Passion and Purity
Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control, published in 1984 and written by Elisabeth Elliot, is an evangelical Protestant book, part manifesto and part autobiography, on the subject of romantic relationships. The book recounts Elliot's friendship and romance with missionary Jim Elliot, beginning in the 1940s and ending with his death in 1956. Elliot uses anecdotes from her relationship with Jim to expound on her views concerning "pure, Christian relationships" and the practice of "waiting on God" for romantic timing and direction. The late Ruth Bell Graham, wife of popular evangelist Billy Graham, wrote the preface.
Since the time of its publication, Passion and Purity has gained notoriety in conservative evangelical circles, and was
largely responsible for the very popular 1997 book, I
Kissed Dating Goodbye, by Joshua Harris. In conservative evangelical social
practice among singles, both books have been exalted to the status of de facto
scriptures, and together have been responsible for the circulation of the word courtship, a
term Harris and his followers prefer to dating, which to them is suggestive of a
secular and immoral approach to romance. This linguistic preference seems almost purely semantic and arbitrary, though Harris has
argued that courtship's connotation is more in keeping with the kind of romantic programme
espoused by both him and Elliot.
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