New Book Examines Impact of Purity Culture

Philosophy, Anthropology and Religion faculty member Sara Moslener has published a new book that investigates purity culture in white evangelical Christianity and its profound impact on gender, sexuality, race, and national identity in the United States.

With a blend of history, current research, and sustained analysis, After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America (Beacon Press, 2025), 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 effects of the “True Love Waits” movement and how purity teachings displaced all other forms of religious education in evangelicalism. 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.

“The need for people to understand their experiences growing up in White evangelical churches has become overwhelming as many are reeling from the impacts of White Christian Nationalism, including the harm perpetrated by evangelical purity culture,” said Moslener. “After Purity is a book that I wrote to help people connect the personal with the political in the wake of significant reckonings with religion, sexuality, and racism.”

Her book includes interviews with women who grew up in the evangelical church and discusses how purity culture affects women—and particularly women of color. The book examines how white supremacy had a hand in constructing idealized “traditional” or “biblical” views of family, white racial identity, sexuality, gender expression and religion.

Moslener began teaching at CMU in 2014. Her research interests include evangelicalism in the United States, religion and sexuality, and the history of race and racism. She’s taught courses on religion, race and discrimination. She also is the author of Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (Oxford University Press, 2015) and created the After Purity Project, a collection of stories from people who have left evangelical purity culture.