Evangelical Purity Culture and Its Discontents

This volume is a collection of cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, and creative essays that establish a new approach to the study of evangelical purity culture. It is a critical starting point for anyone seeking to understand this movement or begin their own research.

This volume is a collection of cutting- edge, interdisciplinary, and creative essays that establishes a new approach to the study of evangelical purity culture. It is a critical starting point for anyone seeking to understand this movement or begin their own research.The book brings together the work of the Purity Culture Research Collective, an independent and unaffiliated organization of scholars, mental health professionals, artists, and advocates dedicated to studying the origins and impact of evangelical purity culture. The study of purity culture is an interdisciplinary project, using a variety of theories and methods including those from psychology, religious studies, sociology, ethics, biblical/theological studies, queer studies, feminist studies, historical studies, and critical race studies. Chapters in this volume employ various methods of inquiry, with some framing their work in traditional academic prose, and others making use of self- reflexive analysis to acknowledge their own experiences as informing their arguments and conclusions. This collection of essays reflects emerging scholarship both within and beyond the academy and stands as an example of how traditional academic analysis can be released from the confines of disembodied scholarship and is enriched by a diversity of approaches.This book was originally published as a special issue of Theology & Sexuality.

Autorentext

Kathryn House, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies and Practical Theology and Chair of the Rev. Dr. Lee Barker Professorship of Leadership Studies at Meadville Lombard Theological School, Chicago, Illinois, USA. She holds a Ph.D. and M.Div. from Boston University School of Theology, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. House is ordained through the American Baptist Churches USA and Alliance of Baptists.

Sara Moslener, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion at Central Michigan University, Michigan, USA. She is the author of Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (2015) and After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America (forthcoming, 2025).

Inhalt

Introduction: Evangelical Purity Culture and Its Discontents 1. Graham Crackers and Good Girls: A Historical and Theoretical Case for Expanding the Conceptual Reach of Purity Culture's Control of Bodies Assigned Female at Birth 2. The Space Between: Liminal Time within Purity Culture 3. Pure to Purpose Pipeline: Socializing Purity in White Women's International Aid Work 4. Navigating Evangelical Affect: Convictions, Promises, and Dissonance in Adolescent Adherence to Purity Teaching 5. Women's Sexuality, Embodiment and Evangelicalism 6. 'Daddy I Do': Purity Balls, Evangelicals Ideas of Virginity, Family Values, and Whiteness 7. Purity Culture and the Limits of Queer Evangelicalism 8. When Purity Cannot Save Us: On Matter Out of Place and Democratic Hope Bibliography