Purity rings symbolize a God of rigid, binary gender roles. Churches that worship this God have very clear rules about bodies. Sexual behavior only occurs with a member of the “opposite” sex, and never outside the bounds of marriage. Girls who have premarital sex are compared to “used” cars, tissues and gum that no one else would want (Kuruvilla 2018). If we transgress these boundaries, we will be denied membership in the community.
Rabbi Elliot Kukla writes that gender, racial and class binaries arose during a time when “fundamental social and economic hierarchies …were under siege by various emancipation movements.” In response, the ruling class created “binary categories for the human experience… as a way to regulate and control society” (Kukla 2006, 6).
Purity rings were not a practice in my 1990s high school. But purity culture was definitely at play. Peers tracked whether or not a girl had “lost” her virginity. Girls would lie to escape judgment and shame, while boys bragged to their peers. Any gender or sexual expression outside the male-female, heterosexual norm was either silenced or severely marginalized.
We perform gender and sexuality in order to maintain social membership. Religious institutions often take up society’s call to police these boundaries, even against their own scriptures. The book of Genesis, central to both Christianity and Judaism, contains the following: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind [Hebrew: adam] in our image, according to our likeness. . . . So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). While I take issue with this depiction of God as exclusively male, I love this verse, because it says that every person is made in the image of God.
Some interpret this verse to affirm that there is “male and female” in each person. And Rabbi Kukla reports that the rabbis of the first two centuries CE identify at least four possible genders, including male, female and two (tumtum and androgynos) that are neither male nor female (Kukla 2006, 1).
But the false God of purity culture does not stand for this sort of flexibility; it threatens his binary categories and means of control.
It can be hard to inhabit one’s body and claim one’s sacred belonging under any circumstances. It is especially hard in a society that uses sexual purity and shame as devices of control.
As a result, those of us who believe in an inclusive, liberating God have to actively work to claim our divine likeness. We can partner with people of all faiths, and no faith, who believe in human dignity and honor the full range of gender and sexual expression. This work might involve transforming purity rings into a celebration of the female form. Or uncovering strains of the divine feminine in our own traditions, like ancient Christian worship of the Black Madonna.
It starts with a courageous curiosity. What if, as Rev. Bolz-Weber asks, my body is mine and I get to determine “what is good for it and if it’s beautiful and how I use it in the world”? What could we learn about the relationship between God and humanity from the lives of women, including trans women and women of color? How might our relationships, organizations and communities improve if men were allowed to express the feminine within themselves?
What depths of love and justice might be unleashed, if we actually behaved as if every person was made in the image of God?
References
Rabbi Elliot Kukla writes that gender, racial and class binaries arose during a time when “fundamental social and economic hierarchies …were under siege by various emancipation movements.” In response, the ruling class created “binary categories for the human experience… as a way to regulate and control society” (Kukla 2006, 6).
Purity rings were not a practice in my 1990s high school. But purity culture was definitely at play. Peers tracked whether or not a girl had “lost” her virginity. Girls would lie to escape judgment and shame, while boys bragged to their peers. Any gender or sexual expression outside the male-female, heterosexual norm was either silenced or severely marginalized.
We perform gender and sexuality in order to maintain social membership. Religious institutions often take up society’s call to police these boundaries, even against their own scriptures. The book of Genesis, central to both Christianity and Judaism, contains the following: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind [Hebrew: adam] in our image, according to our likeness. . . . So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27). While I take issue with this depiction of God as exclusively male, I love this verse, because it says that every person is made in the image of God.
Some interpret this verse to affirm that there is “male and female” in each person. And Rabbi Kukla reports that the rabbis of the first two centuries CE identify at least four possible genders, including male, female and two (tumtum and androgynos) that are neither male nor female (Kukla 2006, 1).
But the false God of purity culture does not stand for this sort of flexibility; it threatens his binary categories and means of control.
It can be hard to inhabit one’s body and claim one’s sacred belonging under any circumstances. It is especially hard in a society that uses sexual purity and shame as devices of control.
As a result, those of us who believe in an inclusive, liberating God have to actively work to claim our divine likeness. We can partner with people of all faiths, and no faith, who believe in human dignity and honor the full range of gender and sexual expression. This work might involve transforming purity rings into a celebration of the female form. Or uncovering strains of the divine feminine in our own traditions, like ancient Christian worship of the Black Madonna.
It starts with a courageous curiosity. What if, as Rev. Bolz-Weber asks, my body is mine and I get to determine “what is good for it and if it’s beautiful and how I use it in the world”? What could we learn about the relationship between God and humanity from the lives of women, including trans women and women of color? How might our relationships, organizations and communities improve if men were allowed to express the feminine within themselves?
What depths of love and justice might be unleashed, if we actually behaved as if every person was made in the image of God?
Kukla, Rabbi Elliot Rose. 2006. “A Created Being of Its Own:
Toward a Jewish Liberation Theology for Men, Women and Everyone Else.” www.transtorah.org.
Kuruvilla, Carol. 2018. “This Pastor Is Melting Purity Rings Into A Golden Vagina Sculpture.” HuffPost Women. November 28.
