She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. Offering a prevailing message of resounding hope and encouragement, “Pure emboldens us to escape toxic misogyny and experience a fresh breath of freedom” Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising.
Pure is “a revelation. 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. 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.
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. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with.
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.
You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity
She elaborates on the doubt, guilt, fear, and grief that haunt those leaving the Evangelical faith and offers an approach to help them recover healthy self-worth and resilience. A socio-historical autobiographical analysis of evangelical Christianity's religious trauma, “You Are Your Own” emerges from Finch's reconnaissance on her own life—her journals, her stories, her trauma—and offers advocacy for everyone harmed by fundamentalist faith.
Jamie lee finch is a sexuality and embodiment coach, intuitive healer, self-conversation facilitator, sex witch, and poet.
Sex, God, and the Conservative Church: Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy
The author first walks clinicians and readers through a critique of Western culture and the conservative Christian Church, and their effects on intimate partnerships and sexual lives. Sex, god, and the conservative church guides psychotherapy and sexology clinicians on how to treat clients who grew up in a conservative faith—mired in sexual shame and dysfunction—and who desire to both heal and hold on to their faith orientation.
The book also includes chapters on strategies for a new sexual ethic, on clinical steps to heal religious sexual shame, and on specific sex therapy interventions clinicians can use directly in their practice.
Shameless: A Sexual Reformation
In this instant bestseller, nadia Bolz-Weber unleashes her critical eye and her vulnerable yet hopeful soul on the harmful conversations about sex that have fed our shame. She shares stories, poetry, and scripture that wage war on perpetual anxiety around sex by celebrating sexuality in all its forms and recognizing it for the gift that it is.
New york times bestseller • raw, intimate, and timely—a no-holds-barred celebration of our bodies that flies in the face of antiquated ideas about sex and gender. If you’ve been mistreated, and/or wounded by shaming sexual messages, confused, angered, this one is for you. As a result, countless people have suffered pain, guilt, and judgment.
Instead, this modern-day reverend calls for an inclusivity that empowers us to be loyal to people and, perhaps most important, ourselves. A triumph. Glennon doyle • “one of the most important, life-changing books I’ve ever read. Rachel held evans, from the media, author of Searching for Sunday and Inspired Negative messages about sex come from all corners of society: from the church, from our own families.
The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women
The purity myth presents a revolutionary argument that girls and women are overly valued for their sexuality, as well as solutions for a future without a damaging emphasis on virginity. In the purity myth, jessica Valenti argues that the country's intense focus on chastity is damaging to young women. Valenti sheds light on the value--and hypocrisy--around the notion that girls remain virgins until they're married by putting into context the historical question of purity, modern abstinence-only education, pornography, and public punishments for those who dare to have sex.
From the bestselling author of sex object, a searing investigation into American culture's obsession with virginity, and the argument for creating a future where women and girls are valued for more than sexualityThe United States is obsessed with virginity--from the media to schools to government agencies.
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Girl at the End of the World: My Escape from Fundamentalism in Search of Faith with a Future
I know hundreds of obscure nineteenth-century hymns by heart and have such razor sharp “modesty vision” that I can spot a miniskirt a mile away. Verily, none of these highly specialized skills ever got me a job, verily I say unto thee, but at least I’m all set for the end of the world. Trained in her family-run church to confess sins real and imagined, she knew her parents loved her and God probably hated her.
I was raised in a homegrown, street preaching, fundamentalist Christian group—which is just a shorthand way of saying I’m classically trained in apocalyptic stockpiling, and the King James Version of the Bible. A story of mind control, the Apocalypse, and modest attire. Elizabeth esther grew up in love with Jesus but in fear of daily spankings to “break her will”.
Not until she was grown and married did she find the courage to attempt the unthinkable. Includes reading group discussion guide and interview with the author.
Beyond Shame: Creating a Healthy Sex Life on Your Own Terms
Beyond shame encourages each of us to determine our own definition of healthy sex, while avoiding the ditches of boundaryless sex positivity on the one hand and strict moralistic boundaries on the other. Define your sexual values on your own terms, and start having great, overcome your shame, healthy sex.
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Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion
In this book you’ll discover:•what you can expect about stages of religious recovery•information about the key issues of recovery•relevant family dynamics•the power of manipulations•motivations for belonging and for leaving religion•specific steps for healing and reclaiming life•further steps for rebuilding life in the presentLeaving the Fold is the only self-help psychology book on the subject of religious recovery.
In addition to her personal experience with leaving fundamentalist religion, she has worked with clients recovering from religion for 28 years. Buy leaving the fold and begin your healing journey today!This ebook is FREE when you purchase the paperback! She is known for coining the term Religious Trauma Syndrome.
Leaving the fold is a self-help book that examines the effects of authoritarian religion fundamentalist Christianity in particular on individuals who leave the faith.
The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life
Dennis hollinger argues that there is indeed a God-given meaning to sex. The meaning of sex provides a good balance between accessible theology and engaging discussion of the practical issues Christians are facing, sex within marriage, reproductive technologies, including premarital sex, homosexuality, and faithful living in a sex-obsessed world.
Unfortunately, christians seem equally confused, and the church has tended to respond with simplistic answers.
I Fired God: My Life Inside---and Escape from---the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult
A compelling memoir and account of the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse. Jocelyn zichterman was born, and finally, raised, with her family, married into, fled the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. With written documentation and sources so thorough that law enforcement has used her work as a foundation for criminal prosecutions, and national level, which issues degrees of questionable value while making vast sums of money for its founders- The way the IFB influences politics on the local, state, Zichterman exposes the IFB with revelations including: - The disturbing world of abuse within the IFB and doctors and teachers who cater exclusively to church members and fail to report physical and sexual abuse- The IFB-controlled Bob Jones University, and protects its abusive culture under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion .
Founded by the fiery preacher bob jones, ifb congregants are told they must not associate with members of other Baptist denominations and evangelicals, insular marriages within the church, with several hundred thousand members, with an emphasis on secrecy, a subservience for women, and unusual child raising practices.
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Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith
Raw and illuminating, once you go in is a coming-of-age tale about the beauty and danger of absolute faith, and the stories people tell themselves to avoid their deepest fears. She assimilates, despite her apprehensions, because she is desperate to belong.