Evangelical Purity Culture and Its Discontents

Endorsements

This volume couldn't be more timely given the current cultural Zeitgeist. At a time when misogyny and white supremacy appear to be taking an even greater hold on the popular imagination, there is an urgent need to challenge and critique any dominant system that scaffolds these forms of structural violence. The chapters in this volume rise to this challenge, and they offer readers fresh insights into the damaging rhetoric perpetuated by White evangelical purity discourse. Together, they showcase a range of methods and approaches to addressing this topic, which will surely serve as an invaluable inspiration for current and future researchers. The comprehensive bibliography included at the end of the issue is also an added bonus. I look forward to reading more of each contributor's work in the future and to seeing the work of others they will surely inspire.

Caroline Blythe, Founding Director of The Shiloh Project and author of Rape Culture, Purity Culture, and Coercive Control in Teen Girl Bibles

This volume is essential reading for a holistic understanding of a particular manifestation of purity ideology within religious communities, what has become known as "purity culture" created by White evangelical organizations and leaders and broadly infiltrating evangelical communities. The chapters are well-written, accessible, and interdisciplinary and transnational in scope. Their reach extends beyond the fairly narrow subfields of religious studies and gender studies. Indeed, this volume serves as a model for feminist methods that bridge traditional academic scholarship with personal reflection, for scholars of contemporary politics to understand the impact of White evangelicalism when it comes to gender and sexuality, and for scholars of race and ethnicity to understand the ways in which religion and sexuality are intertwined with racism, not just historically but also in the present day. I would be happy to assign the book in Feminist Theory, Sociology of Sexualities, Sociology of Religion, or Sociology of Culture.

Kelsey Burke, Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska

For understandable historical reasons, scholarship on religion and sexual abuse has focused on Catholic contexts. With this collection of essays (and extensive bibliography), Kathryn House and Sara Moslener illuminate abuse in evangelical cultures, especially those that foreground sexual purity and its respective gender and racial ideologies. Informed by methodologies ranging from historical analysis to autoethnography, readers are shown the specific dynamics of sexual abuse that operate in evangelical purity cultures as well as the affective, theological, and institutional dynamics that allow them to flourish. This volume will be generative for survivors, clergy, parishioners, researchers, students, and journalists.

Kent Brintnall, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

This anthology examines the multifaceted impact of evangelical purity culture through diverse, critical lenses. Disentangling the complex intertwining of gender, sex, race, and power, practical and scholarly voices speak to how purity culture shapes bodies with distorted messages about salvation and redemption. Intimate experiences emerge telling of enforced bodily control, disrupted identity development, and the reinforcement of racist ideals in the shape of a perceived universal moral good that perpetuates harm and leaves long lasting affective impacts. Harm meets courage in the process, as the authors carve a pathway for readers to imagine a different way of living, away from the negative impact of evangelical purity culture and toward the advocacy for healthy sexuality and gender formation.

Dr. Stephanie Arel, author of Bearing Witness: The Wounds of Mass Trauma at Memorial Museums and Affect Theory, Shame, and Christian Formation