Maria 0:00
Hey listeners, the lien from the future here. I'm dropping in with a content warning for this episode. In the conversation you're about to hear, we talk candidly about purity culture, including sexual shaming, modesty and rape culture, toxic masculinity, and spiritual trauma. It can be a lot. If you grew up in a similar Christian tradition, you might have baggage in common with us. But these topics aren't always easy to engage with, depending on where you're at. For us, this conversation was healing and cathartic; it might not be that way for others. Be informed, and be kind to yourself. Also a note on language: we speak a lot about our own experience in this episode growing up socialized as women, especially in relation to purity culture, which enforces a rigid gender binary. Our language in this episode best tends to be pretty binary and gendered, and what we mean by that is centering cis women's experiences. We want to add a note to acknowledge that our shared experience and the language that we use does not fully encompass the experiences of trans and non-binary folks who are also harmed by purity culture. We will be making room for these voices and experiences in future chapters as we continue the unlearning and learning journey. We'll also be unpacking the gender binary in a future episode, which we hope will expand on some of what we're articulating here. We are grateful to do this work in community, and we welcome your feedback and questions at resettingthetablepodcast@gmail.com. With that, on with the show.
Trixie 1:36
Hey everyone, and welcome to Re-setting The Table: expanding imagination around race, place, and faith for our collective liberation. I'm Trixie Ling,
Celine 1:53
I'm Celine Chuang,
Maria 1:55
And I'm Maria Mulder. We host this podcast from traditional, ancestral, unseeded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) territory, otherwise known as Vancouver, Canada. Acknowledging the land is one way we want to commit to decolonization and to begin each episode in a good way, expressing solidarity with the Indigenous struggle for right, reparations and sovereignty.
Trixie 2:19
Today we're talking with Sonia Gibbs - who also did our intro music with her husband, Paul - about unpacking purity culture. Sonia is a Korean-American artist, activist, and pastor at The Groves Church in Portland. Her many forms of artistry, including abstract painting and music, engages the heart and mind for a shared experience, bringing people together for the common good. Sonia is a leader, a visionary, a mother, and a very dear friend. We're excited to bring this conversation to you which, because we're talking about purity culture here, will contain swears. So heads-up in advance. And with that, let's get into it.
Celine 2:58
Welcome to the show, Sonia.
Trixie 3:00
Yay!
Sonia 3:01
Thank you!
Maria 3:04
Welcome to our Zoom stage!
Trixie 3:08
I'm so happy. I feel like, when we started this podcast, one of the personnel we must get on the stage is Sonia. Yeah. And then we got more because, basically, we hear your music every week. Now we get to hear your words!
Sonia 3:21
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I'm so glad to be here. And I you know, I listened to you all very faithfully. So I'm also fangirling, so...
Trixie 3:33
So Sonia, who do you come as today? And how do you write? These are questions we like to ask all our guests. So, we'll love to hear from you and your brilliance.
Sonia 3:42
You set that bar too high! And my brilliance? That just made me sing inside! Yeah, I come today. I'm a little tired. I have a little bit of a probably sugar-candy-hangover from Mother's Day yesterday. I basically sat on the couch with a bag of starbursts, and like, yeah, that's what I did yesterday. So, I'm coming off of a little bit of a sugar lag. But yeah, I'm really I'm excited to be here. I would like to feel angry based on our conversation. Like I'm hoping that our conversation gets me to an emotion of anger as we talked about purity culture, that's kind of my goal. But I'm coming in, I'm feeling pretty good. I've got my tea. I've got my carbonated water. I've had more candy, so I'm ready to go. Yeah. All the fuel, all the fuel.
Maria 4:32
So I'm wondering, I feel like for people who grew up in the church, especially in evangelical traditions, or people who would say they're ex-evangelicals now, purity culture is very well known. It's like one of the big sources of baggage all of us carry and have to work through... our trauma, right? But like for people who are maybe outside of the church, who didn't grow up in a faith context, how would you describe purity culture to them?
Sonia 4:58
Hmm, are you asking me?
Maria 5:00
Yeah, I mean, anyone can address it! You can go first.
Sonia 5:05
Is this a directed question, or? Well the reason I asked though is because I think I was a little older. And not only think, I am a little older, so I'm 47. So purity culture, as it became really like a marketed, capitalistic venture within the Evangelical Church really hit its peak after my teenage years. I was in college when that was really hitting the youth culture, at least here in the States. And so I'm so curious, because I grew up with the same themes and the same ideas, and the same principles and ethics... you know, if I were to have sex, it would have been the worst thing I could have ever, ever, ever done, but it was delivered to me in a slightly different way, I think, than what you may have, I'm going to maybe venture how the experience, and so I'm actually very curious about how you all experienced it.
Trixie 6:03
And the outcomes, right, I don't know. And anyway, yeah, exploring the impact of that.
Sonia 6:11
Mm hm. Yeah.
Maria 6:13
Could we venture to say that purity culture, as a broad definition, is maybe like a shame- and fear-based ideology about sex and sexual behavior that was really popular in the Evangelical Church, where the the main belief is that you like, absolutely don't have it until you are married, and any sort of sexual deviants is equal to sinfulness and badness and lack of purity?
Celine 6:40
Yeah, maybe let's just talk through it a bit and then maybe go into our own experiences, like Sonia was talking about?
Sonia 6:44
Yeah.
Celine 6:45
I feel like, yes, Maria. I think it's like a particular concentrated distilled version of white supremacy, patriarchy, shame around sexuality, all of those things kind of coming together. And it came together in a very particular time like you said, Sonia, that was being commercialized and marketed very heavily towards youth in no particular era, which, yeah, I grew up in, I think. I could say that in my youth, all the books were coming out, all the Christian bands were getting purity rings, you know...
Sonia 7:23
Yes, yes! You're making vows with people about your purity...
Celine 7:29
I didn't do that! I was like, I draw the line! But yeah, so it's kind of like a concentrated version, I think, of something that's exist for a long time.
Sonia 7:42
Yeah. And it focused, I think, with boys, it was like their thoughts needed to be pure. And then for women, it was about their bodies. I think that is sort of how it was definitely bifurcated, and there were only two kinds of molds and two spaces to talk about sexuality. Boys needed to keep their thoughts pure, and then women needed to keep their bodies pure, but also weren't felt for any of the male thoughts, right. Like it was. Yeah.
Trixie 8:19
Yeah. And I think just on that note, I think what you're saying, the woman's body is almost like something to be ashamed of, right. And like, if there's something less, we're blamed for that. And so, there's a sense of women are responsible for like, particularly men and they're lust and/or their sexual sins. That's how I understood that and heard it, so in that way, it's like our body is like, yeah, is something to be, instead of celebrated, is something to be ashamed of, and it's like, hidden in some way. Stumbling blocks.
Sonia 8:50
Stumbling blocks in many men.
Celine 8:52
We should say that this may trigger some people. Yeah, and I think you see it connect to, you see purity, culture and kind of modesty... I don't know what to call it, like the weird, in a sense that it was very much about controlling women, women's bodies. I think you see the connection there to rape culture, and like the non-Christian or larger societal, you know, world, where women are kind of seen as... women that are feminine presenting people are seen as responsible for the actions of men, whether it's like, sexual assault or, yeah, even their thoughts, which, like, sure, that makes sense.
Sonia 9:33
Well, your skirt was too short, which made the man think that you know, like, yeah, that's right. That was the reasoning, right? Yeah. So
Celine 9:41
Yeah so you see, like, victim blaming in rape culture, and that is, I think, very similar to... it might like, maybe, they come from the same parent in a way, like purity culture and rape culture. And the parent is patriarchy.
Sonia 9:52
Yes, exactly. 100%.
Celine 9:55
But yeah, I think, like, I remember I grew up in an evangelical church, but it was technically nondenominational or whatever that even means, but it had like, it did have a denomination, it just called itself nondenominational. The tradition was brethren. And I don't know a lot about, like church history of denominations and what-not but, as far as this church was very patriarchal. Like women couldn't, they still can't actually, preach. And, yeah, there was a service, which I think might still exist, that were when we couldn't speak at the actual service. So it was very, like those were kind of, that was the norm already. And then I think purity culture was very much like, in the same way that I think America, like in different youth groups, the American evangelicalism was, like, exported en mass to all these youth groups, like not even in the States, like, think a lot in Canada, where we were like, watching the same movies, reading the same books. So I think for me, the big one was modesty, like that was what I remember a lot about, was like shame around sexuality. Any kind of sexuality, it wasn't just like abstinence in terms of like, "oh, you have to have... you have to wait to have sex until you're married", that was a big part of it, but it was also, like, anything to do with sexuality was taboo.
Sonia 11:08
Yeah, there were people who would, say, would not kiss until their wedding day, right? Or not, like, holding hands like they were right for the sake of this idea of purity, that somehow, I mean, and really, I think the thing that was sold to Christian youth was, if you do this, what like, why would you even do that? Right? Like, this sounds ridiculous, when we say it out loud, like when I hear it. But we did it, and we were told to do that because we would be closer to God. And I remember growing up, I would be closer to God and, bonus, I would get the most godly, amazing husband ever if I could commit to this path of purity. And so you kind of have, it's like, yeah, it's both shame and fear. And then like carrots, right, like trying to string you along to keep you. And you know, every time I had a lustful a thought, or wanted to like, had a sexual urge, or like, you know, masturbation was off the table, right? Like, there was just everything you couldn't do. Like, basically, you had to ignore the fact that your body has hormones. And then that was the way of being close to God, which as a Christian, that's what you are. That was your, that's what you wanted, right?
Celine 12:29
Mm hmm. Yeah. So I feel like as you're talking about that, like, it kind of reflected the broader evangelical, conservative, Christian paradigm, where it was like, not just sexual purity, but purity in general, right, where it was like, it wasn't like you are good, and God loves you. That wasn't the first message. The first message is that you were bad. And you have to kind of rid yourself, like cleanse yourself, of all the badness that you have in yourself in order to be pure enough or good enough for God to love you. Like that was kind of the main principle in a way of, I think, like conservative evangelicalism. So it's like the purity around sexual, er, the purity culture around sexuality and kind of like the repression I think is also about, it's like, reflective of the way that like conservative, evangelical culture, thinks about God and interacting with God and like, yeah. That's fucked up.
Maria 13:25
And it's a really old conversation, right? Like these conversations about whether the body is good or bad, whether the soul is good or bad, it goes back centuries and centuries and centuries, and people have been canceled from the church for having the wrong opinions at certain times. Which I think is wild.
Sonia 13:42
Yeah. Like we haven't, we haven't learned yet. It's like, I think, you were still being so human. But yeah, you're right, like Maria, you bring up like, right, the dualism, like body bad, spirit good, right? And so we can get to this, at least as I understood it as a kid, was I will get to this higher plane, in essence, right? This nearness to God, this elevated spiritual status by disciplining, keeping my body pure, so it can't touch, right, like this idea of purity. I mean, I can see where it comes from the text, like where it comes from scripture because of the Bible, this idea of like, impure and pure things mixing and touching, and so we just made it into this highly physical spiritual dualism, and then literally marketed it. We literally sold, you know, like, literally selling purity rings and T-shirts and books and all that shit that did not make, like absolutely did not, anyway, make us closer to God. But yeah.
Trixie 14:46
Yeah, that reminds me of, just like as you're saying that, because that is also like, you know, repeated and like, maybe even like that kind of shame and guilt is very intergenerational right, passed down from parents to children and girls and... I'm interested in thinking about the cycle really. And really, I feel like a lot of is like, quite violent, right, particularly to us. And so where does, like, trauma fit in that, I wonder, in terms of like shame and guilt and that continuation of how we view our body or really disembody as we're talking about? And just like, that kind of binary thinking that is also the basis of white supremacy. Where do you see, like, how people experience maybe trauma out of this purity culture? I mean, that's a big question, but it's something I... because it is a traumatic experience to do it and to be taught over and over again, our body and obviously connecting that with rape culture and cancel culture, there's just a lot holding it.
Sonia 15:51
Well, it, I mean, we know because people are sharing their stories that this purity culture makes all this stuff hidden. Right? It like, it makes women feel ashamed or feel as though it's their fault, right? So when they're assaulted, when they're sexually harassed, raped, any of those things, right, women have historically within, and we're seeing the stories are coming out, right, which means that they were for a long time, a lot of these stories were hidden. A lot of women felt like it was their fault that these, that men were assaulting, inappropriately touching, right, like with the whole, to the whole, the whole. And so yeah, there's a lot of pain and woundedness, and brokenness and trauma and, understandably, disconnection, disbelief even because of, yeah, because that, that is the culture that, that is what purity culture creates, is things being done in secret in the dark, and fear and shame keeping those things hidden. And I think it's really powerful, I'm grateful that some of these, like we hear about these "greats" in like an evangelical world, we have older white men, who we are now learning are predatory. And they were protected by a system and a purity culture, right? And so we now have women who are courageously and bravely coming forward with their stories. And we are seeing the consequences, the results of this. It's been a long time, but we had this height of it in the 90s, a continuation of those ethics, to today. And we're seeing the consequences of that, which historically, also, like women would come out and say something, they're the ones who would be even further shamed, disconnected, right, sons removed from church spaces. Meanwhile, the men who are actually guilty of participating in this continue to rise in the ranks, get promotions, continue in their status as pastors. I mean. Yeah. Fuckin' patriarchy.
Maria 18:08
Yeah. And I think also, like, what we're seeing now is the generation that, like, really grew up in the height of the marketed purity culture. We're having to do all of this extra work of unlearning the limits and the lies that we were told, in order to just have healthy sexualities now with ourselves.
Celine 18:28
Oh, yes! It's infuriating.
Sonia 18:32
Okay, yeah, that's making me angry. Yeah. It's so fucking real, though. Like an example, this is a silly example, but I just had photos taken, like, I don't know, a couple months ago by a friend of mine. And I was like, okay, I want these photos for my website, for my social media stuff. And I'm like, but I want to look, like and I didn't, I like whispered it, I want to look sexy, like I want to look hot! You know, like, I'm like, I'm a woman, I want to look like a woman, I want to, right? And so I sent her photos of like, her and like, you know, anyway, rock stars, and I'm like, this is what I want my look to be. So she takes these photos. Like, they come back. There's like, lots of, to me, I say lots of, it's like, they show my legs, you know? Like, they show my legs, that I have legs. And like I'm wearing heels, anyway. I remember getting the photos back and then being, like, I don't know where I can use these. Like, what if I, like, it doesn't look like I'm a pastor. I look like, I don't even know what I look... you know? Anyway, but, right, that is all purity culture shame about having a body that just looks like a female. But I even had, so after those photos I had, there was a pastor who asked me for my bio and a photo because he was interviewing me for something. And I remember looking at the photos and being like, I don't know which one of these I can send him. And I ended up sending them one that was, like, a head shot basically. So it didn't show that I had, you know, legs or boobs, but it's like, it's just so... right, but that that is part of the consequence, Maria, like the work right, all this extra labor that we do, because we don't even know how to show up in our own bodies, because of the way that purity culture was robbing us of who we are and being our full selves. Yeah.
Trixie 20:20
Yeah, we need to be liberated from that, like, ASAP.
Sonia 20:23
Yeah, and that's just a, silly like, that's not even, that's, that doesn't even feel significant to me. But that is just how I just kind of said that to just point out how deep and ridiculous it really is. Yeah, can come out.
Celine 20:40
Yeah, I remember one story from one of the books that I read that came out during this particular era. Unfortunately, I read this series that was put out by fucks in the family.
Trixie 20:53
I know, I was gonna say, are you going to name it? Like go name it, name it!
Celine 20:53
I mean, people know what I'm talking about. But there's this, these books were very, I mean, they were essentially propaganda disguised as teen girl novels. But I still remember one, which makes me mad now, but one scene that this one character who's very, she's supposed to be kind of like the goody-two-shoes character. She's very, she's modest to the point of like, the other Christians in this friend group think it's like too much, like long skirt, like long sleeves all the time.
Trixie 21:24
That sounds like me when I was 14!
Celine 21:29
Yeah, but there's this one scene where, oh, so terrible. There's a scene in the book where this character goes to her closet and pulls up this black dress that is a secret black dress that no one knows about. It's at the very back of her closet. And she puts it on, it's like a low-cut dress, and she puts it on in front of the mirror and, like, spins around, you know, like, enjoys the sight of herself in this and feel sexy in it. And then this scene becomes like, something later on that she feels ashamed of and has to repent of. It's like written to say, like, that was, that was wrong. Like her secret about feeling sexy about herself was sinful. Like, yeah, that black dress is sin. Yeah. You know, like, thinking about that now, it just infuriates me. I'm like, I'm sorry, like feeling good in your own body is written to like, it's in the package of these, these books for teenage girls, is saying like, that's sinful, you shouldn't feel good in your own body, you shouldn't feel confident. Like, that's the opposite. You know, like, that's just so...
Sonia 22:38
Yeah.
Celine 22:39
Yeah, it's so much the opposite of like, what I would want anyone, like any youth growing up, to, to learn and, to learn and like, internalize about, about their own bodies. Like I'm like, no! I want you to feel confident and feel like the most yourself and express that however you want. So like, context is important. Like, you know, if you have one of those black dresses, like don't wear it to a job interview, but like, wear it for yourself and enjoy, you know? And really like, you know, I want kids now growing up in the church and outside the church to, like, learn self-love as a guiding principle, instead of shame. And I feel like so much, so many of us who grew up in the church, especially women are like people... grew up, socializes girls and women, like, so many of us have to, as Maria said, like, are still unpacking all of that.
Sonia 23:30
Yeah, as you're saying that, it occurs to me too, how it, everything that I was taught was in reference to... was not about me, was not about how I felt about it, about my body, or about how I might look in something, it was always in reference to somebody else. And so, don't wear that because you're going to cause that person to stumble. Or don't do that because, you know, it was, it was never about... there, there wasn't, there wasn't like the opportunity to discover what felt good to me or what I liked, or what would make me feel good. That, it was like not even, it wasn't allowed. It was all, I was always taught to think about how this was, you know, gonna cause the other person to protect our purity culture, cause the other person to be impure. Like, Don't let your like, not only would I be ruining myself, but I would be causing other people to be impure as well.
Trixie 24:25
I mean, that's kind of like, I mean, patriarchy is really like centering men's feelings and thoughts and everything and really, like not knowing, like, tying to who we are, right, and how we express ourselves. And, as you were talking, Celine, I, so I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I did go to a Christian school, and I went to church because it was just me trying to fit in with all my friends. So there's this book I heard in terms of like, you know, I think this is something maybe lots of people read, but I did not, so I somehow, I missed the boat on it, but I heard a lot about it, and I think that part of purity culture, of how I hear about it, is the book by Joshua Harris, "I kissed dating Goodbye". Somehow I was, I missed the note on the book club theme, book. And, and it's so interesting because, even though I didn't read it and I wasn't part of a group, that, that idea, I still heard about it. And I think that was still taught to me, like, you know, as I did go to church with my friends, like, in terms of like, how I even think about dating, like that really distorted even my opinion, right? Like his focus on like, I think "courting", I'm putting in quotation, what does that even mean, as alternative to dating. And just, it was so, yeah even, again, not having read the book, but just seeing the influence of like, his book, his one book on like, so many people in particular, particularly, like, I would say, quite foundational in the purity movement culture, right? Yeah. So I just think about how harmful these kinds of things that we read, we consume, and particularly as girls, like it, really distorts our idea of dating, of marriage, of healthy relationships. And interestingly, I mean, I guess my, I would actually like to hear if either of you read this very influential book, apparently, but the interesting part, because even though I didn't read this book, I've only heard about him, I actually met him in the most weird way. And okay, this is connected, so stick with me. I work at this, and in the past, I've worked at this neighborhood cafe shop in Vancouver. And in this one day, I just remember, again, I'm just working at the front, making coffee, this guy came in and they were doing some filming. And they asked, we, it's very cute cafe, so they asked if they can do some filming interviews here. And we're like, okay, well, you're gonna stay, buy some drinks, right? And then we're waiting. And then, they say, sorry, they're just waiting for this guy who's running late. He's one of the main persons they're going to interview. And then we waited, waited. And then I remember this guy came in, finally, and he was like, very apologizing, "oh, I'm so sorry. You know, I'm running late. I'll buy everyone drinks". And I'm like, okay. So we just started chatting, because I'm like, making all this food and drinks. And it turns out, they were interviewing this guy, his name is Joshua Harris. And I was like, I, in my mind, I was like, "whoa, his name sounds really familiar". And then, the reason why he was late was because he was doing this interview to talk, to discredit, I mean, to really talk about his book, like, you know, he, at least the way he told me, he's like, he knew this book was really damaging. And so part of this interview is part of a documentary to kind of deconstruct, really, his book. And so, yeah, this, this guy, just like kind of opened up about how sorry he was, as I was making all these drinks, right? So that was my actual encounter with this guy. As he was describing it to me and how, like, I guess he got a divorce. But yeah, it was just really, really interesting about, like, you know, a lot of people, how that book was so harmful. And just like I said, really, yeah, cause I think a lot of trauma too from what I've heard from the woman who was doing the documentary, she was sharing with me her perspective on this book, and that's why they're doing this interview with him now. So that was kind of like my, my experience of like, the power of words, right, and, and white man, really. So it's like, patriarchy, and white supremacy all tie in together in that book.
Maria 28:25
And I think it really goes to show how insidious purity culture is, because you really can't undo it. Like Joshua Harris, like, publicly stated that he no longer felt that his book... I don't know what he actually said. But he basically was like, I don't agree with what I wrote and what was published. But that doesn't negate all of the harm that was done by the book and continues to be done by the book by people who still use it, right? And that goes for like, all other marketed and unmarketed aspects of purity culture. Like you can't, you can do the work and unlearn it and learn other things, but the harm that has been done to you will always be there.
Trixie 29:08
And you internalize it, right? I think that's what I was learning as I was watching the interview and the documentary itself happening in front of me, I was like, wow, especially the woman she was just sharing and she start crying actually, halfway, just how much harm and counseling... so counseling it's taken her because of that book. Yeah.
Celine 29:30
I'm like, so could he give away whatever the book sales were to, like, the counseling for people who need it, who read the book?
Trixie 29:37
Reparations!
Celine 29:40
I mean, you know, a real apology has an action, right? Yeah, just saying, but like, this is an interesting example, because the way I remember it, I feel like there was more before he came out and apologize. There was a whole swath of stories that came out, like, of people who are, you know, coming to one another, like writing stuff on Internet, like, that we're all, that had all been, like harmed by this book. And we're like unpacking their trauma, their sexual baggage, like all this stuff. And then I think, as far as I remember it like, and then after that, I think he was part and more like public apologies and stuff. But it was really I think survivors, people who have been through, you know, all the, all the harm this book caused, who were first to kind of speak out. Yeah, but I feel like his book is like, it was definitely one of those big faces. Like he was kind of a face and like, I don't want to call it a movement, but, the time. But it's also like, for every one of them in power, who can just say whatever the hell he wants, and be taken as, like...
Sonia 30:52
He was like, in his 20s, wasn't he? When he wrote this?
Celine 30:55
Yeah, he was so young! Yes. So I'm like, what are the conditions that allowed for this, this like, barely an adult, barely adult man to like, put out this book making these huge, like, generalizations and, kind of like, judgments on sexuality and dating, like, you know? It's just as much what formed him and what formed the book as himself. Right?
Sonia 31:21
No, yeah. So the, there's the culture that formed him, and then the culture that ate it up. Right? So it was like, there was both a market that culture created it, and then a market to sustain it, which is, is that shame? Is that shame I'm feeling right now? No, but yeah.
Trixie 31:39
How will you expand more on that? I think I mean, while I gave that story, it was really an example. Sonia, I'm interested in, kind of your take on purity culture, as we, you know, talk about related to toxic masculinity and really, like racial purity and white supremacy. How do you see that? All interrelated?
Sonia 31:56
Hmm. Well, there. Yeah, we, like it's a moment to talk about Atlanta in one sense, because that murder spree that happened in Atlanta was the intersection of all of this; a young man who grew up in this kind of purity culture, told that he had a sex addiction sex problem, and, and who knows if he really did right? When he was beginning to, what, 13, 14 have normal male hormonal experiences, and if he was shamed and told that all of that was bad and right, however, that was becoming deviant, and where he had to hide and feel shame and feel disgusted with himself, at least that's what the interview seemed to demonstrate that he was experiencing all of that, culminating in him, apparently, going to some of these places in order to satisfy his sexual needs. And then projecting that self hate onto these women who he then goes and murders. I mean, I think that that is such an example of how lethal, how horrible, how tragic how unlike God, unlike, Jesus, unlike the faith that this is supposed to come out of. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't.
Celine 33:28
Yeah, you really see, like, in what happened in Atlanta, like, how repression leads to self hatred, which always leads to violence, right? Like, and that's where you see, and not just in this instance, which I think you saw also, we saw also, like, the vulnerability of sex workers or women who are kind of, like considered close to sex work. But other, you know, shootings in the States, which, most of them are by white men, right? Like, a lot of those have to do with entitlement over women. And often, that's like, one of the first like, what they're ingesting or what they're reading, what they're like, that's, kind of one of the first things that they are grappling with before it becomes this over-extreme violence. Yeah, so it's really I think, at the root of so many violent expressions of, of toxic masculinity and of...
Sonia 34:19
Yeah.
Celine 34:20
Yeah. I feel like toxic masculinity right at the most extreme is death. Like it's murder, like, that's kind of, like, the spectrum. Yeah. Yeah, I was so, I mean, I feel like, I feel like we talked about this before, or not, in maybe a podcast conversation, but also just like so angry about the response of the church that this, that the shooter went to, being just kind of completely disavowing him and having, and being like, "oh, we don't know what happened", you know?
Sonia 34:48
Yeah.
Celine 34:51
Yeah!
Sonia 34:52
Yeah.
Celine 34:52
Don't tell me you don't know what happened!
Sonia 34:55
Yeah. As they take things down from their site and remove information, I'm like, yeah, you're doing a little cleanup work to make sure that there's no accountability, like accountability, like, no accountability there. Yeah, it's so angering.
Celine 35:13
And I feel like, like one thing, you know, part of that which makes me angry is like the continuation of purity culture now and, like, more subtle, perhaps? Like, not as overly marketed in commercialized forms but, like, even in so-called "progressive" churches, there's a lot of shame around sexuality. There's like, not an engagement of like, or even like conversations about what healthy sexuality or relationships looks like. Yeah, I've seen and experienced shaming around sexuality and in places that are supposed to be kind of like, in places or faith spaces where a lot of people have left, other, you know, other churches or like, left the church completely, and then come back to churches that are supposed to be more, kind of, generous, and, you know, open-minded, and oriented around love rather than judgment. But around sexuality, there's like, there's still a lot of shame and judgment, I think, even in these progressive, and sometimes progressive churches, or as progressive-labeled churches.
Sonia 36:13
And even outside of church, I think Maria, you use the language of "cancel", you know, being cancelled. And I do think that there's a part of maybe in a "pop" kind of, with like a pop culture sort of way of canceled culture where it's still this idea of purity, right, of like, I can't touch or be close to that impure thing, or that, like, my identity can't rub up against or be next to so I need to completely draw the line. And so I see it, that idea showing up in a lot... it's not just in the conservative church, like you're saying Celine, it's it's everywhere, this idea of maintaining some sort of boundaries that keep us, whatever our definitions are, ideas of pure and good or acceptable.
Trixie 37:01
Yeah, yeah, that makes me think of this book I'm currently reading by AJ Marie Brown, it's called "We Will Not Cancel Us", and it's a great little book. And one of the things, I haven't, I'm halfway through, but one of the things that she was saying, is that part of cancel culture, and I would say now that I'm thinking about it, a tie into purity culture is really punitive, right? It's like you're in or out. So you do something bad or something that is not with the norms, that's often quite obviously oppressive, patriarchal... it's like, then you're out, and we will cancel you. And that happens within even the movement itself. And that's what she's trying to, I think, talk about in this book, in terms of that connection of, yeah, that, and that punitive culture that we also need to really shift and change. Yeah.
Celine 37:45
Kai Cheng Thom wrote a book, which I love, called "I Hope We Choose Love", and she also talks about how like, the, the "left", like very broad term, but has internalized this harsh punitive culture in ways and that leads to like, what we see in cancel culture. So she's kind of like, we're calling us to something bigger, right, something more expansive, and more, which is love. Right, like the whole book? Yeah, that's really beautiful. You know, with the caveat that people, again, using these broad terms, because they don't have better ones, but people on the "right", I think, tend to make cancel culture much bigger than it actually is. Like, it is something that is real, but it is not like a reason to discredit the things that people are saying in terms of like, people molesting or calls for justice, and for these much larger issues. But I think like what AJ Marie Brown and Kai Cheng Thom and other transformative justice leaders and practitioners kind of call us to is that like, the how of what we do matters, right? It's not, it's not just about being "right", and I say that in quotes, and then like being, yeah, being pure, being radical enough, or whatever it is. But there has to be room for complexity and for, for both and right, because if we're, if we're stuck in these punitive frames of thinking, or like these binary ways of thinking we're just continuing, continuing paradigms. Yeah, yeah.
Maria 39:04
And then, ultimately, you're not actually offering an opportunity for transformation for people who disagree with you. You know?
Celine 39:09
It's so true.
Sonia 39:09
I was I was thinking about this, because I read an interview, I think, with Josh, with Josh Harris, and they were asking him like, "well, what do you envision in place, of like, you know, what, you have... this is what you offered? What's the...
Trixie 39:25
And it was shit!
Sonia 39:28
This is the consequence! Yeah. And he had, he was like, I Yeah. And he had, he was like, I don't know, you know, he was just like, I don't know what that is. And so as a, on a pastoral side for me, like, I'm thinking about this with my people, right? And I'm like, what do I tell? I don't know, like, how do I pastor, really a group of people that have experienced that upbringing and they're like, fuck, that, like, give me something else, you know? Or I'm looking for something or... how do I express this? Like, I don't even know if this makes sense yet. I'm still working through this. But to me, like in the, um, I was thinking about Lisa Sharon Harper. In her book, "The Very Good Gospel", she talks about the beginning of all creation when God sits back and He, and God is like, it's good, declares what, what God has created good. And she says the language there is that things were good between all things. It wasn't like one particular object was good, what was good was the relationship between all things: the relationship between God and humans, humans and creation, creation and God, it was all right. And when I think about purity, like in scripture, it was all, all these laws are about how to engage, like how do things engage with one another? How does something that is wrong and something right, I don't know, I don't want to use the binary labels, but how are things interacting? And there was this brokenness and this dysfunction between how things were interacting with one another. And so when I think about the way forward, and how we, can things be made right again? Like what you were saying something, like this story of love, like can, instead of this purity culture of like, "I will refrain from", "I will put this distance between", maybe the focus, like being, and this focus on the objects, maybe it's more about what can be made right between all things. So anyway, I don't know. That's kind of a little, little germ of a thought that I've been playing with in terms of how we undo this sense of purity and rightness. Yeah.
Celine 41:26
Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think we see too, like, the need to decolonize there, right? Because so many of Indigenous theologians, or like writers, call us to deeper relationship. I think that calls us away from, from purity and category...
Sonia 41:43
Yeah.
Celine 41:44
... and boxes...
Sonia 41:44
Yes. Yes.
Celine 41:45
... which I think what you're talking about is like decolonizing ourselves, our understanding of scripture, our understanding of sexuality and of people, of humans, you know?
Sonia 41:54
Yeah.
Celine 41:55
But yeah, I feel like, it's, so we haven't talked about this too much yet, but I remember when all of us had watched, like, all of the hosts had watched your, the sermon that you and *? gave after what happened in Atlanta, which was a really powerful sermon, and we were struck by a lot of what you both said. And I think one thing that, like a lot of it stuck with me, but one thing in particular that I thought about for a long time afterwards was, I think it was, I forget who brought it up, but how purity culture other than being, you know, very colonial and kind of how, how it's a framework about, yeah, about category, about separateness, about hierarchy in ways, and is also it comes from and it's connected to the idea of racial purity. And I actually hadn't like, really thought about that before. Like, I know that in my head, like, I know, I'm like, oh, yeah, purity culture is definitely connected to white supremacy, because everything is, but, you know, and especially in what we saw Atlanta, like, toxic masculinity, like white supremacy and, like, the fetishization of Asian women, like all of that.
Sonia 42:59
Yeah.
Celine 43:00
But like the actual idea of purity culture, being connected to racial purity, and kind of like the fear of, the fear that whiteness has of contamination, that really, like, stuck with me. So I feel like it's so much, even though, when people talk about purity culture, I feel like no, that doesn't come up into the conversation as much. But I want it to be more in the conversation.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't, until that conversation that I had with ?*. I don't think that I had spent much time thinking about it either, but it's definitely been, it's been experienced, but not named. And so yeah, there's definitely that, I mean, and that sense of racial purity in the US is, was part of, it's our immigrant, that's the immigration story in the United States it's about racial purity, about , "we can't allow these Chinese immigrants to come", and then framing women as prostitutes, right? It's all part of it. And part, all part of this Christian expression, like, part of the, the laws that were being created were about keeping Chinese women away from white men, and then framing the women as prostitutes. I mean, it's just so... interlaps, like the intersections of all this are, are, yeah. In some, in this way, I guess deconstruction is good that we can pull apart those threads and begin to identify them and see them and name them, and identifying the ways in which racial purity is, it is in our it is in our churches, for certain, as well it's in every institution I can think of.
Trixie 44:38
So what would you say kind of moving forward? I feel like we've talked a lot about different things that are all the different intersections. What would be some accountability and encouragement you would give us moving forward? As we talk about racial purity white supremacy, purity culture, toxic masculinity, how do we take all of this and, in terms of, yeah, unpacking, learning, moving forward?
Sonia 45:08
Well, I think you all are doing that great work for so many of us. You're having the conversations, and unpacking and, and, and I feel like I should have started by saying I'm by no means an expert on on this, this is just stuff I think about just because of my own experience, and then as a pastor of folks that are unpacking and, and wrestling and, and working through, you know, I guess I just go back to what I think Celine, you said it so well, in talking about returning to, to relationships, and I think if we can, because then we can have conversat- if we're, if we want to have right relationships with all things, then we're going to talk about things like consent, we're going to talk about mutuality, we're going to talk right, and we're going to think about our actions in terms of ourselves and others, hopefully in, in really whole and healthy ways. You know, we're, as our, my faith community is going through conversations around reconciliation and it's like - and I don't even really like that word right now, to be honest with you - but, but this, what I appreciate about what you all are doing is we have to confront and be honest about what happened, right? And then we have to in, you know, in my church language, I would say repent, we have to do a 180, we actually have to change our behavior just in our patterns. And then we have to do reparations, as part of this reconciling. And so even to the point when we were kind of laughing around what Josh Harris might do as far as reparations, but for real, like... you know, anyway, there's, there's a, there's a huge problem because much of the church that has, is, guilty of this, of propagating this, is also in denial of the harm that they've done. So, yeah, I don't know. Personally, I move on. But I don't know what to... yeah. Burn down the patriarchy? I don't know. They're just, they're, they're just suggestions I have. But I also eat a lot of candy to cope. So I don't know.
Celine 47:12
Yeah. I feel like you're doing, you're embodying that work in a way though, right? By pastoring people who have gone through all this, you know, are dealing with the shitty purity culture based baggage and trauma, like, by being a pastor to them, I think you're doing the work of healing. And you know, doing embodiment, I think comes to mind for me too, and how you are Sonia, and also how like, even like Trixie and Maria, and how we're learning to be in better relationship. Like we all talked about this, in this podcast episode, where we're learning to be in better and more whole relationship with our own bodies. Right? And that's like, that's healing work too: relationship with ourselves and with our sense of sexuality, and like, all of those things. So I think doing that healing work is part of our, is a response is that resistance to, to purity culture, and all that messed up shit that goes on. And also like, I mean, we talked about this too, like bringing up young people in a different way, in terms of like thinking about how they are sacred, they are good, their bodies are sacred and good, no matter what their gender is, no matter, like, that's it bottom line. And like that's the starting point.
Sonia 48:17
Yeah.
Celine 48:18
And I want all people to know that, like, not just people who grew up in a faith, but it's like you...
Sonia 48:22
Yeah.
Celine 48:22
... you are good! You are beautiful! You know?
Sonia 48:25
Yes!
Celine 48:26
That stuff's only the first thing.
Sonia 48:28
Yeah. Yeah. 100%.
Trixie 48:31
And you're fully showing up as your, as yourself, Sonia. That's how I feel like you're doing the work both on a personal level and on the collective level and leading, leading by speaking truth to power and sharing your stories and your voice and embodying it through your art, your music, your words, and I'm just so grateful that you can share some of your wisdom and brilliance and creativity with us. Obviously, I hope that you know, post-COVID, we can all physically be together, but for now, this is, this is so amazing, just to have you share. So thank you for all the different ways that you lead.
Sonia 49:10
Well, thanks for having, thanks for letting me come and chat with y'all, then.
Celine 49:15
Good.
Maria 49:17
Just before you go Sonia, is there anywhere, is there anything that you want to plug? A place where people can find you?
Sonia 49:24
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram mostly, because it's where I post art and music and that sort of thing. So, @soniagetscreative on Instagram. And I also have a website: sonyagivesart.com. And so you can find me there too. Yeah.
Celine 49:42
Well, thanks so much Sonia for bringing your full self, for being real with us, for getting angry with us.
Trixie 49:50
Showing all your feelings. That's why I love it.
Sonia 49:53
Yeah. Did I just experience Canadian anger? Did I, is that what I saw?
Trixie 49:59
Yes!
Celine 50:03
It gets more than this. Don't worry.
Sonia 50:08
Oh, no, I've heard it. I know.
Trixie 50:12
Yes, we have a whole episode on anger. I think this is that sense of community care and community accountability, right, to remind each other how we embody that work about, around, liberation and justice. So thank you, Sonia, for your time.
Celine 50:30
Thank you.
Resetting the table is produced by Emma Renner. And the intro music is by Sonia and Paul Gibbs. If you like what this podcast is about, consider supporting us on patreon at patreon.com/resettingthetable. We think it's really important to amplify voices of color, and we hope you do too. Even a little bit will help us sustain and grow the podcast.
Maria 51:12
For now, do xia.
Trixie 51:15
Xie Xie.
Maria 51:15
Thanks, and see you soon.
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