Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free

by Linda Kay Klein

I see this logic among many of my interviewees when they first begin to question the church’s teachings. They hold on to the good/bad binary they were taught growing up; they just swap everything around on it. In their new reverse binary, evangelicalism goes from good to bad; the secular world goes from bad to good; sex outside of marriage goes from bad to good; abstinence goes from good to bad. But, most of my interviewees eventually have come to the conclusion that the binary itself is the problem. From here, they become uniquely sensitized to fundamentalism in all forms, distrusting any community that claims they have all the answers, that assumes they are all right and that those they oppose are all wrong, be that community conservative or progressive, religious or secular.

I think this is key. Life is not binary. Not in racism or church.