S3E14: Pentecostalism and Purity Culture, with Teddi and Nick from Oh God I Forgot About That

While much attention has been given to the Evangelical contingent of American conservative Christianity, it's important to note that even though systems of worship may be different, Pentecostal Christians navigate sexuality, relationships, and bodies in similarly troubling ways as Evangelical and Mormon communities do.

This week, we're thrilled to have Teddi and Nick, co-hosts of the podcast Oh God I Forgot About That, to talk more about how their upbringings in Pentecostal communities impacted understandings of gender, dating relationships, and sexuality. We talk specifically about:

Defining EMPish (10:00): “So in the post-Christian, in the deconstruction world, the denominations and the language that gets used most commonly is Evangelical. But what we find is that Mormon churches and Pentecostal churches, that their structures are very similar to Evangelical churches, Baptist churches, and non-denominational churches. So the styles of worship may be a little bit different, but the leadership structures, the communication patterns within the church for the sake of our expertise, the communication around bodies and sexuality, very, very similar.” Jeremiah highlights and defines the similarities between the EMPish circles covered. Even though some of these churches may come off as more charismatic by incorporating music and fun, they still project the same messages around sexuality, marriage, and purity. 

Purity Rings (20:00): “So we worked at a stable together and I remember her like showing me this like glistening ring on her fourth finger and she was about maybe 14, 15. And she explained the promise ring concept to me. And you know, it was all so exciting. It was like, she got to pick out the ring and her dad gave it to her. And then the Pentecostal church that I was in, we had something called the Missionettes program for girls. I want to say around 14, you had the opportunity to do a promise ring ceremony where the girls wore white and then they got their ring from their fathers. And then the whole church attended. So there was just so much excitement built up around it and I, it was one of the first times that I like paused and was sort of like, oh, like, this is like something that I'm planning for that I am anticipating, which the great irony of this being, I wouldn't have been thinking about sex had the church not brought it to my attention, like I was still very innocent.” Teddy shares her experience around purity rings and talks about how the Church brings sex to the forefront of children’s minds when sex would not have been on their minds if not for the constant shame. The Church consistently shames people for thinking about sex and sexuality all while making that the main focus of sermons, learning, and life. Jeremiah adds: “Teddy, thinking about the role that fathers play in this fairy tale as well. The father-daughter relationship in the evangelical and Pentecostal church. The connection between the father-daughter relationship and the purity ring ceremonies. The fact that father's jobs in theories are to simultaneously protect their daughters from objectification. But Teddy, also like what you're saying, protect their daughters from objectification when they're like eight.” 

Double-Edged Sword (23:00 - 25:00): “[This] two-pronged thing where sexuality was always pitched to me and the other boys as a source of temptation. It was exclusively and explicitly a temptation that was inevitable and shameful. And any single woman or girl you know could be the target of this uncontrollable thing that you unleash, right? So it created sort of this two-pronged, like, struggle with any sort of friendship that could be potentially viewed as a romantic relationship, you know? Having friends that were girls. When I was a boy, just, oh, are they thinking this about me, or, oh, you know, I try to just do something that's a normal friendship thing, and it gets misconstrued as an advance, or something that needs to be defended against” Nick speaks about the double-edged sword the Church presents young men with, which is that they cannot control their sexual impulses and any attempt at friendship is misconstrued into an advance. Julia then adds: “I think I say basically every single episode that what you're describing around the gender construction is this awful combination of both misandry and misogyny at the same time that you as a man are this inherently sexual predator. And that women exist as floating bodies that are the object of objectification. And also, for men, there's this double bind that they are these sexual monsters, and that's how God made them. But also they have to fight it, and it's such a mindfuck!” She highlights once again this idea that God made men sexual predators and they must fight this instinct, but also how this idea shrinks women down to essentially objects because they cannot and do not have any sexual desires or thoughts. 

Passiveness (32:00): “It was just boring as hell and at its worst it made you passive in your own life. It made you just a spectator to your own life. So I think that that probably explains why I didn't even become really all that interested or willing to pursue relationships until college, or even like curious about my identity until college because there was no script for what it looked like for women to pursue, talk about these things, explore these things because you were just waiting.” Teddy talks about how women were given no script or support or even an idea of what sexuality looked like for them. This plays back into the light switch metaphor touched on last week, and how the script essentially does not exist until your wedding night, and suddenly it’s just supposed to flip on then and there. “And you could argue that that passiveness also creates another narrative about women being objects in the passivity. Prior to marriage, women are essentially these asexual beings, and that asexuality is what protects the purity of the relationship.” Julia highlights how the idea that women are asexual pre-marriage, protects the integrity of the relationship from the sexual predator man that they are dating, feeding into the misandry/misogyny the Church spews.

Infantilization (42:00): “That double bind is perfectly encapsulated by these two moments that I very vividly have in my mind. The first is, I remember going on a trip with her church, and her youth pastor had taken over the church, and we sat next to each other on the church van, and he leans in the church van over her, and he starts, like, jamming his hand between our thighs. And like doing this and I scooted over and he goes, just making sure there's room for the Holy Spirit. And then he closed the door ominously on and we went off. So there's that like infantilization.” Nick covers an aspect of the Church’s approach to sex and sexuality which is the infantilization of teenagers and adults. Within EMPish circles, people are encouraged to get married incredibly young, which is a very adult decision, yet they have hands jammed between their thighs in Church vans to leave room for the Holy Spirit.