Innocent Ecstasy: How Christianity Gave America An Ethic Of Sexual Pleasure

Innocent Ecstasy This page intentionally left blank INNOCENT ECSTASY How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure PETER GARDELLA New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1985 Oxford University Press Oxford London New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland Beirut and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Mexico City Nicosia Copyright © 1985 by Peter Gardella All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gardella, Peter, 1951Innocent ecstasy. Bibliography; p. 1. Sex—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Sin, Original, 3. Sexual ethics—United States, 4. United States—-Religious life and customs. I. Title. BT7o8.G37 1985 261.8'357'097 3 84-27253 ISBN 0-19-503612-3 Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 r Printed in the United States of America To Professor Sydney E. Ahlstrom, without whom I could not have begun, and to Lorrie Greenhouse Gardella, without whom I would not have finished. Acknowledgments For inspiring this work, I thank my mother, who taught me to pray to the Virgin Mary, and my father, who showed me that faith could be tolerant. Professor Sydney Ahlstrom opened the field of American religious history to me. He helped me get the temporary teaching appointments that supported me while I researched and wrote, and insisted that I should produce a popular book of about two hundred pages. My students at Miami University of Ohio, Indiana University, Colgate University, and Manhattanville College encouraged me with their interest. Just after I took the Foreign Service Test in an attempt to escape from my notes and drafts, my first love, Lorrie Greenhouse, came back into my life, married me, listened to the best prose I could write, and told me when it was good enough. When I was in need of friends to turn the text into a manuscript, Min Houts and Charles Mulholland volunteered to be those friends. Finally, Cynthia Read became a collaborator as well as an editor in turning the manuscript into a book. Over the years of gathering material, many librarians helped me, especially those at Harvard, Yale, the Graduate Theological Union, the Pacific School of Religion, the University of California at Berkeley, the Marian Library of the University of Dayton, the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, and Syracuse University. I promise that I will now mail back all my overdue books. West Haven, Connecticut January 1985 P.G. Contents Introduction, 3 I Catholic Sensuality, 9 Basic Doctrine, 9 Passion, Pleasure, and Sin, 12 Psychological Standards, 21 II Protestant Reactions, 25 Anti-Catholic Pornography, 25 Background and Results, 32 III Medical Christianity, 39 Sex and Sin in the Colonies, 39 The Reduction of Sin to Sex, 44 The Religion of Health in Protestant Theology, 49 The Fear of Passion and Sexual Practice, 56 Constituencies of the Victorian Consensus, 62 IV Medical Prophets, 68 Presbyterian Yoga, 68 Other Voices in the Wilderness, 74 V Evangelical Ecstasy, 80 The Rapture of Rebirth, 80 Methodism and Sanctification, 85 VI The Song of Bernadette, 95 Messages of the Beautiful Lady, 95 Mary in America, 102 The Ideal Woman, 118 viii Contents VII Redemption through Sex, 130 Margaret Sanger, 130 (G. Stanley Hall, 140 Conclusion, 150 Notes, 163 Bibliography, 187 Primary Sources, 187 Secondary Sources, 192 Index, 19