A cover image on a fall 2016 issue of the biweekly evangelical magazine World shows Hillary Clinton and her pro-choice supporters to be agents of death. After the audiotapes surfaced the following month, World editors denounced Trump also, on grounds of “character” that included extramarital sex. FRONT COVER OF WORLD, SEPTEMBER 17, 2016. USED WITH PERMISSION.
PERHAPS NOTHING BETTER INDICATED THE extent to which the election had been at bottom a battle in America’s culture war over sexuality than the fact that the first major resistance to Trump after his presidential inauguration occurred under the umbrella of a Women’s March. Trump’s opponents found much to protest about his new administration, including his attitudes toward nonwhite Americans and immigrants, but sexual politics were the glue that held the broad anti-Trump coalition together at the outset. At the Women’s March on Washington, DC, on January 21, 2017—the day before the forty-fourth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision—feminist liberals and progressives condemned Trump’s treatment of women in the starkest terms: pink “pussy hats,” posters of female genitalia, and “nasty woman” T-shirts abounded alongside signs mocking Trump’s masculinity. Clergy and religious progressives from many traditions were visibly present and made their faith known: many priests wore their priestly collars, many Muslim women wore hijabs, a number of Jewish men wore skullcaps, and signs abounded with religious messages. “I’m a WITNESS for JUSTICE!” read signs held aloft by members of the United Church of Christ, the progressive denomination’s logo proudly stamped on both sides, along with its motto, “That They May All Be One.”
The DC event, with sister marches in cities all over the United States and the world, was not a Christian march or a religious gathering of any kind, but its goal very much aligned with that UCC assurance—“I see you!,” marchers reassured one another, over and over—and its call to oneness in diversity. Beneath the focal emphasis on women, the march honed in on what marchers perceived to be the immorality of many of the policies promoted by the new administration and was broadly inclusive of a wide range of groups and individuals across countless affiliations. Muslims, Jews, and Christians marched side by side with secular humanists and atheists, people of all genders, countless children amid teens and adults. All joined in a call for women’s rights that seemed more at risk than ever, and for human rights more expansively. Intersectionality was a pervasive motif, a reminder that feminism was no longer the movement of white elites that it once seemed to be but a sprawling, richly colorful coalition of people whose identities and concerns complexly reflected the crossing points of race, class, and gender: people fighting for the rights of immigrants and refugees, African Americans, Muslims, Native Americans, trans and queer persons, and more. For those who attended, it was an unforgettably exhilarating—for some, even sacred—event.
The march did not aim to heal the broader ruptures in the nation, as indeed it could not. A century after American women attained suffrage, the stage was set for the next conflagration in the long battle over religion, sex, and politics. That Christians would be part of that battle was certain, and just as certain was the fact that different groups of Christians would fight one another from opposite sides. Each side would insist that the other was attempting to force its worldview on the other and impose it by law. A protracted moral combat seemed nowhere near a truce.
It would be naïve to imagine that Americans in this standoff can return to any consensus regarding sex and gender and impossible to imagine what such a consensus could possibly look like. Widespread agreement seems hopeless, and common ground difficult to find. Recognizing and acknowledging the fears animating citizens across a broad ideological spectrum is no quick-fix for our politics, but it is a necessary start. A kind of glue that once held Americans together—problematically, to be sure—has been dissolving for a century. Finding a way to live together despite our deep differences over sex (and many other issues besides) demands participation in a larger project of reckoning, engaging, and willfully empathizing with others in our common humanity, so as to rouse a fractured nation to build a bearable peace. Maybe we will get there one day, but not without first committing to a full and thorough reckoning of precisely how and why our divisions got so deep.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK WAS BORN OUT of a decades-long interest in a puzzle: of all the moral subjects and ethical rules elaborated deeply throughout the Bible and the history of Christianity, why have so many American Christians seemed disproportionately obsessed with sex? My growing-up years coincided with the rise of the new Christian right, a wave in which it seemed people of faith were directing much greater energy toward erecting fortresses against sexual activity outside of marriage than participating regularly in activities Jesus emphasized more: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the needy, tending the sick, and visiting the prisoner. The Baptists of my childhood stressed that the core of the Christian message was caring for “the least of these,” but most of the nation’s most visible Christian leaders targeted sexual sin far more than any sin of neglecting the neighbor. My quest in this project was to analyze both the reasons for and the effects of this sexual preoccupation.
The manuscript underwent several stages of revision, if not revolution, and I have many to thank from different stages of its progress. Early encouragement came from Lara Heimert and Alane Salierno Mason. Archivists and library staff at the following institutions facilitated the research in crucial ways: the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the American Catholic Research Center and University Archives at Catholic University of America, the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, Vassar College, the Schlesinger Library and Andover Library at Harvard University, Princeton Theological Seminary, the Divinity School Library at Yale University, the Paulist Archives in Washington, DC, St. Mark’s Library at General Theological Seminary, Occidental College, the University of Virginia, the University of Minnesota Library, Firestone Library at Princeton University, Olin Library at Washington University in St. Louis, and Southwest Harbor Public Library on the coast of Maine.
A number of influential people consented to interviews with me, and while not all appear in the final book, each was illuminating and contributed to my understanding of the stories told here. Those interviewed include Ellen Chesler, Harvey Cox, the late Elizabeth Genné (with thanks to her children for facilitating that), Debra Haffner, Joseph Hough, Frances Kissling, the late John J. McNeill, Gene Robinson, Paul Simmons, the late Ruth Proskauer Smith, and Susie Wilson. Karen Myers transcribed these and other interviews for me with speed and skill.
I’ve taught at three universities during the course of writing this book—Princeton University, Harvard University, and Washington University in St. Louis—and I’m grateful to colleagues and students who engaged my work in classrooms, colloquia, and hallways. Special thanks for research assistance and related support go to Lynne Gerber, Rachel Gross, Ryan Harper, Elizabeth Jemison, Emily Johnson, Rachel Lindsey, John Lomperis, Max Mueller, Anthony Petro, the late Melissa Proctor, Amy Sitar, Heather White, and Leslie Wingard. Audiences at numerous other educational institutions have also engaged different pieces of this research over time: Amherst College, Brown University, Clemson University, Columbia University, Eden Theological Seminary, Lehigh University, the University of Michigan, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice University, Samford University, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the University of Virginia, and Yale University. Four anonymous readers for the Journal of American History—three of whom later outed themselves as Amy DeRogatis, Donna Drucker, and Susan Henking—offered excellent suggestions for my article on Alfred Kinsey, as did the journal’s then editor, Edward Linenthal.
I am particularly indebted to the following close readers and conversation partners who gave valuable feedback on specific pieces of the project at different points: Scott Appleby, Wallace Best, Fannie Bialek, Anne Blankenship, Kathleen Cummings, Rebecca Davis, Darren Dochuk, Tanya Erzen, Marla
Frederick, Andrea Friedman, Stephanie Gaskill, Healan Gaston, Eddie Glaude, Sarah Barringer Gordon, David Hollinger, John Inazu, Mark Jordan, Maryam Kashani, Moshe Kornfeld, Scott Libson, Kathryn Lofton, Dana Logan, Lerone Martin, Elizabeth McCloskey, Robert Orsi, Leigh Schmidt, Ronit Stahl, Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Lauren Turek, Mark Valeri, Judith Weisenfeld, Lauren Winner, Stephanie Wolfe, and Gene Zubovich. Three colleagues read earlier versions of the manuscript and provided exceptional feedback: Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Melani McAlister, and Jana Riess. And then there are the comrades who offered crucial conversation and loving sustenance over years of intellectual and personal friendship, especially Jennifer Gess, Courtney Lamberth, Martha Easton, Anthea Butler, Charles Marsh, Ted Trost, and Jonathan Walton.
It has been an honor to serve as the first permanent director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and to engage regularly with Jack Danforth. Our shared belief in the importance of building bridges across differences—including our own—with respect and warmth has made working with him a great experience, and I admire him very much. The Center also has a dream team of outstanding coworkers; in addition to the faculty, I extend deep thanks to Debra Kennard, Tiffany Stanley, Sheri Peña, and Leslie Davis for all that they do.
My agent, Geri Thoma, saw the project through many stages with tireless enthusiasm and superb guidance that have been vital to its completion. Sarah Flynn provided outstanding editorial work during a crucial period and helped jump-start the final stage of revision. Creighton Coleman provided excellent fact-checking and corrections in the final stages. Brian Distelberg improved the book immeasurably with his incisive editorial suggestions, Collin Tracy and Beth Wright did superb work in editing and production, and I could not be happier to be part of Lara Heimert’s team at Basic Books.
Finally, my immediate family has supported and made sacrifices for this book more than anyone else. My parents and my in-laws have encouraged me throughout the process. Leigh, my spouse, remains a ballast in life as well as in work, and his contributions to this book’s completion as well as to my sanity are immeasurable. Zachary, Ella, and Jasper are everything to me, and none can remember a time when my office shelves weren’t lined with books about religion and sex—a fact that has both amused and bemused each in turn. With my hope that they will live in and contribute to a more equitable world, the book is for them.
R. MARIE GRIFFITH is the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where she directs the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. John Stonestreet, “Breakpoint Commentaries: Christian Leaders Respond to Obergefell vs. Hodges: A Symposium,” Breakpoint, June 26, 2015, http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/12/27686.
2. “Falwell and Robertson on the 700 Club after 9/11,” YouTube video, 1:22, from an episode of The 700 Club televised by the Fox Family Channel (now Freeform) on September 13, 2001, posted by “Veracifier,” November 7, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-CAcdta_8I.
3. Mike Huckabee, “Huckabee: ‘We Have a Sin Problem,’” Fox News, July 23, 2012.
4. Jillian Rayfield, “James Dobson Blames Gays, Abortion for Shootings,” Salon, December 17, 2012, http://www.salon.com/2012/12/17/james_dobson_blames_gays_abortion_for_shootings/.
5. Michael F. Haverluck, “Anne Graham Lotz Warns US in Last Judgment Stage,” One News Now, May 28, 2016, http://www.onenewsnow.com/church/2016/05/28/anne-graham-lotz-warns-us-in-last-judgment-stage.
6. The literature on religion and sexuality in US history has burgeoned over the past decade, especially work on evangelical attitudes toward sex. A comprehensive list would be too long here, but see especially Rebecca L. Davis, More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Leigh Eric Schmidt, Heaven’s Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman (New York: Basic Books, 2010); Lynne Gerber, Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in Evangelical America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Mark R. Jordan, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk About Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Amy DeRogatis, Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Sara Moslener, Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Anthony M. Petro, After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); and Heather R. White, Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
7. Scholarly interest in the nation’s religious, cultural, and political divisions that have markedly deepened during recent decades is long-standing, and many books have been written about the culture wars and the religious and political realignments that have occurred in these years. Many have used the 1960s as a general starting point for understanding that trajectory, a timeline that has allowed for breadth of coverage across many subjects, figures, and events that this book, attending to a longer timeline while focusing on particular stories, does not cover; others focus more particularly on the history of American evangelicalism and its impact on the nation’s politics. Like any historian studying these deep conflicts, I am indebted to this robust literature. Of particular note are the following: James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991); William C. Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1996); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America (New York: Basic Books, 2006); Daniel K. Williams, God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011); Robert O. Self, All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012); Robert Wuthnow, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Neil J. Young, We Gather Together: The Religious Right and the Problem of Interfaith Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015); and Stephen Prothero, Why Liberals Win (Even When They Lose Elections) (New York: HarperCollins, 2016).
8. As Virginia Woolf drolly remarked, “The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.” Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, annotated and with an introduction by Susan Gubar (1929; reprint, New York: Harcourt, 2001), 55.
9. Grover Cleveland, “Would Woman Suffrage Be Unwise?” Ladies’ Home Journal 22, no. 11 (October 1905): 7, 8.
10. The Woman Patriot 1, no. 1 (April 1918): 1.
CHAPTER 1
1. The literature on Comstock and this spate of vice societies is extensive; useful interpretations include Nicola Beisel, Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); Paul Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age, 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002); Donna Dennis, Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); Gaines M. Foster, Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 1865-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2002); Andrea Friedman, Prurient Interests: Gender, Democracy, and Obscenity in New York City, 1909-1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Vintage Books, 2002).
2. US Congress, “Comstock Law,” in “United States Statutes at Large, 42nd Cong. Sess. III, Chp. 258,” in A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875, 598–600, Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=017/llsl017.db&recNum=639.
3. Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in 19th-Century America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 257.
4. According to biographer Ellen Chesler, Sanger’s baptism at the age of thirteen is recorded in the registry of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Corning, New York. See Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 29. See also Madeline Gray, Margaret Sanger: A Biography of the Champion of Birth Control (New York: R. Marek, 1979), 17. Sanger never wrote of her baptism or confirmation in her autobiographical accounts.
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