LAUREN D. SAWYER

It’s nice to meet you.

I am affiliate faculty at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology where I teach graduate courses in theology and develop trauma-sensitive curricula for the Allender Center. I earned my Ph.D. in Religion & Society from Drew University, and I have a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. I serve on the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and chair of the subcommittee on artificial intelligence. My debut book, Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture, was published with New York University Press (2025). Living in the North Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle, I enjoy a well-brewed cup of coffee and chilly swims in the Puget Sound.

Curriculum Vitae

Read my book

Growing Up Pure

White Girls, Queer Teens, & the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture

Growing Up Pure

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Growing Up Pure ❋

By arguing that young people are moral and sexual agents, Growing Up Pure pushes against the prevailing narrative that white youth—especially girls and queer youth—are always only victims within evangelical purity culture.

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  • Caution: Don’t read this book unless you’re prepared to question your assumptions!

    Marvin M. Ellison, author of Making Love Just: Sexual Ethics for Perplexing Times

  • . . . widely applicable, meticulously argued and footnoted yet highly accessible . . .

    Cristina L. H. Traina, Fordham University

  • Sawyer presents a meaningful and creative possibility to understanding human (sexual, intimate, personal) relationships, and how we can together cultivate spaces where each human being, whatever their age, can flourish in this world.

    Mihee Kim-Kort, author of Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith

  • Written with nuance and poignancy, Sawyer transforms standard critiques of Christian purity culture as she insistently probes white racial implications of this sexuality for both individual choices and nationalist views of the American dream.

    Traci C. West, Drew University

  • Growing up Pure makes a novel intervention in popular culture, gender studies, and religious studies, centering youth agency as participants in purity culture and adolescent sexuality.

    Monique Moultrie, Georgia State University

  • There is refreshing moral fare here for anyone who seeks to investigate the complexity of adolescent sexuality.

    Karen Peterson-Iyer, Santa Clara University

  • Sawyer’s analysis helps to fill a significant gap in purity culture research that avoids the questions of white women’s racial embodiment.

    Sara Moslener, author of After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America