Innocent Ecstasy How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure

Though they disagree on virtually everything else, evangelicals and gays,Catholics and agnostics all agree that sex should be innocent and ecstatic. Formost of Western history people have not had such expectations. Innocent Ecstasyshows how Christianity led Americans to hope for so much from sex. It is thefirst book to explain how the sexual revolution could have occurred in a nationso deeply imbued with Christian ethical values.Tracing our strange journey from the hands of Jonathan Edward's angryPuritan God to the loving embrace of Marabel Morgan's Total Woman, Gardelladraws his surprising evidence from widely disparate sources, ranging fromCatholic confessionals to methodist revival meetings, from evangelical romancesto The Song of Bernadette. He reveals the sexual messages of mainstreamProtestant theology and the religious aspirations of medical texts found at theKinsey Institute for Sex Research. He sheds new light on such well-knownfigures as Henry Adams, Margaret Sanger, Aimee Semple McPherson, and HarrietBeecher Stowe, and introduces us to such fascinating, lesser-known characters asDr. John Harvey Kellogg and Sylvester Graham, inventors of corn flakes andGraham crackers, who devised their products as anti-aphrodisiacs. Whiledetailing the development of moral obligations to pursue sexual pleasure and tofollow certain patterns of sexual practice, Gardella incidentally provides oneof the few books to bring together the liberal Protestant, Roman Catholic, andevangelical perspectives on any aspect of American culture.Gardella attributes the American ethic of sexual pleasure to the eagerness ofAmericans to overcome original sin. This led to a quest for perfection, orcomplete freedom from guilt, combined with a quest for ecstatic experience. Theresult, he maintains, is an attitude that looks to sex for what was onceexpected from religion.About the AuthorPeter Gardella is Assistant Professor of Religion at Manhattanville College. Hehas also taught at Yale, Colgate, Indiana University, and Miami University(Oxford, Ohio).

Peter Gardella is Assistant Professor of Religion at Manhattanville College. He has also taught at Yale, Colgate, Indiana University, and Miami University (Oxford, Ohio).