Lent begins next week, on Ash Wednesday, February 26. Traditionally, Lent has been a season of lament for the church …
We live in a broken world that inflicts violence on other humans, other creatures, and creation as a whole. And often the people of God participate in this violence as much or more than our fellow humans that do not follow in the way of Jesus. We have much to lament: racism, sexism, homophobia, consumerism, environmental degradation, and on and on.
As we lament during the season of Lent, we recommend reading one or more of these books that narrate history in a way that gives shape to our laments. Here are a few book recommendations that are fitting Lenten reading, some tell stories of the church’s sins, others tell the stories of broader sins in which the church has too often participated uncritically.
Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
Linda Kay Klein
In Pure, Linda Kay Klein uses a potent combination of journalism, cultural commentary, and memoir to take us “inside religious purity culture as only one who grew up in it can” (Gloria Steinem) and reveals the devastating effects evangelical Christianity’s views on female sexuality has had on a generation of young women.
In the 1990s, a “purity industry” emerged out of the white evangelical Christian culture. Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame.
This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with.
Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to and took pregnancy tests despite being a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question purity-based sexual ethics. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality.
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