{an open letter to Josh Harris}

Hi. 

You don't know me, but I'm one of those kids.

y'know...the ones who entered adolescence with your book as gospel? the ones who are now adults trying to navigate this whole healthy relationships thing?

See, our parents had the Bible. Our parents had each other. but we had I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It was our relationship Bible. Instead of searching the Scriptures, we were given your book; and somewhere between the purity balls and the purity rings and the long lists of qualities we wanted in our future spouses and the chastity pledges and the modesty vows and the abstinence covenants and the entire 'courtship' culture whose interpretation of your book became the latest Christian mark-of-holiness, we never learned how to have real relationships with the opposite gender. 

Instead of teaching us how to relate to romantic relationships in a healthy Biblical way (without reading into the text and imposing your own interpretation on it!), we learned that romantic attachment is something to be avoided at all cost. We learned that our hearts are evil, all our desires sinful, and all feelings before marriage are nothing but stumbling blocks in the path to righteousness. 

We learned that we have only so much love to give, and that if we have feelings for anyone besides the person we marry, then we will end up having no love left for our future spouse - as if there is a limit on love! Did no one teach you, as a young man, the truth that while human love is limited, God's love is limitless? and if He lives in us, then we are given His love to love others with. 

We learned that there is an impossible standard for both men and women to live up to - women if they would be worthy of a man's love, and men if they want so much as a chance with her father. And while there was a tiny chapter on grace, that was not the overwhelming message we came away with. We came away with 'try harder..be better..follow these rules..and you will have a godly marriage. otherwise, you are doomed to disaster and heartbreak'. But, oh, heartbreak will come regardless. There are absolutely no guarantees in life, but we broke our own hearts over your book when the first person we found ourselves in a relationship with, we didn't marry. 

We learned that unless we are willing to commit to potential marriage with a stranger, we have no plausible reason to get to know them. We learned that dating was to relationships what public schooling was to education, so anything which could be construed as the beginning of even 'the appearance of evil' was sin. We learned to never take risks or step out in faith -that unless both parties were irretrievably bound to each other by parents, that unless it was perfectly safe with no chance of heartbreak, we ought not to care except in a remote detached fashion. 

Because of your book's message, and the way it was interpreted by the purity culture, I spent years trying to live up to an impossible standard of purity, terrified of so much as talking to a guy because 'oh gosh what if i make him fall?' and now there is a man i love who loves me and he still cannot hug me in public because it has been so deeply ingrained into his psyche, thanks to your book, that he is doing something wrong by touching me, even in the most innocent way. 

After the first shocking analogy which you opened Chapter 1 with, I and countless others, found ourselves unable to believe that we were worth more than damaged goods because 'oh God, we gave away pieces of our hearts before we were married' What your book advocates isn't purity so much as unemotionality - locking your heart away in order to prevent heartbreak, and an inability to have a deep connection (whether in friendship or otherwise) with someone of the opposite gender. 

And you cannot live your life sheltered in a glass bubble. 

there is no formula for preventing heartbreak.

just because we may have loved someone in the past doesn't mean we cannot love again. the biggest obstacle to love isn't having loved before. it's being taught that love is wrong - that love is purely a choice of the will and any emotions involved are sinful. 

We learned to be terrified of physical contact. We learned that attraction is inconsequential and sexual compatibility doesn't exist. We were never actually given a sexual education beyond 'don't do it'. We learned to automatically sexualize any physical contact, and consequently never learned self control or reliance on God. We learned that unless we were stronger than Samson or holier than David, then we had no choice but to fall to sexual temptation, but what on earth happened to the fact that He who created them - He who is mightier than all - lives inside of us? and if it is no longer I who live but He, then He will give me the strength to walk in holiness.

And while the suffering we went through grieves me, the popularity and appeal of your book is not too surprising. after all, it is easier to adhere to a man-made set of rules. It's easier to put all relationships into one little box and say 'this is the only way you're allowed to do it', and fail to recognize the difference between cultural norms during Biblical times and what God actually prescribes for Christian living. 

So I don't blame you, honestly. I blame those older and wiser than you who should have known better. I blame those who created an entire culture around your book, where that was the only 'Christian' way to conduct relationships, and all other forms were sinful. I blame whoever abused you as a child and shamed you for it, and my heart breaks for the fact that you were just as much a victim of all the scripture-twisting of this particular brand of so-called Christianity as any of us. You just happened to have a bigger platform, so your words had more impact.

But for the love of God, it is past time to throw that book away. And i speak for so many of us when I say that we were sold a bill of lies, starting with your book and down through countless others, which promised a problem-free, heartbreak-free life, if we would just adhere to a set of rules. But, you see, life is not a mathematical equation; and if our hearts never broke, how would the light reach us? Sometimes relationships will fail, despite our best efforts, despite doing everything 'right'. You can't protect us. Our parents can't. Because life is not meant to be hidden from. Life is meant to be lived, in all its glory and beauty and pain and heartbreak. 

We were created by God to live and to love and to reflect Him in all that we do and think and feel and love. And...Jesus didn't have a pain and heartbreak-free life. He loved and He cried and He laughed.

And I firmly believe that your heart was (and is) in the right place, that you never meant the harm the book unwittingly caused, that the secular culture of cheap sex is wrong, and we ought to focus on following God more than chasing a mate. But the alternative to cheap sex isn't running away from love or vulnerability or emotion, and I think you know that now. I hope you do. 

After all, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, "to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. to love at all is to be vulnerable" 

and of all the commandments Christ could have emphasized, when asked what the most important one was....his answer? "love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor". 

"Love as I have loved you"

Love. 

Love and feel and live every moment fully attuned to the Spirit of God and the breadth of the range of human emotion which we are gifted to feel. 

So I pray we find healing, we who grew up on your words.

I pray you are in health.

And I pray that the next generation will tell stories of the man who wrote a book on courtship which inadvertently hurt so many, but then recognized his errors, and became a champion of true Godly relationships, and I pray they admire you as much as we once did - only for far better reasons. 

With love, 

Tirzah