The word “purity” has often gotten a bad rap — even in some Christian circles. But long-time television host and ministry leader Cynthia Garret is working to change that.
She recently sat down with The Washington Times Higher Ground to discuss her latest book, “The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies,” and how Hollywood and the media have been complicit in twisting the narrative around sex in a way that has damaged countless young people over the years.
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“[As a young woman], I didn’t have a relationship to sex as sacred,” Ms. Garrett explained. “I was sexually abused as a young girl, [but] that doesn’t really matter because I see a lot of people making the same mistakes I made. And their backgrounds and their brokenness have less to do with anything than just the consumption of lies that we’ve been fed historically around this topic.”
The 60-year-old said those lies were bolstered by the sexual revolution of the 20th century, but have become ingrained in society largely due to media influence.
“The media is, I think, the most powerful force on the planet today… [But] you know what? Hollywood is fake. It’s about make-believe. It’s about pretend. It’s about escapism,” Ms. Garrett said. “And I was looking to escape, like most people… [And] I was surrounded by people who very much thought that it was all good, ‘all’ meaning anything you want to do, anything you want to think, anything you want to feel. And that’s really Hollywood.”
And while Hollywood provided a means of escape, it didn’t provide the satisfaction or sense of worth that Ms. Garrett desperately craved. Despite finding fame as a VH1 host in the 90s, and then as the first African American woman to ever front a network late-night show, she struggled for years to find true fulfillment. Even as a Christian who was “saved by not surrendered,” she knew deep down that something had to change.
“There came this point where I realized, okay, I’ve got everything I want. I’m on the private planes, I’m walking the red carpets, I have my own shows, all the designers want to dress me, but what I don’t have is peace in my soul,” she recalled. “And what I don’t see is real actual power and purpose changing lives, like really impacting lives.”
That realization began her journey into what she calls a “purity revolution,” which is built on having a relationship with Jesus that transforms one’s life from the inside out. That concept is also the basis of her new book, “The Naked Truth,” which is really about changing the narrative around purity into something that is more encouraging and life-sustaining than it has been in the past.
“When I first went to Christ, He didn’t tell me what He was going to change about me. If He did, I would have run the opposite direction screaming,” Ms. Garrett noted. “What He did was He loved me. He saved me. I experienced His love and His saving grace. And then I wanted to change my life. And that included my behavior and that included becoming abstinent.”
“I think the purity doctrine of the 90s… It felt like a load of Pharisees putting a load of rules on our backs, but doing nothing to help us carry the load,” she continued. “I think what I’ve tried to do is sort of throw that aside and really build a foundation in which people understand that the way to be pure in your life is to realize that we’re all sinners in need of a Savior. And if you grab hold of Jesus and you begin to work on a pure relationship with Him… a relationship in which you really get to know Him, in that, you find purity in your mind, purity in your soul, purity in your body.”
“The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies” is now available everywhere books are sold.
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Marissa Mayer is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her work has been featured in Christian Post, The Daily Signal, and Intellectual Takeout. Mayer has a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Arizona State University.
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