After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America

by Sara Moslener, Linda Kay Klein - foreword

An intersectional analysis of evangelical purity culture’s influence on gender, sexuality, race, and national identity in the United States.

With a foreword by Linda Kay Klein, author of Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free.

In After Purity, purity scholar Sara Moslener conducts a nuanced investigation of purity culture in white evangelical Christianity, revealing its profound impact on gender, sexuality, race, and national identity in the United States. Moslener shares exclusive stories of participants from her research on the After Purity Project to discuss how purity culture affected women—particularly white women—who grew up in the evangelical church. These stories depict how white supremacy has a hand in constructing idealized “traditional” or “biblical” views of family, white racial identity, sexuality, gender expression, and religion, and how our physical bodies are situated within systems of power and oppression.

With a blend of history, current research, and sustained analysis, Moslener explores how white evangelicalism has become so politically powerful, why gender and sexuality are positioned at the center of debate, and how those debates aim to obscure deeper histories of white evangelical racism. She describes the full disturbing effect of the “True Love Waits” movement and how purity teachings displaced all other forms of religious education in evangelicalism. From her interviewees in the After Purity Project, she shares stories of oppressive personal piety, sexual repression, disembodiment, self-hatred, mandatory hetero-normativity, and the many layers of obligation and shame in sexuality before reaching adulthood and navigating their way out of the church. Moslener also describes her own story of being a teen advocate for purity culture to becoming a researcher, scholar, and advocate for people harmed by purity.

After Purity provides a window into the world of white evangelicalism and how its leaders and political allies have manufactured socio-sexual panic to justify the elimination of sexual and religious diversity that thrive in a flourishing democracy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Religion, History, Race, Feminism, Politics

Audible Audio

First published December 9, 2025

Reviews

[Jillian B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting exploration of the ways Christian purity culture and the elevation of whiteness feed into one another, and have throughout U.S. history. This book feels both academic and accessible.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is similar to others I’ve read, but I appreciated the line it draws between the denials of our bodies involved in purity culture and in claiming to “not see race.” I also was fascinated to learn that True Love Waits was developed as an intentional co-opting of coming out experiences.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Purity provides a superbly structured examination of the American myths of White purity, innocence, and the special relationship with God. Like Jesus and John Wayne, using interviews with survivors of evangelical purity culture, this powerful work documents a part of US history sanitized, quietly ignored, or simply eradicated. In these current times, this analysis has never been more relevant.

[Sophie Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of nonfiction that rewards patience. I found myself slowing down, rereading certain sections, and thinking about them later in the day. The author clearly understands the subject on a deeper level, and it shows in how calmly the ideas are presented.

[Shriley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoughtful contribution to its subject, not just a repetition of familiar points.

[Lottie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

Interesting look at American purity culture

[Anna]

I appreciate the intersectionality

[Janelle McGlamery · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 audiobook
Profound and necessary. but also felt like I was listening to an academic lecture.