[SPEAKER_03]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Preterwise podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, the camera shaking my wife's laughing at me because I'm dressed like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's because I'm interviewing Sarah Mosliner.
[SPEAKER_03]: She is a religion professor and a scholar who goes by the handle, hot takes on hot dogs.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so because I share an affinity for hot dogs, I thought I need to dress up in uniform for this conversation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I meant to drop this discussion about her new book after purity a couple of days ago but I was filming a top secret project in a different state.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm back now and we're here to discuss her new book after purity, which is an investigation into purity culture within white evangelicalism and the impact that has on gender, sexuality and race within America.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really great conversation and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's safe Ain't nobody safe In the Bible home In the Bible home
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, Sarah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were we're talking a little bit a second ago and and I said I came in uniform for you because your handle is hot hot takes on hot dogs and yeah and they started dropping all this hot dog lore and I feel like I need to hit record and start start right well and I love this is my first time starting a podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: about hot dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have no idea what that has to do with my writing and research, but it's just been there from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in, so I've always loved hot dogs, my passion for hot dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: sort of reached a height where I needed to do something about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I saw a PBS documentary called It's a Hot Dog Program, and it's just a guy from Pittsburgh, which is where I'm from traveled the country eating hot dogs at different places.
[SPEAKER_00]: and many of those places being shaped like hot dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's something about it and I just, and so I had, I printed off a list of all those places, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The bucket list was to go to all of them, but I waited so long.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but then in graduate school, I was out in LA and um, really wanted to go to pink since some other places and a friend, my friend Katie came with me and that's when I decided to found a hot dog appreciation society named after Taka Rukobyashi who was then the Nathan's
[SPEAKER_00]: I encourage anyone who is listening to watch the ESPN documentary on the Nathan's Famous.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's devastating and it's everything about America.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about immigrant exclusion, white supremacy, like, and hot dogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's like, so...
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I created this hot dog society and as I moved for work, I would invite people to come eat hot dogs with me and then I would welcome them into this society and everyone has a different job.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my friend Brian is a mathematician so he's always he's our society mathematician who's always in charge of the tip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for nine of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have other people who are very good at scouting things out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have friends who are vegetarian there in charge of researching vegetarian options.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do we do not have is a podcaster.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you have just demonstrated like all the qualities that are required for membership.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except that we have an eating hot dogs together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: the funny thing is I thought about rolling in eating a hot dog and what's funny if someone's watching this and not listening, if you're looking at everything else I chose to do before this interview, the hot dog eating would have been the most normal thing I
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you for welcoming.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy to be a dogcaster.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is very exciting for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to ask you though before we get started, I'm playing too anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is the best hot dog you've ever had?
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a pinch, what are the go-to toppings for set hot dog?
[SPEAKER_00]: Great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the best hot dog I've ever had and it's funny because I
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a place I believe it reopened in Chicago called Hot Dugs in Case To Meets Emporium.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I stood in line for two hours one Saturday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was supposed to be at a conference, a church history conference, and I just ditched the conference for the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: stood in line, got in there, and I realized they only took a cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I only had enough for one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I ended up getting the fog raw dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so very controversial, but it's on a duck sausage dog, and has foggera on it, and it is the best thing I've ever put in my mouth, like it was phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, hot dogs are supposed to be about like the working class.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is a very elitist hot dog there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, but I got, you know, got to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will say, I do have different categories though.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Chicago hot dog is its own category.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, so if, yeah, if you have heard hot dogs is is a very, very special place.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were closed for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they've reopened.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that's a labor of love that they're doing over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yes, in a pinch, um, for me, I do a scale down, um, uh, Chicago dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll do onions, relish, mustard chopped up tomato and mayonnaise.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they need to name that after my dog gives it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a Gibson dog.
[SPEAKER_03]: A Gibson dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a scaled down the compliment dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't need the new young green relish.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need the whole pickle, but I mean, if you've got tomatoes on it, like a relish and onions mustard, and I always add mayo to my Chicago dogs, because there's not enough on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: You got to add a few more top things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I, I have to say mentioned California like my my for me, the peak and it's like it's it's super simple, but the Dodger dogs at Dodger stadium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: The best or at university is because they also at least the last time I went have a partnership where they've got the Dodger dogs there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dodger dogs are the bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so is California where you are?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's where I grew up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, so we were spoiled with many options.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, Dodger dogs were always the go-to.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, now that I'm officially part of this society, I need to really drill down and get some niche options too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your responsibilities are sort of documenting your hot dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, right, um, your hot dog pill images, right, and sending sending all the memes and all the hot dog material culture, right, so I can make a key.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be plenty.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well,
[SPEAKER_03]: You mentioned that the Nathan's documentary is, it's devastating, and it's all about America.
[SPEAKER_03]: Something else that's devastating in all about America is purity culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what we're here to really talk about.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, first and foremost, give some context just to your background, because I heard John of the podcast mentioned, you know, you didn't grow up with kind of the anti-intellectualism religious background, which I would love to know with that's like, but also what's interesting me hearing about you growing up in a different environment than I did in the independent fundamental Baptist world is like, even though we're different in all these areas, like
[SPEAKER_03]: everywhere.
[SPEAKER_03]: So like I'd love to dive into the ubiquity of that, like how it expressed itself in your your branch, but like give us some background of a young Sarah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, and you can see, you know, one of these things about my, about after purity, the book that just came out is that it, I took the opportunity and it took me a while to decide to include some of my own stories and sort of making sense of that so this is this is a book that is based on my academic research, but sort of me trying to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: um, trying to do my own unraveling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and uh, and so, so yes, you know, as I've sort of been observing the margins of the X evangelical movement, which was astounding for someone who's been studying evangelicalism for 20 years, and feeling like I am completely on the outside of this now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once this movement surfaced and I started reading people like like chastain, I came to realize like oh I am no longer on the outside of this, like this is like me right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah so I grew up in a form of evangelicalism that was very Calvinistic and of course I
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, because we didn't identify as Calvinists, per se, but there was definitely this sense of specialness, this sense of being set apart, this sense of, you know, the concept of grace is always being able to make the correct decision.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and, and so there was always the sense that we are special, we are set apart and, oh, those poor other sobs are not, um, and with that was was an intellectualism, you know, I went to Christian schooling, K through college.
[SPEAKER_00]: and a sense that, you know, when you engage your faith, it's something that is an intellectual project.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't, and of course, it wasn't until I went to seminary, I went to a method
[SPEAKER_00]: how distinct that was, and the idea of intellectualism being something that was valuable to your faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as someone, and so I interviewed so many people, and I should say overwhelmingly women about their experiences growing up at evangelical and in peer culture, and so many of them talked about
[SPEAKER_00]: not having their intellectual curiosity, their intellectual gifts being valued by their religious communities, because that wasn't, you know, that wasn't their role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately for me, because I was in
[SPEAKER_00]: a faith-based intellectual world like I was my ability to do well as a student was valued and I always felt that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I never had any questions about my intellectual
[SPEAKER_00]: um and uh and so that was uh which doesn't necessarily help in terms of contending with purity culture but at least it allowed me to develop a sense of self um and I learned that you know my brain was my safe police and but yeah and then sort of learning about different traditions that were anti-intellectual
[SPEAKER_00]: When I go to conferences with religion scholars, many of them are evangelical and but they're also academic and I never
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, kind of feel ill at ease, it's when people kind of get into the more populous and the more anti intellectual is, right, as, you know, I have students who, you know, show up in my classes and say, you know, I'm going to use the Bible to make this argument rather than do the thing you're asking like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: that concerns me, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That always made me feel ill at ease.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was interesting to be like, okay, so maybe it's not to believe so much as the anti-intellectualism that really causes needs concern about evangelicalism and its impact on American culture at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, but I
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was a really interesting thing to come to to come to understand, but yeah, and I didn't, you know, I didn't grow up with like series of how or the end time.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is that like right, you know, and and sort of meeting people being like, wow, what.
[SPEAKER_00]: it would have been like as a child to have to process that and that sort of took me, you know, because in my work, I also study religious trauma and I'm like, that's a level of trauma, like if you're really taking that seriously, how that's going to impact the way you view the world, the way that you think about yourself as a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so there's so much beyond my own
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and, and I think for me, and that's been a more effective way of humming to understand what evangelical it, evangelicalism is, then sort of reading all the scholars and historians who've tried to define it over the years.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there's so much fear.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I, I, I, I describe, I mean, so much of it to me is just, it's,
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just fear.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, I fear I'm doing same wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fear is going to happen to me for doing same wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fear I'm going to cause, you know, for specifically, I'm, you know, from the female perspective, fear I'm going to cause someone to do something wrong to me, you know, like there's a lot of, a lot of layers to this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am tears, as you,
[SPEAKER_03]: did seek to start to understand this and and I've listened to you sharing depth some of this journey where it's you know you're looking at absence culture and then you're like well that's not enough to describe what this is like can you just briefly describe like the thread you started pulling that's led to you know the after purity project the book your your first book on this topic like
[SPEAKER_03]: and I know that that could be a collection of books on its own.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's the starting point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I was in graduate school in the early 2000s, which was the height of purity culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many of the people I've interviewed for the AfterPurity Project were in high school, right, sort of in the thick of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time in here, I was, you know, and there was, I found one person online,
[SPEAKER_00]: who had taken a pledge at the acquire the fire, conference, and I emailed her, and I interviewed her, and this was still before, you know, you know, we could sort of do, right, we could talk like this, and things are so much easier, so I did so much by mail and email, and it was, you know, so as much, much more painstaking,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so I started it because I was taking a class called, um, practicing religions and it was focusing on like what are religious practices.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had for a long time, you know, since I stumbled into my first true love weights event.
[SPEAKER_00]: um in college and I was paid to be there and I read about this in the book and um I was like I got some questions about this and and so it wasn't until I got to studying a religion and a graduate program that I felt like I was in a place where I could ask those questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I started doing that and I wrote a paper and I also started collecting the true love weight's Bible, used versions of it where people would have lots of marginally
[SPEAKER_00]: and as right different things, and you know, and I was getting really into sort of material culture of religion and so I, so that was part of it too, and then when it came to deciding on my dissertation, my advisor was kind of an insistent, you know, because I had this
[SPEAKER_00]: no one else was working on it at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was, and that even at that time, I was like, and I said to her, I said, I don't think I can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh, and then I did it.
[SPEAKER_03]: What was the reason you thought you couldn't do it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Was it because you felt like you didn't have a handle on it?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or because it was too heavy to dive into?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was too heavy to dive into.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I knew it would mean kind of working through some of my own stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it wasn't just an academic project.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was going to be something that was deeply personal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: feel prepared for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns out I was prepared.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't feel prepared for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't feel like I was far enough away from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, oh, this is going to be miserable.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it turns out writing a dissertation is miserable.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter what, I can imagine.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, don't read my dissertation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, dissertations are, um, are as much about process and sort of learning skills, and there are skills that I have now been able to replicate several times and have gotten much better, um, at being able to interview people, at being able to connect, right, uh, what I am learning through interviews, through other people's scholarship,
[SPEAKER_00]: and my own experiences, and that is, you know, so that's one example of what we would consider feminist methodology, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not just outside of your research, right, that you are a part of
[SPEAKER_00]: And I knew that would be the case, and I did it anyway, and it ended up being one of the best decisions I was ever coaxed into.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my first book was is very traditional academic historical monograph, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't appear in it anywhere, but at the same time I've had experiences
[SPEAKER_00]: academia, I've read feminist theory, I know very kind of high theory, high academia, and have just felt transformed by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I didn't expect when that book came out for people
[SPEAKER_00]: to feel so personally impacted by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, but I was like, but of course, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would be personally, you know, like this is the kind of book I wanted to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could contextualize
[SPEAKER_00]: my experience and that became kind of the goal of the after-peerating project was to collect people's stories and then situate them in a political context, a racial context,
[SPEAKER_00]: a sexual gender-based context, and so that people could sort of see the ways that our stories are not, right, these pin points, but they're part of this web, and part of the web of white Christian nationalism, to sort of spoil, you know, that's the big spoiler there, so yeah,
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to talk about the after-period project, but I want to ask a selfish question first.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that I've been asking more and more people this, there is a...
[SPEAKER_03]: thing for those of us who've left high control religious groups, if I can use that label broadly, where there is a period where you are so freshly dealing with it, where you can miss the force for the trees, you're very granular and how you're thinking about it, you're looking at your experience and don't even fully understand that, but also trying to understand
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, I'll use this term very broadly.
[SPEAKER_03]: But as a creator, as someone who's creating content about this writing about this, how do you determine when you're ready to publicly speak about something versus waiting till you're ready?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I think some people wait forever because they never feel ready, which is probably okay to feel that way.
[SPEAKER_03]: And some people jump in and they write something you go, I don't know, like that doesn't seem ready for market.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, how did you determine it was time?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the first thing I did was convince myself that this was just academic work, which of course was a ruse that I needed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was, you know, and it was a way for me to further feel safe in my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the, you know, so the question I hear you asking to me is one that's all about this
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say now, not that I have done this, but, you know, your body will tell you when you are ready, when whether that's your gut or your headaches or whatever it is, and that's what I've learned through this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it could be that whatever it is you are creating is just for you to get into that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what's a place I'm at now is really thinking about, you know, now that I've put something out to the world, what are the things I need to do just for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and so I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hard, you know, being in the world we are in to just create her the sake of creating.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's when we really get to know where we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I see examples of what you're saying of people not being ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: All over the place or at least.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of want to go back to this idea of grace, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you make the wrong decision, that's okay, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: There should be grace, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're putting something out to early, I have experienced many vulnerability hangovers.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've read, I recently got to write a very unique and singular
[SPEAKER_00]: obituary for Billy Graham and pardon me, not Billy, I did write one for Billy Graham but recently James Dobson and and afterwards and I got some really nice feedback on that but I also had very much had a vulnerability hangover and and it's also the thinking about who
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you putting your thoughts out there in order to, in order to elevate yourself as some kind of ideal or model and saying like, hey, here's what I did you can do this to read a lot of influencing is like that and the problem with that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, there are people out there in the post-periodi world who are just straight up, you know, want your money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I couldn't, and I've looked at like the spectrum of them because I thought that's what I would be working on and like they are just legit grfters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not that they don't have the experience that they're talking about, but they're using it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when they're also having seminars on like how you can learn to be successful, you know, kinds of, it's like this is a pyramid scale, you know, and those sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how, you know, and I see this too with people who will sort of.
[SPEAKER_00]: be like, here's a sexy picture of me and my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, there are pictures of me on my on my website.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of looking cute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had, you know, I had professional photos to take in with the whole like Apple thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and because I wanted to do something a little playful as I started the AfterPurity Project,
[SPEAKER_00]: And and I felt comfortable with that because that was another sort of way of being like I am in this project right I didn't want to be the disembodied scholar and so I was like here I am right hopefully looking cute right hopefully in my best dress you know and and stuff but I've also you know seen other people were I'm just like like I don't
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, that don't make me feel like, like, that are offering sort of very simple and easy, oh, and pay me money, and I will help you feel like the sexy Vixen you want to feel like, you know, kind of, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, so a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm sort of, there's, there's a whole spectrum.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's nuanced and, yeah, there's,
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a, it is a weird thing because like, even asking the question, it's why I ask it is like, I think I used to see certain things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, and I've been through all these phases too, not the sexy vixen face, but I've been through all the other ones.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a, maybe that's my new arc.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: But no, it's, you know, I went through the beginning where it's like,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and obviously to have a public platform at, but I was very much in the, you know, like scream it out phase, you know, which I think, and I think then I got to a place where I was able to articulate a little bit more, you know, sometimes still, you know, working to articulate certain things, but it's like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think any of those phases is less valuable, either to myself or to the people listening.
[SPEAKER_03]: It depends what you want to be effective at doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think like what I'm not saying for people listening just to get ahead of people think I'm saying this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm not saying that like someone who just experienced abuse should wait to talk about it until they can be poised, you know, or like someone who's critiquing a system should wait till they go get their PhD, you know, like it's it's not that, but I definitely see what you're seeing, which is like there's some people who.
[SPEAKER_03]: there's some people who do the routes that you've talked about in ways from like that feels very authentic to them and feels very truthful and is powerful and incredible and then there are like kind of the griff space or the people who I think are are, you know, and not to their shame but like are frozen in that moment still towards like take a moment
[SPEAKER_03]: offline to heal, you know, or take a moment to, you know, and, and, and, like I said, I, I struggle sometimes because I didn't go to college.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like so, even interacting with someone like your work, which is coming from a very educated place, I go, can I contribute to that conversation?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, should I contribute?
[SPEAKER_03]: Should I leave it to them?
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, I think, I think just asking the questions the first step, but there's definitely
[SPEAKER_03]: There's definitely some things I've been curious about in that space, especially when you ready to write a book.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you ready to launch a YouTube channel or really go, this is what I think about this topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's as nice to hear because surrounded by academics and academics usually don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't have that complex.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the next platform?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I mean, with, yeah, with people in their platforms, and the X-Men jellicle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a, it's an overwhelming space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And easy to get, and I don't follow it as closely as I used to, but it can, it can really kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: I see places where it's starting to cannibalize itself and I don't know how to think about that like I'm not sort of a media person.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say, when you put something into the world, whatever it is, one, it's no longer your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have to be prepared to give something away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why it's so beautiful because if you're ready to release.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are ready to release that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some people write who want to stay in that rage space in that right space.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I remember when I've loved sort of all the sarcasm and all the like stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a really important phase.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like that just doesn't hit the same way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I recognize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some great
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, gorgeous art, you know, of the comedic kindness comes out of that, you know, I think of the naked pastor's soul, you know, his whole, all the work that he does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but yeah, so you have to be ready to give it away and you have to be willing to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um.
[SPEAKER_00]: willing to let other people do with it what they will because that's what being a creator is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the other thing I've noticed, like, is if you, if you don't have other resources to support yourself, you cannot depend on your followers,
[SPEAKER_00]: to be your support system, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially if you're doing any kind of coaching mental health work, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you put out there what you need to put out, but then if you're following that up with sort of more kind of raw, oh, please tell me, I'm, you know, I'm doing the right stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get audience captured pretty quick and, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: When I think about that as a writer, that doesn't feel right to me, that feels unsafe to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things I think we collectively understand is the way that growing up how we did are boundaries were all fucked up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I always notice them with different people, like, oh, yeah, that's, for me, that's a boundary violation, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, why is this influencer who claims to be offering people all of these resources for doing all these things, like having a meltdown and expecting, you know, their followers to provide, right, to clean up their emotional whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um...
[SPEAKER_00]: But hopefully, right, there's grace in that, you know, I'm open to their grace, but I also, I learned something about myself in terms of the question of when am I ready?
[SPEAKER_00]: To put something out, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be willing to let it go.
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be willing to accept whatever comes back or block it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You gotta be prepared to block it and not let it's not let it in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to have a support system that is your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and have that boundary between a public self and a private self.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the people that actually know you and and people that don't and yeah, I told that to someone because they were like, how do you handle?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I get tons of comments and stuff on man and a good and sometimes a lot of nasty comments on my stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, someone was like, how do you deal with that?
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I don't even think about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Really like, it's rare that that ever bothers me at all.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I said, like, what would bother me is if, like, X, Y, Z survivor that I'm friends with text to me and said, like, which is only a.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was like one time I worded like I worded a post a certain way and like a bunch of you'll commented and they're like I don't like that and I was like I would ever and then someone I really know and trust texted me a similar thing and I was like okay if you're saying it I know there's something there you know like and I know there's something to talk about it and it doesn't mean to factor like I'm wrong or they're right or vice versa but it's enough to go like okay well this is a real person that I really know saying this but
[SPEAKER_03]: I am curious on the after-purity side, like, you have talked to, I mean, tons of people at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if talk people that in your book you break down affiliated Christians, unaffiliated Christians, ex-vengealkals, the uncertain rejectionists,
[SPEAKER_03]: So you've talked to everybody from the most ardent believer to the person that says, I'll never step foot in a church again, what are some of the biggest differences among those categories and how purity cultures affected them and what are like the biggest through lines that you've seen through those conversations?
[SPEAKER_00]: The through line in all of it is shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: certainly sexual shame and sort of a sense of, you know, because as we all know, because a break for a Brown, you know, shame is not, I did something bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's I am bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's certainly a big through line, depending on, you know, regardless of where you end up.
[SPEAKER_00]: in these categories, which are my own categories.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to figure out a way, because ex-angelicalism, as Blake Chastain says, it's such a liminal space, right, that people are very much moving through and moving on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that even the people who remain affiliated, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We think like, oh, that's sort of the most stable category, because they have state.
[SPEAKER_00]: everyone's losing through, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the people, because the idea for everyone is to get to a place where they have regained a sense of spiritual mobility.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, and for some people, that is available in, say, the Episcopal Church, because you can go to the Episcopal Church and meet witches, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And have like a saw when, you know, celebration.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, so that's the kind of spiritual mobility that that person is looking for other people need enough mobility that they can walk away altogether.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also know that they can walk back if that's needed, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's what everyone is seeking, which, and, and.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how much work that takes when by design like our upbrings did not give us any of that kind of mobility like just the opposite like anything outside of this is dangerous is scary and will not just be a threat to your personal well being but to your salvation to you know future relationships to all the things that you've opened dream for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and I had actually never thought about that, that's a really good question, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What sort of what brings all these people makes, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is it that they all have in common?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in terms of, you know, and difference is it's hard to say because it's so, it's so hard to know, you know, what,
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, why some people stay, why some people don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, what is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I mean, no one has stayed, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone has moved somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once the ability to keep moving if that's necessary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in that sense, there isn't much of a difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that I have just, I remember listening to,
[SPEAKER_00]: A stand-up comedian who is a well-known atheist and talks about it and and something he said I just really resonated with and that was the first time I realized that it doesn't really matter if you believe in God or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I believe the same thing that this man does, who does not believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's the time I still believed in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have identified myself as a Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, how fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: That that's not the important question.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what puts us in categories as whether or not we believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about how do we regard each other?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we see distinctions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so I don't think whether you're a Christian or not, whether you're, you know, incorporating Christianity into something else, whether you're leaving altogether, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That difference is not as big as we think it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things, you mentioned the book that I thought was interesting is you talked about young evangelicals during the height of kind of the Jesus movement, but I think this is applicable to young, not like all the resurgence is the purity culture moving that early 2000s, like any time there's a push.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we're seeing it again right now in the wake of
[SPEAKER_03]: the Charlie Kurt thing and you know Jen Alpha kids getting swept into this.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this idea that young evangelicals being encouraged to live to the extreme where they would find alternate meaning and I felt like there's a throughline in your book of uh
[SPEAKER_03]: living in the extreme, like in the extent of how much you cover up, how little sexually you do, how modest you are, you know, even you get into eating disorders in the book tied to this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I'm like keep my body looking a certain way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you think this push to the extreme as a source of meaning is so compelling to particularly young evangelicals
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm immediately thinking about shiny happy people, the most recent one, especially on team media, which you know, I knew a little bit about, but this, right, I mean, extreme teen Christianity, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was an actual brand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but yeah, right, this sort of need for like intense meaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt some of this when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, right, that you yourself needed to exemplify, right, that's why I wrote that letter to the editor when I was in high school, right, like I, and I didn't even realize that I had been recruited.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to, right, because the purity movement was bare, it was really nascent at that time, at this sense of, like, I need to be out and, you know, I mean, interestingly, interesting use of language, right, but, right, I need to, um, I need to be promotional,
[SPEAKER_00]: And which is certainly part of the, you know, the gaste of evangelizing, first of all, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also wonder, you know, and I haven't done thought about this, situated this too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, true love weight started.
[SPEAKER_00]: because there was a youth group of kids that was run by Richard Ross who started to love weights.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they were noticing the attention that all of the gay people were getting for coming out and how they were being celebrated, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that not only concern them, but it made them a little jealous that they weren't, you know, getting that attention, which is rich, you know, given.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, given that history, but then Richard Ross said to them, well, why don't you come out and publicly declare your sexuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I just heard that interview not too long ago, and it's not, it's a pretty recent interview, but I was like, God dammit, this is all about, you know, this anti-gay agenda and these kids needing to feel special.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, and I think about the way I was taught to believe to feel special, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And had I been there?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have been like, absolutely, we should do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are, you know, and that's when you hear, you know, these young people getting interviewed in the New York times in the early 90s saying, like, hey, we're trying to get virgin to come out of the closet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so it became, and they started sort of using, you know, all of this, all of the rhetoric and symbolism of like these counter cultural movements, whether it was the calibration movement, the feminist movement to kind of amp up.
[SPEAKER_00]: purity culture, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so purity culture be, you know, choosing abstinence became something a bit like personal choice, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, in the coming out of the closet and like it's the guys of empowerment and autonomy, kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, perfect, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that was the initial boost.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, right, what's going to happen in the 90s and 2000s is you get the mega church movement that's just going to explode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And and sort of all the heightened affect that comes with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And combine that with, like, a post 9-11 militarism, and I think that's how you get a generation of young evangelicals who were like, this is what we have to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to be willing to sacrifice and our bodies, I interviewed people who said, you know, I was willing to, I fully expected to be a martyr by the age of 25.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: The post 911 thing is interesting because I grew up in, I was born in 95, so I grew up in, I'm just old enough to remember, I was coloring with crayons at my grandparents' house and looked over at the TV and saw that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But then grew up in this very patriotic,
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, like, kind of energy that happened for years after that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is interesting that like the messaging that was so absorbed was these people that believe a false religion are willing to put themselves in a plane flying to a building.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you willing to stand up for Jesus and die for your faith?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, and it was very much, we're not the same, but to rhetoric and messaging,
[SPEAKER_03]: with so similar.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really interesting and really interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and to the Columbine, I think I write about that in the book, and about these sort of, right, these stories of martyrdom, right, and the one that was ended up being completely fabricated, but like so martyrdom was kind of held up as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like when that started coming out, I was just like, whoa,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, but again, by this time, I was, I was in graduate school, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had completely moved out of this and I sort of, I was in graduate school when 9-11 happened, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, and I didn't, and so I wasn't, I was far away from any centers of evangelicalism that I didn't really track what was happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's still, I was like, whoa, I missed a whole lot there, but I actually learned a most from Kristen Demaze book, Jesus and John Wayne, right, where she, and I was like, because I was thinking like, as she was talking about sort of like a masculinity post 9-11, I was like that tracks perfectly with the rise of security culture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's kind of an essential text at this point if you're going to talk about American fundamentals and well, it is interesting to think about like this idea of of martyrdom being kind of idolized and we're seeing that again like really hitting hard right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But as much as like most American Christians will not die for their faith, many do give up their life for their faith.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you talk about in your book, you know, a lot of white women give up their autonomy.
[SPEAKER_03]: They vote against their interests.
[SPEAKER_03]: They put themselves in religious environments where they are not prioritized and they give up their autonomy for other benefits.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I guess this is one piece that I think about a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Purity culture does not benefit men or women if I want to make that clear because I think science people go, well, it makes sense, guys would set the, you know, whatever, like there's lots of layers to that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think there is some validity to the thing of,
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I look at it and go, I didn't notice a lot of this for so long because I wasn't, I was a, I was a white dude in a purity culture space.
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't feel the brunt of as much shame or as much this as say a woman would in that environment.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always scratch my head when I go, there's people who perpetuate these systems who are harmed by it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm trying to understand the psychology of those women.
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about this in detail of your book.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why are there so many women eager to prop up movements that are actively harming them like extreme purity culture?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just asked that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm trying to remember what I, what I responded, yes, I mean, first of all, women are necessary for these movements to succeed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Women, white women, we learn, we are socialized to understand that we can benefit from patriarchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: If we know what our role is, we, uh, and of course, if you are in a community where you have the most authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: through traditional feminine roles, like motherhood, marriage, and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you become really protective of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why I make the argument that the pro-liced movement is as much about protecting the moral authority of motherhood as it is about protecting me unborn because this is the only place where women can have authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you're going to get a lot of push that right seeing a mother is not right that doesn't right in the notion of more motherhood goes back to the 19th century.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is steep and this culture womanhood, which is deeply racialized and because this isn't just about.
[SPEAKER_00]: gender, it's also about our racial identities, and one of the reasons why white women are attracted to patriarchy in a way that they want to benefit from it is because attached to patriarchy is white supremacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so while they may not gain gender equality in that, they will gain racial superiority.
[SPEAKER_03]: Gotcha.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so yes, so that is why it continues to succeed and why white women continue to be drawn to to this kind of stuff even though right and so they they make a trade off if they stay or right they're just so socialized into it they think well this is this is the right way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of take a plea deal to maintain a higher place in the hierarchy by just accepting a slightly lower play or much lower place than the number one person in the hierarchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And women are necessary, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if women did not participate in this stuff like it would fall.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think, I wish I had the book in front of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just packed on my books.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I know in Bethelsemar's recent book, she talks about, I think it's 86%, I'm going to totally butcher the stat.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the amount of unpaid female work that runs the Southern Baptist convention is a stocking stat, a shocking stat.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'll have to find the quote and put it somewhere in this episode, but it is, it runs off the backs of these people and, you know, unpaid volunteers in general, but especially women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's been the case for centuries, you know, I've spent a lot of time in the 19th century, and, you know, I think the irony of churches, of only men being allowed leadership roles, but churches being 80% women, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially doing things like fundraising.
[SPEAKER_00]: as well, like, and in fact, there were so many women in the church that there were revivals that targeted men, and that had, you know, banners that said things like the women have had charge of the church long enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get the men back into, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is part of the muscular Christianity, like it's a problem that women have too much influence, though no power, you know, in these churches.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I'm Mark Driscoll video recently and he said the church has been Chickified for far too long.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, okay, same, same messaging, you know, different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, which is, I mean, and it seems it's been forever, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that, and I think that is a good example of
[SPEAKER_00]: you know of how you know Christianity depends on women's labor and yet does not does not value as as agents of their own spirituality right and so many of their own body and it and I'm sort of thinking analogously of
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, research done on women who join like white supremacist groups and how they play a strategic role of being sort of like the soft front and like, hey, if we have, you know, these white women sort of as the faces of this, you know, then people are going to be less concerned and and that's a and it's a recruiting strategy and it's like, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and so you see this all through research on sort of the role of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, right, if the women weren't willing to do that work, it would not be so successful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because they do benefit, right, and have figured out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can, I can feel that sort of there's a part of me that's like, yeah, I would know how to do that very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I learned how to do it from a very young age, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn how to fawn over the next life, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the first thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you learn how to be obedient, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn how to perform all these things that say, like, yes, I willing to comply with these structures, because I know there are certain rewards.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I figured out how to get those rewards.
[SPEAKER_00]: through obedience, through compliance by, by performing those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it, you know, when I was 18 it felt really good because I got actual physical awards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those things and now have very weird, you know, like actual, like, hey, you're a good Christian.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's an award.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um, yeah, but if you can demonstrate your pliability.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the midst of patriarchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is where.
[SPEAKER_00]: So another thing I've been thinking about has been the plastic surgery trends among Mago women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, which a lot of people had been writing about when you listen to Mara Logo face and Mara Logo face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you listen to plastic surgeons talk about it, they say, you know, it's really strange because when most people want get plastic surgery, they want to look natural.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to look like they've had augmentation, but Mara Logo face is just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: right, you want to look outside, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to look.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and to me, that's about compliance, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's about I am willing to augment my body to signal to the patriarchy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: To this administration that I will do whatever it takes to maintain the power I have in this, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's the same kind of falling that says, you know, that we can
[SPEAKER_00]: That happens in evangelical communities, but it's very, very visual.
[SPEAKER_00]: and sends a very powerful message.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's what I think is going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because people are all like, what is going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, I think so, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you see these women who were very beautiful and have surgeries and look, you know, my other theory is and I don't have enough knowledge of this is that there might be a pornification of their faces as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I'll let.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot to be said there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it obviously, when you look at the, in my brain, it goes like this kind of, this blow-up doll look, you know, and then you've got these power moves CEO type, you know, like the messaging
[SPEAKER_03]: All of a sudden everybody's got blonde hair blue eyes in every sector that you look into, you know, with the little cross chain and it's like it's such a To give a less crass example to me, it's I just always go, it's very stiffered wives.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very much like stiffer wives remains one of the best documentaries ever, you know, and I think that
[SPEAKER_03]: you just see that kind of like what is valuable to these men and how do we make ourselves look like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Whether that's something that they do intentionally or something, it's just learned by absorption.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the other piece too.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's why I'm always nervous to give actual examples because the motives as you know are very fuzzy when you're in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I did check the stat, just so I can put it here, 83% of women's ministry leaders are unpaid volunteers.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I should have just said with confidence when I said around 80% and it would have sounded very smart.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just checked.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because in the 19th century, I remember that like the number was 80% 80% of Protestant churches were women, like in the pews, so it's, you know, that's, that's really interesting and I've never seen like what that tracks, but it's just interesting those numbers are so are so similar, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I know we're passed our time a little bit and I feel like we have scratched the surface of a million things we could dive into.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll have to reconvene at some point because there's we can expand on like four or five of these points just as as we're closing up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love asking authors this question.
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's there's the things that you
[SPEAKER_03]: obviously right to get the book to get published like here's the main theme of the book or there's the things that are like a couple bullet points that you know go on the inside flap of the book but I know every single person who sits down to write something has like that little thing they kind of slip in there that matters to them that most people wouldn't even notice do you have one thing that's like very important to you that maybe somebody will gloss over or
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I hope, I hope, I hope people do get this because I think, right, this is the nugget and it comes from, you know, everything I have heard, right, that in terms of the conversations people have about purity culture are still dominated by questions about gender and sexuality and sort of the misinformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: of sexuality and gender.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I want people to understand is that evangelical period culture is as much a project of racial formation as it is of gender and sexual formation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I accomplished that with the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I say those words, but if people walk away, not seeing that, I would be like, I don't think you read that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I was going to say that's not a hidden nugget in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, good, good.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think those, yeah, that's very much what I want people to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to give people the tools just to really think about,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and here's another thing, which, you know, I've started, you know, starting to write this book during the first of Trump administration and, and now even more so is, is the importance of doing historical analysis and, and that this is part of, you know, the myths of, and how we perpetuate these myths of innocence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That we don't learn about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't learn about our ancestors.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't learn the history of the places that we live and and when we as we can just.
[SPEAKER_00]: Avoid that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that I think has gotten us into the place where we are, where we have a federal government, which is actively denying people the right to study history as it needs to be studied.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are four, right, and this is sort of part of the authoritarianism's label, and so yeah, so I think there's also something in there about like, you know, just please read history, right, you can start with, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you can start with, you know, read all of incidents in the life as a slave girl, right, an amazing representation of slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I try and put things in a lot of this is stuff that I teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: and so things that I'm like, this is like what every citizen in the United States needs to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And certainly not everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we are just so tied into these very simple, like warm and fuzzy stories about what the United States is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was even complaining about Hamilton the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, it doesn't do anything to really question
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, a fellow Hamiltonator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm so.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say, like, I've never seen it because I knew I would be a. I am a, I am such a lineman.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, Miranda Hater.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, this is just fueling me right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I, Mary Poppins returns.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have personal beef with.
[SPEAKER_03]: And every time I daughter wants to watch Mary Poppins.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, are we watching the Good Mary Poppins?
[SPEAKER_03]: Are we watching?
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I found my tribe once again, this is good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Keep it going.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and you know, and I think it's such a good example of the way, you know, like.
[SPEAKER_00]: right perspectives get assimilated into the white status quo, you know, and and and stuff and how and I, you know, the idea of like, oh my goodness, like, you know, George Washington is, or Jefferson is pleased by black man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing, you know, but like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we raising the questions about, you know, like George Washington owned African slaves?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we think about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: as part of the founding of this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it seems like we're the myths of exceptionalism, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: American exceptionalism, which are only possible through the perpetuation of myths of innocence, and so we just, like, we really have to kind of dig in and ask these questions,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, by the, you know, of US history by the, you know, the schoolhouse rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm the teacher that destroys schoolhouse rock for my students.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm not a schoolhouse rockator.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great American melting pot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're doing so well.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, had to come after schoolhouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: On that bitter hour note.
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess we can.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I appreciate, there's so much we could talk about, and like I said, I hope we can again at some point I'd love to chat more.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, thank you so much for doing this truly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Where is the best place for people to connect with you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, they should go grab a copy of after purity, a non-blurred out copy of after purity, wherever they can find it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But where's the best place to connect with you personally if people like to?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so you can, if I mean, I'm on social media, Facebook and Instagram, I have the afterpurity project is on sub-staff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a regular,
[SPEAKER_00]: poster but you can sort of read other things that I have on there and of course on Instagram hot takes on hot dogs for all hot dog content.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is I, you know, there is a podcast that I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: called pure white sexual purity and white supremacy with access to media and the folks at straight white American Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is it's an eight heart kind of, you know, documentary, historical documentary series.
[SPEAKER_00]: which are the kind of podcasts that I really like because I'm a history nerd, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a lot of the same content that's in the book, I probably shouldn't say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it has lots of great interviews with people and some different things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So people want to listen to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you can find me on Facebook and
[SPEAKER_03]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much again for doing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fabulousing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Grab a copy of AfterPurity.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a link to it in the show notes of this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: But for now, I will see you on next week's episode.