Purity Culture: Shame and the Myth of Damaged Goods

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Jenny McGrath, founder of Indwell Movement. Jenny, it's good to be back and to talk about youth with the mission and all things beyond. We've we're kind of encompassing so many things and through the past few episodes we have talked about, I kid you not, probably 15 different topics that I've heard from the Our Stories podcast that I do on Fridays.

Different people with different psychological issues stemming all from the same route. They were in a high-demand group. The high-demand group is so so similar across all of them and just you know as we study youth with the mission and understand what what about it makes it a high-demand group which will will hopefully bring some of that out as we continue. I think people will identify because they'll start to see bits and pieces. However, before we go there, we've released what is it to I think to podcast at this point. We've recorded Waymour and I'm watching the feedback. I did some of the little shorts

with you and me talking and I watched the feedback and I came to realize that I messed up and our flow of conversations. One of the things that we really need to dive into is the elephant that is growing in the room. So I'm probably going to move this podcast ahead of some of the others. So if it feels out of sequence it is. This one I'll try to do it either next or the one after that. But I wanted to address the purity culture because I'm watching the feedback. I'm watching the comments and people are just up in arms if you mention the phrase and in

reading some of their comments it's a little bit odd because in some aspects I agree with some of the things they're saying. But at the same time I understand that they don't really understand what it is that they're attacking because purity culture and the way in the militant form that it has progressed. I think even the people who are commenting I don't think they would agree with the things that you and I stand against. That said I invite many different people of many different belief sets to the podcast. Some people who don't have a belief

set at all and it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm in agreement with you or not. But there are things that we're very much aligned on and anything that arms another person, I will stand adamantly against.

And that leads us into the topic of purity culture. What are my favorites? Yeah, I'm excited to dive into this with you. And I think it is a very, it can be a very activated topic for many different people, for many different reasons.

And as a somatic practitioner, I always tell people to listen to their body's response. So if you're angry at me, if you're enraged, if you're hopeful, if you're feeling validated for the first time ever, I actually encourage you to like journal and just write down what do I notice?

And as we go through this conversation, just to yourself, let yourself continue to process what your body is saying, and I invite your body to be an active part of our conversation because I think purity culture, one of its roots is a system of disembodiment.

And so I think the more that we can invite our flesh and our bodies to be a part of the conversation, that's a really important thing as we navigate. So before we get into it too much, again, I read through the comments and I can clearly tell that people aren't familiar with the term and what it actually means.

And if they are and they're still of the same mindset, I would say that they probably need to listen to this because there are aspects of this that no person should ever, ever agree with.

So purity culture, I know from the comments people are saying, in fact, one of them actually was what, you don't believe that a woman should be pure before marriage. Now if you're a Christian and you know the Bible and you know what the Bible says about the subject, you already know all of the verses that talk about how a woman should be pure before marriage.

But like any cult ideology that went to a far extreme, the purity culture really, in my opinion, it became very destructive. Purity culture as a movement was, you know, late 20th century American evangelicalism.

They started to say that the person's sexual purity, sexual purity was related to their spiritual worth. That's probably the easiest way that I could say it. So in other words, if you were impure, you're basically scorn of the earth.

You're not really a person that we should be dealing with. In fact, I've actually been in churches where if something happened where a woman was impure, she was forbid none of the malice could even date her.

It was that bad. I've been in that bad of a situation. Take it a step worse in the laterane branumism, branum influence churches. Some did not understand the... human chemistry, the human body makeup, and he would say stupid things like the sex glands are in the lips.

That's one of the things that I grew up believing. So if you kiss somebody, you were in pure. Also we grew up with the idea that if you were to get engaged with somebody, you are at that point you're married in God's eyes.

So therefore, once you're engaged, you can't even date outside or you become in pure. We had so many different weights that were added to our impurity or our purity, I guess you would say, that it made it so difficult that people, I know people who were even afraid to start dating.

And then on the other extreme of the same doctrine, which this did get a little bit beyond branemism, branem created the notion that all things created that are beautiful were created of the devil, and that's why we're tempted by them.

So if you see a beautiful woman, it's because Satan has done something to her. And I remember, I'm not going to give the name of the family member, but I remember a family member, a female family member telling me that it is such a curse for me to be so beautiful, which when you hear that, as I was a teenager when I heard it, inwardly I laughed, it was kind of funny to me, but now it's really kind of sad because this person truly believed that they were truly frustrated for being beautiful.

And we as young adult males, we would hear things like this, or we would see people who were, we didn't understand at the time that they were struggling, we would say phrases like, well, she's just letting herself go.

But there's really something behind that. If you understand the psychological effects of the purity culture doctrine, it's not so much that, but they're basically scorning their own body. So so much tonne pack here, I don't think, I don't know that we can even do it justice in one podcast, but I wanted to unpack the problems because I do, I grew up in the same world that the evangelicals that are commenting grew up in.

I understand all of the passages of scripture that talk about a person being pure. I'm not saying I disagree with those, but any time that you do something that harms another person, that belittles another person, makes another person feel inferior, you're in the wrong.

I'm not sure if you're Christian or not. Yeah, yeah, I, I would agree and one of the things that I think is so important to look at when we talk about purity culture is even in the comment and even as, as you're saying, we're focusing on, quote unquote, her purity and it is very much a system of patriarchy.

And I will say I have immense respect for the Bible. I myself have handwritten the New Testament. I've read through the entire Bible at least seven times in my... life I've I've studied it and I value it. And I think it's really important to hold the context in which scripture was written. And at the time that the Bible was written, women were not sexual subjects. They were sexual objects. And so we rarely talk about purity when we're not talking about a commodity. If we want a diamond or if we want flour or if we want

whatever we want to purchase, we want it to be quote unquote pure, which is the same ideology that purity culture can come from. That does not mean that if if someone chooses that they want to save themselves and commit themselves to a partner that they're married to, I I 100% respect that. But I think that there's a really big difference between compulsory decisions and intentional decisions. And I like that we started out talking about high control because I think that's what purity culture is. It's a system of high control, which is not so different than these other

systems we're talking about. And what I think is so devastating, one of the many things is that there is no room for nuance. So when a young girl learns that she is a commodity in a world where sexual abuse happens, there is no no container for that. There's no way to process that. There's oftentimes no one to go to with that information because you are now soiled goods and you are spoiled for your future husband. And all of the things that you've been conditioned to believe where your value are taken away. And so I think if we start with people of all genders being able to be agents

of their own bodies of their own choices, and then they get to choose, we set up a much healthier environment for victims of abuse to be able to talk about their experiences when they've had unwanted sexual encounters. Absolutely. So this is one of the things that this subject believe it or not, even though I'm a male, this interested me. I grew up with, I wasn't allowed to read it, but it was required reading to read the Scarlet Letter in school. And I can't remember how that played out, but I have actually never read it. I know the subject matter, but fast forward to

today's world. I'm working with medical professionals, especially as I get older. One of the medical professionals that works with me told me that she was in an evangelical church. I'm not going to mention the denomination, but something happened exactly like you said. It was compulsive, it wasn't so.

thing that anybody planned, it just two people got together, it happened, and she ended up having sex. Well, whenever the elders found out in this evangelical mainstream church, they forced her to stand up before the church and tell everybody what she had done, and this is one of the moments that brought severe trauma into her life.

Because number one, she's probably already feeling guilty if she's in this type of religion and this belief set. But number two, she's being shamed, publicly shamed, which is much like the Scarlet Letter. So now she, even though she may not be wearing the letter as she goes to church every Sunday, she has already told everybody what she's done and everybody is thinking about it.

This is a horrific thing. And again, I'm against anything like this. If you're going to treat people less than you would treat a dog, you probably shouldn't be in leadership in a church. That's not really a good thing.

I did study it to know in because it really, as I entered into apologetics, I wanted to know specifically how did the ancient Judaism and Christianity, how did it differ from the rest of the world?

Because like you said, there are examples in the Bible where you read through it and you think, man, I just wouldn't treat a person like that. But as I began to understand, we were manipulated to read the Bible in ways that the Bible was never intended.

The Bible has stories of things that people do that are good and it has stories of things that people do that are wrong. And it had prophets that came and said, you Israel have done all of these wrong things.

But when you read the Bible in one of these hyper evangelical churches, they want to take every phrase as though it's all good. It's all good. It's a shiny, happy people Bible. But it's really not if you understand what it is.

Now as I began to study it and study the ancient civilization surrounding it, Israel actually treated the women a little bit better than the rest of the ancient world. And if you want to study that, it was very easy for me.

I just went into Google, I started typing, how are women treated in the Bible versus ancient world or ancient culture or something like this? You'll find a hundred articles on this very quickly. You had women in leadership like Deborah, who was a leader, actually a judge over Israel.

And I was struggling because at that point, I was still, even though I had left the cult, I had went into denominational churches that really weren't that much better than the cult. And the views that they had on women were much like the views of the cult that I had left.

And I was starting to disagree with it because if you go all the way back to Genesis, male and female created he, them and they were created equal. And you can find Bible verses even in the New Testament where it says there is no male or female Greek nor Jew, we're all one, we're all the same.

So if you read it from that context, you begin to understand that that was the intent. But people in their own humanity, they begin to introduce ideas that separated the equality and women eventually evolved into subordinates in many cases.

I don't think it was intended to be that way from the beginning. In fact, if you read the beginning, it's not like that. Fast forward to the 20th century when this purity culture thing was evolving, they were taking a step backwards because they were trying to do just like you said, target the women.

Both men and women have the same, you know, it's different sexual components, but they both have the same desires, I should say. And yet the women are usually the ones that are treated more poorly. Now where this gets really interesting is having known many of the leadership, I knew many of the stories that the leaders told, and many of the male and leadership that were preaching so harshly against the women, they weren't pure in their own life before they got married.

So there's also this double standard that exists. So as I'm taking all of this in and I'm trying to understand it and unpack it, I really just took this simple position, which I stated at the beginning, if you're going to target another person and you're going to make them miserable, I don't care what religion you're in.

This is wrong, you shouldn't do this, you should treat other people as you want to be treated. And that simply goes back to the words of Jesus. Yeah, as you are telling that story of that woman, what came to mind was, you know, Jesus being dragged into this situation where this woman had supposedly committed adultery and was not with the person that she committed adultery with.

And Jesus says, well, whoever doesn't sin, go ahead and cast a stone. And I think that's really important to remember when we're talking about purity culture is the example that Jesus said was not one of condemnation or shame, it was one of understanding and validating the human experience.

And it's, you know, I think I think that there are disproportionate harms that happen to all bodies within this world. I think we can't talk about purity culture without talking about white supremacy and we can get more into the history of that as well.

But I think purity culture also harms white men because there is this teaching often that men can't control themselves, they're just like one degree removed from an animal. And so it's the women's job to control a man's lust, a man's actions rather than teaching young boys, young men, old men, like your body is your responsibility. And here's how you deal with that. And here's what that can look like. And, you know, often there are higher rates of unwanted pregnancies or STIs in very high purity culture environments.

often because there there's not an understanding around things can happen and how do you prepare yourself and how do you protect yourself and other people around you. It just it becomes a setup for so many different types of harm to take place for all bodies. And some of the harms are harms that I don't think people have really thought through. I so growing up in a high control group and watching how it plays out. I can speak from first-hand experience. And, you know, backing this with my own study on the subject, purity culture, I'm of no question that it started

with good intentions. I think the intent was good. Keep the teens from having sex with each other, keep them from, you know, let them enter into marriage with their first sexual partner being their partner, which is something that I stand behind. I think that's a good idea.

The problem was when you have people preaching it who are preaching often in anger, especially when you're in the high demand groups, there's often a component of anger where they just get so angry at whatever is the thing that they're attacking. They say we're attacking sin. Well, that's all good.

If you're an adult and you're already past this moment, but think of the teenagers who are sitting in the room, they're being taught that they're actually watching it play out. The minister's angry, the entire crowd is cheering the minister on as he's angry. And if somebody were to stumble and, you know, have a relationship before they're married, now they, all of the guilt, all of the eyes that they saw in that crowd are now in the back of their minds at all times, and they're struggling. The real problem that I see is the way that it has been presented,

they integrated the salvation component and it's called purity for a reason. You are deemed impure forever if something like this happens. You're branded. I witnessed one of my friends, his lady that he was dating. I witnessed her, actually, specifically. I watched her get branded.

And it changed her life. Everything about her life began. She struggled, just continually struggled. And as she got older, I was watching all of my friends dating, eventually getting married. She may still be single to this day. I don't know. But in her mindset, she can't get married, because in her mind, She was impure and therefore nobody wants her, nobody nobody can love her and The religion has basically taught you this this concept of purity that if if somebody like this, you know, stumbles They are branded and they're not worth your time and again It goes back to what I said and we'll continue to repeat when you treat people this way you're treating them less than you would treat a dog and

This is not right. I Will say something that may have a strong reaction and again I invite you just to write down what you notice in your body Because I think an important part of this is

Who gets labeled pure in the first place is young white women and Because of how women of color are so often hypersexualized They don't actually fit within the confines of what purity culture is talking about And if we trace the history of purity culture, it's huge Influx actually happened with The anti-missage nation laws being overturned and the ability for people of different races to have a relationship And so then there was this doubling down on we We quote unquote need to keep our white women pure and a lot of that is part of the idea of maintaining a pure

racial construct Dr. Sarah Mazlaner is one of the pioneers in purity culture research. She has a phenomenal book called Virgin Nation Where she traces a large part of this history and and talks about how Young white adolescents were seen as the great white hope of America And if they could just protect their purity then it would kind of establish this Christian area nation That this ideology believed should be in power So much so that in 1993 an estimated 200,000 purity abstinence pledges were staked into the lawn at the national mall in Washington DC And it was this huge public declaration from high schoolers to say we are going to remain pure

And again And you can be for that you can be against that But one of the things that comes to mind is like we live in a country where It differs by state, but generally like 18 is considered the age of consent And so if we're if we're then asking children younger than 18 to pledge their virginity until they're married Yet they haven't been taught that they have consent and they have agency over their own body Then they're doing these compulsory enactments without actually having that sense of this is my body This is my choice that I make

because they haven't even grown into being an adult to be able to make those types of often lifelong, very life damaging commitments. Because again, if anything happens, whether it's consensual or not, there's a huge, huge, huge fall from grace. And again, that's often for white women. When women of color often already feel dirty because of the way that they're treated in these worlds. And I think that's one of the unmentioned harms. Having grown up in this culture, I know exactly what you're talking about. Whenever you're a teenager and you're starting to realize that you could make your own decisions, many of those decisions are already made for you by the

religion. And some of them are good decisions. I'm not going to say that even the concept of purity culture, the ideology behind it, the good intentions as it started out, I'm not going to say that I disagree with that. What I disagree with is the way that it is pushed, it's that you simply don't have a choice. Rather than teach somebody, this is the good way to be. This is the choice that you should come to make yourself. We've made that choice for you. And if you don't, you're branded.

That's really what it comes down to. And I'm going to try to tackle very quickly the racial component that you mentioned. If you want more, you can read my book. But I grew up in a world where the racial identity was a deep component of it. And it was tied to the purity exactly like you're saying. I remember this story. In fact, I was shocked beyond any shock that I've had. When I came to realize that one of the quote unquote spiritual Elijah stories that I grew up with had to do with racial purity and with the black culture, we would hear the story

where Brannum would say that he went down into Memphis or somewhere in the south. And this woman, he called her the Shunamite woman trying to tie it to a biblical reference, which is odd. The whole thing is odd. But he would say she kept praying for Elijah to come, save my boy. That's fine. We saw it as an Elijah's story, a salvation story. But the story was so graphically detailed. Whenever the so-called prophet went into the house, there lay a man who was in his early teens or late teens or 20s who was dying of syphilis and went into all the details of what the body was doing of syphilis.

And he was a black man who had done wrong and Elijah came to save him and praised the Lord. That's literally how the story went. And preachers would repeat the story over and over and over and over again. So you're here, you're basically, you're mentally associating a black male with syphilis.

That's exactly what it was doing. And that was the intent. And years after leaving, even After I learned that Branem was working directly with the high-ranking members of the clan, I still never put those two things together.

Was the story real? Was it not? I don't know. But it was the same kind of rhetoric that was spread all throughout the South with the clan preachers. And then I came across this photograph, which I've used in a few of my videos of this church.

It says, Jesus saves and it shows all the clansmen inside of the church. That hit me and I'm like, well, wait a minute, are they integrated into the church? So I began to study absolutely they were.

This was organized as a Christian organization, pseudo-Christian. And then I got into Fast 4 to the 60s. You see all of the race riots and there's a guy holding a sign that says no race-mixing.

And then it finally clicked. Branem taught this Christian identity serpent, C. Doctrine, that the original sin in the garden was Eve mating with the serpent to produce two bloodlines, one good, one bad. And we were told that that wasn't a racial thing, which was odd, because that was the exact intent of this.

And then later he followed up with this hybriding doctrine that said that if you're black, you can't mix with white. So I grew up in a world where I actually had African-American friends who wanted to date a white person.

And they were told that if you did that, your kids can never go to heaven. So they were trying to keep the race as pure, just exactly like you said. But the sexual purity, again, exactly like you said, it was tied to the idea that if you had black skin, if you're an African-American, you were already impure.

That was what they was teaching. Now they wouldn't come out and tell you this. And in fact, if you were to ask any minister in it today, they would probably argue with this, but go look back at the recordings and see what they say.

It's exactly what I described. Definitely. And even the timeline of the huge spike in KKK membership and activity and lynchings and destruction of black communities came in 1915, right after the release of Hollywood's first film, Birth of a Nation, which featured white men in blackface sexually violating a white woman.

And it was it was pushing all of the buttons of exactly what you're talking about. And I think that that is a very important history to remember as we talk about what are we saying when we're saying pure like, what does that actually mean?

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If you really take a step back and just look at the way that is presented, number one is presented wrong, number two, they're shaming involved, we'll think of the consequences of the shaming. Shaming doesn't really produce holiness, all it produces is secrecy.

There are things that happen if you're a male and you have your hormones raging and there's a female and you connect, there are people who just simply can't help it. In fact, I have talked to one of my friends who something happened, he said I couldn't help it.

It just happened. That's how he said it just happened. What happens is they just go into secrecy, they're not going to tell anybody because like the example of the medical professional I mentioned, you might get publicly shamed and all it does is produce secrecy.

I am of the strong opinion, even when I train my children, I don't train them by saying, here's a rule, don't do it or else, which is kind of what they teach the purity culture.

I want to explain why the rule, why it benefits them, why they would want to do it and make them inwardly want to do the right thing. That's how any father should be, but you're in this high demand group where it's the opposite.

You must do it because I said so and I said the Bible said so and I said God said so and if you don't, be afraid because I will shame you. Yeah, and I think on the subject of kind of education, what's important is to understand this isn't just sequestered to Christian communities or churches since Reagan and then largely with Bush, there was an infusion of billions of federal funds into schools for abstinence only education that were done from fundamentalist Christian lobbyist groups and so people in public high schools all over the country were part of these purity culture programs, whether

they understood it or not. And last time I checked, this was probably two years ago I looked, there was only 18 states that required that education to be medically accurate. And so a lot of times abstinence only education is taught in a very fear mongering way and there's this high...

deeper emphasis on, as you were mentioning syphilis, like STIs, that's all that's ever talked about. And I saw this brilliant quote one time, I'm forgetting who it's from, but it said, like teaching a sexuality class and only teaching about STIs is like teaching a cooking class and only talking about salmonella.

I was like, there's so many other things that we could be teaching kids about their bodies, about practicing consent, about healthy communication, about boundaries, and yet often none of that is taught because it's, purity culture is a system of binary.

And it's like, you are taught your entire life, sex is bad, it's shameful, it's wrong, it's sinful, but then as soon as you get married, it's gonna be great and it's gonna be good and you're gonna love it.

And that's unfortunately just not how bodies work. Like we don't go 19, 20, 30 years feeling one way about a thing and then just switch. And so, I've worked with female clients who have waited until their marriage for over 10 years now, many of whom struggle for years and decades in their marriage because it's not all that it was promised to be and they have never learned about their bodies or about what feels good or about anything.

It's important. And so I think it's harmful, not only for those who fail, quote unquote, but even for those who succeed, it still doesn't encompass all that one needs to know to have a healthy sexual ethic and to learn how to have that in a marriage and moving forward in their life.

So yourself, Manila, comment, beat me to the punchline that I was heading towards. I was gonna say that imagine going to driving school and being shown slide after slide of the wreck. You know, if that's all you're thinking about, you're gonna be so scared of getting in a wreck, you're gonna be afraid to get in the car.

And that's really what this is. So I'm gonna go a different direction since you've already tackled that. There is another problem. And like you said, it's just as bad for the men as women, although the women are the target.

Men are being trained when you're in this purity culture that any inward desire is something that is dangerous, something that is spiritually, you have a demon, some cases they'll tell you have a demon.

They basically, if you have normal male hormones and you are an adolescent male and your teens, every single thing that's going on your head naturally, you're being told is evil. And this is a huge problem.

Like you said, there are some people that they just give up. They can't contain it because I hate to say it because this is a very crude example. But if your mother makes some cookies and sets them on the counter, and keeps telling you, don't get into that cookie jar, don't get into that cookie jar, you go into there the room and you've forgotten about the cookie and they keep telling you, don't get in the cookie jar, eventually you're gonna go get in the cookie jar.

Well, that's how it is in these churches, they continually bring it up, even though people might not otherwise even be thinking of it, and it's so that they can push the idea of purity, some of the people who something happens, they may not have even entered their minds for it to happen, but they're bringing it up.

We were, I can give an example of this and I'll embarrass myself, we were told continually that any woman who wears pants was a prostitute, any, they would use the phrase, the Bible passage, any garment that pertains to a man, and I never really stopped to thank, wait a minute, the men wore the robes and, you know, girding up your loins, all of the things that they say the roles were reversed, but anyway, we were told that any woman who does this is a prostitute, I can tell you that growing up as a teen, I would say probably nine out of 10 sermons

from my entire teenage years, I heard the word prostitute in it, either prostitute or hard lit or whore, you're constantly just, that's constantly your mental image, you wanna think about prostitute, why are they preaching about prostitutes?

And if you go to a healthy church that's not like this, they would just be appalled if a minister got up and started rambling about prostitutes all the time, but as they're doing this, now you've got an audience of young teenage men who, their hormones are raging, they can't help it, and they're constantly hearing that phrase, it's dangerous for their minds, and it hijacks their minds in many different ways, but, you know, the other problem is, you're being told that the purity makes it to a better marriage, makes it to a better healthy relationship, all of the things that they go along with this rhetoric,

there's another problem for, I guess it's both male and female, so I don't know much about the anatomy statistics for this, but there are some people that, after they get married, it's not as, I'll just say it's not as fulfilling, I'll keep it g-rated, and whenever that happens, after being conditioned to believe that, all of this purity is a spiritual thing, it's a spiritual relationship, well then when it isn't what they expected, now they're thinking, oh my gosh, is something wrong with me, is something wrong with my spirit, all of that causes inward distress, and it leads people into even further problems,

so by pushing it in the way that they push it, even if what they're pushing might be a good thing, the way, the means doesn't justify the ends, this is a wrong way to do it.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, if we follow your car example, if you never... say, yeah, and you get to roll your windows down. And if it's too hot, you can turn the air conditioning on.

And if you're in a passenger seat, you can lean back. And there's all of these things you could do to help make this car drive more pleasurable. And when you've never had any conversation about that, you don't have anyone that you feel like you can talk to about that.

When you are unsatisfied or often for a lot of females, it can be really painful because of lack of education. Then they're stuck. And this might be how they are together for 30, 40, 50, 60 years without feeling like they can talk to anyone because no one has ever been open to talk about it with them.

I've literally created an entire course. I call it the embodied sexuality course that's specifically what I call the sex education people never got in purity culture. Because it is such a vacuum of information for everybody in this world.

And so many times, those sermons that I was a part of and that my interviewees were a part of and my client had been a part of, is that they were also weirdly intentionally erotic and titillating, often youth pastors would talk about how wonderful and great sex was, but don't do it.

And it was this rollercoaster of like arousal and terror. And so I think it just continued to solidify. Like this is the scariest thing I could ever want, but I really want it, but I'm terrified.

And so I think that does it. It can lead to a need to like compulsively act or it can also lead to just a complete numbing and shutting down. Like if my body is dangerous because I'm feeling things that I'm told I'm not supposed to feel, then I better just like eject myself from my body and not notice my sensations.

And honestly, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode and put it ahead into the schedule because after I read through some of the comments and anybody, any host that I bring that's new, I always watch the feedback.

There's always, whenever there's a change, there's an outcry. We've been conditioned in the cults to think that change is evil. So if there's a new face, oh my gosh, it's going downhill, it's going downhill fast.

I'm leaving, in fact, one person said, I'm leaving, I'm leaving this group because there's a new person. And you're not the only one that this has happened with. Literally every single new person I've brought this happens.

But I read through the comment and so I'm one of these people that I also do my due diligence. I may not do it initially because I want to see the feedback and then see.

But I did read through the website and I read through some of the comments and I'm comparing, okay, what is she saying and what is the comment? And I began to realize this other thing which I'm so far distant from.

that I had forgotten it was like this, whenever people even read the word sexual on your website and they're reading through, you're talking about a healing that is something that is actually really common, but just the word sexual because of this purity cultural doctrine, their mind automatically goes towards sin.

They have associated sexual with sin, yet if you don't have it, the human race, it really doesn't survive, which is kind of ironic if you think about it, right? And this is something that God created, it can't be sin if God created.

Now there are people who argue that Genesis, it was evil, but if you really read it, I don't think that it says what they're trying to make it say. But in the end, healthy boundaries is not about rebellion, it's about maturity.

And what we're talking about is the consequences of not having healthy boundaries because they don't have healthy boundaries in these groups, people then go into problems that they themselves don't even know how to help themselves.

And it is a human problem, it is a physical physiological problem. And people like you who are helping people through this are doing a great work. And at the same time, just because it has that word in it, people are condemning you for it, which I applaud you because somebody should step up and help the people.

But again, healthy boundaries are not rebellion. I think if in the beginning, if this thing had of started, and we said, we want the children to have enter into marriage and their bodies be pure whenever they're married, and then taught it in a healthy way and said, we want to train them to want to be like this.

I'd be on board, that's a good thing. I really think that's a good thing. And all of the problems that occur whenever you don't do this, there are, I have, when I was in high school, I had friends who would just, they didn't care, they had no filter, no purity at all, did not want it.

And then years, as the years progressed, I watch all the problems that they had because of this. So I understand that there is an issue here, but on both extremes, they're both equally as wrong in my opinion.

If you don't have healthy boundaries, you're in the wrong. If you have no boundaries at all, you're in the wrong. And I'm not of the opinion that it turns into an angel or demon.

It's a spiritual, it's a human problem for me. It is a human problem on both examples. And in the end, you have human leaders who really, in my opinion, many of them who are pushing these with no healthy boundaries, they're not really leaders, but they're in a position of leadership and they're causing real damage.

So having somebody like you who can help people who are struggling, and there are people who are, struggling, they've contacted me and it's unbelievable to things that people go through. They don't know how to get help.

So I think it's a really good thing. But again, back to the beginning, if it had healthy boundaries, I think it would have never spun off into the mess that it was that it is today.

It makes me think of a phrase my therapist often used to say, which is, nothing is a problem until it's the only solution. And I'm pretty anti-dogma, I'm like the idea that like this is the way.

And if we cling to that, that's, I think that can be appealing because that makes life feel simple. Like, okay, I just do that. And yet if there's anything that we are guaranteed, it's that life is not simple.

And there's a lot of complexity and a lot of nuance. And it might be helpful even just to share. Like, I actually, I got into this work because I was working with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

And what I started to realize after years of that work was that abuse was not happening in a vacuum. And that abuse was only amplified because of lack of teaching around consent, and autonomy, and ethics, and embodiment, and choice, and open communication.

And so it's really been because of the work I've done with clients over the years where I've seen there's a need for us to hold these stories of harm in the context of these systems that enable them.

And I don't, as much as I'd love to say, I think we could make a world where childhood sexual abuse doesn't exist, it will probably be here from my entire lifetime. And so how do I work to at least create a better world where when that does happen, people know that they have a safe place to go because from a somatic lens, our bodies can really metabolize a lot of stress and trauma if we have a safe place to go.

And I think that if we are in these high control places that tell us sex is binary, it's all good or all bad, it's black or white, then we don't have safe places we can go to and say, hey, this happened, and perhaps we could stop abuse a lot sooner when grooming starts happening.

And it's like, hey, my youth pastor did this, I didn't really feel good about it. And we have a community that we can go to and that can support us. And so I think it only serves those who have more power in these systems when we create these vacuums of information.

And again, our bodies are not listening to you or having this conversation in a vacuum. So I even would invite folks to remember where we started. And if you need to write down. Oh my gosh, I feel relieved or I feel pissed or I feel feel in the blank of what your body is noticing because that's also part of how we've been conditioned in these systems and our stories and our experiences that that's all a part of how we hear and talk about this information.

Absolutely. And just look at the world today, all of the leadership who is pushing the puberty culture, look at the leaders who are falling like dominoes. Some of them abusing young girls for decades might pickle that you look at some of the things that are happening there.

It's a system that is broken. I'll just say it like that. It is a system that is fully broken but worse, it is a system that causes people to become broken. And the other reason, the final reason and the biggest reason why I really wanted to have this podcast and push it up ahead.

I'm looking at it, I'm not in this category. My wife and I, it was both our first. And so by the same rules, I fit within the system. And not because of anything really religious, it's just because that's what I wanted.

But I was trained in the system the wrong way, yet inwardly it is what I wanted. Not everybody who is in the system can end up in the same place, however. And so I'm thinking of all of the people who are broken by the system, who are reading the angry comments.

And there's not a lot of them yet. I think there will be, if I didn't put this out there. But just one. All it takes is one single comment. And then you have one single person who is broken. Think of what it feels like to be that person.

To read that anger and see the vicious attacks, I think that we need to take a step back and look at the victims. Don't look at the people who are pushing and victimizing other people and try to make light of the fact that they are creating victims.

And the system of this purity culture, the way it is pushed, it is creating victims. So I wanted to end with looking at the healthy side, like we did in the very last one we quoted that hasn't come out yet, because this is moving ahead.

But we want to offer people some advice. And I just want to simply say that if you're in this system and something happened, whatever it was, you're not broken. It doesn't mean that you're spiritually lost forever, like they try to imply. Many of them won't go there, but they will imply that you are broken.

You're damaged goods, basically. I just want to say you're not damaged goods and I want to end with you giving your advice. I think I would want to just say a million times your body is not a commodity.

Your body is not a commodity. Your body is not a commodity. Your body is a sovereign living. breathing being. And that is what gives us value and worth. That's not in what we do or what happens to us, but I believe it's in the breath of God that animates us and moves in and through us.

And I often say to my clients, I wouldn't do this work if I didn't believe healing was possible. And so if you are listening to this and you are feeling broken by the system, reach out to me.

I'm happy to point you in some directions. We have the Purity Culture Research Collective and Post-Purity Healing. Post-Purity Healing has a database for practitioners that work with survivors of Purity Culture. There is support out there. And it's possible to find what feels like an honoring way for you to move forward and you're a really good body.

So I'm going to give advice in a different way that it's the same advice, but it's not in the same subject. One of the churches that we attended after leaving the cult, ironically one that is teaching the Purity Culture mentality. I was in, I've mentioned this in another podcast. I don't think I mentioned it with you yet in any of the future episodes that are coming out, but I was in a men's group and the leadership, the elder that was teaching the men's group was saying that anger is sin, anger is sinful. And he went into an entire spiel on how anger, how evil it is,

how wrong it is. He never went so far as to say it was demonic or it was a demon, but basically he was saying you cannot be angry. And I'm sitting here thinking anger is a human emotion and it is something that number one, you can't control. Number two, everybody has it. If anger is sinful, well, he's a sinner because everybody's going to get angry. There is no way you don't get angry.

What the, what my problem is when I say that it doesn't have healthy boundaries, this is the same exact problem with the Purity Culture. They're trying to teach you that the things that are part of your human physiological makeup, things that God created you to be, which includes anger. God created me and God created me and I get angry. God created me, God created me and I also get happy. I get all of the emotions because I'm human because I'm created, right?

They try to teach you that one specific or multiple specific aspects of your created body are evil. And what does this do to a person? Because when you see it, now you have been given this branding inwardly. If I were to have agreed with this person, which I actually stood up and I said, but Paul said in your anger, do not sin. And I get I got ejected. It's a It's a funny story.

I didn't get physically ejected, but it's a funny story. But the point is this, whenever they, if they can teach you to believe that something you cannot control is sinful, now they have put something in you that mentally you are in bondage forever.

You will, a person like I'm Irish, right? So I have a lot of Irish anger. If I were to believe this person, I would just be mentally torn up for the rest of my life.

Well, like I said, my wife and I, it was the first, but what if it wasn't? And I'm listening to all these sermons, it's the same way as me having the Irish temper listening to the angry man, every single time that I hear this being pushed, I'm thinking what an evil person I am, what a low down, worthless, immoral, you know, and there's no reason to even go beyond that.

I can't be any better because this has happened to me. I just want to say that it's not like that. If something happened, you can, there's nothing in the Bible that says you cannot be saved.

Look at the woman at the well like you just described. Earlier, Jesus said, wasn't the woman at the well, the woman that was being accused. They said, which of you is without sin cast the first stone?

Jesus didn't say that you're impure, you're deemed unworthy. There is nothing in the Bible that says this. So if they're teaching this, they're actually teaching an anti-biblical doctrine. So in its essence, if you understand the consequences of the purity doctrine, you have to say it's actually anti-biblical because of the way that they're teaching it.

Now, being pure, that's, for me, that's a separate issue, but don't teach it in an unhealthy way. Amen. And with that, I tackled, this is probably the most difficult subject that I was debating.

Should I do it? Should I not? This is so far out of my element because number one, like I said, it doesn't really apply to my life, but I watched the people in the support groups and I watched them struggle.

So I wanted to do it. And I wanted to end with just simply because I watched the commenter. I wanted to end with if this happened to you, you're valuable, you're worth it, you're worthy.

You can overcome this, you can be an overcomer. So hopefully I've done this justice and thank you for doing it. Thank you so much. I know these are difficult waters to wait in, so I appreciate us getting to have this conversation.

Awesome. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-Brandom.org and www.induel-movement.com. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.