For head pastor Ron Wilson of the Living Stones Church, purity balls, a ritual in which a father and teenage daughter pledge their commitment in front of God to maintain her sexual purity and loyalty to God, is a significant commitment to lifelong Christian formation. Resembling aspects of a wedding, purity balls feature a covenant that a father will serve as the “High Priest” in his home in order to safeguard the purity of his daughter:
“I ………’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father.
I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and my family as the High Priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.”
The full story and Nightline Prime preview on ABC News is available here.
While purity balls are not common as expressions of faith in mainline denominations, how is the intersection of faith and sexual development being explicitly and/or implicitly taught in your congregation? What are healthy ways that the church might more effectively model love, appropriate boundaries, and also meet the needs of teenagers as they grow?
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The story on Prime Time was more about the absolute dominion of men over women than it was about sex or misguided ideas of purity. Men have careers and provide, women keep the home and nurture the family. "Creepy" is an understatement, it was a frightening throwback. The kids and the wife kneeling before the husband for their weekly blessing - c'mon, are you kidding me?
Blech, makes me want to vomit. Just like this song always used to do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvL5fnrj8I
JC Fisher
Strange, the connection between patriarchy and father-daughter incest. Or maybe not so strange.
“Creepy” is about right. This is so much patriarchal nonsense. Why not have fathers present chastity belts with jewel-encrusted crosses to their daughters at these “balls”? More useful than purity balls would be teaching self-respect and responsibility, along with serious sex education. And that would be good for boys as well as for girls.
What, no "purity balls" for boys? Oh, that's right, sex is unclean, but only for females.
HD Curlin
Sorry, but the link to the story and preview is broken.
The "covenant" the father ascribes to is creepy. I'd be interested to see what the girl has to promise in order to validate this "covenant."
Linda Ryan
[thanks - fixed now -- editor]