Virgin Nation

Sexual Purity and American Adolescence

Sara Moslener

Historicizes the sexual purity movement beyond the Religious Right
Shows how the purity and rapture cultures within U.S. evangelicalism create a seemingly inherent connection between sexual purity and personal salvation
Shows how evangelicals attempt to maintain their political and cultural relevance by appealing to widespread cultural fears

Virgin Nation

Sexual Purity and American Adolescence

Sara Moslener

Description

First taking hold of the American cultural imagination in the 1990s, the sexual purity movement of contemporary evangelicalism has since received considerable attention from a wide range of media outlets, religious leaders, and feminist critics. Virgin Nation offers a history of this movement that goes beyond the Religious Right, demonstrating a link between sexual purity rhetoric and fears of national decline that has shaped American ideas about morality since the nineteenth century.

Concentrating on two of today's best known purity organizations, True Loves Waits and Silver Ring Thing, Sara Moslener's investigation reveals that purity work over the last two centuries has developed in concert with widespread fears of changing traditional gender roles and sexual norms, national decline, and global apocalypse. Moslener highlights a number of points in U.S. history when evangelical beliefs and values have seemed to provide viable explanations for and solutions to widespread cultural crises, resulting in the growth of their cultural and political influence. By asserting a causal relationship between sexual immorality, national decline, and apocalyptic anticipation, leaders have shaped a purity rhetoric that positions Protestant evangelicalism as the salvation of American civilization.

From the purity reformers of the nineteenth century to fundamentalist leaders such as Billy Graham and Carl F.H. Henry, Moslener illuminates the evolution of a strain of purity rhetoric that runs throughout Protestant evangelicalism.

Virgin Nation

Sexual Purity and American Adolescence

Sara Moslener

Introduction: Sexual Purity and National Security

1) Sexual Purity and Civilization Work in the 19th Century
2) From Adolescence to Lost Innocence: Religious Revival and Sexual Deviance in the Cold War Era
3) Making Family Values
4) New Purity Revolution
5) Performing Sexual Purity in the Media Age

Conclusion: Fear and Accommodation in the Contemporary Purity Culture
Bibliography
Notes
Index

Virgin Nation

Sexual Purity and American Adolescence

Sara Moslener

Author Information

Sara Moslener is Assistant Professor of Religion at Central Michigan University.

Virgin Nation

Sexual Purity and American Adolescence

Sara Moslener

Reviews and Awards

"In a welcome addition to a growing body of work on religion and sexuality, Moslener offers a subtle exploration of the subterranean themes that inform evangelical sexual purity campaigns. Arguing that they are not simply a response to the sexual revolution, she deftly connects their rhetoric of therapeutic individualism with longstanding tropes of civilizational decline and immanent apocalypse, thus locating issues of sexual purity at the heart of American culture." --Ann Taves, Professor of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara

"In this fascinating study, Sara Moslener locates contemporary purity movements in a historical framework that highlights moments when American evangelicals have perceived cultural crisis and responded with efforts to promote adolescent sexual purity. Virgin Nation provides a thorough and nuanced examination of American evangelicals' efforts to assert a relationship between sexual immorality and national decline, and place their hopes of salvation on the pure bodies of adolescents." --Amy DeRogatis, Associate Professor of religion and American culture, Michigan State University

"A useful addition to the growing body of research on Christian sexual politics. Scholars in the field will wish to be aware of Moslener's work." --Library Journal

"Moslener provides fascinating insights into the initial appearance of moral-purity rhetoric that was used to both support and oppose the burgeoning Victorian feminist movement, and later, to prompt Cold War-era fears of nuclear annihilation . . . an engaging read that provides valuable historical and intellectual context for an important American religious trend."--Publishers Weekly

"Moslener organizes the book chronologically and thematically, with each chapter representing an era in fundamentalism in which the sexual abstinence and bodily control of youth served as a cultural solution to national and global current events. This is a book for students of American and religious studies, particularly those interested in sexuality, religion, and politics." --CHOICE

"As a tale of sex as a means for power, Virgin Nation presents a novel perspective about a polarizing but little understood movement." --Times Literary Supplement

"Virgin nation demonstrate[s] the richness of Protestant evangelicalism, from the nineteenth century to modern times concurring that there is more to the discussion of evangelicals and sexual purity than biblical interpretations of sexuality." --Women's Review of Books, Vol 33 No 5