RESEARCH_FILE
Sara Moslener
Central Michigan University
Known for:Historical and sociological analysis of evangelical purity culture, showing its roots in white Protestant anxieties about national decline and gender roles
Key findings
- 2015
Sexual purity campaigns from the nineteenth century onward have linked adolescent abstinence rhetoric to white Protestant fears of national decline and threats to traditional gender roles — not primarily to health or individual pastoral care. Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence ↗
- 2025
Two of the best-known purity organizations, True Love Waits and Silver Ring Thing, developed their work in concert with broader American cultural anxieties, tying sexual purity to racial and national identity in ways that extended far beyond religious instruction. After Purity: Race, Sex and Religion in White Christian America ↗