The advocates of purity culture had one battle cry: Their way was biblical. But Dr. Kutter Callaway says “All of purity culture is built on a princess paradigm.” We talk about the princess paradigm, and the ways purity culture borrowed secular ideas about relationships and “Christianized” them. We also talk about how to engage secular culture, and why marriage isn’t what makes us human.
Show Notes:
Breaking the Marriage Idol: Reconstructing Our Cultural and Spritual Norms by Kutter Callaway
I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye (film directed & produced by Jessica Van Der Wyngaard)
I Don’t Want It by DC Talk
Dr. Kutter Callaway gave us the following resources to share with you to help you better interpret and engage with popular culture:
Kutter Callaway books: Deep Focus, The Aesthetics of Atheism, Watching TV Religiously
Mako Fujimura: Culture Care
Cecelia Gonzalea-Andrieu: Bridge to Wonder
Kevin Vanhoozer: Everyday Theology
Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor: A Matrix of Meanings
Gordon Lynch: Understanding Theology and Popular Culture
Andy Crouch: Culture Making

Kutter Callaway is associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Seminary and co-director of the Reel Spirituality Institute. His most recent books are The Aesthetics of Atheism: Theology and Imagination in Contemporary Culture (Fortress Press, 2019) and Deep Focus: Film and Theology in Dialogue (Baker Academic, 2019). In 2017, he wrote Breaking the Marriage Idol: ReConstructing our Cultural and Spiritual Norms. He is the father of three young girls and has been married for almost 20 years to Jessica. Follow Kutter on Twitter.