| Initially an extension of the politicized strategies of the Christian Right, the faith-based abstinence movement (FBAM) emerged as a result of the evangelical-Republican alliance of the late 1970s. This dissertation examines the FBAM as an extended strategy of the Christian Right's attempt to influence sexually normative practices in the United States. However, it also describes the movement as deeply indebted to a contemporary expression of evangelical Christianity that prioritizes individuality, physical well-being and emotional health while adeptly utilizing sophisticated forms of popular media entertainment and maintaining its roots in evangelicalism's well-established revival tradition.;Using ethnographic and documentary research, this dissertation describes a movement that wages its campaign for sexual morality through the body by proclaiming the power of religious conversion to transform both the souls and the bodies of its adherents. In order to do so, the FBAM makes the case for sexual abstinence before marriage in four non-political contexts, the ritualistic, the therapeutic, the ethical, and the transformational, in order to affect the kind of transformation they hope for among contemporary adolescents.;The emphasis on personal transformation and the creation of a ritualized identity indicates the movement's desire to assert sexual abstinence as independent of political affiliation and place it at the heart of Christian spiritual practice and adolescent development. Despite these attempts, the FBAM has been unable to de-affiliate itself from the legacy of the Christian Right and continues to rely upon the evangelical-Republican alliance for maintaining its relevance in North American culture. |
