(Note: This interview originally aired last fall.) Our guest is Linda Kay Klein, whose detailed and engrossing new memoir looks at the devastating effects that evangelical Christianity's purity culture has had on a generation of young women in America. Back in the 1990s, the widespread white evangelical Christian culture created a "purity movement" of sorts -- purity rings, purity pledges, purity balls, etc. Girls were seen by this movement as potential sexual "stumbling blocks" for boys and men, and any expression of a girl's sexuality could be judged as a corruption of her character. As was noted of Kirkus Reviews of this brave autobiography: "A young woman raised as a conservative Evangelical Christian reflects on her community's sexual shaming and the psychological scars that it left.... Klein's personal story is fascinating, but it is the larger context that makes the book important.... Timely and relevant, particularly in the age of Trump and #MeToo."
"Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women..." (Encore Presentation)
