Goodbye? Or Hello?

There is a familiar verse in Scripture in Romans 12 that challenges us to be involved in renewing our minds so that we might know God's will, and the following verse encourages us to approach that
process with humility. Consider this:
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

We have to continue to stay humble, otherwise our pride makes us vulnerable.  We can begin to think of ourselves as invincible and perhaps even adopt our own ideas or the principles of the world, rather than the truth of God.  We can seek to think Biblically, to adhere to the Word and to allow it to be our standard by which we evaluate our lives.  Where we miss it - and we will - in humility we come before the Lord, confess our sins, and appropriate the power of the Spirit to change.

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There is a passage in 2nd Corinthians 13 that includes some words that encourage us to take stock of
where we are with the Lord. We can read:
4 For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.
5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you are disqualified.
6 But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

The timeline is sad and stunning - in 1997, he wrote a book that provided, in his eyes, a framework for dating and marriage.  Over twenty years later, he expressed regret for writing the book, produced a video of critics, then, just recently announced a separation from his wife of 21 years.

But, that's not all...according to author and blogger Julie Roys:

In a stunning Instagram post today, Joshua Harris, the author who became famous for his 1997 book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, announced that he is no longer a Christian. “I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus,” Harris wrote. “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.” Harris added that he is open to “a different way to practice faith,” but is “not there now.”

Roys reports that "Harris also apologized in his post for '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.'" These he has apologized for before, but today, he announced he had another regret."

And, he added the LGBTQ+ community, saying:

"...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.”

He had also shared on Instagram just a few days before that his separation from his wife - in his latest post, as Roys points out, he said he was getting a divorce.

Certainly, Harris didn't wake up one morning and say that Christianity was not working for him - it was a process, and we have to recognize that while spiritual growth is most certainly a process, walking away or falling away is also a process.

Michael Farris, who for years led the Home School Legal Defense Association and is now head of Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote an "open letter" to Harris that was published at The Christian Post website - for a number of years, Farris knew Harris well, regarding him like a brother and says he still does.

He wrote:

I still believe that purity of mind and body before marriage is the right ideal. But it is not a formula for a happy marriage. It is simply a guiding principle that has to be applied with wisdom, grace, and often forgiveness. 

I would never reach this conclusion about you on my own but what you have said yourself can be fairly summarized as this: you thought your faith and your marriage were based on formulas. They never went deeper than that.

Jesus says about people like you that in the last judgment, He will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

You know that this means you never actually knew Him. 

As immersed as you were in Christian culture and a career as a pastor, you never actually knew Jesus. 

That's important to note.  But, it is also important to recognize the restorative nature of God for Joshua Harris and all of those who may have claimed to know Him but are no longer sure or who have declared they have walked away.  Farris writes:

You haven’t walked away from a relationship with Jesus. You have walked away from the culture you were raised in.

Jesus still loves you at this moment. And so do I and countless others. And I will love you no matter what in the days ahead. But my love is tinged in deep sadness.

Josh, you and your story are not the measure of the validity of Christianity.

Jesus is real. He doesn’t want you to return to your prior formulas. He wants you to come to Him for the first time and learn to love.

The premise of Harris' book was described by Premier Christianity:

First released in 1997, the book warned that dating could cause irreparable emotional damage. The solution was to embrace courtship – where couples pursue friendship before romance, and parents are given permission to offer advice and help guide the relationship. Harris also advocated for strict boundaries within this: no kissing, no holding hands and no being alone together before you tie the knot. Perhaps most famously, he recommended only beginning a relationship with someone if you could picture yourself marrying them in the near future.

According to the article, which included an interview with Josh, he began to hear the critics, and ultimately, after meeting a filmmaker who felt she was doing all the right things, but was still single, collaborated with her to make a documentary called, I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which featured the voices of critics.  Harris has discontinued the publication of the book and two others, and basically renounced its content.

So, where do you begin?  I'll give Harris credit - he's certainly on an honesty streak: expressing regret for a book that essentially made him famous, announcing his separation or divorce from his wife, and now walking away from His Christianity into...well, something new.  Honesty and humility can be good, and we should evaluate the status of our walk with God and even be willing to admit where we have missed it.

And, certainly there were flaws in the Josh Harris theology framework, and I think Farris may have nailed it:  Josh just may have been so immersed in Christian culture that he never knew Jesus; he was applying the formulas, but he never knew the Savior.  We have to make sure that we are seeking to know the true Jesus: not just going to church, expressing the right ideas, saying the right things, working the right formulas.  He wants to give us life; His life.

One more thing: so-called "purity culture" has taken a bad rap lately.  Harris' book was considered to be part of that culture, but he took some principles to extremes, and it resulted in people misapplying Scripture, it seems.  What started as a noble pursuit - to redeem the practice of dating and restore an emphasis on courtship - became a tool that ended up hurting people.  But, the practice of purity outside of marriage still stands and represents God's best, and one should not denigrate it just because a book may have missed the mark or the principles seem to not be working.

Finally, we can embrace the Biblical teaching of what it really means to be a Christian.  Harris knows what it takes, and you can pray that He will discover the reality of following Christ.  Right now, he's confused and has decided to go his own way.  That may not last; perhaps God can use this set of circumstances to draw him to Himself.  There is hope for all!