Outside the Lines

How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith

Mihee Kim-Kort

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781506408965
• eBook ISBN: 9781506408972
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

God's love for us breaks every boundary. So should our love for each other.

Mihee Kim-Kort is a wife, a mom, and a Presbyterian minister. And she's queer. As she became aware of her queer sexuality, Mihee wondered what that meant for her spirituality. But instead of pushing her away from God, her queerness has brought her closer to Jesus and taught her how to love better.

In Outside the Lines, Mihee shows us how God, in Jesus, is oriented toward us in a queer and radical way. Through the life, work, and witness of Jesus, we see a God who loves us with a queer love. And our faith in that God becomes a queer spirituality -- a spirituality that crashes through definitions and moves us outside of the categories of our making. Whenever we love ourselves and our neighbors with the boundary-breaking love of God, we live out this queer spirituality in the world.

With a captivating mix of personal story and biblical analysis, Outside the Lines shows us how each of our bodies fits into the body of Christ. Outside the lines and without exceptions.

9

Purity Culture and the Christian Wrong

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

—Matthew 5:8

Right before my freshman year in high school, my parents and I moved into a house on the north side of my hometown of Colorado Springs. A friend invited me to attend her church, and I did for much of high school. The church had charismatic youth-group gatherings, home Bible studies, and special services, like the one on Good Friday, which came complete with an altar call. I slid into these experiences, mimicking speaking in tongues and trying to move my hands and body the same way during worship. There was something comforting and familiar. Perhaps the more emotional expression of faith reminded me of my own family’s church.

But after a while, it felt forced and exhausting, and I found myself with my eyes open most of the time, looking around during the prayers at those dancing and singing. I was suddenly more interested in what this faith looked like and less in what it felt like. I stopped attending as much and eventually quit altogether.

My friend’s church was called New Life Church. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Long after I graduated from seminary, I came across a headline about this church, which became one of the most influential Christian organizations in the United States. The church was caught in a shocking scandal that sent crippling reverberations throughout the evangelical Christian world. The senior pastor of the church, Ted Haggard, faced allegations of an extramarital affair. He had bought drugs and solicited a male sex worker in Denver for over three years. According to CNN, “After the allegations were made public, Haggard resigned as president of the influential National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), an umbrella group representing more than 45,000 churches with 30 million members. He also temporarily stepped aside as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church.”^[1]

Eventually, the church board forced Haggard to completely resign and pushed his family out. But for the wider evangelical Christian community, the target of criticism became the “homosexual act” Haggard had committed. The rhetoric suggested that his misconduct was much more offensive than if he’d had an affair with a heterosexual woman. And those who were virulently opposed to homosexuality weren’t solely evangelical Christians. Arguably, this perspective was held widely by those who fall on the conservative side of the political spectrum.

It was no coincidence that “Christian” and “Right” were often synonymous, and sadly, in the public sphere, it continues to be so today. Early forces included renowned evangelist Billy Graham, who supported Republican candidates and had a huge hand in forming a religious Republican base through his revivalist campaigns, and the cross-denominational organizing of the National Evangelicals Association. As the influence of evangelical Christianity in politics stretched all the way up to the Oval Office, the Christian Right became more than just a political perspective or single organization.

What happened with Haggard was an issue of morality and fidelity, and the betrayal of heterosexuality. Ultimately, it was an issue of purity, and it betrayed all the structures around virginity. In our church and society, we have a culture of purity, which regulates bodies and locks people into narrow, limited sexualities.

I barely remember Ted Haggard, but I doubt I will ever forget this story; it arouses so many emotions, including sadness, outrage, shock, relief, and doubt. The story is a part of the history of the town where I grew up, as well as of American Christianity, my faith, and our American notions of purity and faithfulness. The effects of purity culture are still present in the dogmatism of purity balls and rings, increasing controversies over wedding cakes for gay couples, and gender-specific signage for public restrooms.

But this is not the only Christian way to view purity. A few days ago, I received a postcard from the group Queer Theology, and on the front it says, “Christianity has always been queer.” It was a timely reminder that Christianity has actually always contended with notions of purity through queerness. From its beginnings, Christianity was characterized by transgressive encounters, the crossing of boundaries—an offensive intermingling, whether it involves temple meat or worship, multiple ethnicities and identities, and friendships that extend beyond the norm. A queer spirituality today continues that legacy by challenging and dismantling the kind of purity that locks people out, locks people in their bodies, or locks people out of the fullest expression of faithfulness we are called to and created for in God. A queer spirituality says, “To hell with your purity,” because purity doesn’t define love or value, no matter how pretty and shiny you make it. Purity doesn’t define or indicate faith or faithfulness or the nature of God’s covenant with us. Purity doesn’t define goodness or holiness, and it isn’t a measure of salvation.

Like a Virgin

But people sure do try to make purity everything—pretty and shiny, good and holy, and faithful to God. We have not only a culture of purity but a cult of purity, where virginity is glorified and exalted. The return to conservatism in the 1980s began a resurgence of interest in womanly purity and “biblical” gender roles. With the set roles of the 1950s facing upheaval, many conservative evangelicals scrambled for a foothold, and some found it in fairy-tale-like methods for promoting virginity, especially of their daughters.

When I was getting ready to graduate from high school, my parents gave me a ring with a pearl to wear on my left hand. They said something along the lines of “promising myself to God” and “being pure and faithful,” obviously thinking about college and all the stories of what happens to most normal, red-blooded teenagers when you cram thousands of them together in a small space. There wasn’t anything overtly ceremonial or formal about this moment, but it stayed with me, even after I failed to keep the promise my freshman year in college by sleeping with my boyfriend at the time. I still kept the ring, but I didn’t wear it. I struggled with trying to reconcile “giving up” my virginity with my continued love of and faith in God. No one in my Christian communities addressed these struggles, except those who talked about a second or renewed virginity, though the groups that were “gracious” enough to create a language where people could sexually “start over” still centered the necessity of purity and always couched it in a language of holiness and faith.

This obsession with virginity—specifically, chastity and abstinence—wasn’t necessarily about preventing STDs or teenage pregnancies. It seemed hypothetical in many ways. There were parental gifts of a “purity ring” in exchange for a pledge of sexual abstinence, and some communities even held “purity balls.” Purity balls actually began in Colorado Springs. They were, and still are, debutante-style, coming-of-age parties for mostly adolescent daughters. Young girls in fancy ballroom dresses attended a special dance, escorted by their fathers. Featured at the ball were a cross, white flowers, and a military-style Arch of the Saber ceremony. Vows were spoken, and contracts signed. In The Virgin Tales, a documentary on purity balls, Swiss producer Mirjam von Arx focuses on the Wilson family and their organization, Generations of Light, which began hosting purity balls at the Broadmoor Hotel in 1998. Participants take this concept of purity of body and mind one step further, declaring that even their first kiss would be at the altar. According to a summary description of the documentary, “For two years, the filmmakers follow the Wilson offspring as they prepare for their fairytale vision of romance and marriage and seek out their own prince and princess spouses. In the process, a broader theme emerges: how the religious right is grooming a young generation of virgins to embody an Evangelically-grounded Utopia in America.”^[2]

At its peak, dozens of these events were held all over the United States, sponsored by churches and other Christian nonprofit groups. Writes Jennifer Baumgardner in a 2007 article in Glamour magazine, “The balls embody one of [evangelical Christianity’s] key doctrines: abstinence until marriage. Thousands of girls have taken purity vows at these events over the past nine years.”^[3] Purity—specifically, chastity—became chic in a way.

The popularity of purity balls showed that the cult of virginity was becoming a fast-growing movement, but many iterations of the concept had already been in place. True Love Waits (sponsored by LifeWay), Acquire the Fire (Teen Mania Ministries), and Silver Ring Thing were hosting gatherings that resembled a combination of a rave, a Saturday Night Live show, and a Sunday-night revival.

At the same time, the promotion of purity isn’t found in just Christian circles, such as youth ministries, campus ministries, and other faith organizations. In her book The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti explains that purity culture extends beyond these federally funded dances. These days, Facebook is peppered with purity groups that exist to support girls trying to “save it.” Schools hold abstinence rallies and assemblies featuring hip-hop dancers and comedians alongside religious leaders. Disturbingly, but maybe not surprising, with the current rise of evangelicalism in the broader culture and politics, Valenti observes that “virginity and chastity are reemerging as a trend in pop culture, in our schools, in the media, and even in legislation. Young women are . . . simultaneously being taught that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain pure.”^[4]

The theatrical frame of the purity ball gives meaning to the daughter’s virginity by elevating it. Given the way that fathers, daughters, and also mothers solidify distinct ideologies around virginity by lifting it up and worshipping it, I was expecting a purity chant or anthem to go along with the whole phenomenon, if there wasn’t one already. In essence, the daughter’s virginity is primary and, in many ways, a separate entity from her.

A closer look at purity balls reveals a pervasive culture that reinforces more than a sexual morality or ideal. And while these dances weren’t exactly on my radar when I was a teenager, this culture of pledging my virginity to God was absolutely real for me, too. Virginity was tied to salvation. But purity wasn’t just a matter of salvation or faith; it also was and is about worth, about value. And it made the wheels of society turn. Without it, heteropatriarchy would have no power.

Jessica Valenti says, “The lie of virginity—the idea that such a thing even exists—is ensuring that young women’s perception of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely dependent on their sexuality.”^[5] Virginity as the measure of a person’s (especially a woman’s) morality means that nothing else matters—not what women accomplish, not what women think, not what women care about and work for. All that matters is if and how women have sex, and with whom. That’s all.

Though purity balls are less common now, the idea that virginity and purity are synonymous remains. This is true even beyond the culture of American Protestantism or evangelicalism. It’s undeniable how present it is everywhere.

Keep It Clean, Keep It Bright

Purity culture is woven into the fabric of everyday life so much so that when we are confronted with it in everyday images on buses, magazines, or commercials for Hulu, people hardly bat an eye. Early in the summer of 2017, the skin-care brand Nivea pulled an ad that depicted a woman in white in a bright room with the words, “Keep it clean, keep it bright. Don’t let anything ruin it,” and “White is purity.” Soon people correctly called out the ad, with one blogger describing it as “something that looks like it’d be on the front desk of Hitler’s spa.”^[6] The company apologized in an official statement: “We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offense to this specific post. Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of Nivea.”^[7]

Purity culture subordinates women’s bodies but goes even further by necessarily devaluing dark skin, in essence, to erase nonwhite bodies. Christianity is used as an instrument of systems of power to regulate bodies through the insidious tenets of purity culture. Through the force of religion, the cultures and systems of purity seek to control any bodies that would threaten the concept of purity—especially black and brown bodies and the bodies of those whose sexual identities are deemed unintelligible or reprehensible according to institutional powers, whether it’s the nation-state or the church, schools or the courtroom.

The values that drive the decisions, perspectives, and ultimately the beliefs of the religious go beyond bodies. These values aren’t necessarily abstract but are associated with God, with eternity, “out there.” This makes them more real, more vital, more urgent, so that even wedding cakes and restrooms are contested by those who hold these values. Purity is routinely cultivated—through rituals and practices, and even through normal, everyday life—with notions of cleanliness and whiteness. Purity as whiteness is so normalized that even something like the ad copy for a brand of soap seems routine and innocent.

Those who hold these purity values constantly push beyond the embodied and material life for absolute answers by devaluing humanity and belittling all its wonderful complexities. Purity relies on hierarchies in systems of power and privilege, of dominance and subjugation, where one or some are “on high” or “above” or “beyond.” Of course, this means the rest are subject to the one who is transcendent. Women are subject to men; LGBTQIA persons are subject to cisgender heterosexual persons; people of color are subject to those who are white.

Purity is about power and dominance, according to theologian Mark Taylor: “In the history of dominant Christian thinking, the examples of this are many: God is privileged over world then heaven over earth, spirit over matter, the pure over impure, white over nonwhite, man over woman, heterosexual over trans-sexual persons. . . . A key example is Christianity’s centuries of linking whiteness and purity to its sovereign God, a figure which had to be stripped of its material impurities, kept in a pure white beyond” (emphasis mine).^[8]

For a long time, my nonwhiteness felt like queerness, even though I only recently named it as such. I felt abnormal, other, strange, and lesser. I was surrounded by whiteness for a majority of my waking life and tried to avoid noticing it. I hated feeling not normal, and it was exacerbated whenever I ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• On Fire for God
• There Are No Girl Colors
• Blessed Are the Promiscuous
• The Sacrament of Bodies
• Being Undone
• Keeping It in the Family
• The Friend Zone
• All Work Is Play
• Purity Culture and the Christian Wrong
• Church Outside the Closet
• Afterword: Making Love as a Queer Spirituality