“Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry, Sunday, February 7, 2021
For today’s blog post, I am going to assign a lot of homework. By the end of the lesson, you will know all about purity culture and how it affected a generation or two of evangelicals. The Cliff’s Notes version: purity culture is the belief that teenagers should wait until they are married in a heterosexual marriage. That is the only way to be blessed by God. Purity culture was steeped in evangelical and even crossed over to pop culture until the late 2000s. There were rallies called True Love Waits, and there were songs like Rebecca St. James' " Wait for Me ." Some may even recall The Jonas Brothers wore purity rings, which were quite common among evangelical teenagers, and parishioners of the 20th-century doctrine. The idea was you wore the purity ring until you replaced it with a wedding ring. The Jonas Brothers have since taken them off. YOU THINK I'M PRETTY WITHOUT ANY MAKEUP ON . One of my favorite podcasts, Good Christian Fun , talks about Christian pop cul