Innocent ecstasy : how Christianity gave America an ethic of sexual pleasure / Peter Gardella.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gardella, Peter, 1951- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Sex.

Sexual ethics--United States.

Sexual ethics.

Sin, Original.

United States--Religious life and customs.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, New York ; Oxford, [England] : Oxford University Press, 1985.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Though they disagree on virtually everything else, evangelicals and gays, Catholics and agnostics all agree that sex should be innocent and ecstatic. For most of Western history people have not had such expectations. Innocent Ecstasy shows how Christianity led Americans to hope for so much from sex. It is the first book to explain how the sexual revolution could have occurred in a nation so deeply imbued with Christian ethical values. Tracing our strange journey from the hands of Jonathan Edward's angry Puritan God to the loving embrace of Marabel Morgan's Total Woman, Gardella draws his surpr

Contents:

Contents; Introduction; I: Catholic Sensuality; II: Protestant Reactions; III: Medical Christianity; IV: Medical Prophets; V: Evangelical Ecstasy; VI: The Song of Bernadette; VII: Redemption through Sex; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-280-43924-6

1-4237-3823-3

0-19-536515-1

1-60129-586-3

OCLC:

191038015