“Taking Every Thought Captive:” A Microanalysis of How Control Mechanisms Operate Within Evangelical Purity Culture

Purity is a key tenet for Christians. While this can refer broadly to “purity of heart,” the 1990s/early 2000s saw a particularly powerful purity movement within the Evangelical Church that centered sexual purity. What set this purity movement apart was the culmination of expanded forms of political and institutional power the Evangelical Church had been gaining since the 1970s. Thus, this thesis seeks to ask - with the expanded power the Evangelical Church held during the 1990s/early 2000s, how did it exert control over the sexuality of its followers through purity culture? How did techniques and mechanisms of control operate? A Foucauldian theoretical framework is used to analyze 143 pieces of data gathered from Reddit and Instagram that illustrate individuals’ experiences within purity culture. This data shows that, enabled by expanded forms of power during the 1990s/early 2000s, the Evangelical Church was able to deploy control mechanisms to exert greater control over its followers through purity culture. This control was manifested through Church teachings, which resulted in the internalization of messages and eventual self-discipline of Church followers. The byproduct of this discipline and control, like other forms of punishment, was various pains and trauma experienced by individuals.

Author

• Tensi, Victoria

Language

• en

Keyword

• Foucault
• gender
• purity culture
• control

Date created

• 2023

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Criminology

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Bustamante, Carlos

Committee Member(s)

• Page, Amy

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/0r967446x