Over on Idol Chatter today, blogger Ellen Leventry recaps a comment made by MTV’s VMA host Russell Brand about the Jonas Bros. purity rings and the response from American Idol Jordin Sparks, where Sparks says, “I just wanna say, it’s not bad to wear a promise ring because not every guy and a girl wants to be a slut, OK?”

I didn’t see the VMAs so I can only comment from Leventry’s recap. Was it out of line for Sparks to call girls who have sex before marriage “sluts?” By today’s standards, probably. But back when I was her age? Uh … back then, a girl who was sleeping around was a slut and she didn’t get respect for it. Today, those girls are the central plot in almost every teen drama series (have you seen “Gossip Girl?”) and someone like Sparks or the JoBros, who make a stand about purity and hold to it, are the ones everyone looks down on.
In any event, the incident just proves that we need to pray for Christians in the mainstream music world, because they’re clearly at the mercy of an industry where anything goes … anything except modesty, that is.
Those “he’s so hot” teen magazine articles really do pose a potential conflict to the purity message, and we need to pray that artists like the JoBros have more opportunities to speak at length about purity and modesty, rather than it just being a side note.