Author Description
Though they disagree on virtually everything else, evangelicals and gays, Catholics and agnostics all agree that sex should be innocent and ecstatic. For most of Western history people have not had such expectations. Innocent Ecstasy shows how Christianity led Americans to hope for so much from sex. The book explains how the sexual revolution could have occurred in a nation so deeply imbued with Christian ethical values.Tracing our strange journey from the hands of Jonathan Edward's angry Puritan God to the loving embrace of Marabel Morgan's Total Woman, Gardella draws his surprising evidence from widely disparate sources, ranging from Catholic confessionals to methodist revival meetings, from evangelical romances to The Song of Bernadette. He reveals the sexual messages of mainstream Protestant theology and the religious aspirations of medical texts found at the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. He sheds new light on such well-known figures as Henry Adams, Margaret Sanger, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and introduces us to such fascinating, lesser-known characters as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Sylvester Graham, inventors of corn flakes and Graham crackers, who devised their products as anti-aphrodisiacs. While detailing the development of moral obligations to pursue sexual pleasure and to follow certain patterns of sexual practice, Gardella incidentally provides one of the few books to bring together the liberal Protestant, Roman Catholic, and evangelical perspectives on any aspect of American culture.Gardella attributes the American ethic of sexual pleasure to the eagerness of Americans to overcome original sin. This led to a quest for perfection, or complete freedom from guilt, combined with a quest for ecstatic experience. The result, he maintains, is an attitude that looks to sex for what was once expected from religion.In this new edition, a new conclusion explores how popular music, gay liberation, and recovery from sexual abuse have su
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the historical paradox of how American Christianity fostered a cultural expectation that sexual experience should be both innocent and ecstatic. Peter Gardella, a scholar of religion and American culture, utilizes a diverse array of primary sources—ranging from theological texts and revivalist records to medical literature and popular media—to argue that the American pursuit of sexual pleasure is rooted in a theological quest for perfection and the overcoming of original sin.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Historical analysis of American religious attitudes toward sexuality from the Puritan era to the modern sexual revolution.
- Examination of figures such as Jonathan Edwards, Margaret Sanger, and John Harvey Kellogg.
- Integration of Catholic, Protestant, and evangelical perspectives on sexual ethics.
- Analysis of how religious aspirations were transferred to the domain of sexual experience.
Scope Limits
- The text focuses primarily on the American context and does not provide a comprehensive global history of sexual ethics.
- It does not serve as a clinical guide to sexual health or psychology but rather as a cultural and historical critique.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and historians frequently cite this work for its unique ability to bridge the gap between religious history and the evolution of American sexual norms. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous examination of how theological frameworks continue to influence contemporary secular attitudes toward intimacy.
Page Count:
274
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190609427
ISBN-13:
9780190609429
Religion
History
American Studies
Special Topics
Cultural History
Sociology