Sex and Sects

Sex and Sects PDF Author: Stewart Davenport
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813947051
Category : Mormon Church
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
"Sex and Sects tells the story of three religiously inspired sexual innovations in America--Shaker celibacy, Mormon polygamy, and the Oneida Community's free love. It explores why these bold experiments rose and then fell primarily over the course of the nineteenth century and almost exclusively within the confines of the new American republic. Rather than view them through a social-scientific lens, Sex and Sects traces their fascinating shared trajectory as they emerged, struggled, institutionalized, and declined in tandem"--

Sex and Sects

Sex and Sects PDF Author: Stewart Davenport
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813947051
Category : Mormon Church
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book

Book Description
"Sex and Sects tells the story of three religiously inspired sexual innovations in America--Shaker celibacy, Mormon polygamy, and the Oneida Community's free love. It explores why these bold experiments rose and then fell primarily over the course of the nineteenth century and almost exclusively within the confines of the new American republic. Rather than view them through a social-scientific lens, Sex and Sects traces their fascinating shared trajectory as they emerged, struggled, institutionalized, and declined in tandem"--

Sex and Sects

Sex and Sects PDF Author: Stewart Davenport
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813947073
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
With a revolution behind them, a continent before them, and the First Amendment protecting them, religio-sexual pioneers in antebellum America were free to strike out on their own, breaking with the orthodoxies of the past. Shakers followed the ascetic path; Oneida Perfectionists accepted sex as a gift from God; and Mormons redefined marriage in light of new religious revelations that also redefined God, humankind, spirit, and matter. Sex became a powerful way for each group to reinforce their sectarian identity as strangers in a strange land. Sex and Sects tells the story of these three religiously inspired sexual innovations in America: the celibate lifestyle of the Shakers, the Oneida Community’s system of controlled polyamory, and plural marriage as practiced by the Mormons. Stewart Davenport analyzes why these bold experiments rose and largely fell over the course of the nineteenth century within the confines of the new American republic. Moving beyond a social-scientific lens, Davenport traces for the first time their fascinating shared trajectory as they emerged, struggled, institutionalized, and declined in tandem—and sheds historical light on the way in which Americans have discussed, contested, and redefined the institutions of marriage and family both in our private lives and in the public realm.

Moral Combat

Moral Combat PDF Author: R. Marie Griffith
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094767
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
From an esteemed scholar of American religion and sexuality, a sweeping account of the century of religious conflict that produced our culture wars Gay marriage, transgender rights, birth control -- sex is at the heart of many of the most divisive political issues of our age. The origins of these conflicts, historian R. Marie Griffith argues, lie in sharp disagreements that emerged among American Christians a century ago. From the 1920s onward, a once-solid Christian consensus regarding gender roles and sexual morality began to crumble, as liberal Protestants sparred with fundamentalists and Catholics over questions of obscenity, sex education, and abortion. Both those who advocated for greater openness in sexual matters and those who resisted new sexual norms turned to politics to pursue their moral visions for the nation. Moral Combat is a history of how the Christian consensus on sex unraveled, and how this unraveling has made our political battles over sex so ferocious and so intractable.

Jesus Is Female

Jesus Is Female PDF Author: Aaron Spencer Fogleman
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812291689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
In the middle of the Great Awakening, a group of religious radicals called Moravians came to North America from Germany to pursue ambitious missionary goals. How did the Protestant establishment react to the efforts of this group, which allowed women to preach, practiced alternative forms of marriage, sex, and family life, and believed Jesus could be female? Aaron Spencer Fogleman explains how these views, as well as the Moravians' missionary successes, provoked a vigorous response by Protestant authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Based on documents in German, Dutch, and English from the Old World and the New, Jesus Is Female chronicles the religious violence that erupted in many German and Swedish communities in colonial America as colonists fought over whether to accept the Moravians, and suggests that gender issues were at the heart of the raging conflict. Colonists fought over the feminine, ecumenical religious order offered by the Moravians and the patriarchal, confessional order offered by Lutheran and Reformed clergy. This episode reveals both the potential and the limits of radical religion in early America. Though religious nonconformity persisted despite the repression of the Moravians, and though America remained a refuge for such groups, those who challenged the cultural order in their religious beliefs and practices would not escape persecution. Jesus Is Female traces the role of gender in eighteenth-century religious conflict back to the European Reformation and the beginnings of Protestantism. This transatlantic approach heightens our understanding of American developments and allows for a better understanding of what occurred when religious freedom in a colonial setting led to radical challenges to tradition and social order.

Sex Cult Nun

Sex Cult Nun PDF Author: Faith Jones
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062952463
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2021 by Newsweek and a Most Anticipated by People, TIME, USA Today, Real Simple, Glamour, Nylon, Bustle, Purewow, Shondaland, and more! Educated meets The Vow in this story of liberation and self-empowerment—an inspiring and stranger-than-fiction memoir of growing up in and breaking free from the Children of God, an oppressive, extremist religious cult. Faith Jones was raised to be part a religious army preparing for the End Times. Growing up on an isolated farm in Macau, she prayed for hours every day and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the founder of the Children of God. Tens of thousands of members strong, the cult followers looked to Faith’s grandfather as their guiding light. As such, Faith was celebrated as special and then punished doubly to remind her that she was not. Over decades, the Children of God grew into an international organization that became notorious for its alarming sex practices and allegations of abuse and exploitation. But with indomitable grit, Faith survived, creating a world of her own—pilfering books and teaching herself high school curriculum. Finally, at age twenty-three, thirsting for knowledge and freedom, she broke away, leaving behind everything she knew to forge her own path in America. A complicated family story mixed with a hauntingly intimate coming-of-age narrative, Faith Jones’ extraordinary memoir reflects our societal norms of oppression and abuse while providing a unique lens to explore spiritual manipulation and our rights in our bodies. Honest, eye-opening, uplifting, and intensely affecting, Sex Cult Nun brings to life a hidden world that’s hypnotically alien yet unexpectedly relatable.

After the Revolution

After the Revolution PDF Author: David J. Ayers
Publisher: Lexham Press
ISBN: 1683595785
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Equipping the church to recover from sexual confusion In After the Revolution, David J. Ayers provides the Christian heirs of the sexual revolution a resource to understand their challenges and social context to find a way forward. Drawing on social sciences and history, Ayers traces recent worldview shifts in North America and Europe. The historic Christian understanding of sex and marriage has been supplanted. And sexual confusion has infiltrated the church, especially influencing younger Christians. The church can uniquely and compassionately support sexual faithfulness and flourishing, but we need to reject formulas, surefire methods, and judgmentalism. Instead, we must recover a positive vision for Christian sexuality, singleness, and marriage that is firmly grounded in God's word.

An Ordered Love

An Ordered Love PDF Author: Louis J. Kern
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469620421
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
An Ordered Love is the first detailed study of sex roles in the utopian communities that proposed alternatives to monogamous marriage: The Shakers (1779-1890), the Mormons (1843-90), and the Oneida Community (1848-79). The lives of men and women changed substantially when they joined one of the utopian communities. Louis J. Kern challenges the commonly held belief that Mormon polygamy was uniformly downgrading to women and that Oneida pantagamy and Shaker celibacy were liberating for them. Rather, Kern asserts that changes in sexual behavior and roles for women occurred in ideological environments that assumed women were inferior and needed male guidance. An elemental distrust of women denied the Victorian belief in their moral superiority, attacked the sanctity of the maternal role, and institutionalized the dominance of men over women. These utopias accepted the revolutionary idea that the pleasure bond was the essence of marriage. They provided their members with a highly developed theological and ideological position that helped them cope with the ambiguities and anxieties they felt during a difficult transitional stage in social mores. Analysis of the theological doctrines of these communities indicates how pervasive sexual questions were in the minds of the utopians and how closely they were related to both reform (social perfection) and salvation (individual perfection). These communities saw sex as the point at which the demands of individual selfishness and the social requirements of self-sacrifice were in most open conflict. They did not offer their members sexual license, but rather they established ideals of sexual orderliness and moral stability and sought to provide a refuge from the rampant sexual anxieties of Victorian culture. Kern examines the critical importance of considerations of sexuality and sexual behavior in these communities, recognizing their value as indications of larger social and cultural tensions. Using the insights of history, psychology, and sociology, he investigates the relationships between the individual and society, ideology and behavior, and thought and action as expressed in the sexual life of these three communities. Previously unused manuscript sources on the Oneida Community and Shaker journals and daybooks reveal interesting and sometimes startling information on sexual behavior and attitudes.

Practicing Safe Sects

Practicing Safe Sects PDF Author: F. LeRon Shults
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004360956
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?

Sex, Marriage, and Family in World Religions

Sex, Marriage, and Family in World Religions PDF Author: Don S. Browning
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231505191
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Spanning thousands of years, this new collection brings together writings and teachings about sex, marriage, and family from the Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Confucian traditions. The volume includes traditional texts as well as contemporary materials showing how the religions have responded to the changing conditions and mores of modern life. It reveals the similarities and differences among the various religions and the development of ideas and teachings within each tradition. Selections shed light on each religion's views on a range of subjects, including sexuality and sexual pleasure, the meaning and purpose of marriage, the role of betrothal, the status of women, the place of romance, grounds for divorce, celibacy, and sexual deviance. Separate chapters devoted to each religion include introductions by leading scholars that contextualize the readings. The selections are drawn from a variety of genres including ritual, legal, theological, poetic, and mythic texts. The volume contains such diverse examples as the Zohar on conjugal manners, a contemporary Episcopalian liturgy for same-sex unions, Qur'anic passages on the equality of the sexes, the Ka–masu–tra on husbands, wives, and lovers, Buddhist writings on celibacy, and Confucian teachings on filial piety. Contributors include: Michael S. Berger, Emory University; Azizah Y. al-Hibri, Richmond School of Law; Alan Cole, Lewis and Clark College; Paul B. Courtright, Emory University; Patricia Buckley Ebrey, University of Washington; Raja M. El-Habti, Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights; Luke Timothy Johnson, Emory University; Mark D. Jordan, Emory University

Abandoned to Lust

Abandoned to Lust PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231136625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Early Christians used charges of adultery, incest, and lascivious behavior to demonize their opponents, police insiders, resist pagan rulers, and define what it meant to be a Christian. Christians frequently claimed that they, and they alone were sexually virtuous, comparing themselves to those marked as outsiders, especially non-believers and "heretics," who were said to be controlled by lust and unable to rein in their carnal desires. True or not, these charges allowed Christians to present themselves as different from and morally superior to those around them. Through careful, innovative readings, Jennifer Knust explores the writings of Paul, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and other early Christian authors who argued that Christ alone made self-mastery possible. Rejection of Christ led to both immoral sexual behavior and, ultimately, alienation and punishment from God. Knust considers how Christian writers participated in a long tradition of rhetorical invective, a rhetoric that was often employed to defend status and difference. Christians borrowed, deployed, and reconfigured classical rhetorical techniques, turning them against their rulers to undercut their moral and political authority. Knust also examines the use of accusations of licentiousness in conflicts between rival groups of Christians. Portraying rival sects as depraved allowed accusers to claim their own group as representative of "true Christianity." Knust's book also reveals the ways in which sexual slurs and their use in early Christian writings reflected cultural and gendered assumptions about what constituted purity, morality, and truth. In doing so, Abandoned to Lust highlights the complex interrelationships between sex, gender, and sexuality within the classical, biblical, and early-Christian traditions.