First, Joshua Harris renounced his books and now he’s renounced his faith in Jesus Christ. This is disheartening to the Christian community. You can see his Instagram post below where he makes statements specifically denouncing his faith and former self-righteousness:
It’s not uncommon for young people to have a form of self-righteousness as it relates to their faith or personal convictions. That’s no reason to leave the faith or deny Christ. That is a fault of our humanity which tends to pride. This is why we need Jesus, and God’s grace is enough to cover, heal, and forgive the self-righteous.
I read both of Joshua’s books coming up and personally, I did not see a problem with them. I recall him sharing his testimony in the first book about how he used to date to feel girls up and let his flesh loose sort of speak without looking for the commitment of marriage. He became convicted about that lifestyle and decided to kiss dating goodbye—no longer dating to please his flesh, but for a greater purpose. He wrote a workbook to follow-up with this idea assisting men in the workbook to choose love over lust.
He cautioned single men about the pitfalls of pornography and to have accountability with one another in their search for purity. Finally, he met his wife and continued to be transparent sharing about his courting experience, which is essentially dating, but with a specific purpose of marriage in mind. These were all good things that contributed well to the body of Christ; however, it’s the nature of man to look at things in extremes instead of for what it is.
There is a lot of imbalance in church culture regarding dating, purity, and the topic of relationships. Some took Joshua’s message and refrained from dating altogether no matter what their hearts were like. Many because of fear of being imperfect or impure; simply refused to date. Others said to heck with the idea altogether. They just did themselves tossing an idea that one can be pure and date with pure motives completely out the window.
All of this interpretation and misinterpretation can easily take the focus off of what truly matters placing it on rules instead of the disposition of our hearts. The most important thing for us as believers is not even to defend sexual purity, although it’s important. The most important thing is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. When we genuinely love God the way he requires, everything else begins to line up in our lives including our sexual purity.
We will at that point date with the right intentions and purpose and no one will have to remind us to honor God with our bodies. There is entirely too much religion in the church meaning people doing things that appear religious without relying on the power of God.
When we do work, focus on morale, and rules without relying on knowing Christ and his power to keep us; we can easily fall away from the faith. Christ is the foundation and the life-blood of all that we are. Without him, we can do nothing. The greater acquainted with that revelation we become; the more firmly rooted we will become in Christ, and the harder it will be for us to fall away from the faith–because our faith isn’t built on our self-righteousness or ability to keep rules, but our ability to depend on the God who makes us righteous.
In this world, we will have questions, meet people of varying faiths and beliefs. This is why we have to study. We have to become lovers of the truth meditating on it day and night. It isn’t easy to be in a position like Joshua was–representing purity and carrying the weight of others and their interpretation on his shoulders, but that was not entirely his responsibility. Our responsibility as teachers of the gospel is to say what God gives us to say and not worrying about who receives it or not.
We are to be patient and to walk in love with all not grappling with who does not receive or believe what we’ve given. It’s God’s responsibility to convince men once they’ve heard the word God has given us to share. It’s men’s own choice to choose whether they will obey God. If they choose not to obey; their blood will not be required at our hands as long as we obeyed God in sharing what he’s given us. I pray that he comes back to himself and what’s important which is Jesus Christ and knowing him personally.
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