But through feminisms, and stories like yours, I cringe now at some of the words and ideas I offered. I tried to always emphasized self-love, encouraging my clients to choose clothes they liked, understand why they liked it (so they could wear/buy more of the things they liked!), and the complexities of beauty. But I still wonder what shame my words added and what cultural “acceptable body” standards I enforced.

Thanks for exploring this issue. I have a lot to learn.

I saw this book in the bookstore and tried flipping to a page to see what it was about. I made it 2 sentences and had to put it down. Thank you for writing what you do. I found your blog through a link on Pinterest and have been reading many of your previous posts. I can already tell I’m going to love the rest of your writing.

It kills me though that the teaching/way of thinking so easily becomes toxic attitudes hidden under spiritual talk. It makes my heart hurt for the church.

Even so, Come Lord Jesus.

And here’s the thing: churches who lay out this kind of ultimatum — stop having sex, or you can’t get married here — are really telling couples, We value purity and adherence to the Law more than we value helping you to establish a healthy marriage. They are implying that God is more concerned with His children not sinning than with helping them to have maturity and growth. And while those two things are certainly not mutually exclusive, the second is much bigger than the first; and the focus on the first rather than the second is the same focus on legalism over love that Jesus came to undo.

So, I think that a church that is truly committed to developing and supporting healthy marriages will take rules like stop having sex, or you can’t get married here off the table and cultivate a premarriage counseling program that meets engaged couples where they are and works with them to help them make good decisions; or, if they cannot reconcile that with their commitment to sexual purity, sponsoring sessions for the couple with a trained professional Christian counselor who can work through issues with the couple while also maintaining complete confidentiality. The expectation of confidentiality and the absence of rule-enforcement means that couples will be much more likely to be honest with their counselor, and that the counselor will be much more able to help them put into practice healthy behaviors — including premarital abstinence — to establish a solid foundation for marriage.