00:00:00
I read I kissing goodbye so you don't have to. This is the exhomeschoolers club where we talk about the good, the
00:00:06
bad, and the ugly of growing up a homeschool kid. [Music] I'm your host, Jacob Gooden, and uh
00:00:16
we're back for another episode of the best exhomeschooler show this side of the internet. And you heard me right.
00:00:22
I'm talking about I kissing goodbye. Now, if you've never heard of this book,
00:00:27
first and foremost, be thankful. But uh basically this book was like the manual.
00:00:33
It was the instruction book that led to pretty much what purity culture looked like from the 90s to almost the 2020s.
00:00:40
Okay. Now, if you don't know what purity culture is, here it is. Purity culture
00:00:46
is a term used to describe a set of beliefs and practices primarily within evangelical Christian communities that
00:00:53
emphasize sexual abstinence before marriage and often equate virginity with moral purity and value. It has
00:01:01
significant social and psychological implications impacting individuals understanding of sexuality,
00:01:07
relationships and their own self-worth. Now what is I kiss dating goodbye? It is
00:01:12
described as this. Tired of the game? Kiss dating goodbye. Dating? Isn't there
00:01:19
a better way? I kiss dating goodbye suggests there is. Reorder your romantic life in the light of God's word and find
00:01:27
more fulfillment than a date could ever give. A life of sincere love, true purity, and purposeful singleness.
00:01:36
Now, a little bit about the author. Joshua Harris, a national speaker, has gained a following both within and
00:01:44
outside the homeschool movement. He is a publisher and editor of the New Attitude
00:01:48
magazine and is currently in pastoral training at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Okay. Now, when
00:01:58
did this book came out? This book came out in 1997. So, it is an oldie. It is almost as old as I am. I was born in
00:02:04
1996. And at the time the author of his book was only 21 years old. Okay. So this book was retracted in 2019 and uh
00:02:15
Josh has since like deconstructed his faith. Uh he retracted he pulled this book from publishing along with several
00:02:21
of his other books. And I think he has done some things to try to like make amends uh honestly for the harm that he
00:02:30
caused a lot of like teenagers and a lot of young adults. uh from the 90s to 2010s basically. So why is this book
00:02:42
relevant to the homeschool community and why am I even talking about it? So this
00:02:45
book was relevant because the Harris family in general is very entwined in the homeschool community. Uh Josh's
00:02:54
parents uh Greg and Sono I think is his mom's name. uh they were like big major
00:03:01
players um in the early years of Christian homeschooling. So the 80s and the 90s his dad uh Greg wrote a book
00:03:09
called um I think it was called like the Christian homeschool or something like that. Um it was a big major catalyst for
00:03:17
a lot of people. They were speakers. They would go to events. They were heavily involved in um HSLDA which is
00:03:24
advocates for homeschoolers. And so his family very much involved in the homeschool realm. What is my history
00:03:31
with the Harris family? So I remember I think my first introduction to them was actually his younger brothers who wrote
00:03:39
a book called Do Hard Things. They came out when I was probably around 13ish. And uh that book was really about
00:03:47
pushing young adults uh and young people to do these like big crazy things, to do
00:03:53
hard things. uh they would tell stories about like 16-year-olds sailing around the world um you know and or uh other
00:04:02
kids like going into war zones and advocating for uh aid and medical aid and and food aid and
00:04:10
things like that. And so these like really wild stories and they would do these conferences and they kind of would
00:04:14
push these kids to be they called them the revolution. So rebels and revolution mash it together. Um, so that was kind
00:04:22
of at least as far as I know, my introduction to the Harris family. Uh, I also remember reading a different Josh
00:04:30
Harris book called um, Sex Isn't the Problem, Lust is. And, uh, that was given to me because I had a little bit I
00:04:40
got caught watching some things on the internet and um, and my parents thought that that would be a good book to help
00:04:46
me. Well, I had never read this book all the way through. I have read sections of
00:04:50
it uh when I was in high school. Um I think just things that ended up on blogs and
00:04:56
uh you know from friends or or whatever. So so that was kind of my introduction to the Harris family was there's
00:05:04
brothers. I had a different book but I always knew that this existed and I knew that this was a playbook. This was
00:05:09
something that got talked about a lot was this idea of kissing dating goodbye courtship is the way um kind of thing.
00:05:17
So, my initial thoughts on this book. Okay. I hate this book. I really do. This was like a hate read
00:05:28
for me. Um, I picked it up. I saw it at a thrift store. I picked it up and I don't know. I just felt like I guess
00:05:36
being mean to myself and forcing myself to read it. But it was a difficult read.
00:05:41
It was a difficult read as you could tell. I have a lot of notes uh throughout this whole thing. uh a lot of
00:05:47
journal entries as well to go along with it. And I'll be honest, I've never
00:05:52
really loved what this book stood for. This whole idea of courtship never really resonated with me. I didn't
00:05:58
understand how it was like so much more superior than dating. Um and I didn't
00:06:05
have parents that really pushed that on me. So that that's something I also want
00:06:08
to make clear is like my parents were not like anti-dating. Um they were not like telling me, "Oh, you can't kiss
00:06:16
someone until you're married." Um, you know, they didn't want me to have sex
00:06:20
until I was married. And they there was other things. They they wanted me to remain sexually pure, but
00:06:27
but there was a lot of people in the homeschool community who were who did do courtship. Like they they did the thing.
00:06:34
And and if you don't know what courtship is, it's very much, we're going to get
00:06:37
into it as we unpack this book, but it's very much this idea that instead of
00:06:40
dating, your family is very involved and there's very much an intention of like
00:06:46
uh you being a couple with somebody is going to lead to marriage and and it's a
00:06:51
very watched process. Family's very much involved in it. Um there's a lot of like
00:06:58
no privacy. Again, a lot of things we're gonna we're gonna get into as we as we
00:07:03
unpack this book. Um, and it was something I I remember like fighting friends on uh some of these ideas like
00:07:12
kissing before you're married. Um, I remember pushing back. I just had a conversation with a buddy and we were
00:07:18
talking about that and and how his idea has changed. He he was convinced he was not going to kiss anyone till he was
00:07:23
married. Um, I was like, I want to be able to kiss before I'm married. I want to make sure like it
00:07:30
looks good on the marriage day. Like I want to practice. Um so so there's that.
00:07:35
The other thing I want to keep in mind as I talk about this and and kind of my headsp space in reading this book was
00:07:43
that the author is like 21, which I would imagine because I know you don't just write a book overnight. So I would
00:07:49
imagine he was between 19 and 20 while really writing this book. Um, that's really young to be giving insane dating
00:08:00
advice advice that like was really like the gold standard in a lot of Christian communities for 20
00:08:08
years. So, the other thing that I did while reading this book was I tried to kind of put myself in a position of
00:08:15
being like 14 to 16. Um, I'm in puberty. I'm I'm starting to have feelings.
00:08:24
Hormones are starting to kick in. Girls are all of a sudden uh you know looking mighty attractive. And so I also tried
00:08:33
to put myself in the position of that. And what I came to realize was that a lot of times at that age when things
00:08:40
would arise in my life, I get handed a book and told, "Hey, here read this.
00:08:45
This will help." Um and there maybe wasn't always a great discussion around
00:08:49
it. And this book would have benefited from a lot of discussion because I don't
00:08:54
think that a lot of the things that are taught in this book are things that parents really
00:09:01
would have aligned with. Uh maybe I'm mistaken. I just think that this book warranted more discussion around these
00:09:08
things. And you'll even notice as we go through this book, as we get later into
00:09:12
it, one of the one of the topics is like not discussing sexual things with the opposite sex. And I think that gets
00:09:19
blown out of proportion a little bit in this book as well. So that being said, this book is broken into four parts. Um,
00:09:28
so this is going to be multiple episodes. So this this we're just going to cover part one. I don't know uh how
00:09:33
much we're going to cover in later ones, but there's going to be multiple
00:09:36
episodes to talk about this, but we're going to talk about part one, which is I
00:09:39
kiss Kiss Dating Goodbye. And uh yeah, and we're just going to kind of like unpack that first little bit. So, right
00:09:46
off the rip, this book equates dating to fast food. Okay, Josh says this. I view
00:09:53
dating in a similar light as I view fast food restaurants. It's not wrong to eat
00:09:57
there, but something better uh something far better is available. As we'll see,
00:10:03
God wants us to seek the best in everything, including our romantic relationships. As Christians, we too
00:10:09
often we are too often guilty of making do with the world's model for relationships and missing out on God's
00:10:16
best. I thought it was interesting because this whole point right here, he literally starts this section off with
00:10:22
saying, "I don't think that dating is sinful." However, you make it sound
00:10:27
mighty unattractive. Everyone kind of knows right right off the rip, right, that like
00:10:33
fast food's not great for you. We know it's unhealthy. We eat it, but we know
00:10:38
it's we know deep down it's kind of unhealthy. And so comparing dating to
00:10:42
that, right? It makes it really unattractive. It's setting the stage. The second part, the second point that
00:10:48
he makes right after this is rejecting typical dating does not mean that you'll
00:10:52
never spend time alone with a guy or a girl. Um, and he goes on to say, I won't say that it's never appropriate
00:11:02
to spend time alone with someone at the right time in a rel relationship. If the
00:11:06
motivation is clear and the setting avoids temptation, going on a date can be healthy. And of course, he's going to
00:11:12
the hope is that later in this book, he's going to unpack more of that and what does that actually look like and
00:11:17
what are the guard rails for that? But right off the rip, I was like, man, these things do not sit well with me. I
00:11:25
think laying it out in that way, it makes dating sound as if it's somewhat sinful. Um, and
00:11:33
I was reminded really early on in reading this that my dad, one of the best things my dad ever said to me, and
00:11:40
I don't know why he said this or the full context, but it is just burned in my memory. He
00:11:47
would always tell me, "There's a time and a place for things to be sexual, and
00:11:51
you have to learn what the right time and place is." Growing up in California, go to the
00:11:57
beach. I think a lot of times you can't control, you can't control what other
00:12:02
people wear or how other people are. And so going to the beach, I think I had a lot of friends who, you know, looked at
00:12:09
girls in bikinis and and it would turn them on or would sexually excite them or whatever. And I think maybe it had to do
00:12:16
with a conversation around that where my dad was like, "The beach is not a sexual
00:12:19
place. It doesn't have to be. You can learn to control your emotions while you're at the beach." Um, and just have
00:12:24
fun. And so anyway, that's a statement that's always really stuck with me is
00:12:30
just the like there's a time and a place for things to be sexual and you have to
00:12:34
learn when that time and that place is. So, all right, let's move on. Chapter
00:12:38
one, smart love is what this chapter is entitled. And uh man, he kicks it off with a doozy. Okay, so he kicks this
00:12:48
chapter off with a story about a bride and a groom. It's her wedding day. They're getting married. They're
00:12:52
exchanging their vows. And as they're exchanging their vows, the bride is looking at at her groom. And all of a
00:13:00
sudden, these women start like popping up behind him and she's like, "Who are
00:13:05
these people?" and he he has to confess to her that they're past relationships.
00:13:12
Uh they're past girlfriends. Uh and she's upset, right? Because she's like,
00:13:18
"Well, why why are they here or whatever?" And he's like, "Well, I gave
00:13:21
pieces of my heart to these people." Um and so, you know, I can't get that back,
00:13:26
but everything I have left is is yours, right? and she wakes up from the dream and she's she's upset and she's
00:13:32
distraught and she's even thinking about her own relationships of of the past and
00:13:36
and how she's given her heart away and things like that and how they can never
00:13:41
get that back and if only they had just like waited basically they had waited it could have just been perfect kind of
00:13:47
a thing and I was like yikes first foremost yikes that story is wild Josh then follows it up with his own relationship
00:13:57
experience and he doesn't really go into detail about his relationships, but he
00:14:01
says that he has all these past relationships from high school and being a kid and things that he regrets because
00:14:07
they took him away. They gave pieces of himself away to these these other people. Now, I want to say this, there's
00:14:14
a lot of stories in this book that I don't really know if they're true. This
00:14:18
being one of them, like of this woman sending him a letter or an email and saying, you know, I had this dream.
00:14:26
I'm not going to say that they're not real, but there's a lot of conveniently
00:14:32
illustrated stories throughout this whole book that just seem a little bit too good to be true. The other thing
00:14:38
that this made me think about was the fact that like the insecurity level that you have to have to compare yourself to
00:14:47
somebody's past. And I'm not going to say that I I haven't done that. and
00:14:51
haven't been there. But I even know that for myself, the first time I ever had sex
00:15:01
afterwards, I had this just feeling of like I've given this piece of myself away. I've given my heart away. Um, I'd
00:15:09
given my heart away other places, too, in other relationships, but like it was like tied to my worth. And I
00:15:20
think as I've gotten older, I've realized that like my worth is not dependent on on that. Like I am a person
00:15:27
um and we give pieces of ourselves away. We do. But just because I give those pieces away and maybe they they break my
00:15:33
heart or they're not reciprocated or whatever, doesn't make me less of a
00:15:37
human. Doesn't make me less of a person. Doesn't make me capable of giving all of
00:15:42
myself to somebody. Um, and so this is a common theme throughout this whole book is this like constant just
00:15:50
like giving away of the heart and and it being shattered into little pieces and and and
00:15:57
that's like not holy and that's sinful and like you need to not do that. You
00:16:03
need to just be like so certain. And I think that's the problem here is that
00:16:09
the certainty. How can you be certain that this is your person without hating, without this intentionality? And he's
00:16:17
going to get into some of the ways. So, I also wanted to bring up this quote that's later in this book um later in
00:16:24
this chapter. Um and it says, let me flip to it here. It says, "Does love motivate the guy who sleeps with his
00:16:34
girlfriend when it will scar her emotionally and damage her relationship with God? Does sincerity motivate the
00:16:41
girl who leads a guy along then breaks up with him when she finds someone better?
00:16:47
No. Both people exemplify selfish motivation. They need to get smart and realize how their actions affect others.
00:16:57
I read that and I my my instant thought that I jotted down was who hurt you, Josh? Like who hurt you? Um what did
00:17:05
they do? Like what was this thing that that led you to that? Because I know that people can be selfish. I get
00:17:11
it. I think a lot of people give of themselves with this understanding that this might not work out. This it might
00:17:19
not. And that's okay. We're going to get hurt as people. And that is I think one of the biggest
00:17:25
damaging points of this whole book is there's this big push of like not getting hurt. Um and that's why I say
00:17:31
like who hurt you, Josh? Because like there there's this certainty of we have to
00:17:38
know that this is the person I want to spend my time with and I want to be with that person. Well, how do you know that
00:17:45
without ma taking a risk, right? How do you know that without dating, without putting yourself out there, without kind
00:17:52
of being vulnerable with yourself? So, I also want to take a brief second to talk
00:17:58
about because it's going to come out throughout this whole book, sexual sin.
00:18:02
What is it? Where is the line? What is it defined as? This book is not going to tell you what that is. It's going to
00:18:08
bring it up multiple times. It's going to bring it up. It's going to say, you
00:18:11
know, you don't want to be sexually impure. You don't want to do all of these things. But then it will never
00:18:16
tell you where the line is crossed. It's kind of that whole like I don't know
00:18:20
porn. Uh I don't know what the line is for porn, but I know it when I see it
00:18:24
kind of a whole argument. That's the argument that I hear made a lot of times for sexual sin. And nobody
00:18:32
ever in the history of my upbringing either has really been able to tell me definitively line in the sand this is
00:18:39
sexual sin this is not part of that is it's just not always clear in the Bible
00:18:44
I think most people would agree sexual sin in the context of the Bible and Christianity is like you know sex before
00:18:53
marriage sexual sin um but when it comes to things like kissing handholding heavy
00:18:59
petting like even masturbation those types of things, they just all sit in this gray area and it's like very
00:19:05
almost like up to the user, but yet we also judge each other if we decide that those things are okay for us or not
00:19:12
okay. Um, so I think that is like a really hard place to be in as a teenage kid, right? Because you're looking for
00:19:21
the lines. you're looking to know where the boundaries are and where you can,
00:19:26
you know, play inside of. Um, so that's like that's that's what I've
00:19:34
been thinking throughout this whole thing is I'm like, I never knew the boundary lines. I never knew the
00:19:38
boundary lines. I knew that I knew that sex outside of marriage was bad. I knew that pornography was bad. My parents
00:19:42
never explicitly said masturbation was bad. My parents never said kissing was bad or handholding. Um, but I I I knew
00:19:53
people who all of that was bad. All of that was sexual sin. The other things were sexual sin. Like just the act of
00:19:58
touching someone of the opposite sex could be misconstrued as sexual sin. Um, so anyway, the other thing that comes up
00:20:06
in this book a lot is the maintaining of virginity. And uh, he says it multiple ways in the
00:20:13
book, but basically the the most common way is he he says, you know, these people maintain virginity, but only in
00:20:18
the technical sense. And I was like, "What the hell does that mean?" And I
00:20:23
think it's like running of the mind a little bit, I think, is what he's getting at, right? It's like, you know,
00:20:28
maybe you fantasize about it a little bit. Fantasize about being with that somebody. Uh, you know, or maybe you
00:20:35
pushed those lines like we're talking about because those lines are blurry. maybe us making out was crossing a
00:20:40
boundary and you know maybe she sat on his lap or you know whatever it but because of the fact that none of it
00:20:49
is actually like structured to actually represent anything if that makes sense like there
00:20:56
is no hard line in the sand as a 14-year-old and remember I'm reading this from the perspective of a
00:21:03
14-year-old kid I would be so confused and I would also be questioning at all times. Did I cross the line? Okay, I had
00:21:13
this thought about this person of about this girl. Let me give you an example. I
00:21:17
knew plenty of girls, very attractive, very wonderful ladies. I'm also straight. Okay, so and I'm I'm speaking
00:21:22
primarily this book is written from primarily like heterosexual heterosexual perspective and that's also my
00:21:31
I'm straight. Okay, that's that's where I come from. So, girls were attractive.
00:21:35
Um, and you know, I remember catching myself and being like, "Oh, is even me thinking that this
00:21:43
girl looks pretty? Is that crossing a line? Is that crossing a line? I don't know.
00:21:50
Nobody could tell me. Is that crossing a line? I find this person attractive. Am
00:21:53
I crossing a line by saying that? By thinking that." Um, those were kind of
00:21:58
some of the things sometimes that were running through my head as I'm navigating
00:22:05
puberty as I'm navigating early teenage years of like, is this right? Is this
00:22:10
wrong? So, we're going to jump ahead a little bit. Chapter two. This is Josh's
00:22:17
negative tendencies of dating. I'm pulling up what does the chapter say? Okay. The seven habits of highly
00:22:23
defective dating is what this chapter is titled. A lot of his chapters kick off with some kind of story and then we talk
00:22:29
about it, right? This this particular chapter chapter starts off and he's describing uh him being in youth group
00:22:36
and his pastor telling a story um of a couple who you know they were dating a great dating relationship things got
00:22:44
physical they ended up having sex and then they broke up and many many years later they're at a high school reunion
00:22:50
and this youth pastor is also there I guess and um he's talking to them and he's you know he's asking them how they
00:22:57
are and both of them confess this like Oh, like it's so hard to see this other
00:23:01
person because like you know there's like an open wound still. It's just like
00:23:07
um you know it's I've just never gotten over that experience, right? I gave
00:23:13
myself to them and you know so even though they've moved past it, they're
00:23:16
significantly older. They're both like married and have kids and they're just
00:23:19
like in different places of life. They never got over it. I read that and my initial note that I jotted down was
00:23:27
like, "Sounds like these people need therapy. Sounds like they need to know
00:23:32
how to find closure in a relationship." Uh, now Josh uses that story to emphasize
00:23:40
that like the youth pastor tells this story and then he's like he's like,
00:23:44
"Okay, so now you're going to tell me like how to not fall into this this
00:23:47
pitfall." and and he says the pastor uh basically he's like if only they' had more
00:23:54
self-control this wouldn't have happened and Josh goes on to argue that he's like
00:24:00
well I don't think that's good enough right starting to formulate this like maybe
00:24:05
dating is just bad maybe dating is the problem not the self-control thing I look at that and I go you know I think
00:24:13
teaching people to be emotionally healthy um to not carry the baggage age of unresolved relationships
00:24:21
probably the better strategy here. I think the self-control is also important and learning that and knowing where your
00:24:27
boundaries are and knowing you don't want to cross this that or the other. Those are important.
00:24:34
You can't really have those things for yourself if you also don't have that healthy emotional status, right?
00:24:43
And so I think he's throwing out like the baby with the bath water, right? He's throwing out all of dating because
00:24:48
he's like, "Well, I know that I can't trust myself with self-control." That's
00:24:53
another thing that continually comes up in this book. And the thing that I've
00:24:57
learned about self-control is that I grew up in an environment where very much was told, you know, the the
00:25:06
the body is sinful, human u human desires are are sinful. Um and and those are the things we crave, right? And so
00:25:15
when it comes to puberty and it comes to your sexual awakening, you you can't trust your body because
00:25:22
your body is is craving things, right? Especially as a guy, right? Like we get horny and and the thing with guys is
00:25:28
that like guys get horny and then we can't hide it, right? [ __ ] pop a boner. Like it just happens. Like we
00:25:35
just there is there is a physical example of we are horny and everybody knows there's a flag goes up. And I
00:25:42
think what's so hard about like telling kids that like well the body is sinful
00:25:48
and the body is is evil and it wants evil things and and so when it comes to the sex level of things it's it's
00:25:54
frustrating for me because I'm like I'm constantly in denial of my body. I'm
00:25:59
telling my body that no it doesn't actually want that. No, it's wrong. Like
00:26:02
the way you're reacting to this is wrong and sinful. And what that created for me
00:26:07
in particular is a disconnect between what my body was telling me I needed and what I was just in my brain telling me I
00:26:15
actually needed. And how that's played out now in my life is that like I have ignored signs in my
00:26:23
life that would would have been helpful to to to know. Um I've gotten sick um because I've
00:26:32
ignored things in my body. Um I've had to have surgery. I had a freaking kidney
00:26:37
stone because I didn't trust things in my body and I didn't trust listening to
00:26:42
my body and what my body was telling me. And as I've gotten older and specifically in the last two years, as
00:26:48
I've started to learn to tap into that and learn to ask myself, what is it that you need? What
00:26:56
like is it rest? Do you need water? Do you need to be cleaned? Do you need how do you need to be serviced? Basically,
00:27:05
is the way I kind of look at it. I've learned a lot more about myself and the things that I like and the things
00:27:12
that I dislike. And I've learned how to pick up on on triggers within myself of
00:27:16
I'm getting to this point where my body is so filled with whatever that I used
00:27:21
to it used to result in like an explosion of emotion that would burn me out and it would like I would get angry
00:27:27
or I'd be upset and I'd punch a hole in the wall. And then now I can like I'm
00:27:32
learning to tamper it down. It's not always perfect, but I'm learning to like
00:27:36
recognize when I'm going to those places and say, "Okay, no, like let's take a
00:27:40
minute. Let's take a beat. Listen, what do I need? Breathe." Um, and so I can I
00:27:47
can regulate that a lot more. Um, those are I think are things that we never talked about because again
00:27:58
my understanding what I felt like I was being told your body is sinful. The things that your body is craving are
00:28:04
wrong. They're evil. They're wicked. You should not want those things. You should
00:28:08
only want what God wants for you. Okay? But my body is telling me I want this. You tamp it down. You tamp it down. You
00:28:16
damp it down. and eventually it just explodes. So what are the seven defective habits
00:28:23
of dating? Okay, so Josh lists them out like this. He says uh here they are. Dating leads to intimacy but not
00:28:29
necessarily commitment. Dating skips the friendship stage of relationship. Dating
00:28:34
often mistakes a physical relationship for love. Dating often isolates a couple from other vital relationships. Dating
00:28:43
in many cases distracts young adults from the primary responsibility of preparing for the future. Dating can
00:28:49
cause discontentment uh with God's gifts of singleness. Um dating creates an
00:28:55
artificial environment for evaluating another person's character. Now, I could
00:29:02
go into all of these. I'm not going to because I just don't feel like I have
00:29:07
the time to do it. But I'm going to touch on a couple of the ones that spoke
00:29:11
most to me. So the first one I'm g touch on, dating leads to intimacy but not
00:29:17
necessarily commitment. Now this particular section of his book, he pretty much is primarily talking to high
00:29:26
school kids. And he says this in most cases, especially in high school, dating is short-term, serving the needs of the
00:29:32
moment. People date because they want uh to enjoy the emotional and even physical
00:29:37
benefits of intimacy without the responsibility of real commitment. He goes on to kind of like blame uh
00:29:47
culture and say, you know, we live in this culture that is like it's like fast. It's entertainment driven. It's
00:29:53
all about the now. It's all about like me me. Um and and in further on in this
00:29:59
section he talks about the the shift of dating from the going into the um 20th century and how dating shifted um into
00:30:08
you know as the uh industrial revolution started and all of a sudden we started having more access to cars and we
00:30:15
started having um more access to to third spaces and things like that. um dating went from this very like um very
00:30:24
structured kind of uh it was with the intention of dating to all of a sudden it could be a form of
00:30:31
entertainment uh so to speak and he's like kind of advocating for going back
00:30:36
to the way it was before because it was so much better. Now I don't know about
00:30:40
you but you know I'm a little I'm all for progress. I think we move forward,
00:30:46
we iterate, we evolve. Um, so hearing that he wants to go back to dating from like the 1800s was not really a huge
00:30:54
turnon for me, but going back to what he was saying about, you know, short-term relationships in high school.
00:31:02
I can agree with the guy that most, you know, most high school relationships probably
00:31:08
not going to last. But I think what's hard is again like he goes to this place
00:31:14
of like just throw it out. Like don't even do it because there's like essentially no good way to
00:31:21
do it. So just like don't even bother. And I think that's really hard when
00:31:24
again we're talking about teenagers who we're hormonal, we're changing, we're
00:31:31
having our sexual awakenings. Um you know sex drives are kicking in. And the solution he gives is like basically wait
00:31:38
until you can get married. Well, I'll tell you right now, I'm not going to get married at 16.
00:31:46
Not going to get married even at 18 a lot of times. And so, because there's no conversation
00:31:52
around what is our bodies going through, what are we experiencing as just human beings and what is naturally evolving
00:31:59
and changing in our bodies? like we're met with this like just give it up, give
00:32:04
it to God, and like be good, be happy. But again, we're denying ourselves. We're denying our flesh, which comes
00:32:11
back and bites us in the butt to some to some degree. The next thing, the next um
00:32:17
habit that he talks about or the next one I want to talk about is dating often mistakes um physical relationship for
00:32:25
love. Okay, he has this to say about it. When we consider that our culture as a whole
00:32:32
regards the word love and sex interchangeably, we shouldn't be surprised that many dating relationships
00:32:38
mistake physical attraction and sexual intimacy for true love. Sadly, many Christians uh in dating relationships
00:32:45
reflect this false mind uh mindset. I instantly wrote down like uh don't think so.
00:32:55
Don't think so. The number of people who I've met both in the church, outside of the church,
00:33:01
like like and you would ask them like if you ask them to define, love, sex, what are they? Most people
00:33:11
are going to say they're like two separate things. Love a lot of times can like include sex. Um but like I don't
00:33:21
think that it's completely interchangeable. And I think he's exaggerating the number of people who
00:33:26
would think that way. Um, and I think he does it because then he can argue for like God's love is like the true love
00:33:35
and and that's the only thing we should be uh imitating, right? That's the only
00:33:40
thing. So, we have to wait. We have to like hold off on on love uh because there's like a proper way to do it. Um,
00:33:48
so he conflates like anybody who's not inside of church to be like, "Well,
00:33:52
their definition of love equals sex." I just don't think that that's true. Like
00:33:57
you just ask somebody who's didn't grow up in church, you know, what's your definition of
00:34:02
love? They're probably going to talk about some of the same things that we would talk about in a church
00:34:07
environment. This like giving of one another. Um, right? this like surrendering of ourel
00:34:16
serving um each other, right? Love is this it's also the hormones in your brain that are that are firing off and
00:34:25
in your body, right? It's the way you you feel, right? You got love hormones
00:34:28
and things like that. Love is just like so much more than sex. And I think most people recognize that. It's just wild to
00:34:36
hear from a 21-year-old that it's like that to him is how the world views it.
00:34:40
So anyway, we're going to keep moving. Okay, next up. Dating distracts from preparing for the future. Okay, we full
00:34:49
forward another couple pages. One of the saddest tendencies of dating is to distract young adults from
00:34:56
developing their god-given abilities and skills. Instead of equipping themselves
00:35:00
with character, education, and experience necessary to succeed in life, many allow themselves to be consumed by
00:35:07
the present needs that dating emphasizes. Dating is only a distraction if you let it be a distraction. I went
00:35:14
through a honeymoon phase when I started dating people. Um I think every relationship does. But this narrative of
00:35:21
like, well, you could be doing better things with your time. You're ignoring
00:35:25
the fact that like getting to know people has value. Okay? Getting to know somebody has value. dating somebody and
00:35:34
spending time with them, going to the movies, doing stupid stuff, shooting them a text message, shooting them an
00:35:39
email, asking how they are. Like those things have value. We build relationships in doing that. I can learn
00:35:46
new skills from literally being in relationship with somebody, right? You go do something they enjoy, they come do
00:35:53
something you enjoy. Like I think he really just views it as like well when you're in a relationship it's just all
00:36:00
about like the cutesy you know we make out and we hold hands and we have sex and we you know do all these things the
00:36:08
superficial stuff that comes along with having a relationship and I think he just forgets about the fact that it's
00:36:13
like a lot of people when they're in a relationship it's also about building a
00:36:18
friendship it's also about building connection and finding out if this is somebody you want to invest your time
00:36:23
and energy into The other thing I wrote down was that, you know, he claims dating is a waste of time. And I said, I
00:36:30
hate to break it to you, but there's a billion other things I could have done
00:36:33
besides read this dumbass book. Uh, and most of them would have taught me a new skill or something actually of value.
00:36:41
So, that's my take on on that particular one. Let's jump ahead a little bit more.
00:36:46
We're going to talk about uh the negative characteristic of dating creates an artificial environment for
00:36:52
evaluating another person's character. It creates an environment, an artificial
00:36:57
environment for two people to interact. As a result, each person can easily convey an equally artificial image. He
00:37:05
uses this example. Okay. In the driveway of our house, we have a basketball hoop
00:37:09
that we can adjust to different heights. When I lower the hoop three feet from its normal setting, I can look like a
00:37:15
pretty good basketball player. Dunking is no problem. I gl glide across the pavement and slam the ball down every
00:37:21
time. But my skill exists only because I've lowered the standards. I'm not
00:37:26
playing in a real environment. Put me in a court with a 10-ft hoop and uh I'm
00:37:31
back to being a white boy who can't jump. He talks about in marriage you need to take breaks from the stress of
00:37:36
kids and work you need to just get away for a bit. Um, but two people weighing the possibility of marriage need to make
00:37:42
sure that they don't just interact within the fun romantic setting of dating. Their priority should be to get
00:37:48
away. Their priority shouldn't be, excuse me, getting away from real life. They need a strong dose of objective
00:37:55
reality. They need to see each other in real life setting of family and friends.
00:38:00
They need to watch each other serving and working. How does he interact with the people who know him best? How does
00:38:06
she react to things when things don't go perfectly? I think there's a honeymoon
00:38:09
phase in relationships. I experienced it while I was dating. We had a lot of fun.
00:38:15
We were in college. We go do fun stuff. We go to concerts. We go get dinner. We had a lot of fun. Maddie also saw me at
00:38:24
literally my lowest. She was with me when I had to have surgery on my back uh because I woke up one morning and I had
00:38:32
a cyst on my back that had exploded and I woke up in a pool of blood. and she was with me to take me to the ER. She
00:38:39
was with me to take me to surgery to pick me up from surgery to help pack the gauze and clean the wound. Uh because I
00:38:47
don't know about you, I can't reach my back. I can't see my back very well. Um
00:38:52
so doing it alone was not easy. She also saw me through literally one of the hardest deaths of
00:39:00
my entire life, the death of my grandma. she was with me from the decline, the whole decline uh
00:39:08
of that person um getting sick and and eventually dying. If those aren't real
00:39:16
things, then like and if your dating relationship doesn't involve that reality where you're
00:39:23
involving that person, like what is your dating reality like? And I think it does come to
00:39:34
what are your goals? What are your goals with dating? Right? When I started dating, I very much wanted to get to
00:39:41
know people better. Um, I wanted to have fun. I wanted a little bit more of that
00:39:45
exclusivity of one-on-one time with with the opposite sex. Um, but I also had an
00:39:51
intention of I was looking for somebody that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
00:39:56
If my goal had just been, I want to just have fun, that would look totally different. And I never would have
00:40:02
expected Maddie in a million years to take care of me in the way she did if I was just like, our relationship is only
00:40:09
about fun. Part of the issue with this I kiss dating goodbye philosophy, so to speak, and painting it
00:40:20
in such a way of this is the way God wants you to do it. It becomes so about intentionality of like what are you
00:40:26
doing and and here's the guard rails and and um and you have to see each other
00:40:31
for who you really are and all these types of things. It's like that doesn't
00:40:36
happen overnight. That doesn't just happen in a lab. Like Josh clearly wants
00:40:42
to set up a lab and be able to control all the factors and and make this perfect instance happen. It's just not
00:40:50
the way reality works. I hate to break it to you, it's not the way it works.
00:40:55
That argument again of like it's a distraction, it's only artificial and
00:41:00
you're not actually seeing the person for who they are. Like those can be realities inside of dating. Those those
00:41:06
very much can be. However, like it doesn't have to be and it just it can take time to find the right person. So,
00:41:14
like I just get confused and I get upset when he paints this as like the perfect only
00:41:23
way to ever do it. Chapter three, uh, a new attitude, I think is what it's called. Um, and basically, yeah, new
00:41:31
attitude. So, five attitude changes that help you avoid defective dating. Okay. In this chapter, he's going to outline
00:41:39
those. Here they are. Every relationship is an opportunity to model Christ's
00:41:44
love. My married years are a gift, I'm sorry, my unmarried years are a gift from God. Intimacy is the reward of
00:41:53
commitment. And I don't need to pursue a romantic relationship before I am ready
00:41:58
for marriage. I cannot own someone outside of marriage. And own is in quotations.
00:42:06
And lastly, I will avoid situations that could compromise the purity of my body or my mind. Again, I'm not going to
00:42:13
cover all these. I'm just going to kind of like hit my favorites, I guess you
00:42:17
could say. But we're going to start off the unmarried years are a gift from God.
00:42:23
He gives this example of this guy named Michael. He says, "When Michael adopts a
00:42:27
new attitude that views singleness as a gift, he learns to be content with friendship during the time God wants him
00:42:33
to remain single. As a result, Michael can clear his life of the clutter that short-term relationships contribute to
00:42:40
his life. With his newly freed time and energy, Michael can pursue more effective ministry and deeper
00:42:46
friendships with people of both genders. Until you realize God's gift of your
00:42:52
singleness, you'll probably miss out on the incredible opportunities it holds.
00:42:57
Perhaps even now you can think of an opportunity you could grasp if you let go of the dating mindset. As a single,
00:43:04
you have the freedom right now to explore, study, and tackle the world. No other time in your life will offer these
00:43:12
chances. Why are we painting dating and romantic relationships as a waste of time, as a waste of resources? I
00:43:22
understand the argument that if you just focus so much on the superficiality of your relationship and I just have to be
00:43:28
in a relationship because I have to be in a relationship and I just have to be in a relationship um because it makes me
00:43:33
feel good and I don't actually want to get to know somebody deeper. Like yeah,
00:43:37
that's a [ __ ] problem. Excuse my language. You can do all the things he describes. Learning new skills,
00:43:43
deepening friendships, all of those things can happen while you're dating. they just can. It's all about how you
00:43:53
structure your life, how you set aside time for people, how you how you build out your calendar. And again, I'm
00:44:02
realizing as I'm saying these things, it all goes back to that self-control aspect that we talked about earlier.
00:44:09
Josh doesn't believe that you can have self-control. He just doesn't. It's very
00:44:13
clear. You can't be trusted to date. You can't be trusted to be around the
00:44:17
opposite sex because you lack self-control. You're not in touch with your body. Everything your body wants is
00:44:24
wrong, is evil, is sinful, is bad. It's not. It's just plain and simple. It's
00:44:31
not right. I dated my wife while we were in college. Okay? When you're in college,
00:44:37
you got a lot of [ __ ] you got to do. You got to go to class. You got to make sure
00:44:41
you're fed. You got to do your homework. You got to juggle friendships. other
00:44:45
responsibilities, clubs, extracurriculars, a job, like all kinds of different stuff. It was not easy. And
00:44:53
there was a honeymoon phase of like I just wanted to spend every minute I could with her. We also were in most of
00:45:00
the same classes together. So, I had that working to my advantage, but we didn't have every class together. What I
00:45:06
quickly learned was like the more I just spent only my time invested in her and on her, my grades hurt a
00:45:15
little bit, right? I let things slide, you know, whatever. And so our relationship changed. The
00:45:22
structure of it changed. We we took time to do homework. We took time to have friendships outside of just the two of
00:45:30
us. We went to clubs, not together. We did things. We had classes not together. Like we learned exterior skills. We had
00:45:38
conversations with other people. We just did other stuff that didn't involve each
00:45:42
other. It wasn't that hard. It just was a matter of sitting down and coming up
00:45:47
with a calendar that worked for us. Setting the intention of what we wanted to do. We both knew we wanted to
00:45:54
graduate. What is it going to take to do that? Let's do it. It just frustrates me
00:45:59
again this narrative. You can't be trusted. So just don't do it. What is that logic?
00:46:09
All right, moving on. The I cannot own someone outside of marriage. What he says in the book, what I have
00:46:15
highlighted is the old attitude says we can play marriage if we really love someone. But the new attitude, he's
00:46:22
talking about dating. So the old attitude of dating, we can play marriage if we really love someone. But the new
00:46:27
attitude views a claim on another person's time, affection, and future before marriage as unwarranted. He goes
00:46:35
on to give an example of Sarah and Philip. And he says that they realized they needed to end their relationship as
00:46:41
it now existed. By staking a claim on each other, they uh stifled their individual growth and needlessly
00:46:48
consumed energy that should have been directed into service and preparation for the future. I'll say I've said it
00:46:54
before, I'll say it again. What is this notion? What is this thought process of
00:47:00
dating is a waste of time because you are only focused on one other person and you cannot focus on anything else. I
00:47:08
will not and I cannot understand it. Like I just I just can't. I put spoiler
00:47:16
alert you can do both things. It's called time management and self-control. Okay.
00:47:24
The last section of the new attitude is um that I want to talk about is I will avoid situations that could compromise
00:47:32
the purity of my body or my mind. I'm going to read this whole section. It's
00:47:37
not very long. It's a couple paragraphs. Um and then we're going to talk about
00:47:40
it. Okay. So, here we go. Jessica, age 16, is a good girl who is unfortunately very naive even though she's a virgin
00:47:49
and has committed to saving herself. uh saving sex for marriage. She places herself in compromising situations with
00:47:57
her older boyfriend. Homework at her house when her mom is gone, hiking alone, ending their dates
00:48:04
in his parked car. If Jessica were honest, she'd admit that she likes the excitement um of these situations. She
00:48:12
thinks it's very romantic and it gives her a feeling of control over her boyfriend who to be quite honest will go
00:48:19
as far in their physical relationship as Jessica will allow. But when Jessica takes on a new attitude, she sees that
00:48:26
purity consists of more than remaining a virgin. When she honestly examines her relationship with her boyfriend, she
00:48:33
realizes that she has left the direction of purity. To get back on course, she has to drastically change her lifestyle.
00:48:40
First, she ends the relationship with her boyfriend because they focus on the physical aspect. Then, she commits to
00:48:47
fleeing um those settings that lend themselves to compromise. Where, when, and with whom you choose to
00:48:55
spend your time reveals your true commitment to purity. Do you need to examine your tendencies? If you do, make
00:49:02
sure that you avoid placing yourself in settings that encourage temptation. He advocates for breaking up because a
00:49:10
relationship is too physical. Notice how he doesn't advocate for let's have a
00:49:14
conversation about this. Let's try to be mature. Let's try to be adults. Um she
00:49:20
obviously Jessica wants to set new boundaries in their relationship. And maybe it would have resulted in them
00:49:26
breaking up. Maybe not. She could have easily gone to her boyfriend and said, "Hey, look, we're making out too much in
00:49:33
the car. I just want to cool off a little bit. let's like not do that, you know, whatever. And he could have maybe
00:49:40
been very receptive, maybe not. Would have maybe spoken to his character of who he is as a person.
00:49:46
But the fact that it's just an instant go to break it off, dating equal bad.
00:49:53
It's like there's no saving this relationship because it's already gone
00:49:57
to that place and thus it could just go back. We also get again into that gray area of sexual sin. Right, wrong, what
00:50:07
is too far? Where are the boundaries? And he's kind of advocating for the fact
00:50:11
that he's like she had realized that maybe things they were doing were past the boundaries that she felt comfortable
00:50:17
or what she viewed as sexual sin. That's fine. Again, communication. One of the
00:50:22
things that I've come to realize a lot as I unpack my religious past, as I unpack purity
00:50:32
culture, it all came down to lack of communication, lack of talking about anything, sex, emotions, uh, feelings,
00:50:43
the like physical like your body, right? Talking about what actually those things
00:50:47
look like. And so there's this lack of communication around those things. So
00:50:52
there's lack of education around those things. And because there's lack of
00:50:55
education around those things, people just don't know. They just don't know.
00:51:01
This author is so obsessed with this idea of giving everything up to God. That you can't like experience this like
00:51:09
fullness without surrendering yourself to God, which like what does that even mean? Um,
00:51:18
I was religious and I still don't know that I fully have an answer as to what
00:51:22
that means because again, he doesn't talk about what it looks like. He the implication
00:51:31
that he keeps outlining is the like give up all the dating. You should only be focused on, especially if you're in high
00:51:38
school, getting through school, learning new skills, um, and like serving God. Okay, it's very clear within these first
00:51:50
three chapters that Josh got hurt dating. Somebody hurt him and he said, "Throw it all away. I don't want to date
00:51:57
anybody until I'm literally going to marry them. And you know what? I want to
00:52:01
make sure that no other Christian kid dates either." That is like insane to
00:52:07
me. It's insane. It's insane way of thinking. This book gets me really heated, as you can tell. Gets a lot of
00:52:15
people really heated. That's just the first three chapters. I'm going to keep
00:52:20
talking more and more about this because I think it's important. It's taken me a
00:52:24
really long time. I'm 28. I'm going to be 29 this year. It's taking me a really
00:52:29
long time to unpack some of these concepts that I grew up with around purity culture, around sexual sin,
00:52:37
around dating. A lot of the things in this book, I think they're presented as if they're factual.
00:52:46
They're presented as if they have backing by the Bible. And there are there are Bible verses throughout this
00:52:52
whole thing. But at the end of the day, what I've come to realize is that this
00:52:55
this book is just opinion. It's just Josh's experience. And I really wrestled with making this
00:53:04
particular episode because I felt like, well, I need to come with the facts. I have to come with something to combat
00:53:10
everything that he says and statistics and all these things. And so it was taking me a really long time to compile
00:53:15
all these things. And what I realized was the fact that this book is all opinion and so I can combat it with
00:53:23
opinion and experience because that's all it is. So again, you can tell I'm a
00:53:27
little fired up. That was part one of this whole book. Three chapters in, I kissing goodbye. There's going to be
00:53:34
more. There's going to be more to come. Uh, I got a lot of notes. We're gonna keep talking about it. I
00:53:40
would love to hear your stories about purity culture. Uh, if you're willing to
00:53:44
share them, uh, you can hit me up [email protected] or on socials at exhsclub. Uh, the DMs
00:53:52
are open. I'd love to know your experience with it. You can tell I'm passionate about it. I want to keep
00:53:58
talking about it. I want to keep learning about it. I think I got off pretty scot-free when
00:54:06
it comes to a lot of this stuff. Um, I know I've got hang-ups around a lot of
00:54:11
things involving sex, but I know people who've got it a lot worse than I do. Um,
00:54:19
so yeah, I'm going to keep talking about this. We'll see. It might be kind of
00:54:24
spaced out a little bit. We're going to see what this ends up looking like. But
00:54:27
thank you for listening. If you made it this far, you're amazing. Um, I would
00:54:31
appreciate if you do all the things you know how to do. Comment, like, subscribe, uh, share it with a friends,
00:54:38
you know, all the things that help get this pushed out, uh, to the right audience. Uh, again, if you want to
00:54:44
reach out to me, [email protected]. Would love to hear your stories. Uh, would love to chat with you, unpack more
00:54:51
of this together. Uh, because it's important and we're not alone in our experiences. Uh, so yeah, that's all I
00:54:58
got. Until next time, peace and love. [Music] [Music]