If you were an Evangelical youth group kid during the 90s or early 00s, you probably signed a True Love Waits pledge saying you would save sex for marriage. Maybe you even bought a purity ring to wear on your ring finder to remind you that you were waiting for your future wife or husband.
True Love Waits still exists but as time has gone on, many progressive religious theologians have criticized the movement, saying abstinence only education is harmful to adolescent development and that those purity rings are a symbol of a “patriarchal theology that has harmed countless women.”
Enter progressive Christian author and theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber who wants to collect those old rings and melt them down into a golden vagina sculpture.
ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm inviting women to mail in their purity rings for a massive art project. @SweetBirdStudio is collaborating with me to melt them into a sculpture of a vagina, click here to join in and get your certificate of impurity! https://t.co/tbaJJdbxeJ #shamelessbook
— Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) November 26, 2018
Bloz-Weber tells Huffington Post the project is promotion for her upcoming book, Shameless, which focuses on Christian women reclaiming their bodies from church theology.
“This thing about women that the church has tried to hide and control and that is a canvas on which other people can write their own righteousness ― it’s actually ours,” Bolz-Weber told HuffPost. “This part of me is mine and I get to determine what is good for it and if it’s beautiful and how I use it in the world.”
People who choose to send their old rings in will get a silicone “impurity” ring as well as an “impurity certificate.”
https://t.co/tbaJJdbxeJ pic.twitter.com/1uAQfcugum
— Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) November 26, 2018
Many women responded they had lost theirs long ago or they’d suffered some sort of mishap during a sexual encounter.
I lost it. When I took it off to perform a … something, involving hands. No idea where it is.
— Dianna E. Anderson 🏳️🌈 (@diannaeanderson) November 27, 2018
What if I superglued mine to my vibrator awhile ago? What to do?
— Reverend Jes Kast (@JesKast) November 27, 2018
Yassss. True story. I was allergic to mine which was super symbolic since I also was apparently allergic to remaining a virgin until marriage 😂🤷🏼♀️
— Mandy Cowley (@mdcowley) November 26, 2018
I so wish I could, I melted mine down for the gold to pay for a ring to get queer married with. Seemed like an appropriate use of the ring tbh.
— Sam Garman (@samlgarman) November 26, 2018
Since I threw mine away years ago, can I go buy a ring and send it in to get this?
— Chelsea Geyer (@ChelseaInDC) November 26, 2018
If there are leftover rings, can you also make a silver banana peel installation called "making our brothers stumble"?
— caroline matas (@carolinematas) November 26, 2018
Will you accept them from the Jo Bros? @nickjonas @kevinjonas
— Devon Bailey (@Devon_Bailey) November 26, 2018
Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran minister and theologian. According to the bio on her web site, she served as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, “a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Denver, Colorado.”
The golden vagina sculpture will be unveiled at the 2019 Makers Conference.