9 episodes

A podcast about the White supremacist origins of evangelical purity culture with historian Dr. Sara Moslener.

Pure White Axis Mundi Media

    • History
    • 3.5 • 187 Ratings

A podcast about the White supremacist origins of evangelical purity culture with historian Dr. Sara Moslener.

    Ep. 8: The Myths and Martyrs of White Christian Nationalism

    Ep. 8: The Myths and Martyrs of White Christian Nationalism

    In this final episode of Pure White analyses how myths of white women’s innocence are deployed to demonstrate national innocence. The events of January 6, 2020 included several white women who willfully disobeyed the law. When arrested, many claimed innocence despite evidence of their illegal behavior. Ashli Babbitt became well-known as a martyr to the cause of White Christian Nationalism. Early reports of her death focused on her innocence in an effort to exonerate the insurrectionists. 

    Subscribe to Pure White: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-white/id1718974286
    To purchase Virgin Nation: https://massivebookshop.com/products/9780199987764
    To Subscribe to Chew On This, A Newsletter from the After Purity Project: https://afterpurity.substack.com
    Axis Mundi Media: www.axismundi.us
    The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-undertow-scenes-from-a-slow-civil-war-jeff-sharlet/18515351?ean=9781324006497





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    • 22 min
    Episode 7: Purity Culture and Welfare Reform

    Episode 7: Purity Culture and Welfare Reform

    This episode examines how the True Love Waits and the Southern Baptist church influenced Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform bill with an amendment that created funding for abstinence-only education. This pairing demonstrates how myths about sexual purity deeply impact how the system uses the assumption of sexual purity as a normative experience to reinforce poverty, racism, and misogyny.
    Subscribe to Pure White: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-white/id1718974286
    Axis Mundi Media: www.axismundi.us
    To purchase Virgin Nation: https://massivebookshop.com/products/9780199987764
    To Subscribe to Chew On This, A Newsletter from the After Purity Project:
    https://afterpurity.substack.com
    Re-thinking Sexual Citizenship by Jyl Josephson
    https://sunypress.edu/Books/R/Rethinking-Sexual-Citizenship


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    • 24 min
    Episode 6: True Love Waits and Sexual Accountability

    Episode 6: True Love Waits and Sexual Accountability

    This episode focuses on the organization True Love Waits and its founding as a highly ambitious campaign to transform the diversity of sexual cultures, expressions, and ethics in the US into a singular ethic based on Christian principles. While doing so, the campaign also contributed to the culture of abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention by sacralizing the practice of victim blaming.
    For anyone experiencing sexual or gender-based violence in their religious community:
    https://intoaccount.org/our-team/
    Staying Alive, How Martyrdom Made Me a Warrior by Stephanie Krehbiel
    https://mla.bethelks.edu/ml-archive/2006Dec/krehbiel.php
    The Myth of Colorblind Christians by Jesse Curtis https://nyupress.org/9781479809370/the-
    myth-of-colorblind-christians/


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    • 36 min
    Episode 5: Myths of Sexual Danger

    Episode 5: Myths of Sexual Danger

    Emmett Till. Lionel Richie. The Atlanta Massacre.
    This episode looks at how the legacy of lynching remains active in the promotion of myths of sexual danger which even today promote white women’s sexual purity and racial innocence. 
    It examines several cases over 7 decades that demonstrate how this myth remains an active part of the white racial imagination. Includes discussion of Caroline Bryant, the Lionel Ritchie urban myth, the Central Park jogger, Central Park dog lady, and the Atlanta Shooting
    Subscribe to Pure White: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-white/id1718974286
    To purchase Virgin Nation: https://massivebookshop.com/products/9780199987764
    To Subscribe to Chew On This, A Newsletter from the After Purity Project: https://afterpurity.substack.com
    “The Flaw at the Center of Purity Culture” by Angie Hong.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/purity-culture-evangelical-church-harms-
    women/618438/


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    • 31 min
    Episode 4: White Women and the Lynching Myth

    Episode 4: White Women and the Lynching Myth

    This episode is named after an especially violent time in US history immediately following Reconstruction in the US South.  Frequent racial-terror lynchings were justified by what journalist Ida B. Wells called the lynching myth. The myth was rooted in two racialized stereotypes: sexually violent black men and sexually pure white women. When Wells publicized her analysis, she found herself in conflict with white women such as Frances Willard, a prominent social purity activist. Their debate offers significant insight into how white Victorians utilized sexual purity to signal their own racial supremacy.
    Subscribe to Pure White: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-white/id1718974286
    To purchase Virgin Nation: https://massivebookshop.com/products/9780199987764
    To Subscribe to Chew On This, A Newsletter from the After Purity Project: https://afterpurity.substack.com
    Southern Horrors and Other Writings by Ida B. Wells
    https://bookshop.org/p/books/southern-horrors-ida-b-wells-barnett/92999?ean=9781502768001


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    • 26 min
    Episode 3: True Womanhood

    Episode 3: True Womanhood

    First coined by US gender historian Barbara Welter, the cult of true womanhood is a concept that describes Victorian gender ideologies of the 19th century cultural elite. An analysis of these ideals reveals efforts by white Protestants to create a seemingly providential connection between sexual purity and white womanhood. This episode will draw on primary sources (including popular magazines, sermons, articles and speeches by 19th century purity advocates) and expert interviews with religious and cultural historians.
    Subscribe to Pure White: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-white/id1718974286
    Axis Mundi Media: www.axismundi.us
    To purchase Virgin Nation: https://massivebookshop.com/products/9780199987764
    To Subscribe to Chew On This, A Newsletter from the After Purity Project: https://afterpurity.substack.com
    Regulating Desire: From the Virtuous Maiden to the Purity Princess by Shoshanna Ehrlich
    https://bookshop.org/p/books/regulating-desire-from-the-virtuous-maiden-to-the-purity-princess-j-shoshanna-ehrlich/9031570?ean=9781438453040
    Passionate and Pious: Religious Media and Black Women’s Sexuality by Monique Moultrie
    https://bookshop.org/p/books/passionate-and-pious-religious-media-and-black-women-s-sexuality-monique-n-moultrie/10940842?ean=9780822370048


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    • 24 min

Customer Reviews

3.5 out of 5
187 Ratings

187 Ratings

SkepChik ,

If this upsets you, it’s probably about you

A well researched, documented and supported examination of some of the ways in which our nations history is so intertwined with racism. Compellingly told. Great listen. Highly recommend!

Rosmoharkins ,

US history is important!!

Learning the history of a country shouldn’t be attacked just because you don’t like it! The only reason this is getting negative reviews is to stop the discussion and dissection of purity culture in the United States. The podcast touches on important and relevant topics around white Christian nationalism and purity culture in the United States and does an amazing job of highlighting stories and events that shaped these topics to what they are today.

Mongo Pawn in Game of Life ,

Purity….yeah….sure….whatever

No one should be surprised by any of this. These are racist, religious fanatics, which, by definition, makes them not very intelligent.

They are molded from common, conservative clay.

You know, morons.

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