Why Virginity Is Essential To Christianity

The Absence of Impurity

Andrew R. French
7 min readMar 27, 2024

The concept of purity is one of the most harmful concepts that human beings have ever created.

Nothing in the world is pure. The basic definition of pure as defined in the Merriam Webster dictionary is “unmixed with any other matter” but we tend to use a moralistic definition more often than not, such as “free from what vitiates, weakens, or pollutes” or “free from moral fault or guilt’. The word has developed psychological power over millennia, aiding in subjugation and repression

Sexuality is where the myth of purity is most damaging. Virginity is a social construct that somehow indicates the level of purity within girls and young woman, while boys and young men are exempt from this strongly ingrained moral assessment. Christianity strongly reinforces this construct with the myth of the virgin birth. In the Christian bible, Mary was a virgin when she was impregnated with Jesus Christ by god. Why was this important? It showed that she had not been made impure by the physical knowledge of sex, and thus was a proper bearer of god’s offspring. In other words, she was pure and so she was worthy of god. In the worldview of Christianity, she was a receptacle for a divine insemination. As all of these stories are told by men who lived two thousand years ago, we learn very little about…

--

--

Andrew R. French
Andrew R. French

Written by Andrew R. French

Writer exploring the integration of the Environment, Health, and Spirituality from the perspective of Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of Interbeing.

Responses (5)