Thread by @eaton

“There’s so much confusion. It doesn’t make any sense. But, father, we know this is the result of sin.” Associate Pastor Luke Folsom's prayer to the Atlanta killer's fellow congregants feels rather hollow, because what happened *does* make sense.

washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03…

Christian fundamentalist culture tells young men that they are destined to be warriors for God who change the world — but that destiny depends on their purity and faithfulness to Him.

Purity Culture combines with that — telling young men (and women) over, and over, and over that their sexual feelings and desires are impure — not just bad, but an implicit threat to the destiny they've been promised.

The culture-war framing baked into the culture of the Christian right sets up more pieces: The "world" isn't simply a place full of people with different sexual mores and convictions. It's a carefully designed series of Satanic traps meant to corrupt and deny him his destiny.

Combine the underlying soup of misogyny and racism that frames women as "temptresses" and "stumbling blocks" rather than fellow human beings? "It makes no sense" is the *last* thing I'd say.

Writers like @C_Stroop and @diannaeanderson have covered this material in depth; I'm really glad that the cultural and religious component of this story is getting national coverage but it needs their perspectives.

I've written about aspects of it as well (medium.com/growing-up-god… touches on elements of it) but their work has much more breadth and depth.

In any case, it's imperative that purity culture narratives around this case and its causes not be taken at face value. "This is the result of sin" is not an acknowledgement of guilt for the construction of a toxic system of abuse and radicalization.

It's an externalization of responsibility — an attempt to cast out the member of the community who "went too far" rather than grappling with the system that pointed him in that direction.