CHAPTER 2: PURITY CULTURE DEFINED
Before we go further, it is important to operationalize the definition of what purity culture means. The modern purity movement began in the 1990s, rising to prominence on the back of the lingering fear from the AIDS epidemic of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as acting as a staunch patriarchal rejection of the free love movement of the 1960s-1970s (Crain, 2020). While it began as a small effort to dissuade young churchgoers from engaging in sexual promiscuity in the early 1990s, it has morphed into a weapon that many Evangelical leaders use to control their congregants. The leaders of the American Protestant Evangelical movement began promoting a culture of strict abstinence in the 1990s, which began a rippling domino effect that impacted church youth for more than a generation. During this time frame, publications such as I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Every Young Man’s Battle, and Captivating flooded the evangelical Christian book market focusing on sexual purity and virginity. Young Evangelical people were being inundated with conservative talking points on sexuality and gender not only from the pews but also in their homes, bookstores, and popular media; at the crux of all of this messaging was the basic “truth” that in order to be lovable, good, and godly, they needed to be pure.
Purity Culture
The Gospel Coalition, a prominent Evangelical publication, points to the purity movement of the 1990s as a biblical pushback to the culture of sexual freedom in the United States in the 1960s-1980. [1] This movement, pushed forward on a wave of books, sermons, camps, retreats, and youth outreach, worked to encourage dating only for marriage and to preserve virginity until a person was in a heterosexual marriage. When asked how participants would describe purity culture in our interviews, participants all unanimously pointed out the Evangelical church’s fixation on sexual purity and virginity. Every single participant plainly referenced the expectation of sexual abstinence until marriage. All these participants universally discussed the black and white boundaries of what knowledge, self-exploration, self-concept, and self-ownership are allowed to be as they grow and mature. A pioneer and unwitting pawn of the 1990s purity culture movement, Joshua Harris, aptly put it when he said, “Purity consists of more than remaining a virgin” (Harris, 1997). While remaining a virgin is the most explicitly stated goal, purity culture is ultimately loaded with heteronormative, patriarchal power dynamics that lead to female submission and male control. The term purity culture refers to the physical and sexual purity of those who believe its tenets to be true. At first glance, it is a pursuit of complete sexual abstinence, except in the concept of a heterosexual marriage. Beyond that, purity culture is vastly larger than the mere idea of sexual purity; at the core of this movement is power and control.
Lalich (1997) posited,
Those who wish to dominate others discover that their power increases as their areas of influence over the other person become more intimate and personal. Therefore, controlling someone’s sexuality or sex life is an effective method of all-inclusive manipulation and control.
By immersing people in this doctrine while they are at their most vulnerable and therefore malleable, purity culture enables the Evangelical church to maintain deep levels of influence on its young congregants. If people are obedient in their deeply personal lives, they are more easily influenced in their public lives. While purity culture takes many forms depending on a person’s sex, gender, or sexuality, there are three key components to this phenomenon that have shaped the relational behaviors of several generations: female submission to male authority, the control of human sexuality, and Christian fundamentalism.
Female Submission/Male Authority
The origins of purity culture begin where many extreme evangelical beliefs stem from: the Bible. It originates in the creation story: as Eve tempted Adam to sin and cost them an eternity in paradise through her willful disobedience, so does purity culture depict women as temptresses in need of control.
A passage in Ephesians says,
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Ephesians 5:22–24)
This scripture passage is interpreted as a prescription for how female congregants should interact with the men of the group. Women are taught to submit to the men in their lives and be subordinate to their husbands should they marry (Adams, 2019). For single, unmarried women, many church leaders insert themselves into the position of biblical husbandry, proclaiming that women are the “weaker sex” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, 1 Peter 3:7). By citing these types of passages, leaders place all of the women in the congregation under male authority. This is a principle that many Evangelical pastors use in creating a hierarchy of authority with God at the top of the order, and in which pastors submit to God, male church members submit to pastors, and women submit to their husbands or other male church members in leadership. Men are placed in authority without question and are tasked with governing their homes under the supervision of their god.
Proponents of female submission describe it as a holy thing wherein “every Christian is a submissive person” (Dodds, 2021). This idea frames submission as a universal thing in which all members of the Church submit to their pastors, who submit to their God. Bill Gotthard, one of the earliest outspoken Evangelical leaders who taught on female submission and patriarchal hierarchy, described the necessity of submission to male authority as a protective umbrella, shielding lesser vessels from harm. Gotthard, the founder of the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), maintains that in submitting to the authority of men and the church, women will be given protection from the threats of sin in the world (IBLP, 2020).
Figure 1
The Umbrella of Protection
The Umbrella of Protection, created by the IBLP, is a way that fundamentalist Evangelicalism conceptualizes the hierarchical nature of relationships within the church, by extension, within churchgoing households. This hierarchy creates a worship of patriarchal authority in which men can act with impunity. With the implicit trust that people place in pastors and male headship in these groups due to their biblical authority, these patriarchal leaders can act without consequence or accountability. If all of their authority comes from God, then no one may rise to question them. This unhindered power and control often leads to an unhealthy atmosphere in which vulnerable people can be taken advantage of.
Many women inside of the Evangelical movement would frame submission as a positive choice, claiming that by leaning into the Creator’s design women can more intentionally fulfill their God-given purpose. Harris (1997) maintained, “Living to glorify God means doing everything . . . for Him, His way to point to His greatness and to reflect His goodness.” By submitting to men within the Church, women can “reflect His goodness” by giving male headship the final say in major life decisions. As noted by the IBLP’s Umbrella of Authority, it is essential that the aforementioned male authority figures gain their directions and authority from God; this comes from their interpretation of biblical text. Because of their authority, their interpretations of the Bible are viewed as correct; this creates a control loop in which the male leadership of a Church has all of the power, while women are mandated to follow their wishes.
This subordination of women begins at an early age. Subordinated girlhood leads to submissive women. Adams quotes an evangelical reverend Jack Hyles, who stated that “the most necessary ingredient to be required from a child [even more so for a girl] is to be obedient all her life” (Adams, 2019, p. 160). Paul Tripp, a contributor to one of the more prominent Evangelical publications Desiring God, stated that good parenting is built on “authority. Children must understand early that they have been born into a world of authority, and they are not it. The sooner a child submits to that, the more blessed [their] life is going to be” (Tripp, 2015). Children are expected to obey swiftly and bend to the authority placed above them. Clear, hierarchical power lines are drawn from the moment of their birth. As noted in the IBLP’s Umbrella of Authority, children are commanded by their mothers, who are controlled by their fathers, and so on. As children age, young boys are socialized to lead, while young girls remain safely tucked away until their future husband takes the reigns of their lives (Adams, 2019).
This segregation between “leader” and “led” is a dividing class line between men and women in churches who subscribe to the white Evangelical purity movement. Billy Graham, one of the prominent creators of the American Evangelical church, created a standard that is known as the “Billy Graham Rule,” in which a male leader should not be alone with a female who is not his wife in an effort to abstain from sexual immorality (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, 2019). The implication of this rule is that men find women distracting due to sexual temptation, and that it is the woman’s job to be absent in order to protect male leadership from temptation. Offensive connotations regarding the uncontrollable male gaze and the submissive role of women aside, practically, this attitude further shifts the power dynamic in favor of male leadership. This rule not only precludes women from having private conversations with the leadership of their churches, but it also manages to separate women from larger decision-making in church leadership. If women are not allowed in the room for fear of sexually tempting the male leadership, then they cannot be privy to important discussions regarding their faith community. The demands of continual obedience to God trickle down into how Evangelical power hierarchies are structured and implemented. These patriarchal expectations shape how congregants are expected to defer to those higher up in the hierarchy. The Gospel Coalition, a longstanding Evangelical publication, describes obedience as “the primary way (they) come to enjoy God”; by obeying the way Evangelicalism teaches the Bible literally, Evangelical Congregants are taught that they can be whole and happy in their religion (Carter, The Gospel Coalition, 2021). Another Gospel Coalition theologian/contributor wrote that followers of this faith tradition are “a Slave to Christ, called to obey and fear him” (Justin Taylor, The Gospel Coalition, 2020). This joyful obedience extends to those who the Bible places in authority due to the hierarchies that Evangelical Christians read into Scripture (Graham, The Gospel Coalition, 2020). With submission and obedience to those in authority as a core principle in Evangelical Christianity, it is no small wonder that those who were inundated by purity culture’s rigid idea of human sexuality found it difficult to individuate as they grew. For many, the choice comes down to either remaining fundamentalist and obedient, or being true to themselves.
It feels impossible to engage with the gender hierarchy of the Evangelical church without also touching on the explicit and outward harms that strict gender hierarchies are implicated in . Conservative religion has often been implicated in spousal abuse due to the inherently negative attitudes toward women. It is important to note that despite the implication of women being less valuable than men in fundamentalist religion, there is not a causative relationship between interpersonal violence and gender hierarchy (Giesbrecht & Sevcik, 2000). However, it is impossible to divorce the two ideas as the combination of the way that the Bible endorses punitive violence[2] under authority when men are placed in authority over women.
There is a contrast between the church’s ideal family under the Umbrella of Protection and the reality of how rigid hierarchies creates problems for the Evangelical church’s ironclad teachings on how to live a holy life. The idealized Proverbs 31 woman, who takes care of her household, submits to her holy husband, and dotes firmly but lovingly on the children that they produce in their family is a script that not every Evangelical person born a woman can adhere to without great sacrifice to their core identity.
Control of Human Sexuality
Hallmarks of high-control religion are an expectation of obedience and sexual exploitation. Lalich (1997) frames this exploitation as one thatincludes reproductive and general sexual controls through such policies as enforced celibacy, arranged marriages, mandated relationships or intimacies, and regulated childbearing. Even if no such specific practices are overtly employed, most cults govern the sex lives of members with a myriad rules and regulations.
Purity Culture is a mechanism for gatekeeping human sexuality and controlling the bodies of Evangelical congregants. The refusal to educate children on vital functions of their own bodies, denying adolescents and young adults the opportunity to individuate and explore. They also insist that people remain abstinent until they engage in a heterosexual marriage. These are all keyways that the Evangelical church exerts power and control over its young members.
The idea of using marriage, sex, and relationships in order to gain control over congregants or followers is not unique to the conservative Evangelical church. In fact, this psychosexual exploitation and control of women has been used in various high control religious groups or cults to maintain power. For the purposes of this discussion, sexual exploitation is defined as the “exercise of power for the purpose of controlling, using, or abusing another person sexually in order to satisfy the conscious or unconscious needs of the person in power” (Lalich, 1997, p. 4-21).
Purity culture’s purpose is to control the sexual desires, behaviors, and relationships of church congregants and Evangelical believers. By controlling desire, sexual behavior, and relationships, the leaders of the conservative Evangelical church maintain power over the masses through dictating and withholding intimacy among members. The double standard within the purity movement is stark and clear: female virginity and submission are prized and mandated, while men are taught how to “lead” the women of the church, by lording over them in their submission.
The control aspect of sexual exploitation is exhibited clearly in how congregants are required to be celibate in order to maintain optimum purity. While men are expected to maintain their purity to an extent, the double standard is evident. Women are expected to protect men from sexual desire by modest dress and perfect submission, while men are treated with kid gloves and sympathy as they fight their natural sexual urges. Women of the congregation have to modify what they wear, how they behave, and who they interact with in order to help their brothers in Christ in their battle against lust. This expectation exerts further power onto female members’ personal lives, and it is an effective way to maintain an all-inclusive manipulation and control (Lalich, 1997).
A lack of bodily autonomy makes members easier to control in every other aspect of congregants’ lives. Joshua Harris, one of the early darlings of the purity movement, wrote, “the joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment,” referring to marriage as the commitment that is required to experience intimacy in relationships (Harris, 1997). By making sexual abstinence the standard of purity to which church members, specifically women, are required to adhere in order to experience intimacy in life, the Evangelical church inadvertently controls how relationships evolve. With their members sexually frustrated and unable to fulfill their desires without a marriage covenant, the purity movement encourages young, horny churchgoers to leap into a binding marital relationship in which the woman must submit to the man’s authority; because of the previously described Umbrella of Authority, this further nestles women under patriarchal leadership as they submit to their husbands, who will submit to their pastors and the church.
One of the most vocal arbiters of the purity culture movement, Joshua Harris, described what is expected of people who profess to be real Christians: “True purity, however, is a direction, a persistent, determined pursuit of righteousness. This direction starts in the heart, and we express it in a lifestyle that flees opportunities for compromise” (Harris, 1997, p. 93). Fleeing compromise, in this context, means that Evangelicals are expected to remain celibate outside of marriage, to maintain distance from the opposite sex unless in specific instances in order to keep them from sexual immorality, and to obey those placed in Biblical authority. By stretching the frame of purity beyond sexual abstinence and into obeying “biblical,” male headship, pastors and patriarchal evangelical leaders can more effectively maintain control over members.
Fundamentalism and Rigidity
Purity culture in and of itself is a strict set of beliefs. To understand why these beliefs can be held so tightly with little flexibility, it is important to consider purity culture in light of religious fundamentalism. While religious fundamentalism does not have one set definition for how God behaves, it is clear how fundamentalist evangelical Christian leaders view God: “the God image of fundamentalism is that of a harsh, punitive father who must be appeased only by the blood sacrifice of his own son” (Hedge-Carruthers, 1997, p. 1). This punitive father imagery is extrapolated to form a basis for patriarchal attitudes across Evangelicalism. By casting the divine authority of god as a father figure, Evangelical fundamentalism consciously pairs patriarchal leadership with godly power. Many outspoken fundamentalist teachers paint the picture of the fundamentalist God as a wrathful and punitive father (Olds, 2008).
Evangelical fundamentalists are taught the doctrine of original sin, which is to believe that they are “sinful at birth” (English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Psalm 51:5). With this notion taken in as part of someone’s self-concept, the idea of people being “sinful” or wrong is internalized as a self-object. This patriarchal concept of God as an all-powerful, wrathful man who demands obedience shapes how young Evangelicals view themselves and adds to the burden of remaining pure by “taking every thought captive” (New International Version Bible, 2 Corinthians 10:5). Taken into context, fundamentalism displays the high stakes of obedience. As members are taught to adhere to strict purity guidelines, there is an implication that a watchful father-god is overseeing and judging their actions.
Girls are taught to maintain their virginity at all costs, devoting their virginity to their fathers at purity balls (Adams, 2019). Purity balls are formal debutante-style events in which young girls typically wear white and are presented with a ring by their fathers. This ring is worn from that night on as a promise to their fathers that they will remain sexually pure until their fathers “give” them to a godly man on their wedding day. It is a symbol of fathers being the shepherd of their daughters’ purity until she is deemed worthy to become a wife, when the custody of the woman’s virtue is given over to her husband. Less formal events, such as the Silver Ring Thing, [3] were structured as large youth conference-type teaching seminars in which young girls would receive a purity ring after hearing a teacher speak for hours on the virtues of abstinence and godly living.
This crusade for sexual purity in women leads to a tremendous disassociation and disembodiment in women. They are taught that they have no ownership over themselves; they are objects that do not belong to themselves. Without any agency, fundamentalist women are unable to form a whole sense of themselves. Their sexualities are in the custody of the men in their lives from the time they come into puberty until the day their fathers hand them over in marriage to their husbands at the altar. The impact of this culture of subjugation and leadership on men and boys has not been examined at this time, but it is not a leap to infer that these attitudes impact development. If what we sow is denial of our bodies and denial of pleasure, essentially denial of our personhood, it is almost inevitable that trauma will be what is reaped. This type of trauma, dubbed “religious trauma syndrome,” (Winell, 2007) asserts that “certain aspects of fundamentalism are so toxic to mental health” that trauma responses among congregants who leave are highly likely.
[1] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/faqs-know-purity-culture/
[2] Proverbs 21:30