Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality

by Richard Beck

By activating notions of purity, holiness, and sanctity along with notions of mercy, love, and hospitality, the church activates a host of metaphors, images, and psychological impulses that are, experientially speaking, conflicting, contradictory, and confusing. Again, this conflict isn’t logical. This is an experiential conflict, a disjoint within the lived experience. In short, calls for embrace, hospitality, or solidarity will flounder if churches are not attentive to the psychological dynamics governing these experiences. Calls for love and community are all well and good, but churches often undermine these efforts by failing to help their members understand and navigate their psychological experiences of purity and holiness.