When purity cannot save us: on matter out of place and democratic hope

This study contextualizes U.S. evangelical Christian sexual purity rhetoric in a long tradition of purity frameworks that attempt to properly order the world, manage “dirt,” and prevent “matter out of place.” Purity rhetoric is dependent on the idea that there is a proper way that communities and the world should be ordered, and that people should play specific roles and embody specific subjectivities within this order. This fixation on keeping a particular order can serve as bulwark against fear, chaos, and perceived or actual threats, yet this ordering often has an antidemocratic hierarchy. This study shows how rhetorics of bodily, racial, hygienic, and sexual purity are mutually co-constructing and cannot be understood apart from each other, and how many purity frameworks contribute to antidemocratic structures. Theologians are well-positioned to imagine more just and loving forms of subjectivity, community, and salvation that are not predicated on fantasies of impossible purity ideals.