chosen passage beyond recognition in order to set up his wordplay.  While in the original context the all-important “lightning” refers to the suddenness and undeniable nature of Jesus’ Second Coming, he makes it refer to the Antichrist…which strikes me as not only unjustified by the context but also borderline blasphemous.  But it’s all okay, right, because the wordplay between “lightning” and “Baraq” (is that even pronounced the same as Barack Obama’s name?) provides “100% proof” that our current president is the Antichrist, right?

Well, no, actually.  You see, underlying the wordplay is an assumption that either the New Testament passage in question was originally written in Hebrew or Jesus originally said it in Hebrew.  Unfortunately, he is wrong on both counts.  The New Testament was written in Greek.  The Greek word for “lightning” in this verse is “astrape.”  “Astrape” does not bear even a passing resemblance to Obama’s first name.  Furthermore, it is certain that Jesus did not speak those words in Hebrew either.  The ancient Hebrew language was, in that period, on its way out and very rarely used in Jewish culture (analogous to the way Latin clung on for centuries among certain Catholics: they had sacred texts and services in it, but nothing else).  Greek was the world language of the time, and the locals spoke Aramaic.  We can know that Greek and Aramaic were Jesus’ preferred languages by looking at the other things He said.  When He quoted from the Old Testament, you can tell from the differences between His wording and our modern Old Testament’s wording that He was quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the scriptures.  Furthermore, when He hung on the cross His cry of “Eli Eli lama sabachthani” is Aramaic, not Hebrew.  In Aramaic the word for “lightning” is “barqoa” or “barqao” (depending on pronunciation), which is, again, nowhere near “Barack.”  Bottom line, the writer, in his excitement and ignorance, is not only butchering Jesus’ meaning with this passage but also quite literally putting words into our Lord’s mouth.

These same inconvenient facts plague the writer’s analysis of Luke 10:18, where he attempts to seal the deal by proving beyond doubt that Jesus is actually talking about (and name-drops) Barack Obama.  Unfortunately he proves nothing of the kind.  The context of the verse is not only ignored, it’s completely trampled on.  It doesn’t even make sense for Jesus to mention the name of the Antichrist in this passage, but the torturous way the writer tries to make Him do so anyway is so obviously forced that it destroys the basic grammar of the sentence.  In his version, instead of saying, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” He says, “I beheld Satan as Barack Obama.”  What is that even supposed to mean?  Is he saying Satan is like Barack Obama (and if so, in what way?  In his actions?  In his authority?)  Is He instead trying to say that He, Jesus, saw Satan just like Barack Obama saw Satan?  Throw in the fact that (again) Jesus was speaking either Greek or Aramaic and the whole attempt becomes just sad.  Rather than saying something that can even remotely be taken as “baraq o bamaw” Jesus said either “astrape pipto ek ouranos” or “barqoa danpal men shmayoa.”  Did you get “Barack Obama” out of any of that?  Yeah, neither did I.

 Next comes a rather interesting one which can only generously be called a bit of a stretch.  Less generously, it’s a lesson on how not to read the Bible.  This lesson comes in three steps.  First, grab five totally unrelated verses from opposite ends of Scripture (in this case Isaiah 24:22-23 [talking about the final fate of the wicked kings of the earth], Hebrews 11:32 [referencing great men of faith in the Old Testament who were left out of the “Hall of Faith” chapter due to time and space constraints], Hebrews 11:35-40 [explicitly talking about martyrs who died BEFORE the time of Christ, see Hebrews 11:39-40], Revelation 6:15 [talking about the suicidal reaction of the wicked in the face of God’s judgments during the end times], and 1 Samuel 3:16 [talking about how the Israelites reacted to a Philistine invasion during Saul’s reign]).  Second pretend all these verses are somehow secretly talking about the same thing.  Then grab an unsubstantiated conspiracy-theorist-fringe rumor from the internet (notably without fact-checking it) and try to present it and the above verses in such a way that they vaguely seem to be talking about the same thing.  Need I say more?

Oh, but I must, for the writer continues pounding on poor Hebrews 11:32, completely distorting its real meaning.  The writer is very pleased to have found a verse that, honest to goodness, actually contains the name “Barak.”  He wants to make it a reference to Barack Obama, who is, of course, the Antichrist.  Unfortunately, in the actual verse, it’s a reference to the Old Testament’s man of faith and military leader, Barak, son of Abinoam (better known as the male half of the “Deborah and Barak” team).  Trying to make it about our president instead doesn’t even remotely make sense.  Trying to make it about the Antichrist (here being praised for his faith?!?) is absolutely ludicrous.

But the writer’s not done, unfortunately.  He continues with a reference to Daniel 7:3-4 and 8 that can only be called weak.  Sure, the “little horn” said great things and was lying, and I’m sure Obama has said great things and been lying.  However, here’s a news flash: lots and lots and lots of leaders throughout history and in our present day have lied about great things.  Hitler lied like a rug all the way to and through World War 2.  Evil he was, Antichrist he was not.

In similar vein, the writer alleges that Barack Obama’s slight (in the big picture of what other world leaders say about Christians, VERY slight) verbal harassment of Christians is actually the “little horn’s” prophesied physical harassment and wholesale slaughter of Christians.  In an attempt to bolster this argument, the writer throws in a reference to Daniel 12:7’s “a time, times, and half a time” interpreting this as the prophetic 3-and-a-half year presidential term of Obama.  This reference embarrassingly dates the original writing.  The writer should really update the math on that one, because Obama’s been in office now for just over six years, a figure with precisely zero prophetic significance.  This is why re-reading and editing your own work is always a good idea as a writer.

The stretched prophetic allusions are growing tired by this point, but the writer tries one more, alleging that the great blasphemies of the world-leader (not powerful-nation-leader, as Obama) are actually Obama’s remarks that the future should not belong to those who “slander the Prophet Mohammed.”  First off, did Obama even say that?  Even if he did, how is that blasphemy?  How is that a great blasphemy foretold in prophesy?  I think I’M guilty of uttering greater blasphemies whenever I slip up and swear.  Nobody prophesied about that.

Well, after that, the writer decides to revisit one of his previous tactics and try to match Bible prophesy with internet conspiracy theories, pulling up absolute nonsense about Obama’s supposed plans, which cannot be backed by any facts because they are simply not real.  People have been spouting the same nonsense allegations about every leader or political figure they dislike since the invention of the microchip decades ago.  It still hasn’t come true, and it isn’t going to this time either.  Let’s be realistic: Obama had to fight tooth and nail for four + years to get through a healthcare reform bill which, while objectionable in many parts, was universally acknowledge as needed (or at least we can all agree that some kind of healthcare reform was necessary), and that with the full support of an overwhelmingly Democrat Congress.  Now Congress is overwhelmingly Republican.  The president won’t be able to get out of the bed in the morning without them objecting that he’s not doing it right and trying to hamstring him in some way.  The odds of him passing any major legislation in the next two years are very slim.  The odds of him passing some sweeping and EXTREMELY objectionable (as in no one, not even Democrats, would support him) piece of legislation mandating the tagging of and committing genocide against American Christians (many of which are part of the current Congressional majority—and minority: yes, there are Christian Democrats, it’s a thing) are so tiny as to make the entire idea comically absurd.

 Finally, mercifully, the writer makes his last argument, using Matthew 24:15 and 13:14.  This is the part where my jaw dropped.  I had to re-read the section because I could not believe that the writer was seriously trying to use an English PUN as a legitimate argument.  Both passages mention the “abomination of desolation.”  Rather than trying to interpret and understand that, the writer distorts it into a pun: the “OBAMA NATION OF DESOLATION”.  I wish I was making that part up, but no, that is really the level to which the writer stoops in his flat-out desperation to make his case.  First off, even in English you can tell the difference in pronunciation between “abomination” and “Obama-nation.”  Even if you couldn't, a pun does not an argument make.  Second, when we look at Matthew 24 and Matthew 13, we are looking at TRANSLATED texts, as in, the original words Jesus spoke were NOT English.  The terrible pun that this argument stands on works ONLY in English (and that only if we define the phrase “the argument works” loosely).  I’m shocked, completely blown away, that the writer would make this kind of an obvious error when fully the first third of his argument was spent trying to derive secret meanings from the (supposedly) original Hebrew.  So at the beginning of the article, the real meaning of Matthew 24 can only be decoded in Hebrew, and at the end only in English?  Is the writer deliberately trying to deceive us, or is he just dense?  In case it does need to be said at this point, no, Jesus never said, “Obama-nation” anything because He spoke Aramaic or Greek.  He said either “bdelygma” [Greek] or “msaybuotoa” [Aramaic].  Either of those look like “Obama”-anything to you?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Lest anyone should think this too difficult or think too much of me, all of the information I used can be found in 10-15 minutes on Google, counting time needed to scroll to specific references.  It's disgustingly easy to debunk stuff like this, and it makes me sick to think that false prophets actually deceive and rob people blind with this level of garbage. 

If God Promised Us a Rose Garden...

"The scripture tells us to be a prisoner of hope!  The world may tell you that you'll never get out of debt, that business is bad, but you just tell them, I can't help but hope for good things.  I'm a prisoner of hope!"
"Those who follow God's laws will gain in monetary wealth!  Repent and be baptized, and God will pour out of His cup a blessing you cannot contain!"

Such are the (paraphrased) promises of the prosperity gospel.  Basically, it tells us that, as Christians, we are entitled to material blessings from God.  God wants us to be happy, healthy, and wealthy--and if we do the right things, we will receive these blessings from Him.

There are a number of problems with this position.  Finer minds than mine have taken it upon themselves to write on the topic.  They have pointed out that the entire theology is backwards and egocentric, making everything revolve around pushing the right buttons to obligate God to do our will rather than seeking to do His--essentially reducing him to a Cosmic Vending Machine.  They have pointed out that, in the scriptures, "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6:10), that one of the most critical of the Ten Commandments is "do not covet," and that Christ lambasted the wealthy with a fervor only paralleled by his venom for the religious (Matthew 19:24).  I do not want to cover the same ground, though I applaud those who have.

What I want to do instead is test the idea of a gospel of wealth not against the individual "proof texts" of scripture, but against its overall story.  Does the Bible, at bottom, present us with a story of a God who consistently overwhelms His faithful with material blessings--happy, healthy, wealthy lives--or does it tell a different story?  According to the gospel of wealth, if we do the right things, material blessings will always follow, and the Bible is full of the the stories of many people who followed God's commandments and did the right things.  It should logically follow, then, that the Bible is full of stories about extravagantly wealthy, healthy, and happy people, right?

This is where a problem appears, for in fact, the Bible is not a book where every page drips fine perfumes and tells of gilded halls inhabited by whole and happy people.  Rather, the Bible is a book where every page drips blood, sweat, and tears.  It is a book filled with enormous, unfathomable suffering, poverty, sickness, and even death.  According to prosperity gospel, these things should never befall the truly faithful, since they can simply claim God's blessing for their lives and enjoy material prosperity--so one would be tempted to say that all of the suffering in the Bible is just the wicked people, or maybe just the result of lack of faith on the part of those suffering.  But closer analysis shows that this is not so.  In fact, of the heroes of the faith, the truly righteous and faithful people of the Bible, only one of them seemed to enjoy material blessings because of his faithfulness toward God--King Solomon...and did I mention he suffered from depression (a la book of Ecclesiastes, the most down and depressing book in the Bible by far)?  Here is a brief survey of people in the Bible who didn't get a rose garden when they followed God.

• Able--The original righteous man deserves special mention.  He offered a more excellent sacrifice than his brother Cain (Hebrews 11:4).  His reward was being counted righteous by God...and materially-speaking being the first murder victim in human history.  I'm sure that was fun for him.
• Noah--The only righteous man in his generation ("blameless" in fact, Genesis 6:9).  His material reward was that he and his family were the sole survivors of a watery apocalypse that wiped out all other human life, after which they got to start out on a virgin world--rebuilding from an ecological catastrophe of unfathomable proportions that would have entailed enormous hardships...oh, and also the lifespans of his children and their offspring were cut to about 10% of the lifespan pre-Flood humans enjoyed.  It would be as if you and your kids had to start over after a nuclear winter killed everyone else and you had to face life knowing that your children would only make it to their fifties, your grandchildren to their forties, and that a few generations later your descendants wouldn't live past their teens.  Cheery thoughts.
• Abraham--Abraham is an interesting character in that he is one of the few people God promised material blessings.  Specifically, God promised him an innumerable host of descendants and an enormous tract of land including at least all of present day Israel, Lebanon, and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt (conservatively).  God did eventually fulfill His promise, but neither Abraham nor his descendants for seven generations would live to see it.  Abraham himself spent his entire life as a nomad, living in a land that was not his own and dwelling in tents.  When he died, he had only one living heir, and owned no more land than a small burial plot.  This would be the extent of his descendants' real estate for more than a two centuries (longer than the sum total of American history).  He would pass on the expectation of a material blessing that never materialized two his son, grandson, and great-grandchildren, all of whom imparted promises of possessing large tracts of land, resources, and cities to their offspring only to have those offspring live their entire lives as landless nomads in strange territory.
• Jacob--Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, deserves special mention.  Like his forefathers, he looked toward the promised material blessing of land but never owned any.  While he was initially prosperous in other ways, famine reduced him to sending his children to beg bread in a foreign country.  Things became so desperate for him and his family that he willingly sent his favorite son to beg for food in Egypt knowing full well that it would probably result in his death.  As for health, Jacob was one of the aforementioned descendants of Noah who lived only a 10% of what was previously considered the normal human lifespan (and he knew it, describing the days of his life at one point as "few and evil").  It is true he was a dastardly little villain in his youth, but he pulled a 180 and did something that I'm sure any prosperity gospel preacher would consider a commendable act of faith.  He wrestled God and refused to let Him go without first receiving a blessing.  He was given a new name--and a limp that would stay with him for the rest of his days (so much for the blessing of health).  As for getting blessed with happiness...well, the guy had more family drama and domestic violence in his household than half of our cable networks put together.
• Joseph--As a young man, Joseph was a paragon of virtue amidst the dark feuding of Jacob's wild family.  His father favored him (not really because of this, more so due to the fact that he was the child of his favorite wife) and gave him material blessings, including an expensive and impressive coat.  His brothers took it away, tossed him in a hole, and sold him to human traffickers.  After being bought up by the Egyptians--whose ancient slave labor is infamous even today--he was thrown into prison and left to rot there as a direct result of his doing the right thing and refusing to violate God's sanction against adultery.  When he used his divinely given dream-interpreting gifts to help a friend in prison get out, the friend immediately forgot about him.  Joseph's life did eventually turn around for the better, but he had to take some enormous lumps along the way.
• Moses--Moses was adopted into the royal Egyptian family.  He was a prince of Egypt, enjoying its immense power and wealth, the finest education and healthcare in the then-known world...and then God came along.  Moses lost all of that.  He spent the next forty years as a herdsman in the desert.  After that, he returned to Egypt only to be scorned by his own people and the Egyptians as he struggled to set the enslaved Israelites free.  When he was finally successful, his material reward was wandering around the desert with the whiniest people on the planet using him as their designated complaint department.  While Egyptians died with style and were buried in massive monuments that impress tourists to this day, Moses was buried in an unmarked grave at a funeral that nobody attended.
• David--David was a man after God's own heart.  He was the man God chose to rule the kingdom of Israel as the first of a line that would stretch all the way to Christ.  And when God made this known to David, the young man's world fell apart.  He had become a famous warrior, a champion of Israel who stood at King Saul's right hand during parades.  But soon he was a fugitive, running through the wilderness, seeking shelter in caves and holes in the ground, begging for asylum in foreign cities, feigning madness to escape his enemies, grabbing a meal wherever he could (including the one place where the commandments laid down by God specifically said he was not allowed to).  When he did become king he still had to struggle all his life with family infighting and treason, including the awful experience of having one of his own sons killed by his trusted friends after said son ran him out of town and publicly had sex with all of David's wives on the palace rooftop.  Before David died, he also got to experience circulation problems which gave him perpetual chills.  Fun times.
• Solomon--An odd character, Solomon was the wisest, wealthiest, most powerful, and least happy man in the Bible.  His final work, the book of Ecclesiastes, is so dark and depressing that many Christians skip over it entirely.
• Jeremiah--A godly prophet in a godless time, Jeremiah and his friend and scribe Baruch were explicitly given a single material blessing from God for their service: survival.  They witnessed the capital city of their nation sacked multiple times.  They experienced poverty, brutal sieges, starvation, betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, and forced relocation to a foreign land (which was also sacked brutally as soon as they arrived).  He is known as "the weeping prophet" and wrote the only book of the Bible that compares with Ecclesiastes for unpleasantness and depressing content: the book of Lamentations, whose name literally means weeping.  The prophet is perhaps best known for his promise that God has plans for us "to prosper...and not to harm" us...but few remember the context of these words.  In context, they are a promise delivered to Jews taken as prisoners of war to a foreign land hundreds of miles from home, to whom Jeremiah has just delivered the news that neither they nor their children will ever see their homeland again, that they will remain exiles, foreigners in a strange land, for the next seventy years--oh, and by the way, they are the lucky ones!
• Job--God Himself declares Job to be a blameless and peerlessly righteous and faithful man.  He is one of the few people in the Bible God is explicitly said to have blessed materially with wealth, children, and health.  And then, God took it all away.  No act of faith on Job's part could make Him restore it.  Job suffered the most devastating personal catastrophe in human history.  In a single day he lost all of his children and all of his wealth (and the guy had a diversified portfolio, for pity's sake!).  Thereafter, his health went to pieces in a disgusting and humiliating way.  Thereafter, Job repeatedly confessed to having suicidal thoughts.  The consolation was that he got to keep his friends and wife--but this consolation came with a knife in the back because all of these people were apparently prosperity gospel preachers who thought that Jobs suffering was entirely his own fault and argued long and hard to prove it was so.  Eventually, God showed up to straighten things out, but never gave Job any kind of explanation for his devastating losses and intense suffering.
• Paul--Paul enjoyed a measure of prestige in 1st Century Palestine that few could afford or attain too.  He was born with Roman citizenship--the mark of the upper-crust of Imperial society that many spent fortunes trying to attain.  He was also born with an impressive Jewish pedigree.  He studied under the greatest religious teachers of his day and became renowned among them, surpassing all of his peers.  He had health, wealth, prestige...everything a man could want.  Then, he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.  They say he fell off his donkey, but thereafter it's evident that he just kept falling.  He suffered severe health problems with his eyes from that time forward.  This is possibly the "thorn in the flesh" that he applied the prayer of faith to for healing three times, only to have God point blank refuse to heal him!  His old friends became his new enemies.  Before the week was out he was running for his life.  He was despised, even by fellow Christians who resented his claim to apostleship and constantly attacked his ministry.  In 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 he gives a summary of his sufferings so far, which includes being beaten within an inch of his life (by legal definition of the time) five times, three less severe beatings, suffering a (barely) unsuccessful execution (we're not talking lethal injection--we're talking stoning), three shipwrecks, 48 hours on the open water, perils of every kind, cold, hunger, thirst, poverty, betrayal, stress...the list goes on and on!  But don't worry, it get's worse because after this letter Paul would be arrested and sent to the most infamously evil ruler in ancient history (Nero), in whose capital he would spend the rest of his days as a prisoner in increasingly deteriorating conditions until he was finally beheaded.  He never did get to see his dream of spreading the gospel to Spain come true (Romans 15:24-25, note that Paul was arrested in the middle of the Jerusalem trip mentioned in verse 25 and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner).  Paul's life was great in terms of material blessings, until he met Jesus converted, and started doing the sorts of things the prosperity gospel preachers tell us to do.  Thereafter it took a downward spiral ending in dank prison cells, isolation, betrayal, and gruesome death.
• The Disciples--It is worth noting that of the twelve Apostles chosen by Christ (eleven, if we discount Paul, Matthias, and Judas Iscariot), only one of them died of natural causes, and he lived out his remaining days in exile and isolation on a tiny Mediterranean island.  Unlike Paul, these men hadn't been huge successes before meeting Christ, but the meeting certainly didn't improve their material situation much.  Christ warned them that they would face tribulation, be cast out of their local congregations, hauled before judges, thrown in prisons, and killed by people who thought their death was commanded by God.  All of it came true.
• Jesus--Saving the best for last, there is Jesus Christ Himself.  God the Father loves us just as He loves Jesus.  Jesus was perfect, so we can be sure that anything that went wrong in His life was 100% not His fault as a result of faithlessness or failure to follow the gospel of wealth.  He was also, according to the Bible, tempted in every way that we are but did not sin.  Whatever is not of faith is sin--so if we can screw up the material blessings God wants for our lives by not pushing the right divine buttons, He had equal opportunity to do so but didn't.  Knowing this we should expect Jesus to have lived--in accordance with the prosperity gospel--a life of unparalleled opulence, abundant wealth, extraordinary health, and giddy happiness.  But if this is our portrait of Christ, we do not believe in the Jesus portrayed in the Bible.  In the Bible, Jesus was the poor son of a working-class couple who lost his father before he was thirty.  He grew up in the social and economic backwater of a country occupied by foreign powers.  He was not wealthy by any stretch.  He was not particularly good looking (Isaiah 53:2)...and this was before He began His ministry.  His ministry's start was marked by forty days of fasting in the wilderness, wherein He suffered extreme hunger and temptation from Satan himself.  Materially speaking, it went downhill from there.  Jesus discouraged one would-be-follower by telling him that even the birds and the foxes were wealthier than He was, because at least they had a place to spend the night (Matthew 8:20).  He suffered hunger, thirst, weariness, and feelings of being overwhelmed on his journeys.  He and His disciples pooled their resources into a single purse from which they gave money to the poor who constantly pressed in on them--but it was a bag with a hole in it named Judas, who apparently listed kleptomania among his more admirable qualities (some have proposed that the others just didn't notice because the amount of money the disciples commanded was so huge the skimming went unnoticed, but in the ancient world huge sums necessitate multiple purses for the practical reason that gold and silver have a property called mass, which tends to add up quickly in any significant amount--instead, it may be the at the opposite is true and they didn't notice because they ran out of money so quickly they couldn't tell if it was legitimately spent, given away, or snatched up by Judas).  While He did not seem to suffer any health problems that we know of, He was far from the happiest man in the world.  He was described as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" who is never expressly said to have laughed or smiled, but is said to have "wept" on multiple occasions.  His family thought He was crazy.  The crowds didn't know what to think of Him but followed Him everywhere as if He were giving out free candy.  He was run out of town multiple times, forever in trouble with the religious authorities, and was forced to escape mobs hungry for his blood on several occasions.  The culmination of His life and His self-declared mission from the Father was to be betrayed by a member of His inner circle, abandoned by all of his friends, dragged around town to be assaulted, insulted, and convicted for crimes He didn't commit, turned over to foreigners who mocked Him and beat Him so severely that He was no longer recognizable as human, handed over to a blood-thirsty mob, dragged out of town, subjected to the most public, painful, and horrific form of execution ever devised by man, cut off from the Father, and robbed of His sole earthly possessions--His clothes--by the men who executed Him.  And then He died.  In some versions, He went to Hell, but establishing that in Scripture is ticklish business.  Needless to say, He did not enjoy immense material blessings in this life.  In fact, His life is a portrait of unparalleled material destitution and suffering (especially considering that before coming to Earth He lived and reigned in Heaven of all places)--and He was doing everything right!

From the above, we can conclude that in the Bible the faithful do not enjoy material blessings as a result of pushing the right divine button combinations.  Often it seems that instead the more faithful a person is, the more they suffer materially as a result.  This does not align favorably with prosperity gospel.  If prosperity gospel is correct and it is God's sole or highest function to give us material blessings in this life as a reward for good behavior then there are, in my mind, only two ways to reconcile this with the plain fact that people--in the world today as in Scripture--do not materially benefit from obedience to God but rather often suffer material loss.  The first explanation is that God is, for some reason, unable to provide these blessings in the measure to which we are (in the language of prosperity gospel) "entitled" to them or in a timely manner.  The second is that He is personally able, but that other forces intervene to bring material suffering into our lives, overriding the blessings God gives.  In the first case, God would be incompetent, cripplingly incapable of discharging His duties as a result of His own faults.  In the second case, God is impotent, powerless against forces in the world and in our lives that are stronger than He is.  Neither case describes the God of the Bible.  Clearly, prosperity gospel cannot be worshiping Him!

Comparable to the Bible: Knowing Truth Revisited

To see my original post on this topic, click here.

In a break with tradition, this post does not address any specific passage of the Book of Mormon.  Such posts are planned in the future and will resume at a later date.

In the past few weeks, I've gone from simply reading, comparing (to the Bible), and responding to the Book of Mormon to actually sitting down with Mormons and seeing what they think of it.  The result has been surprising...and saddening.  It is one thing to be surprised by how different someone's view is from your own, one thing to be startled by the conviction of their beliefs and the logical defenses they can make of what--from your own point of view--seems insupportable.  I have experienced that sort of thing many times while doing Christian apologetics, often in approaching the views and arguments of an apologist whose perspective differs from mine.  It is a moment when one gains a certain respect for others and has a chance to reflect on one's own views and consider them critically.  It is quite another matter to be disappointed by someone else's beliefs.  Sadly, that is where I find myself now.  I had expected the Mormon missionaries I met with would be able to discuss and compare evidence and logical arguments.  Not only were they unable to do so, but they also appeared unwilling to even try.

It comes down to a matter of how we know truth, how we recognize it when we see it.  Mormonism offers a simple answer: we pray to God about it, and if we feel positively about something (so-called "spiritual testimony"), we know it is true.  This is basically what every Mormon will tell you to do if you want to know that the Book of Mormon is true.  They may point out similarities to the Bible, the supposed necessity of "priesthood," the good moral lessons of the book, or the improbability of the Book of Mormon being written a man as "young" and "uneducated" as Joseph Smith (who was really neither, being in his early 20's when the Book of Mormon was published and having attended a form of Bible school).  But the one thing they will always come back to, the primary proof of their religion, is their "testimony" and the claim that anyone who prays to God about the Book of Mormon will receive similar "testimony" that it is true.

But the claim is false.  I am living proof.  I have prayed such a prayer (whether advisedly or unadvisedly, I let the reader judge), asking God to show me the truth about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith (Jr, his father was also named Joseph Smith).  What I received was a vision of Joseph Smith as a con-man "treasure hunter" who found early on that human hearts were the greatest treasure of all, who composed the Book of Mormon to deceive them into following him, and in many cases succeeded.  In the end, the vision concluded with what I hold to be God's own testimony: "He died with a gun in his hand, a pagan talisman in his pocket, and no god in his heart."  This was hardly the testimony Mormon missionaries tell you to expect, and of course, I am not the only one who has failed to receive the expected answer (nor, very probably, received the opposite answer).

I have been curious how Mormons would respond to this.  To my mind there was a very simple, easy, logical explanation which could be used to refute any such spiritual testimonies.  After all, Mormons believe in Satan, and Satan is the Father of Lies, who can easily pass himself off as an "angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).  It should be (and, considering the great many deceiving varieties of spirituality out there, is) very easy for him to manufacture a false spiritual experience, an invalid testimony.  It is, after all, the explanation I would use to explain how the Mormon's own testimonies can affirm as gospel truth a book as transparently false as the Book of Mormon.  Applying this to my own testimony would seem the logical counter, and would at least require some effort and some digging to refute.  Instead the answer was, "You didn't pray hard enough, long enough, or sincerely enough."  In the end, they say that I must make more effort to believe the Book of Mormon is true, and then God will show me that it is.  It is a disappointing answer, but hardly a surprising one.  It seems that even the most apparently "God-focused" aspect of Mormonism comes down, in the end, to human work.

All of this brings us to a question of epistemology: how do we recognize truth?

The Book of Mormon provides a consistent answer that is in keeping with Mormonism itself: you pray to God asking if it's true, while simultaneously "exercising faith" by believing that it's true (or in any case trying really hard to believe it's true).  If this method is followed, it's not surprising that it generally produces strong subjective "spiritual testimonies."  It could produce a true testimony of anything, since it is really a form of circular reasoning mixed with peer pressure from Mormon missionaries and "the faithful" to produce an effect that the con-artists of The Emperor's New Clothes would have been proud of.  Basically, you start with the assumption that the Book of Mormon is true, try really hard to believe that it's true, and eventually you'll convince yourself.  Even if you fail to, you won't dare admit it because then the Mormons will place the blame for your failed testimony squarely on you.  Like in the fairy tale, if you can't hear from God that the Book of Mormon is true or see the "splendid colors" of the Emperor'r robes, it's really your own fault.  This effect keeps people silent about doubts and shouting assurances they don't actually possess.  Like all cults, the process shortly becomes self-sustaining, continuing to gobble up converts from within and without regardless of the veracity of its truth-claims.

The Bible provides a different answer:

• Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. --1 Thes 5:20-21
• Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. --1 John 4:1
• And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'--When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is the word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously.  You need not be afraid of him. --Deuteronomy 18:8
• If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. --Deuteronomy 13:1-3
• But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so say I now again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. --Galatians 1:8-9
• Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. --Acts 17:11

This is but a brief sampling.  Throughout the Bible we see a God who does not expect us to believe Him before He is proven, nor does He ask for blind faith and magical thinking a la Emperor's New Clothes.  He is not afraid of proof, of evidence, and constantly reminds us to seek it, to examine things, to think critically (Isaiah contains entire chapters whose thrust is an invitation to critical thinking).  His scriptures, firmly established by historical, scientific, archeological, logical, manuscript, and spiritual evidence become a corpus of evidence in themselves (just as being able to prove that a witness was totally reliable would then make the witness's testimony powerful evidence to prove other things), by which we may test other things.

The Book of Mormon fails the test.  It lacks utterly the body of supporting evidence that the Bible has, and in fact flatly contradicts existing evidence (which is painfully obvious on the front of historical and archeological accuracy).  It gives false prophesies, and is written by a man who made false prophesies.  It leads to another god, who is really just an ascended man.  It preaches a different gospel, of works, not grace.  And finally, searching and comparing it with scripture does not show its truthfulness, but rather its error.

Emotional Purity

After my last post, there was a lot of discussion about emotional purity doctrine, and I wound up reading a lot of articles and posts that others have made on the topic.  In all of this, I was reminded that, while I have very strong beliefs about emotional purity doctrine and am convinced I can back them up, I have never really made them public in any concise form, only giving passing mention to emotional purity in a few previous posts.  I will attempt to do so now, again using outline form to make things easier to follow.

1.       Defining Emotional Purity

a.       Sexual Purity for the Heart: In a nutshell, emotional purity is the Biblical concept of sexual purity applied to romantic feelings and other associated emotions.  Emotional purity’s proponents say that it is not enough for a young person to save him or herself physically (that is to say, sexually) for their future spouse, but that they must also save themselves emotionally as well.  While sexual purity teaches us that sexual relations outside of or before marriage are sinful, emotional purity teaches us that emotional attachments, attractions, and other romantic feelings are also sinful outside of or before marriage.  In both cases, things are taken to the level of the heart.  In Matthew 5, Jesus taught us that it is not good enough simply to abstain from sleeping around while lusting after other people in our hearts: He said that if a man looks at a woman and lusts after her, he has sinned already.  Similarly, emotional purity does not merely condemn overtly romantic gestures (cards, flowers, dates, etc), but goes down to the heart level to condemn the feelings from which they arise: feelings of attraction, emotional attachment, and romantic dreams and aspirations regarding the other gender.  Beyond this, both take to extremes in the name of “saving oneself for a future spouse.”  Extreme proponents of sexual purity regard it as a necessity to save oneself sexually for one’s future spouse, and regard any level of sexual impurity before marriage as “giving oneself away” and “being used” to the end that such a person “has less to give to their future spouse.”  In order to avoid this, legalistic cultures spring up which rigorously ban anything deemed remotely sexual and several things that aren’t.  The same goes for emotional purity, which holds that someone who has experience previous emotional attractions or entanglements is less capable of loving their future spouse because they have “given their heart away.”  This has also frequently given rise to legalistic cultures which ban not only openly romantic gestures but also a number of non-romantic ones which they deem to have a corrupting influence.

b.      For Singles Only:  While there is no formal statement that emotional purity applies only to singles, I have never heard of or seen an example where the concept was applied to the married.  This I find very strange, since it is actually in a marriage relationship where one could argue emotional purity makes the most sense (if a wife is entertaining romantic fantasies about a coworker, her husband would justifiably be upset).  Generally speaking, emotional purity is applied to young men and women who have never been married, but plan on becoming married some day.  Indeed many of the analogies and arguments of emotional purity would make little or no sense if applied to someone who had previously been married (whether divorced or widowed) or had determined to live a life of celibacy.  This is unfortunately also true of many of the approaches to sexual purity (though notably the Bible’s approaches to the topic apply equally well to the single, celibate, married, and widowed/divorced).

c.       Your Mileage May Vary: Like extreme forms of sexual purity, there is no one concrete form of emotional purity.  Some extreme proponents of sexual purity will tell young singles that they should never kiss anyone who is not their husband, others that they should never hold hands or hug, others that they should never do anything with a member of the opposite sex they would not do with their biological sister (which is a bit confusing for those of us who actually have biological sisters: I hug and kiss my biological sisters!).  Each proponent has their own standard, which is inevitable once people start taking things beyond what is taught in the Bible (the Bible teaches us only not to have sex outside of marriage or entertain lust outside of marriage—it does not mention hand-holding or kissing!).  With emotional purity things are even more conflicted because the Bible does not even provide a baseline (as will be discussed later).  Emotional purity proponents are all over the map as to what feelings constitute emotional impurity and when romantic feelings can be entertained and how, etc.  They also differ on enforcement of emotional purity (rendering different answers to questions like: who decides when it’s okay to have romantic feelings?  How do we deal with feelings that are emotionally impure?  What steps should we take to avoid the possibility of such feelings, etc?).  They also differ widely on the degree to which emotional purity is enforced and (in my opinion) what travesties they are willing to commit in its name (some of the below descriptions will not apply to every culture that embraces emotional purity).  In general, though, they agree that romantic feelings, attractions, and entanglements are impure/sinful and that they should be avoided and stamped out when they occur without authorization.  They are also all unanimous on the bleak picture of what will happen to those who fail to follow emotional purity.

d.      Culture of Fear: One thing all emotional purity doctrine shares is an emphasis on fear and a liberal use of scare-tactics.

                                                               i.      Fear of the Other: In many emotional-purity cultures, the differences between the genders are emphasized to the point where having normal friendly relations with a member of the opposite sex would seem as difficult as communing with a sentient squid.  Many proponents will even go a step farther and say that opposite sex friendships are impossible or else doomed to fall into emotional impurity every single time.  Men and women are trained to believe that romantic feelings are hard-wired into them as the inevitable response to any close contact with a member of the opposite sex.  They are, of course, also taught to fear these feelings because they are sinful/impure.

                                                             ii.      Fear of Failure: A common analogy in the emotional purity world is to take a flower or some other object and tell a young audience that this is their heart.  The speaker will then pluck a petal from the flower and tell their audience that this is what happens when they fall in love/experience romantic attraction or feelings for a member of the opposite sex.  The speaker will proceed to ruthlessly disassemble the flower in front of the audience, perhaps listing for effect what each tug represents (“first crush,” “high school boyfriend/girlfriend,” “a friendship that went too far,” etc).  In the end, they will present the thoroughly mangled thing to their audience and tell them this is what their heart will look like on their wedding day when they present it to their spouse, if they have not followed emotional purity faithfully.  The scare-tactic is generally successful.  Even where the particular analogy is absent, the concept is present: where emotional purity is present, there is also a fear of failing one’s future spouse and ruining one’s future marriage by having feelings for someone else before marriage.  The reality is that love does not work that way (it is possible to actually love your future spouse more for having had previous attractions) and that redemption is always possible.

                                                            iii.      Fear of Heartbreak: Another universal idea in emotional purity is the fear of heartbreak and the emotional pain that accompanies unrequited love or a romantic relationship that falls through.  Heartbreak is treated like a terrible plague to be avoided at all costs.  Such pain is said to leave emotional scars which, according to some, can never be healed (which is, of course, untrue: the Bible promises healing).  Emotional pain and risk are already scary things to young people, but emotional purity preys on this fear, inflates it, and then tells young people that strict adherence to emotional purity’s principles is the only way to escape the pain.

                                                           iv.      Fear of Sexual Sin: Since emotional purity sees itself as an almost seamless extension of sexual purity, it is no surprise that those who do not follow it are held to be at a higher risk of falling into sexual sin as well.  After all, if you never let yourself even like a member of the opposite sex, you’re not as likely to fornicate with them, or so the logic goes.  Genuine Christians who fear sexual sin and do not know how to effectively combat it may find themselves drawn to emotional purity as an easy way out.

                                                             v.      Fear of Dishonoring Christ: Many times, emotional purity proponents will say that romantic feelings distract from God.  In this, they arguably have the support of Paul, but they almost invariably take things further than he did, saying that those who are distracted by emotional attractions etc have made an idol of the opposite sex in their heart.  While above emotional purity proponents explained how “giving your heart away” left you with less for your future spouse, the same analogy can and often is used to describe the present state of affairs between the “emotionally impure” believer and Christ: every “piece” of their heart they “give away” is one less piece they can give to Christ, now and forever (again untrue because romantic love and love for God are not mutually exclusive and, again, redemption is always possible).

                                                           vi.      Fear of Being Like the World: Emotional purity almost invariably sets up a false dichotomy between itself (that is, between whichever incarnation of the doctrine the proponent him or herself embraces) and “worldly dating.”  Emotional purity proponents are generally people who have taken a look at the darker side of hookup culture (premarital sex, teen pregnancies, divorce rates, obsession, heartache, guilt) and decided to avoid it at all costs.  Many of the authors of emotional purity books confess that their pre-marital years were turbulent, troubled, and left them in lasting misery.  These people then approach young singles (whether their own children or those of others put under their care) and, with the best of intentions, try to steer them clear of the mistakes of their own youth.  Emotional purity adherents see their position as the only alternative to a dangerous culture of flippantly giving away one’s heart and body to be used and abused by members of the opposite sex.

                                                          vii.      Fear of Man: Many emotional purity cultures are also very legalistic in this area and in others.  While I have heard from at least one proponent who claims that emotional purity can and has been applied without legalism, I have never seen or heard of any workable model where this could actually occur.  Emotional purity doctrine therefore generally goes hand in hand with strong authority figures (parents, church leaders, Christian college staff) who can and will enforce its dictates on unwilling members, believing that they are protecting these members and their entire organization from falling into sin by doing so.  Members, therefore, may find themselves adhering to emotional purity not out of any personal conviction that it is true, but out of fear of punishment from the authority figures in their lives.

2.       Problems with Emotional Purity

a.       Pure from What?  Purity is an exceptionally simple word when it comes to definitions.  It means simply the absence of impurity.  An impurity is some undesirable thing, a contaminant.  When the term is applied to Christian living, an impurity is a sin.  Therefore, in order for one to accept that emotional purity is a legitimate concept, they must also tacitly admit that there are some emotions which are, by their nature, impure and sinful.  The question is, what emotions and how do we know?  The answer, it seems, is something we have to make up.

                                                               i.      Beyond the Bible: The Bible, as it turns out, says nothing about the possibility of impure emotions.  While Paul has a chance in 1 Corinthians 7 to condemn the distractions of romantic love, he takes pains not to and even says “it is no sin.”  In fact, nowhere in the Bible do we see a single verse or phrase that can be legitimately used to say that romantic attractions are sinful.  Aware of the importance of Biblical support, emotional purity advocates will stretch a number of verses in bizarre ways to try to support their doctrine, but these efforts invariably collapse under careful exegesis.

1.       “Guard Your Heart” No discussion of Emotional Purity doctrine would be complete without including this phrase.  It is the catch-phrase for emotional purity, almost synonymous with it.  If someone tells you to “guard your heart,” chances are they’re proscribing some form of emotional purity to you.  The reason the phrase is so popular is because it is 100% Biblical: it appears right there in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart.”  At this point, Emotional Purity advocates stop quoting and would prefer that you stop reading to instead acknowledge their victory in that we today take “the heart” to mean romantic feelings and the Bible says “guard your heart” right there in black and white.  But as it turns out, this is only the first half of the verse, and the context puts it in an entirely different light.

a.       Proverbs 4:23 in Context: My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words.  Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.  Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk from your lips.  Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.  Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways.  Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. (Proverbs 4:20-27, NIV)

b.      What it Means: In context, Solomon is clearly telling his son to store up the wisdom of his proverbs, the wisdom passed from father to son, and keep his heart and life away from wickedness.  Several forms of wickedness are specified and romance is not among them.  In reality, the only way we can make this passage apply to romance and support Emotional Purity is to presuppose that romantic feelings are evil and/or presuppose that “the heart” refers always to romantic longings (when, in the Bible, “the heart” has much, much broader applications).

2.       “Do nothing from partiality” Beyond the ever-famous “guard your heart” passage, Emotional Purity proof-texts seem to be a diverse crowd with the odds being slim that any two proponents will share the same proof-texts unless they learned them from each other.  But the above passage from 1 Timothy 5:21 bears mention because it’s one that people from the Rock have probably heard, as it was used in a pamphlet titled Rock Solid Relationships that presented it among other proof-texts for emotional purity.  The idea with this verse is that having an emotional attachment to a member of the opposite sex causes us to treat this person different than we would other members of the opposite sex.  A boy is more likely to spend time alone with a girl he’s crushing on than with a girl he isn’t attracted to, or so the logic goes.  This is said to be partiality in favor of the one we are attracted to and therefore sinful (which, by extension, makes the feelings that inspire the “partiality” sinful).

a.       1 Timothy 5:21 in Context: Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.  For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages.”  Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses.  As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.  In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.  Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others; keep yourself pure…The sins of some men are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others appear later.  So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. (1 Timothy 5:17-22, 24-25, ESV); ed: verse 23 is a parenthetical aside addressing Timothy’s stomach problems and has been omitted for clarity, as parentheticals by their nature are not necessary for the understanding of the passage in which they are embedded.

b.      What it Means: In context, the charge to do nothing from partiality or prejudice is smack dab in the middle of a passage regarding  church conduct toward appointed elders, specifically connected with the process of appointing them (“laying on of hands”) and disciplining them.  For a church that does not even believe that women can be elders, there is no possible connection to romance unless we want to say that Paul was addressing homosexual desire, which I think is patently absurd.

c.       Double-Edged Sword: However, assuming the passage were applicable broadly (“do nothing from partiality” certainly seems broad, and we can all agree with Paul that “prejudice” is bad), could they be applied to support emotional purity?  Only if, at the same time and to a greater extent, it was allowed to destroy the practice of the same.  Emotional purity does go out of its way to make sure that all members of the opposite sex are treated equally—in that they are one and all to be avoided by singles for fear of causing emotional impurity to rear its inexplicably ugly head.  The result is prejudice.  It’s okay for a man and a male friend to talk together alone, but it’s not okay for a female friend to be in the same situation with the same man because she is female.  It’s like the rule that says you shouldn’t talk to those kids over there because they’re black: don’t associate too closely with those Christians over there because they’re male (or female, take your pick).  This is not always overtly stated as much as it is practiced, but it’s still there.  I remember one young woman emailed me saying she was taking particular steps to break off our friendship rather than resolve our conflict, and confessed that she would not do these things if I was female—but supposedly it’s okay to throw rocks at boys because they’re somehow less human?  One can try to argue that spending more time with this person or that person is prejudice (though one invariably runs up against the realities of circumstances forcing people together, people having limited time in which to invest in relationships, and other things that keep the accusation of prejudice from marking the fact that people have “best friends” as a sin), but the argument that avoiding the opposite gender is prejudice is almost impossible to combat—since, really, if that other person were the same gender as you in the same situation, it would be totally fine to hang out with them as much as you liked (the only reason you’re treating them differently is because of their sex: which is, by the way, discrimination and prejudice under the definition of the law).

3.       “Like a sister” This is a popular verse, also from 1 Timothy 5 (verse 2), which proponents of emotional purity and sexual purity use to teach young people that they need to keep themselves free from emotional attachments and physical contact with Christians of the opposite sex because, well, if you did that with your biological sister it would be just gross.  I wonder immediately if these people have biological sisters.  God has blessed me with two biological sisters with whom I grew up.  If I told you I had no emotional attachments toward them and that my relationship with them was “purely” dispassionate, I might be struck dead for lying (possibly by one of my sisters).  They are my sisters, and I love them.  I love spending time with them and I am close to them.  I also share physical affection with them (we’re not talking incest here: we’re talking hugs and such).  While I am not physically or romantically attracted to them, I do consider them attractive in that regard (they’re hotter than your sisters, anyway ;P).  Under the wisdom of emotional impurity, none of these things would be allowed between me and a member of the opposite sex (someone would probably die if I got up on stage at the Rock and glomped—a type of hug, for those of you who are uneducated in these things--a girl like I would my little sister).  Thus, when this verse is used to try to enforce emotional purity, it is doomed from the beginning since the concept of a distant dispassionate relationship is anathema to family.

                                                             ii.      Guilt by Association: Since the Bible does not directly say anything against emotional or romantic attachments to make them “impure,” proponents are forced to look elsewhere.  Two easy targets present themselves, as already introduced in the section about fear.

1.       Sexual Impurity: The first target is sexual impurity.  It is taught that emotional impurity and sexual impurity are different parts of the same spectrum of sin and that stepping into the former puts one on a slippery slope to the latter.  At first glance, the logic seems to follow: after all, you wouldn’t be tempted to have sex with someone you aren’t romantically involved with, would you?

a.       Free Sex; Love Sold Separately: Well, as it turns out, you would.  In fact, this sort of thing happens all the time in hookup culture.  Young people may involve themselves in one-night-stands or drunken orgies with people they have no feelings for.  If the relationship lasts, it’s called “friends with benefits,” because, while sexual favors are exchanged freely, no romantic feelings are involved.  Some have even been quoted as getting annoyed when romantic entanglements spring up to complicate the free sex.  In this culture, from which emotional purity flees, the ideal is sex with “no strings attached”—that is, completely free of romantic entanglements (I find it incredible that on both extremes of this debate people are telling us that romantic love is bad—wasn’t it something that God-fellow invented way back in Genesis and mentioned as a picture of His own love countless times throughout that one book?  You think maybe Satan doesn’t like it?  I do: I think both sides are demonic).

b.      Sexual Abuse: There are, of course, further extremes.  The rapist does not attack out of romantic adoration but sexual lust.  Sexual harassment is also generally free from emotional attachment (if it weren’t, the abuser would probably respect the victim’s wishes).  Then, there’s prostitution and pornography, both of which involve sexual impurity completely divorced from romantic entrapments.  What is truly disturbing is that, in some cases, studies have found that environments rife with emotional purity teaching actually fostered sexual abuse, addiction, and pornography.

                                                                                                                                       i.      Effect of the Elephant in the Room: When you think about the psychological implications of emotional purity, the fact that hidden sexual abuse and addiction follows it like a shadow is actually not very surprising.  If you tell a man, “Don’t think about a pink elephant,” he will immediately think of a pink elephant because trying to banish an object focuses it in the forefront of the mind.  Thus, cultures (like the Rock) that aim to suppress romantic feelings are often rife with romantic tension, emotional drama, and are places where relationships are an almost constant topic among the membership (such topics and tensions were comparatively rare and fleeting among the Navs, a college ministry that does not embrace emotional purity).  Throw in the teaching that romantic entanglements should suppressed because because otherwise you will think about sex and now guess what’s on everybody’s mind.  It’s like telling a man, “Don’t think of a pink elephant, because then you will think about a blue kangaroo.”  I know what you’re thinking right now (blue kangaroo).  As an example, while sexual purity was a struggle men (and presumably women) shared privately at the Navs, I was never accused of sexual impurity anywhere but the Rock—and the thing that brought on the accusation wasn’t even sexual in nature!

                                                                                                                                     ii.      Life on the Slippery Slope:  In theory, when you tell someone that if they do X, it is just as bad as doing Y and they are at risk of doing Y also, it should keep them as far away from X as possible.  The problem comes, when, in practice, X is something that is not really avoidable.  Neither gender has control over who they feel attracted to, or when, or how strongly, or how long.  Emotional purity comes along and says that to feel emotionally attracted to someone is like lusting for them, which is, of course, as bad as actually committing adultery with this person.  So, what are the logical implications to an unfortunate who develops a crush on a member of the opposite sex?  Well, he’s already crossed the line and soiled himself.  What difference does it make if he goes a little further and actually lusts for this girl: doesn’t emotional purity say they’re the same?  And if he does that, well, then, he might as well let things go all the way.  The logic isn’t valid (the entire “slippery slope” argument from which it derives is classed as a logical fallacy), but it does happen.  Even if it’s not with the person with which the unfortunate has a crush, they may still slide into a downward spiral.  Emotional purity says that if you have a romantic attachment, you’ve cheapened and dirtied yourself.  Well, if you’ve fallen and found you can’t get up, you might as well have a good roll in the mud while you’re down.  So goes the logic of many who, depressed by their inability to hold up under the legalistic demands of emotional purity, decide to live as the “bad girl” or “bad boy” they have been branded as (this is something all legalistic cultures share in common: they are breeding grounds for the very “denigrates” they shun).

2.       Heartache: The second target for guilt-by-association is heartache.  Nobody likes having their heart broken, so it’s a very easy target.  It’s also a very true target.  C.S. Lewis rightly observed that, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.”  Pain is a thread that is woven through every part of the story God is telling: even He Himself is not untouched!  But should we avoid heartache?  Certainly, it is unpleasant, but there is nothing in the Bible to say it is a sin or a consequence of sin.  In fact, the only way to avoid it is to stop loving entirely: to break the first and second commandments upon which (according to Christ) everything hangs.  C.S. Lewis goes on to say that to avoid vulnerability to heartache we must isolate our heart and “wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.  Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.”  In this way, heartache is a little like waste heat in thermodynamics: nobody wants it, everybody’s got it, the only way to get rid of it is to stop playing the game…and you cannot stop playing the game.  In thermodynamics, it’s a matter of impossibility; in love it’s a matter of monstrosity—stop loving and you commit a selfish evil act more twisted and demonic than any romantic entanglement or heartbreak could ever be (and scripture has a lot to say about the wickedness of people who do not love).

                                                            iii.      The Commandments of Men: In the end, the quest for a Biblical basis for calling romantic feelings impure (and thus the entire logical foundation of emotional purity doctrine) is fruitless.  This is perhaps why most advocates don’t spend much time on it, instead doing a brief gloss of one or two proofs and diving right into scare tactics and instructions on how to avoid emotional impurity.  Comparatively little (or even no) ink is spilled on saying what is actually “impure” about these emotions or even which emotions are impure to start with.  This essentially leaves an open field for whatever authority figures happen to be on the scene.  If they say that knowing enough about a guy to know his schedule is emotional impure (an actual scenario from one of my friends: the guy would be her husband in less than a year), then no one can really dispute it with them.  This sets up a system where groups are “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” often commandments that explicitly violate commandments of God.  The most obvious examples are the commands for love and unity between all believers (brothers and sisters in Christ inclusive), which are quite simply incompatible with a lot of the measures taken under emotional purity (some versions of it, as mentioned above, go so far as to say that it is impossible to have any amicable interactions with a member of the opposite sex or any love for them at all without falling into the sin of emotional impurity).  But there are other ones as well.  In the Rock, there was one occasion when a leader forbade me from sharing the gospel with a non-Christian friend because the friend was female and it would be emotionally impure.  As above, there is also the very strict command to do nothing from prejudice or partiality, which—if we take it to have broader applications than the process of appointing and disciplining elders—is in direct opposition to a system of thought that tells us to treat 50% of our fellow Christians differently and/or disassociate with them because their sexual organs aren’t in the same place as ours.

b.      Christ-like Love: You’re Doin’ it Wrong: As discussed above, emotional purity sets itself at odds with love.  It does so explicitly and unabashedly in the case of romantic love (supposedly it is only opposed to “unauthorized” romantic love—but what love is authorized and what isn’t is a murky game that very often comes down to power-play and winning the favoritism of the authority figures).  Since Scripture nowhere condemns romantic love and everywhere sets it up as an example of God’s love for us, this is crossing a line.  When emotionally purity puts constraints on the love between brothers and sisters in Christ out of fear that these relationships will turn into “unauthorized” and “impure” romantic entanglements, it crosses another line.  When it obliterates those relationships, it crosses all the lines.  This becomes particularly obvious when one considers that the standard for love between Christians is the love that Christ had for us: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  One of the most audacious things about Christ’s love was that it crossed the gender line, and the most despicable thing emotional purity can do is push it back to the other side.  Jesus Christ came in the flesh: this is a fact the denial of which constitutes demonic influence (1 John4:1-3).  While in the flesh, Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15)—deviation from which doctrine constitutes heresy.  Therefore, any teaching that would condemn a man (or woman) for doing the things Jesus did on this earth with the opposite sex is both heretical and demonic.  There can be no flexibility, no two-ways, about this!  An analysis of one of many possible example scenarios follows.

                                                               i.      One-on-One at the Well: John 4 records a story that would have been baffling to the religious elite of Jesus’ day, and is sadly equally baffling to many in the church today.  Jesus and his disciples are traveling through Samaria, the region of the hated-apostate-halfbreeds, and while the disciples go into town to buy food, Jesus sits down on the edge of a well.  A woman comes out to the well, to draw water for herself, and Jesus strikes up a conversation.  Being Jesus, He quickly turns the conversation to the gospel, and during the course of the conversation two facts emerge.  The first is that this woman is a “loose woman.”  She has had five husbands and is currently sleeping with a prospect for number six.  The second fact is that Jesus is perfectly aware of her sexually impure life—and He chooses to talk to her anyway!  Jesus talked one-on-one and shared the gospel with a woman who was known (to Him at least) to be sexually and (if we accept emotional purity) emotionally impure—and He did so not only without sin, but actually as an act of obedience to the Father (John 4:34).

                                                             ii.      Analysis of the Well: Honestly, the test of the Samaritan woman is one I can think of very few incarnations of emotional purity passing.  Only the mildest versions need even apply.  Most teach that one-on-one interaction with a member of the opposite sex is bound to cause emotional impurity and many account it as romantic pursuit (and unauthorized romantic pursuit—that is, pursuit of someone the authority figures don’t think you should marry—is a sin).  By this logic, Jesus was sinning just by conversing with a woman alone, let alone bringing up the intimate topics of the gospel and her romantic relationships.  When we throw in the fact that this woman was known to play fast and loose with her sexual morals, Jesus is definitely in trouble.  This is certainly someone an emotional purity culture would tell every male to avoid and to never, ever speak to one-on-one.  But Jesus did, and if we condemn Him for it, it is us and not Him who are in sin.

c.       Fear, not Faith: The Bible tells us that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23) and further that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1John 4:18).  But, as discussed in the definition, emotional purity creates, operates in, and responds with a culture of fear.  Fear is the antithesis of faith (so long as we are not talking the “fear of God”).  Emotional purity’s proponents have been quick to proclaim that theirs is a method of faith in that it relies on God and waits for him, but a number of things belie this position, revealing that the true foundation of the doctrine is fear, not faith.

                                                               i.      Reaction, not Action: As mentioned in the section about “fear of being like the world,” emotional purity sets up a false dichotomy between itself and the hookup culture with no “middle road” between them (this is a logical fallacy, by the way).  Then, rather than modeling itself on what the Bible says dating should be (because, despite all the attempts of emotional purity books to prove otherwise, it is silent on the topic), emotional purity takes a bundle of positions from hookup culture, reverses them, and turns it into a doctrine.  Hookup culture says that there is no difference at all between male and female, so emotional purity overemphasizes every difference to the point where they seem like different species.  Hookup culture makes light of going out with people you never get married to, so emotional purity makes much of it.  Hookup culture believes in pursuing what you want now, so emotional purity believes in waiting.  Hookup culture tells you to follow your heart, so emotional purity tells you to crush it.  Hookup culture flaunts authority, so emotional purity enforces it.  The most obvious case is the most trivial: hookup-culture calls it “dating” so emotional purity avoids the “d-word” at all costs.  This is not action taken based on truth, but simple reaction based on the lies of hookup culture.  When we go about blindly doing the opposite of whatever we see “the world” doing, we are as much their puppet as if we followed them directly—since in neither case are we giving any heed to direction from God.

                                                             ii.      Take Me to Your Leader: The whole argument of emotional purity being the road of faith hinges on the idea of “waiting for God to bring along ‘the One.’”  But really, is the idea of “the One” even Biblical?  Much ink has been spilled here by other authors, but the long and short of it is that, while it is Biblical to say that God has a plan for your life, there is no mention in the Bible of Him hand-picking our future spouses.  It’s possible He does, but the Bible doesn’t say it.  Mostly, the idea of “the One” comes from the romance genre.  But assuming, for the moment, that God does, indeed, pick out “soul-mates” in His divine plan, how do we know, in emotional purity, when “the One” has come along?  Practically speaking in every emotional purity culture I’ve ever heard of, the answer comes down to “when the resident authority figures say so.”  This may mean parents approving of or arranging a match. This may mean leaders no older than the couples themselves evaluating and approving of each individual’s character and fitness for a relationship.  In either case, God need not be involved because man has this one covered.  Seriously, in a lot of the stories out there about emotional purity all the important decisions were made by authority figures based purely on their personal judgment.  This may constitute an act of faith on the part of couples, but it certainly isn’t in God.  One may ask why God doesn’t have a freer hand in all this or why everything has to be rubber-stamped by these authority figures, and the reason comes down to fear.  With the authority figures firmly at the helm, a trusted human face is in control (or at least seems to be—since humans really can’t even control much of anything).  Without that face, fear and uncertainty threaten, so the authority figure remains on the throne.

                                                            iii.      God Walks into a College Ministry: A few years ago, I had the dubious distinction of being there to witness first hand where a particular emotional purity culture put its faith and who was really leading the relationships.  A young man and a young woman both professed to have had powerful spiritual experiences wherein they believed God told them that a romantic relationship between them was His will.  The young man’s parents at least approved, though I do not know if the young woman’s parents were ever consulted when the question was at issue.  Whether they were or weren’t turns out to be irrelevant, because in this culture the primary authority figure was not parents (former members have told me leaders encouraged them to defy their Christian parents) but church and college ministry leadership, dominated by single or married men and women in their early-to-mid twenties who had no formal training or selection process and little oversight in the decisions they made (one leader was effectively able to exercise “church discipline” without the pastorate of the church ever being aware of it).  These leaders were against the match from square one.  They feared it would bring both members into emotional impurity and harm, and they were totally unfazed by the prospect that they were, in the eyes of these two members, giving direction that was in direct opposition to the revealed will of God.  They produced various arguments for why these young people needed to listen to their leaders instead of whatever they believed God was telling them, with the end result of bringing emotional purity doctrine to bear on all interactions between the pair, eventually demolishing a friendship from which both had derived spiritual encouragement previously.  To me, the message was clear: God is not welcome here.

d.      After Purity: In addition to the above problems, emotional purity has a number of detrimental effects, some of which apply specifically to people who have engaged in romantic feelings, whether with or without the approval of their resident authority figures.

                                                               i.      Needless Guilt: The biggest effect, is, of course, guilt.  This is only logical.  After all, emotional purity has gone out and made up a bunch of sins we can commit, and if we’ve embraced the doctrine and then gone and done the things it condemns, we naturally feel guilty about it (and because those things aren’t actually sinful in the first place, our guilt is needless by definition).  This occurs even if the particular romantic entanglement one “commits” is one approved by the necessary emotional-purity-backed authority figures.  By this point, fear of emotional entanglements is a programmed knee-jerk reaction and it simply cannot be turned off just because a leader said you could be a couple now.  The situation is exacerbated when you throw in the fact that many or all couples who eventually get leadership approval (at least in the emotional purity culture I most closely observed: again, your mileage may vary) spend a significant amount of time feeling attracted to one another without having that attraction “legitimized” by the necessary leaders—or worse, having those leaders actively condemn the attraction.  After months or years of taking and internalizing this treatment, it is impossible to simply roll over and start loving someone without feeling guilty about it.  This is pointless suffering.

                                                             ii.      Run Before You Can Walk: Another effect several of my friends who are currently in relationships have attested to (together with numerous strangers on the internet) is that following emotional purity leaves one totally unprepared to handle a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, especially a romantic one.  People who have grown up in an extreme emotional purity environment and are suddenly thrust into a romantic relationship are the relational equivalent of a kid who has spent his whole life in a wheelchair being suddenly asked to run a marathon.  They have no clue how to relate to a member of the opposite sex on even the most fundamental level of both of them being human beings, let alone how to build a lifelong, deep, committed relationship with one.  All they really have is two fists full of dreams and expectations that are completely untested by reality.  They are in for disappointment.  They are in for frustration.  They are in for confusion and pain, and they are a practically guaranteed client for the next marriage step-by-step book or equivalent (they navigated their single years by letting other people tell them what to do, what do you think they’ll do when marriage gets confusing?).  They are not hopeless, thank God.  If they are aware of the weaknesses emotional purity has left them, they can combat them.  Even if they aren’t, if they remain in the emotional purity culture that put them together that culture is likely to continue to support and direct them (the authority figures that directed their single years will continue to preside over their married lives).  Since all of these cultures have very strong prohibitions against divorce, they are unlikely to become divorced or even (if not yet married) break up (keeping in mind that, in order for them to have come together in the first place, leadership had to have approved them for each other as “the person God wants you to marry” or “the One”—you do not dump “the One”).  Since they further promote (generally) Biblical models of marriage itself, they may even build healthy, God-honoring marriages, but when this occurs, it is not much to the credit of the emotional purity that left them so otherwise ill-prepared.

3.       A More Excellent Way? When emotional purity arguments are made, they are made in opposition to a hookup culture that does not honor God.  When it comes between the two of them, emotional purity seems the clear winner.  Thus, even seeing the systems flaws, one might cling to emotional purity as the only option that honors God out of fear (there’s that word again) of falling into the hookup culture of casual premarital sex.  But the reality is that there are not just two ways to handle romantic relationships and platonic friendships.  A God-honoring way needs to be sought between the two, but anyone coming to this part looking for a six-simple-steps solution is bound for disappointment.  Man leads through six-simple-steps, but God is more creative and more difficult to anticipate (and more wonderful for it).  While reading this, do keep in mind that the author is a single young man who has never been romantically involved: take it with a grain of salt.

a.       Love one another: This is one of the highest commands of the Bible, as well as one of the most frequently repeated (the highest, of course, is “Love God,” but if you’re going for a God-honoring way to relate to the opposite sex, I’m going to assume that’s already a priority for you).  It is also a listed criterion for knowing and loving God (1 John 4:20-21).  However we behave ourselves toward friends or romantic interests of the opposite sex, we must be sure it is out of love.

b.      Flee Sexual Immorality: The Bible is very, very clear that sex is something that belongs in the marriage bed (well…technically it isn’t too particular about where married couples do it, just that they do it and that other people don’t).  Sexual immorality is also a sin that can be committed in the heart, through lust.  We need to turn away from things that tempt us to sexual immorality and turn to God.  In doing so, it is important that we not make the mistake many have made in making sexual purity legalistic.  Sex is not evil: sex is good.  Our sexual desires, feelings, and organs are all parts of us made by a God Who is not prone to massive design flaws, Who loves us very much and wants to be Lord over all of our lives, ruling over and being glorified in every aspect of our being.  For some, this may mean becoming eunuchs (Matthew 19:11-12) either practically or actually.  Some are going to be called to celibacy, some to marriage.  We should not assume that either is better than the other or that we are called to one over the other.  Particularly, we should not think that submitting our sexuality to God involves obliterating it.  He made it, He paid for it, He loves it, and He gets to say what’s done with it: this is the opposite of sexual immorality, which says that my sexuality is something that I rule over, or that rules over me, for my own satisfaction and not God’s glory.

c.       Do not be Unequally Yoked: When it comes to finding an actual spouse (and we should be careful this isn’t our sole aim in interacting with the opposite sex: that’s not loving), we need to remember that marriage is a spiritual union.  It shouldn’t be, as a general rule, entered into by people with differing beliefs.  Christ should be the most important person in any Christian’s life, and if a Christian is married to a non-Christian, then their spouse cannot understand the part of their life that is most important to them and that shapes all others—and that is a sad situation indeed.

d.      Follow God: God needs to be our leader.  He is the only one who knows His plan for our lives, and we need to follow Him.  This may not look the same for every person—in fact, it will not.  For some people, God may lead them to follow leaders and walk in emotional purity (Jesus did tell the crowds to do as the Pharisees told them to do in Matthew23:2-3).  For some, He may lead through circumstances, for some through the sound council of their elders (note that just council is not enough: there is such a thing as foolish council and young people are particularly prone to giving it—as the story of Rehoboam proves well), for some through feelings, for some through various forms of direct revelation.  For most, it will probably be a mix of these things, and all of them are important in considering a direction.  The critical thing is that we are following God, not ourselves, not others, not our fears, but God.  This will not lead to any one-size-fits-all solution, but we do not serve a one-size-fits-all God.  Additionally, it will not lead to a pain-free dating, friendship, or marriage experience.  “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” and God calls us to be terribly vulnerable to Him and to each other.  If we follow Him, there are two things of which we may be assured: we will be hurt, and it will be worth it in the end.