After Purity

Purity culture was presented as a way to keep believers' souls free of sin. In After Purity, Sara Moslener shows that, all along, purity culture's true focus has been controlling people's bodies, marking some as superior, innocent—and others not. -Sarah Stankorb, author of Disobedient Women

Sometimes a book comes along that connects two seemingly disparate threads and shows you how they were intertwined from the start. It confirms a hunch, a sense, one that you neither had the data nor the skills to confirm. For those of us who grew up in purity culture, there have always been nationalistic overtones—the prevailing idea that pure bodies and a pure nation go together. Weaving the stories of survivors with an unflinching look at America's racist history, Sara Moslener has crafted a book that is necessary reading for anyone wanting to understand sexual politics, American nationalism, and White supremacy in the United States. -Brad Onishi, author of Preparing for War

Bold, brilliant, and deeply necessary, After Purity exposes how purity culture has shaped our bodies, identities, and systems of power. Sara Moslener’s work is a must-read for anyone healing from evangelicalism’s grasp or working to untangle the myths of White innocence. -Laura E. Anderson, author of When Religion Hurts You

As someone who grew up in White evangelical purity culture, I have found Sara Moslener’s work illuminating and essential to understanding the world I was raised in. In After Purity, she expertly untangles the complex history of purity culture, refusing to turn away from the racism and misogyny that have shaped the evangelical church as she delves deeper than individual impact to examine broader systemic issues. Moslener has helped me understand the historical context of my upbringing and become better equipped to deal with our current political climate, and I know others will find the same guidance in these pages. -Cait West, author of Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

Moslener does an excellent job of conveying how deeply the ideological currents of purity run... It's a sobering wake-up call. -Publishers Weekly

Here’s what Moslener’s book makes devastatingly clear: purity culture isn’t something you escape by skipping church. It’s shaped American assumptions about bodies, sex, race, and morality so thoroughly that even my secular students at a deeply liberal university are operating from its playbook without realizing it. -Liz Bucar, Religion, Reimagined Substack