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
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
Analysis
United States Sex relations Influence of Christianity, ca 1750-1984
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-194) and index
