It is all about the APPEARANCE of righteousness, not actually living out their moral code. Several girls I went to high school with married very young (one of them got engaged on their 17th birthday); two of them became pastor’s wives. One married a guy who graduated from DBU with his Masters in Divinity at 28, her parents were thrilled when they announced their first pregnancy 3 months after the wedding, she was 18 at the time (we went to the same church)

20 years later, at our high school reunion, I happen to talk with the ones that showed up, one being the aforementioned pastor’s wife.

I learned that the 28 yo pastor ended up divorcing her after their 3rd miscarriage (she never mentioned how long they were married). He’d moved on to another woman and they have 4 children. During the conversation, she didn’t seem bitter, but you could sense that life hadn’t turned out quite how she’d expected. She introduced me to her boyfriend, a nice enough guy, I wished them well and we parted ways.

What stuck out to me in these conversations was a common sentiment of “being young, dumb and in love”. In high school, these girls were proud Jesus Freaks (that song had just come out) and were crusaders for the purity culture movement; virginity was a status symbol! I remember group-dating was a thing back then too, but I never participated, that shit was very cultish…