Let's Talk About: Purity

The Reformation is usually taught as liberation. Throwing off the shackles of the past. But it's better understood as a purification project. And purification projects rarely end well… This is our sixth conversation together, and here Ngofeen and I finally arrive at dance. It also goes somewhere neither of us really expected: what did it cost to be trained out of feeling? Ngofeen and I get into why revelry and purification both “feel good” but run on completely different machinery. Why colonization was the ultimate dopamine high, and why revelry could never compete with it. Why medieval Catholicism was never simply pro-body, and why Carnival was always a negotiated compromise. And why the body, specifically, is where purity always aims its sharpest attacks. If your theology allows you to switch off your senses, something is wrong with your theology. A missionary standing in the Congo watching forearms get cut off. A person holding others in slavery for sixty-five years and sleeping through the night just fine. Christians drowning Anabaptists over baptism. An internal alarm should have been screaming, and it wasn't. I have to quote Ngofeen here because he was so on point: “I’d rather listen to my feelings, because you weren’t listening to yours and you had slaves.” In this episode: The Reformation as a purification project, and why Ngofeen never heard it framed that way in Reformed spaces Revelry and purification as two different kinds of pleasure, and what carnival was actually for Colonization as peak achievement, and why that high beat everything else The Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent, and the Catholic purity project Why the Fall isn't a satisfying answer to why the body is suspect "You should move, not be moved," and what the drum does to a body Collective effervescence, worship music, and the one hour a week you were allowed a body Feelings as a sense rather than a verdict, and curiosity instead of "just stop it" Ballet as a totalizing system: five positions, elbows off the table, nobility posing in fourth position in their portraits Why the problem isn't order, it's totalizing order, and why we need porousness instead The immune system as a model for a tradition that can actually learn Relating to the Bible as a wise elder rather than a commanding emperor Why purity projects are self-consuming, and how you end up with seventy people who think they're the only “real” Christians Chapters [0:08] — Intro [8:37] — We've reached dancing. It only took 1,500 years [9:42] — The Reformation as a purification project [14:12] — Drain the swamp, DOGE, and what gets thrown out [16:42] — Revelry, carnival, and the medieval hangover [17:29] — Two kinds of pleasure: oxytocin and dopamine [18:55] — The New Year's purge, and why it feels righteous [22:00] — Carnival as the peasant's whole reason for being alive [24:18] — Trent, the Jesuits, and the Catholic purification project [26:00] — Colonization as peak achievement, a high revelry can't compete [30:00] — Why anyone in Geneva would listen to Calvin [33:00] — Drowning the Anabaptists [35:00] — Carnival as a workable compromise, and clergy asking everyone to reel it in [36:16] — Why is the body the target? Purity culture and Pride Month [39:31] — The dinner table, and why bodily activity used to be neutral [41:00] — Why "the Fall" isn't a satisfying answer [43:30] — Christianity is not enough as is [45:18] — Where the dance question has really been pointing [47:45] — Collective effervescence, worship music, and one hour a week with a body [51:10] — "You're just doing it for the high" [51:43] — You should move, not be moved [52:38] — What percussion does to a body [53:18] — The hatred of the body is a hatred of its power [54:22] — Jealousy, anger, and Dr. Phil advice [57:22] — Leading with wonder, and how much the body knows before you do [1:02:25] — Feelings as a sense, not a verdict [1:05:58] — The smell in the fridge, and questions instead of judgments [1:07:00] — Ballet as a totalizing system of order [1:11:30] — Order versus totalizing order [1:13:01] — The immune system, porousness, and what a tradition needs to survive [1:19:03] — Paul, the body, and reading scripture as a wise elder [1:21:43] — If your theology turns off your senses [1:25:39] — Three hundred years of mastering your feelings, and what it cost [1:28:15] — Dehumanizing language as anesthetic [1:29:34] — Jesus's method: relate to everyone as neighbor [1:33:46] — Purity projects consume themselves [1:36:35] — Reflecting on the series so far [1:37:39] — The correction: they didn't stop in the 1500s, they stopped in the 1960s [1:42:37] — Next week: the French Revolution Mentioned Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets Norbert Elias on the history of manners The Council of Trent The Anabaptists Chesterton's fence Free course: Ancestral Trauma in the Church, at bradleymelle.com/free Freestyle Theology is a podcast about Christian history, psychology, and the body, exploring power, grief, colonialism, and the faith people inherit.