**UPDATE: This blog post was written before Josh Harris announced he was leaving the faith and Christianity**
I was emailed the exclusive press link for my honest review of “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye”. I am not being compensated in any way.
You can watch the film here today!
Did you read Joshua Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye growing up? If you grew up in any sort of Christian environment in the late ’90s and early 2000’s then I’m guessing you did.
The book exploded in popularity when it was released and, as a result, made an impact on how the church as a whole explained dating, sex, marriage, and purity.
The result was very controversial. Some people felt the book was much needed and helpful to Christians, while many others felt hurt by the book and became confused by its legalistic message.
You can see I Kissed Dating Goodbye here!
I wrote my initial honest review of the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye several years ago in this blog post:
I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye is a documentary of Joshua Harris looking back at the message of his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and seeking to find out if it brought more harm than good to our culture.
While his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye was certainly well-intended, Joshua looks back and worries that he is a religious leader of our day – a modern-day Pharisee.
“There were ways that I added to God’s word that really didn’t help people and actually hindered people and hurt people and that’s the thing that I’m regretting and the thing that I’m wanting to address.” -JH
The documentary follows Joshua as he travels around the globe talking with his readers and Christian leaders, asking their opinion, and discussing the book’s impact on their lives, whether positive or negative.
Joshua was only 21 at the time the book was released, admitting he thought he knew all the answers to the dating scene when he wrote it; however, twenty years later, he looks back at I Kissed Dating Goodbye with regret.
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I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye takes you through his journey of learning the good and bad implications of his book in today’s culture.
I found the documentary extremely interesting and impacting my faith, but keep reading, my full opinion is coming at the end.
An Overview of I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye
The documentary begins with the opening scene from I Kissed Dating Goodbye. During a wedding ceremony, the groom’s ex-girlfriends and crushes from his past come up behind him and he says he has given each of them a piece of his heart. While it’s supposed to be just a dream, it provides an insight into how past relationships can impact future ones.
Joshua says his readers are still haunted by this metaphor in the book and he’s still haunted by the message he shared in I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
He is desperate to face his critics and makes things right, but he also doesn’t want to hurt his loyal fans over the years. This documentary is his way of addressing both.
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A critic that pushed him over the edge was Elizabeth Esther who tweeted “honestly, your book was used against me like a weapon.” By replying back and publically apologizing, people took this as a step in answering the critics while fans took it as a concern about going back against his word.
Joshua was still in turmoil and ready to face it all.
He goes through the give-and-take of, whether is it his fault for putting the message in the world, as people do have free will to take it or leave it. Even his wife agrees with his doubts.
He decides to listen to his critics. As they skype one at a time to share their opinion, Joshua sits down and hears it all. I outline down below the negative aspects of his book, as critics point out below, as well as the positive aspects that people appreciate from I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
“Before this moment all the comments and stories have just been words on a screen. But today I was face-to-face with people . . . When I was 21 I was so confident that I had all the answers but today I need to be courageous and admit that I don’t.” – JH
He continues on a journey of connecting with these readers and Christian leaders to discover the true impact of his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
My Reaction
You know when God just throws something at you because He wants to teach you a lesson and it feels just like a slap in the face?
Well, that’s exactly what this documentary felt like to me.
Three big truths I learned from I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye:
- I can keep searching for black-and-white answers to these biblical dilemmas for the rest of my life but I will still be left with gray area.
- I believed in the prosperity gospel of relationships.
- I believed that sex and marriage were the finish line.
Let’s dive deeper…
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Because #ADULTING.
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How I Kissed Dating Goodbye Tried To Make A Gray Area Black & White
For as long as I can remember I have been searching for answers to dating, sex, purity, and love within the Christian faith. Was does God call me to? What is the exact right approach to take? What can I do to get from single to married with a happy family?
I wanted to know the answers to those questions and more so why I picked up I Kissed Dating Goodbye in middle school. And why I have since picked up tons of other Christian advice books on relationships, listened to many podcasts on the subject, and read blog post after blog post.
The answers I wanted never came.
This is why I know that God sent this documentary to me.
I love rules. I love a step-by-step approach. And that’s why I personally loved I Kissed Dating Goodbye when I first read it. It gave me a formula. It gave me the way to out of always seeking.
Joshua is very similar to me, in that he wanted to provide his readers with the answer. He didn’t want to just tell them to leave it in God’s hands or pray about it. He wanted to provide tangible answers.
However, the Bible is not black and white on dating and purity. It’s very gray, just like other Christian debates of our age are.
People want to hear “Do this and everything will turn out great.” That’s why the book sold. But that’s also why Joshua Harris has regret now.
“Just because something sells doesn’t mean that it’s giving people what they really need. People don’t want what they really need.” – JH
See I Kissed Dating Goodbye on Amazon here!
At the beginning of the documentary, he goes back to where it all began for him.
The True Love Waits rally and the abstinence and purity movement were happening in the church during the 1990s. Joshua reflects on how his thinking was shaped by this movement and became an underlying factor and motivator in writing the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
Saving sex for marriage was the solution and being radical in how you dated was the formula to get you there – to go to the extreme and not even date at all if necessary.
It became so extreme that even interacting with the other sex was a fine line. If you talked with a boy you were implying you were interested in courting because there was no “feel it out phase.” It was too closely associated with dating.
You had to know you were going to marry the person before you could court them and know you wanted to court them before talking to them. It became extreme.
He was trying to make relationships black and white when it’s something gray. The Bible doesn’t lay out a clear path for everyone to follow, because everyone is different. And courting became so radical it became a “Biblical truth” despite not being mentioned in the Bible.
“Guard your heart” was a slogan used to stop all interactions together. It became “biblical truth” in the church’s eyes, and that made people Pharisees.
“My book made people feel like they had to do things a certain way, and I regret that.” -JH
Joshua came to the conclusion that there’s not a one-way-of-doing-things formula for everyone.
Everyone doesn’t fit into the same category. The church made dating a serious reverence – too extreme. The world says sex is causal – too extreme. It’s not an all-or-nothing thing. Being a nun is not the answer, and Tinder is not the answer. Gray thinking is key.
He realized life is not as simple as this is right or wrong. His book helped people and hurt people. It did good and bad.
“I think that is the mistake I made when I first wrote the book: I was looking for an easy, simple answer but life is full of contradictions.” -JH
How I Kissed Dating Goodbye Taught the Prosperity Gospel of Relationships
I Kissed Dating Goodbye created a prosperity gospel mentality in the realm of dating. This was something I myself fell trapped in as well.
The Prosperity Gospel, if you are not familiar with it, refers to the idea that the Gospel only brings prosperity. It is the belief and message that by accepting Jesus into your heart and trusting Him fully with your life, you are going to be living on cloud nine, with no bad luck, and that everything will be rainbows and happiness afterward. However, if you are human you know this is not true. In fact, Christians often face even more severe trials and hard times after they receive the gift of salvation.
Accepting Jesus does not mean you will go on to live a better life on earth. The Bible does not promise prosperity after salvation.
The message of relational prosperity, the belief that if you follow this formula in your relationship then you will have a blessed marriage, came the same way to me.
After years and years of purity talks and books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye, I came to believe that if I followed a set of rules, such as saving sex for marriage, saving my first kiss, and never crossing any boundaries with boys, then God would bless me with a perfect boyfriend, a wonderful wedding, and a perfect marriage. Which, again, if you’re human you know is not the case.
In fact, while attending Christian college I dated an aspiring pastor. I regularly had thoughts like “Finally, all my years of waiting and remaining pure are finally paying off. God is blessing me for staying pure!”
After a year of dating him, I went through a horrible breakup. I never found my prince charming at a Christian college like I thought I would be promised.
Just like the Bible never promises prosperity after salvation, God never promises an amazing boyfriend or perfect marriage after years of pure relationships and abstinence.
God is not a results god. Yet, Joshua recognizes that this theme was woven throughout his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Some of his readers even referred to it as a “money-back guarantee.”
In his search, he also found that going to the extreme and getting rid of dating altogether and replacing it with courtship likely caused more problems than good.
Joshua found that courtship restricts our ability to get to know someone naturally. Asking to court a girl basically was a marriage proposal. The intentionality and the purpose behind it are so important; however, it brings marriage into the picture too soon. It adds an extra layer of pressure or shame to the relationship before it is needed.
By setting high standards in his book, like waiting to kiss till your wedding day, for example, Joshua caused many of his readers to feel shameful like they are missing out on God’s best.
There was a standard set so high for Christians that no one could achieve: being 100% pure. No room for grace. The culture putting up standards that aren’t in the Bible.
How I Kissed Dating Goodbye Made Sex & Marriage the Ultimate Goal
The Sexual Revolution sparked around the time I Kissed Dating Goodbye was exploding and it made sex the ultimate form of fulfillment.
Yes, promoting saving sex for marriage is a good thing but not the end goal. For Christians that have made marriage the ultimate goal for fulfillment and happiness, marriage has become a cultural idol. God did not design it that way.
He admits that his book does not dive deep into the problems of our world, like what did God design marriage to be? What does God think of sexuality? What is the role of sex? How can someone find fulfillment as a single man or woman? And much more.
Purity was on a pedestal in his book.
Today’s culture and the church have twisted purity and use it very inconsistently with Scripture. We use purity as a synonym for virginity even though it is not. Virgins can be extremely unpure, and non-virgins can be very pure. We have turned purity into something legalistic.
His book just tried to find the answer through a formula and by simplifying it. However, you can’t do that.
Simplifying it led to a popular book that sold millions of copies, but it wasn’t the truth.
But no one wants to read a book based on truth: you might never get married. You might never have sex. You should live a life glorifying God above everything else.
People, like myself, craved his answers because it was what they wanted to hear but it wasn’t the truth of the bible.
Joshua also came to realize and admit that he never addressed singleness beyond a small season of life. Some people are called to singleness, yet his book taught you how to get out of it.
Today, as he heard from critics, the church looks down on single men and women as people who just want to be married and are not taken seriously into you are in a relationship.
The church should be so relationship-oriented that it set the standard for the world.
“Where did my writing help create a culture where people weren’t able to just make mistakes, wrestle, ask questions, and so on. . . Did I help create an environment that didn’t give people the freedom to live an honest life before God, even if they disobeyed, even if they made mistakes that they get to experience God’s grace themselves…” -JH
We align with godly rules and align with religion before aligning with God himself. We try to control religion with rules and fear. We need to ultimately look for God’s desire in our sexuality.
What if instead of a search for sex, there was a search for God?
Joshua’s Conclusion
“My thinking has changed since I wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I think its premise is flawed. I don’t agree with a lot of my own book.” – JH
“I hope you will think for yourself. And I hope you will engage with people who have stories that are different than yours. People who disagree with you. I hope you will take the time to listen to them. Listening to people has changed me. I want to say to anyone that was hurt by my book that I am so sorry. And I know that that is coming too late. I know it doesn’t really change anything for you. But I never meant to harm you. And I hope that somehow me going back and evaluating all this and owning up to mistakes in my book will somehow help you on your journey.” -JH
“You can change your mind about things. You can make mistakes. Honestly, there is something so freeing in saying ‘I was wrong’” -JH
He comes back to his wedding scene that started his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and also started the documentary I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
Looking at it anew, Joshua explains that the wedding should be a symbol of God bringing everyone to His table. God’s sacrificial love is the answer.
Everyone has a seat at His table, no matter what mistakes and failures you have. God fixes and renews what is broken. There are no ghosts and no lingering regrets. We are fully redeemed men and women who find purity alone in Jesus.
My Opinion & Recommendation
While the intentions behind his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye were spot on, to help Christian singles walk closer to the Lord in their courting experience, he also promoted feelings of shame, thoughts of legalism, and a culture formed around extreme “truths” not found in the Bible.
This documentary is extremely relatable to feelings many of us have within the church.
Growing up in a Christian school, attending youth group and church weekly, going to Christian camps, and always attending Christian conferences and events, I heard all the purity talks you could imagine.
It too was promoted to me as a bunch of rules to follow. My virginity was displayed to me as a badge of purity I had to keep to honor God. Sex was presented as a gift I had to earn.
All these were extremes the church formed and gave me a legalistic and judgmental mindset.
I love that Joshua addresses all these hard issues in this documentary, I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
After watching it twice I felt called to share part of my story in this blog post. I truly believe we need leaders like this to see our own legalistic thinking. No one wants to think they are a modern-day Pharisee. It takes a lot for someone to see that within themselves.
While I am someone that does hold to some extreme values, like saving my first kiss till my wedding day, as a boundary, I also know that it is not a “biblical truth.”
The church can fall prey easily to taking precautions and turning them into our own “Scripture” and neglecting to examine it against the real Scripture that lives and breathes God’s holy words.
After years of purity talks, I have also had to have years of messages similar to this documentary to break down some of those lies and replace them with the truth.
Instead of still searching for a formula and black-and-white answers I will seek God in the gray area.
Instead of believing that if I honor God now I will be blessed with a perfect relationship, I believe that I will honor God whether I get married or stay single forever.
And instead of believing that sex and marriage are my ultimate goal in life, I choose to believe that God is my ultimate fulfillment and find true satisfaction in Him alone.
I highly recommend that you watch I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and not just once but twice.
You can watch the film here today! & You can also see it on Amazon here!
The Ultimate Guide To #Adulting
Because #ADULTING.
Do you feel in the dark? I know I did after I graduated college! Here's everything you need to know to start your SUCCESSFUL adult life!
Joshua Harris talks with many well-known authors and speakers in the documentary:
Christine Gardner, author of Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns.
Curtis Allen of Solid Rock Church in Riverdale Maryland.
Thomas Umstattd Jr., author of Courtship in Crisis.
Elizabeth Esther, author and activist.
Lisa Bonos, authors of the Washington Post’s Solo-ish column.
Dale Kuehne, author of Sex and the iWorld.
Dannah Gresh, founder of Pure Freedom Ministries
Debra Hirsch, author of Redeeming Sex.
Debra Fileta, author of True Love Date.
Connally Gilliam, author of Revelations of a Single Woman.
Or see the film on Amazon here!
Questions about the documentary? https://www.isurvivedikdg.com/faq
Let me know you’re thoughts below, I’d love to discuss this!
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[…] Related Post: My Honest Review of “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye” […]
Hi, your piece on this book is one of the better I’ve seen on the internet. I really like how you say this “While the intentions behind his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye were spot on, to help Christian singles walk closer to the Lord in their courting experience, he also promoted feelings of shame, thoughts of legalism, and a culture formed around extreme “truths” not found in the Bible.” That’s pretty much where I am with the book. As I say in my post about the book “Funny, what I think hurt me about the book wasn’t so much… Read more »
Thank you for your comment! I am so glad you were able to find it helpful on your journey!
I finally read IKDG for the first time the other day, and came away thinking it was a well-written and balanced book. It never ignored grace or promised true love if one followed its guidance. It never said, “do this and happiness awaits.” Rather, it provided timely wisdom to young Christians on how to navigate relationships in a world where the outside culture was at odds with godliness. It advised not rushing into romantic or exclusive relationships before getting to truly know someone, especially if one was not ready for the commitment of marriage. It stressed the importance of following… Read more »