Henry, Moslener illuminates the evolution of a strain of purity rhetoric that runs throughout Protestant evangelicalism. 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.įrom the purity reformers of the nineteenth century to fundamentalist leaders such as Billy Graham and Carl F.H. 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. Sara Moslener is a lecturer in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Central Michigan University. Moslener highlights a number of points in U.S. 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.Ĭoncentrating 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. Trump was framed as evangelicals last hope to “get this country back on track.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. So, evangelicals decided they needed someone who is not nice, who does not use politically correct terms, does not hide his machismo and crassness. Evangelicals were not only disappointed after Bush, but realized they wanted somebody who would punish the people that are not like them and “make them pay for getting this country out of order.” Donald Trump was the perfect person.

Then, Obama was elected-a president with a Muslim father and an immigrant. They thought Bush was good, but despite the Patriot Act and the war on terror, they came away from the Bush presidency, feeling like they didn’t get what I needed. Bush was elected, I think that was the moment white Christians felt like they got what they always thought they wanted, and it didn’t scratch the itch.The thing that they had looked forward to: a tried and true evangelical who said that Jesus Christ changed my heart and the Bible is my favorite book while speaking with a nice southern drawl, and wearing a baseball cap.

Virgin Nation by Sara Moslener