PURITY IS THE PATH FOR SOME TEENS

Mickey Harris Jr. is young, strong and pure. He's 16, a 6-foot-3 athlete
and a virgin.

"Purity is abstaining from anything that can affect you mentally,
physically or spiritually in a bad way," he said. "You can make mistakes
along the way, but you want to come back to being pure."

In Pennsauken, Mickey's southern New Jersey town, and in communities across
the country, purity is a label that goes beyond "sexually abstinent" or
"drug-free." It means unsoiled in all respects, in an emerging, largely
Christian movement aimed at straight-edged youth.

Mickey regularly joins hundreds of other young people who act, rap and
dance at "Purity Jams." In suburban New Orleans, teens are expressing a
"Passion4Purity" with role-playing and song. In the St. Petersburg, Fla.,
area, teens are taking the "Purity Power Pledge."

This outpouring comes as Congress discusses public funding to promote
sexual abstinence, the element most associated with purity. President Bush
has requested $135 million for abstinence-only education programs, a $33
million increase from last year.

Critics argue that the programs are blind to the reality of adolescence
and, by withholding safe-sex information, may even put teens in danger.

But, apart from the debate over whether abstinence education works,
religious community leaders say they're convinced devotion to purity
benefits teens.

"It's not just `Say no to sex,' " said Daphne Stevens, founder of Melody
Ministries in Pennsauken, which runs the Purity Jam in churches and schools
in the Philadelphia area and New Jersey. "It's about destructive behavior,
violence, peer pressure, prejudice."

Teen struggles are varied

Purity programs involve role-playing, games, music, prayer, skits and peer
counseling. Some offer weekend retreats. Others meet for short gatherings.
Discussion often turns to talk of consequences, how a thrill can fester
into torment.Cindy Collins of Passion4Purity, a youth group in Slidell,
La., outside New Orleans, said concentrating on sexual abstinence ignores
other teen struggles. She said many who were active in the abstinence
movement that emerged in the 1990s realized the focus was too narrow.

"What I've seen is that it's only the surface of the need," she said. "You
have to get deeper to the heart of this younger generation."

Passion4Purity's mission has touched Kristen Alexander, 18. By age 14, she
had already decided to remain sexually abstinent before marriage and devote
herself to God. At age 16, she started volunteering at a crisis pregnancy
center, where she saw girls pregnant and distraught.

When she turned 17, Alexander joined Passion4Purity, which is affiliated
with the pregnancy center. She said the weekly meetings, held in the
group's strip-mall office, let young people talk about topics that they're
afraid to mention in school, where purity can often be unpopular.

"A lot of kids, they feel like they have no hope," Alexander said.

Group faces peer pressure

Last year, Marisa Tompkins, 17, of Tampa, Fla., started thinking about what
her reputation would be. Her peers were getting more physical with boys.
Some were trying drugs and alcohol.

"I was in a stage of life where I was wondering if I wanted to live a
chaste life," she said.

She joined the POWER Team, a youth group sponsored by Catholic Charities of
the Diocese of St. Petersburg in Florida. The acronym stands for "Peers
Offer Witness to Encourage Respect." Members meet monthly to socialize and
yearly for a weekend retreat where they talk to younger children about peer
pressure and other challenges.

Encouraged by her older brother, Jack, 19, who had already signed up,
Marisa took the "Purity Power Pledge," a promise "to live a life which is
marked by purity and respect for all people."

Marisa said she strayed by having a couple of drinks at a party and, on a
separate occasion, allowing a boyfriend to get more physical with her than
she wanted. But she said she caught her mistakes. She said she has avoided
alcohol and protected her virginity.

Emma Boe, the POWER Team's coordinator, said the program teaches refusal
skills. She said young people should prepare for various scenarios, from
sexual to social. For example, she said, if friends are pushing to see an
objectionable movie, Boe advises: "You have to offer an alternative. `Why
don't we go see this movie instead?' Or, `There are other fun things we can
do.' "

Programs primarily Christian

While purity-labeled activities cut across denominations, they seem to be
primarily Christian.Leaders of other faiths say the lack of such programs
in their religious communities might reflect a difference in guiding youth.
They say that while undesirable behavior exists among their children, the
communities don't tend to pull out purity as an exercise.

Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, who leads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit,
said lessons of purity are explicit in Islamic teaching.

"It's a religious issue to remain pure, to stay away from alcohol, from
drugs, the casinos, from gambling," he said. "Purity... is the point of the
religious personality."

Similarly, said Rabbi Moshe Edelman, director of leadership development for
the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in New York City, the Jewish
community does not highlight purity in youth programs because, "For
Judaism, the notion of purity is one that pervades existence."

Jimmy Hester, coordinator of an international abstinence campaign called
True Love Waits, said children do get purity messages in Christian
teaching. In his view, purity programs simply reinforce the message, when
young people are stalked by sex, drugs and violence in the media.

True Love Waits, sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern
Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tenn., has long equated purity with sexual
abstinence. The program is known for sponsoring virginity pledge drives,
during which young people sign commitment cards promising abstinence until
marriage.

True Love Waits has long been active among Southern Baptists and other
conservative Christian churches in the Carolinas.

Hester said he has sensed a broadening notion of purity. This year LifeWay
published a study guide for youth called "Pure Joy: God's Formula for
Passionate Living," which reads, "The concept of purity is more than just a
sexual barometer."

Kids find positive energy

For Mickey, the New Jersey teen, it means going to church, doing homework,
running track and playing football for his high school and giving respect.

He attends a Purity Jam.

"Everywhere you look, there's sex, there's drinking, there's smoking," he
said. "When you go to the Purity Jam, this positive energy surrounds you.
You know you're in a good place."