June 3, 2002
Teen purity movement stakes
a claim on larger territory
___By Michele Melendez
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Mickey Harris Jr. is young, strong and pure. He's 16, a 6-foot-3 athlete and a virgin who shuns risky behavior.
___"Purity is abstaining from anything that can affect you mentally, physically or spiritually in a bad way," he said. "You can make mistakes along the way, but you want to come back to being pure."
Daphne Stevens, 39, of Pennsauken, N.J., created Purity Jams, at which youth come together to dance, sing and pray about staying abstinent until marriage, avoiding drugs and being considerate of others. Her daughters are Kristine,15, and Jasmine, 13. Purity Jams build in the success of sexual abstinence movements like True Love Waits.
___In Pennsauken, Harris' southern New Jersey town, and in communities across the country, purity is a label that goes beyond "sexually abstinent" or "drug-free." It means unsoiled in all respects, in an emerging, largely Christian movement toward straight-edged youth.
___Harris regularly joins hundreds of other young people who act, rap and dance at Purity Jams. In suburban New Orleans, teens are expressing a Passion4Purity with role-playing and song. In the St. Petersburg, Fla., area, teens are taking the Purity Power Pledge.
___This outpouring is bubbling as Congress discusses public funding to promote sexual abstinence, the element most associated with purity. President Bush has requested $135 million for abstinence-only education programs, a $33 million increase from last year.
___Critics argue the programs are blind to the reality of adolescence and, by withholding safe-sex information, may put teens in danger.
___But apart from the debate over whether abstinence education works, religious community leaders say they're convinced devotion to purity benefits teens in all areas.
___"It's not just 'Say no to sex,'" explained Daphne Stevens, founder of Melody Ministries in Pennsauken, which runs the Purity Jam in churches and schools in the Philadelphia area and throughout New Jersey. "It's about destructive behavior, violence, peer pressure, prejudice."
___Purity programs involve role-playing, games, music, prayer, skits and peer counseling. Some offer weekend retreats, and others meet for short gatherings. Discussion often turns to talk of consequences, how a thrill can fester into torment.
___Cindy Collins, executive director of Passion4Purity, a youth group in the New Orleans suburb of Slidell, said concentrating only on sexual abstinence ignores other vital teen struggles. Many who were active in the abstinence movement that emerged in the 1990s realized the focus was too narrow, she said.
Mickey Harris is a 16-year-old participant in a Purity Jam.
___"What I've seen is that it's only the surface of the need," she explained. "You have to get deeper to the heart of this younger generation."
___Passion4Purity's mission has touched Kristen Alexander, 18. By age 14, she already had decided to remain sexually abstinent before marriage and devote herself to God. At age 16, she started volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, where she saw girls younger than she was pregnant and distraught.
___When she turned 17, Alexander joined Passion4Purity, which is affiliated with the pregnancy center. The weekly meetings, held in the group's strip-mall office, let young people talk about topics they're afraid to mention in school, where purity can be unpopular.
___Last year, Marisa Tompkins, 17, of Tampa, Fla., started thinking about what her reputation would be. Her peers were getting more physical with boys, and some were trying drugs and alcohol.
___"I was in a stage of life where I was wondering if I wanted to live a chaste life," she said.
___She joined the POWER Team, a youth group sponsored by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Petersburg in Florida. The acronym stands for Peers Offer Witness to Encourage Respect. Members meet monthly to socialize and yearly for a weekend retreat during which they talk to younger children about peer pressure and other challenges.
___Encouraged by her older brother, Jack, 19, who already had signed up, Tompkins took the Purity Power Pledge, a promise "to live a life which is marked by purity and respect for all people."
___Tompkins said she strayed by having a couple of drinks at a party and, on a separate occasion, allowing a boyfriend to get more physical with her than she wanted. But she said she caught her mistakes. She has avoided alcohol and protected her virginity.
___Emma Boe, the POWER Team's coordinator, said the program teaches refusal skills. She believes young people must prepare for various scenarios, from sexual to social. For example, if friends are pushing to see an objectionable movie, Boe advises: "You have to offer an alternative. 'Why don't we go see this movie instead?' Or, 'There are other fun things we can do.'"
___While purity-labeled activities cut across denominations, they seem to be primarily Christian. Leaders of other faiths say the lack of such programming in their religious communities might reflect a difference in guiding youth. They say that while undesirable behavior exists among their children, the communities don't tend to pull out purity as a distinct exercise.
___Jimmy Hester, coordinator of an international abstinence campaign called True Love Waits, said children do get purity messages in Christian teaching, but there's a need for more. In his view, purity programs simply reinforce the message, when young people are stalked by sex, drugs and violence in the media.
___True Love Waits, sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, has long equated purity with sexual abstinence. The program is known for sponsoring virginity pledge drives, during which young people sign commitment cards promising abstinence until marriage.
Kristen Alexander, an 18-year-old from Slidell, La., gives her testimony of purity at a Passion4Purity event there.
___Hester said he has sensed a broadening notion of purity in the abstinence movement. This year LifeWay published a study guide for youth called "Pure Joy: God's Formula for Passionate Living," which reads, "The concept of purity is more than just a sexual barometer."
___For Harris, the New Jersey teen, it means going to church, doing homework, running track and playing football for his high school and giving respect. He said his purity event, the Purity Jam, is a sanctuary where he learns skills he can apply to becoming a pure adult.
___"Everywhere you look, there's sex, there's drinking, there's smoking," he said. "When you go to the Purity Jam, this positive energy surrounds you. You know you're in a good place."
___
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