Joshua Harris kisses Christianity goodbye
With an apology to women and gays, the Evangelical “purity” guru leaves the faith
Back in 1997, he shamed a generation with his mega-bestseller I Kissed Dating Goodbye. After a bumpy ride as “purity” guru and megachurch pastor, now he’s leaving Christianity. The break-up note appeared today on Instagram: “The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”
His parting photo: his back to us, he looks out at Nature.
The surprise was, his note actually says something useful? To women and gays, he says: I’m sorry.
Martin Luther said that the entire life of believers should be repentance. There’s beauty in that sentiment regardless of your view of God. I have lived in repentance for the past several years — repenting of my self-righteousness, my fear-based approach to life, the teaching of my books, my views of women in the church, and my approach to parenting to name a few. But I specifically want to add to this list now: to the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality. I regret standing against marriage equality, for not affirming you and your place in the church, and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. I hope you can forgive me.
It wasn’t a huge surprise, maybe?
In 2017 he’d recalled the process of hearing, he’d noted, “stories of the effect my book had, and a lot of them were negative.”
He’d left his job as megachurch pastor amid a storm of accusations of having aided in covering up sexual abuse scandals.
“But I do think that a very patriarchal, male-centered, low view of women has connections to sexual abuse in different cases,” he tells Sandi Villarreal of Sojourners.
Pastors were given so much responsibility, he says, “when really we didn’t know what we were doing.”
He continues: “I think what’s difficult is that nobody wants to be, at least in more traditional conservative circles, nobody wants to be the one that’s coming out and saying let’s all chill out and not make such a big deal about this stuff.”
He sighs. “In a way it’s almost easier for me to contemplate throwing out all of Christianity than it is to keeping Christianity and adapting it in these different ways.”
What’s the alternative? “I do not want to engage in a massive, you know, theological expedition to think about all these things. So it just sounds really exhausting to me, honestly.”
All along he was dealing, it appears, with his own memories of being sexually abused. He launched a business as marketing consultant, and started to think through the faith he’d been home-schooled into.
Commentators from devout Christians poured in.
“You denoucing Christ, denying Him and His salvation, and have believed the liar. Jesus warned about those who have tasted His goodness and rejected it.”
“This breaks my heart. I wish the Lord pursue your soul in this life so you will not face His wrath in the next.”
“Satans biggest leverage in our culture today is the LGBTQ controversy saga, I’m not surprised yet another leader caved”
There were others too?
“Thank you for posting such a beautiful message, and I wish you the best of luck in whatever the future has in store for you.”
“Thank you for opening your heart for us. I know this journey isn’t always easy and I wish you the best. I’m glad to see you growing and learning.”
“May your deconstruction be bright and transformative.”
In Sojourners, he already points to a possible future for Christianity?
“We’re going to be more accepting of the fact that shit’s going to happen, people are going to screw each other. Like, let’s just move on. Let’s move forward and love each other.”
Perhaps he will be a leader of that.
And check out the love story that propelled Joshua Harris to fame!
