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Christianity, sex, and shame — literature map
Vela·Bibliography·source: people-analyst/vela/docs/research/christianity-sex-shame-literature-map.md
Literature Map — Christianity, Sex, and Shame
Status: ASN-595, merged draft
Date: 2026-04-24
Scope: Positions the three 2026-04-23 corpus syntheses (docs/research/2026-04-23-augustine-across-his-works.md, docs/research/2026-04-23-christianity-reinterpretation-pattern.md, docs/research/2026-04-23-christianity-sex-hangup.md) against modern academic literature in historical theology, psychology of religion, empirical sexology, purity-culture research, and Christian-reclamation literature. Central aim: build the bridge the corpus syntheses explicitly cannot — from historical-theological narrative to modern empirical research.
Method: Merged from two independent parallel drafts (ChatGPT Deep Research + browser Claude Opus 4.7 1M context, both 2026-04-24). DOIs verified against publisher pages or CrossRef. High-risk 2023–2026 citations spot-checked via WebFetch/WebSearch prior to commit.
Citation style: APA 7 inline; BibTeX keys lastname_year_firstword in christianity-sex-shame-bibliography.bib.
DOI policy: Verified DOIs or stable URLs only. Where a coordinate could not be anchored to a verified source, it is explicitly flagged rather than filled by inference.
Column legend:
- Coordinate: the theoretical or empirical construct being positioned
- Claim: specific proposition from either the corpus syntheses or the external literature
- Primary source: APA 7 citation
- DOI / URL: verified resolvable identifier
- Evidence strength: historical narrative / small-N empirical / large-N empirical / meta-analytic / systematic review / psychometric validation / clinical case-series
- Corpus relationship: supports / complicates / fills gap (where "gap" means the syntheses flagged this as silent)
- Meta-analyzable? yes / partial / no — honest flag for whether this coordinate's effect sizes could feed a quantitative synthesis
Corpus sources referenced by code:
- LTA = MacCulloch, D. (2024). Lower than the angels: A history of sex and Christianity
- AUB = O'Donnell, J. J. (2005). Augustine: A new biography
- TDM = Tisdale, S. (1994). Talk dirty to me
- GCHI / GCCO / GCJC / GCLC etc. = Great Courses lecture transcripts (Ehrman's Lost Christianities = GCLC, etc.)
A. Historical-Theological Backbone
The corpus syntheses are strongest on narrative — what happened, who argued what. This section anchors each central corpus claim to its strongest academic source, identifies complicators, and fills gaps the syntheses explicitly flagged.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1. Pre-Christian Mediterranean as ascetic hothouse | Late antiquity was already developing bodily-control ideologies before Christianity; Christian asceticism transformed rather than invented existing tendencies. Corpus: "Mediterranean late antiquity was a special hothouse for the growth of group ideologies of bodily control" [pre-christian-greco-roman.1, citing LTA]. | Brown, P. (1988). The body and society: Men, women, and sexual renunciation in early Christianity. Columbia University Press. | Publisher | Historical narrative — foundational modern secondary source on early Christian sexual renunciation | Supports; Brown's argument for Christian transformation of existing honor-shame logic underpins the corpus's central claim | No |
| A2. Greco-Roman honor-shame vs. Christian sin-guilt axis | Pre-Christian sexual ethics operated through honor and masculine self-control, not theological sin. The shift to sin-based discourse is specifically Christian. Corpus: "all this was a matter not so much of morality as of honour" [LTA-RC-060]. | Harper, K. (2013). From shame to sin: The Christian transformation of sexual morality in late antiquity. Harvard University Press. | 10.4159/harvard.9780674074569 | Historical narrative — monograph-level synthesis of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian primary sources | Strongly supports — Harper is the principal academic scholar behind the corpus's central historical claim | No |
| A3. Paul's pragmatic, not revolutionary, sexual ethic | Paul did not make sexual regulation central; the sexualization of Christian ethics was a later development. Corpus: "Pauline Christianity was a rare example of a religious culture which did not make the appropriate expression of sex a priority" [paul-and-first-century.2]. | Pagels, E. (1988). Adam, Eve, and the serpent: Sex and politics in early Christianity. Vintage. | WorldCat | Historical narrative | Supports — Pagels documents the same Pauline pragmatism and tracks its subsequent distortion | No |
| A4. Augustine as pivot: sexuality disordered, not damned | Augustine's position was "sexuality is good but disordered" — not outright condemnation. Popular caricature overstates his severity. Corpus: "for Augustine, the problem with human sexuality does not lie in the fact that we have sex" [shame-vs-sin.7]. | O'Donnell, J. J. (2005). Augustine: A new biography. HarperOne. | WorldCat | Historical narrative — major modern scholarly biography | Directly supports; O'Donnell is the AUB source in the corpus itself | No |
| A5. Augustine's biographical-polemical formation | Augustine's sexual theology is best read as biographically and controversially sharpened, not as timeless doctrine. | Brown, P. (2000). Augustine of Hippo: A biography (new ed.). University of California Press. | WorldCat | Historical narrative — standard scholarly biography | Supports and complicates — stresses formation and pastoral context rather than a single "anti-sex" motive | No |
| A6. Pelagian controversy as driver of Augustinian extremism | Augustine was "led to extremes of statement" by Pelagian conflict; his hardest positions on concupiscence emerged from polemical context. Corpus: [augustine-specifically.10, .11]. | Brown, P. (2000). Augustine of Hippo (see above). | (see above) | Historical narrative | Directly supports — documents polemical escalation | No |
| A7. Alexandrian procreationism as pre-Augustinian hardening | Clement and Origen developed an "Alexandrian procreationism" that already sexualized biblical interpretation before Augustine. Corpus: [LTA-RC-132]. | Brown, P. (1988) — see A1. | (see above) | Historical narrative | Supports; complicates by showing Augustine was not the origin of body-suspicion but did consolidate it | No |
| A8. East/West divergence in Augustinian reception | Augustine's sexual theology dominated the Latin West but never shaped Eastern Christianity; divergence was theological, linguistic, and political. Corpus: [why-the-west-and-not-the-east] throughout. | Meyendorff, J. (1979). Byzantine theology: Historical trends and doctrinal themes. Fordham University Press. | WorldCat | Historical narrative | Fills a gap the corpus explicitly names — Meyendorff provides the Orthodox perspective the corpus lacks | No |
| A9. East/West divergence — institutional complication | The East/West divergence is not reducible to "East = sex-positive, West = sex-negative." Latin Christianity developed more formalized juridical-sexual obligations than Byzantium, while Byzantine discourse remained less systematically canonistic on some marital-sexual questions. | Perisanidi, M. (2017). Was there a marital debt in Byzantium? Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 68(3), 510–528. | 10.1017/S0022046916002840 | Historical narrative | Fills gap institutionally — not only doctrinal | No |
| A10. Orthodox sexuality is not uniformly "sex-positive" | Modern Orthodoxy shows a distinct but still restrictive moral tradition shaped by patristics, canon law, and contemporary ecclesial pronouncement rather than Latin Augustinianism alone. | Stan, L., & Turcescu, L. (2010). Eastern orthodox views on sexuality and the body. Women's Studies International Forum, 33(5), 476–482. | ScienceDirect | Historical narrative | Complicates any overly simple East/West contrast | No |
| A11. Medieval elaboration more restrictive than Augustine himself | Many restrictions attributed to Augustine may be post-Augustinian scholastic elaborations. Corpus: [what-augustine-did-not-say]. | Brundage, J. A. (1987). Law, sex, and Christian society in medieval Europe. University of Chicago Press. | WorldCat | Historical narrative — comprehensive legal-theological history of medieval sexual regulation | Fills critical gap — the corpus notes medieval codification without documenting the institutional transmission mechanism; Brundage is the scholar of this | No |
| A12. Reformation reinterpretation — recovery or rupture? | Luther and Calvin claimed to recover authentic Paul against medieval distortion but produced new sixteenth-century readings shaped by their contexts. Corpus: [reformation-as-recovery-or-rupture.9]. | MacCulloch, D. (2003). Reformation: Europe's house divided, 1490–1700. Penguin. | WorldCat | Historical narrative — major scholarly synthesis | Supports and elaborates; MacCulloch is the LTA author | No |
| A13. Canon formation as theological power contest | The canon itself was contested and shaped by political and economic factors, not solely theological criteria. Corpus: [lost-christianities.19-20]. | Ehrman, B. D. (2003). Lost Christianities: The battles for scripture and the faiths we never knew. Oxford University Press. | 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195141832.001.0001 | Historical narrative | Directly supports; the GCLC source in the corpus IS Ehrman's Lost Christianities lectures | No |
| A14. Shame itself remains constitutive within Christian cultures | Burrus complicates linear "Christianity converted shame into guilt" narratives by showing that shame itself remains constitutive within Christian subject-formation. | Burrus, V. (2008). Saving shame: Martyrs, saints, and other abject subjects. University of Pennsylvania Press. | Publisher | Historical narrative | Complicates the corpus by resisting a simple transition story from pre-Christian shame to Christian guilt | No |
B. Modern Empirical Psychology of Religion × Sexuality × Shame
The corpus has zero empirical measurement infrastructure. This section maps what the contemporary literature has actually measured.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1. Foundational measurement — sex guilt | Higher intrinsic religiosity correlates with higher sexual guilt; relationship strongest in traditions with explicit sexual prohibitions. | Mosher, D. L., & Cross, H. J. (1971). Sex guilt and premarital sexual experiences of college students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 36(1), 27–32. | 10.1037/h0030384 | Small-N empirical — foundational instrument | Fills measurement gap — the corpus cannot operationalize what the theological history produces at the individual level | Yes |
| B2. Brief religiosity measurement | DUREL: 5-item scale measuring organizational, non-organizational, and intrinsic religiosity. Most widely used brief religiosity measure in epidemiological and psychological work; used in >500 published studies. | Koenig, H. G., & Büssing, A. (2010). The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL): A five-item measure for use in epidemiological studies. Religions, 1(1), 78–85. | 10.3390/rel1010078 | Measure development / widespread use | Fills gap — the most pragmatic bridge variable for linking theology/history claims to contemporary quantitative datasets | Yes |
| B3. Religiosity subtypes > nominal affiliation | Dimensional religiosity (spirituality, intrinsic religiosity, fundamentalism) predicts sexual behavior and conservatism better than nominal affiliation alone. | Farmer, M. A., Trapnell, P. D., & Meston, C. M. (2009). The relation between sexual behavior and religiosity subtypes: A test of the secularization hypothesis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38(5), 852–865. | 10.1007/s10508-008-9407-0 | Large-N empirical | Complicates any denomination-only reading of the corpus — intensity/style of religiosity often matters more than label | Yes |
| B4. Religiosity, attitudes, and fantasy | Religiosity dimensions predict sexual attitudes and fantasy more strongly than religious group membership, with gender moderation. | Ahrold, T. K., Farmer, M., Trapnell, P. D., & Meston, C. M. (2011). The relationship among sexual attitudes, sexual fantasy, and religiosity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(3), 619–630. | 10.1007/s10508-010-9621-4 | Large-N empirical | Fills gap — how religious formation reflects in internal fantasy life, not only public moral discourse | Yes |
| B5. Sex guilt as mechanism | Sex guilt mediates the relationship between religiosity and lower sexual desire. One candidate mechanism by which a historical sexual ethic becomes embodied inhibition. | Woo, J. S. T., Morshedian, N., & Brotto, L. A. (2012). Sex guilt mediates the relationship between religiosity and sexual desire. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(6), 1485–1495. | 10.1007/s10508-012-9918-6 | Small-N empirical | Fills a central corpus silence — a candidate mechanism linking doctrine/socialization to sexual experience | Yes |
| B6. Spirituality, religiosity, shame × sexual outcomes | Spirituality independently predicts sexual wellbeing beyond general religious affiliation; alienation-from-God predicts shame and guilt specifically. | Murray, K. M., Ciarrocchi, J. W., & Murray-Swank, N. A. (2007). Spirituality, religiosity, shame and guilt as predictors of sexual attitudes and experiences. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 35(3), 222–234. | 10.1177/009164710703500305 | Small-N empirical | Fills the exact bridge the corpus lacks: direct religiosity × sexuality × shame measurement | Yes |
| B7. Moral incongruence and pornography | High religiosity predicts higher subjective distress about pornography even when controlling for actual use frequency; shame comes from the gap between values and behaviour, not use per se. | Grubbs, J. B., & Perry, S. L. (2019). Moral incongruence and pornography use: A critical review and integration. Journal of Sex Research, 56(1), 29–37. | 10.1080/00224499.2018.1427204 | Review of large-N empirical literature | Fills gap — directly operationalizes the Augustinian burden: guilt from the gap between concupiscence-free ideal and embodied reality | Yes |
| B8. Moral incongruence — registered replication | Registered-report replication confirms: moral disapproval meaningfully predicts addiction-like self-appraisal for pornography and related behaviors — one of the highest-confidence contemporary findings in religion/sexual-distress. | Grubbs, J. B., Floyd, C. G., Griffin, B. J., et al. (2022). Moral incongruence and addiction: A registered report. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. | 10.1037/adb0000876 | Large-N empirical (preregistered) | Complicates simplistic "religion causes pathology" narratives; identifies the better-supported mediating mechanism | Yes |
| B9. Perceived addiction and religious shame | Perceived pornography addiction is predicted more strongly by religiosity and moral disapproval than by actual use frequency or objective harm. | Grubbs, J. B., Volk, F., Exline, J. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2015). Internet pornography use: Perceived addiction, psychological distress, and the validation of a brief measure. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 41(1), 83–106. | 10.1080/0092623X.2013.842192 | Large-N empirical | Complicates corpus — shame mechanism doesn't require actual behaviour, only the internalized theological standard | Yes |
| B10. Systematic review on compulsive sexual behavior | Generally small-to-moderate and inconsistent links between religiosity/spirituality and compulsive sexual behavior, with measurement heterogeneity and moral-disapproval dynamics recurring across studies. | Jennings, T. L., Lyng, T., Gleason, N., Finotelli, I., & Coleman, E. (2021). Compulsive sexual behavior, religiosity, and spirituality: A systematic review. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 10(4), 854–878. | 10.1556/2006.2021.00084 | Systematic review | Fills gap with best aggregate review | No (heterogeneous) |
| B11. Jewish non-Christian comparator | In adult Orthodox Jewish male samples, problematic sexual behavior is tied to religious meaning-making and spiritual struggle — analogous mechanism to Christian contexts. | Rosmarin, D. H., & Pirutinsky, S. (2019). Problematic sexual behavior and religion among adult Jewish males: An initial study. American Journal of Men's Health, 13(1). | 10.1177/1557988318823586 | Small-N empirical | Fills comparative gap; checks over-Christianized interpretations | Yes |
| B12. Shame vs. guilt — psychological distinction | Shame (global self-condemnation) and guilt (specific-behavior regret) are psychologically distinct. Religiosity differently predicts the two. Critical for the Augustine-as-theologian-of-shame argument. | Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press. | WorldCat | Large-N empirical across decades | Complicates corpus — theological shame/sin distinction maps imperfectly onto Tangney's psychology; needs formal bridge | Yes |
C. Purity Culture as a Modern Research Object
This section is where the empirical bench is strongest and most recent. The corpus names evangelical purity culture historically; the last five years have produced validated measurement and outcome evidence.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1. Purity culture — qualitative foundation | American evangelical purity movement systematically installs shame about sexuality, especially in women. Mechanisms map onto Augustinian theological inheritance transmitted through modern evangelical subculture. | Klein, L. K. (2018). Pure: Inside the evangelical movement that shamed a generation of young women and how I broke free. Atria Books. | WorldCat | Qualitative interviews (N > 100) | Fills gap — documents the lived experience of what the Augustine-to-evangelical transmission produces | No (qualitative) |
| C2. Virginity pledges — first large empirical test | Virginity pledges delay first intercourse by 18 months on average, but pledgers who break the pledge are significantly less likely to use contraception — producing higher STI rates. | Bearman, P. S., & Brückner, H. (2001). Promising the future: Virginity pledges and first intercourse. American Journal of Sociology, 106(4), 859–912. | 10.1086/338099 | Large-N empirical (N = 5,000+ longitudinal) | Fills gap — empirical test of purity-movement behavioural claims; shame architecture produces measurable harm | Yes |
| C3. Virginity pledge — STI consequences | Pledgers who break their pledge have rates of STI comparable to or higher than non-pledgers because of lower contraceptive use. | Brückner, H., & Bearman, P. (2005). After the promise: The STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges. Journal of Adolescent Health, 36(4), 271–278. | 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2005.01.005 | Large-N empirical (Add Health, N > 10,000) | Fills gap and complicates theological framework — demonstrates downstream harm | Yes |
| C4. Long-term virginity-pledge outcomes | By their mid-20s, virginity pledgers show no significant difference in sexual behaviour from matched non-pledgers, but substantially higher rates of unprotected sex — shame persists without the behaviour change. | Rosenbaum, J. E. (2009). Patient teenagers? A comparison of the sexual behavior of virginity pledgers and matched nonpledgers. Pediatrics, 123(1), e110–e120. | 10.1542/peds.2008-0407 | 5-year longitudinal (N = 934 matched pairs) | Tracks the long-term outcome the corpus theology predicts (shame without resolution) through behavioural science | Yes |
| C5. Purity culture and sexual self-concept | Young women raised in evangelical purity culture show significantly lower sexual self-esteem, higher sexual anxiety, greater difficulty with pleasure in committed partnerships. | Regnerus, M. D. (2007). Forbidden fruit: Sex and religion in the lives of American teenagers. Oxford University Press. | WorldCat | Large-N empirical (NSYR, N = 3,400) | Fills gap — measurable psychological sequelae in contemporary populations | Partial (cross-sectional) |
| C6. Purity culture and rape myth acceptance | Purity culture endorsement predicts rape myth acceptance and mislabeling marital/acquaintance rape as consensual sex among Christian respondents. | Owens, B. C., Hall, M. E. L., & Anderson, T. L. (2021). The relationship between purity culture and rape myth acceptance. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 49(4), 405–418. | 10.1177/0091647120974992 | Small-N empirical | Fills gap — downstream psychosocial effects beyond private shame | Yes |
| C7. Purity Culture Beliefs Scale (PCBS) | The strongest contemporary psychometric contribution — operationalizes purity-culture internalization; convergent validity with shame and related constructs. 14 items, two subscales (Shame-and-Guilt; Gender Roles) + 4 control items. | Ortiz, A. M., Sunu, B. C., Hall, M. E. L., Anderson, T. L., & Wang, D. C. (2023). Purity culture: Measurement and relationship to domestic violence myth acceptance. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 51(4). | 10.1177/00916471231182734 | Psychometric validation | Fills a major corpus silence — a reusable measure for modern quantitative work on purity-culture effects | Yes |
| C8. Purity culture — marital/sexual outcomes in white Christian women | Purity-culture tropes (gatekeeping, soul ties, obligation sex, perpetual lust) are associated with lower marital and sexual satisfaction and greater sexual pain in a large snowball sample (N = 5,489). | Sawatsky, J., Lindenbach, R., Gregoire, S. W., & Gregoire, K. (2025). Sanctified sexism: Effects of purity culture tropes on white Christian women's marital and sexual satisfaction and experience of sexual pain. Sociology of Religion, 86(4), 519–543. | 10.1093/socrel/srae031 | Large-N empirical | Fills corpus gap on long-term adult outcomes inside marriage, not only premarital regulation | Yes |
| C9. Purity culture effects on sexual/gender minorities | Purity culture produces particularly severe effects where it intersects with queer or trans identity — shame, concealment, conflict over embodiment and desire. | Muskrat, T. Y., Porcaro, A. K., Worley, M. G., Franco, A. E., Parmenter, J. G., & Sánchez, F. J. (2025). "Being yourself is a sin": The impact of evangelical purity culture on sexual and gender minority people socialized as women. The Counseling Psychologist, 53(5), 672–699. | 10.1177/00110000251352578 | Qualitative small-N empirical | Fills gap almost entirely open in the corpus — sexuality-shame outcomes beyond heterosexual women | No |
| C10. Purity culture × trauma pathway | Childhood purity-culture exposure independently predicts sexual shame among survivors of nonconsensual sexual experiences, even when trauma history is modeled. | Coates, A. G. C., Metcalfe, K. B., Ensign, A., Abdalla, S., & Meston, C. M. (2025). Being pure and being ashamed: The role of purity culture in sexual wellbeing. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 22(Suppl_1), qdaf068.049. | 10.1093/jsxmed/qdaf068.049 | Small-N empirical (N = 85, including 30 CSA survivors) | Fills a critical bridge the corpus cannot provide: how a theological-social script interacts with trauma pathways. Exposure to purity culture as a child contributed uniquely to sexual shame, above and beyond penetrative CSA (p = 0.00083) | Partial |
| C11. Purity culture × trauma — extended replication | Longer peer-reviewed treatment of the Coates et al. purity-culture × NSE survivor finding. | Coates, A. G. C., Metcalfe, K. B., Ensign, A., Abdalla, S., & Meston, C. M. (2026). Being pure and being ashamed: Purity culture and sexual shame among survivors of nonconsensual sexual experiences. Journal of Sex Research. | 10.1080/00224499.2026.2653785 | Small-to-medium empirical | Same as C10 — extended replication with deeper analysis | Partial |
| C12. Virginity pacts — gendered downstream | Newer longitudinal work suggests virginity-pact effects are gendered, with different downstream associations for women and men regarding later sexual victimization. | McKenna, N. C., & Nedelec, J. L. (2024). Helpful or harmful? The gendered effect of virginity pacts on later sexual victimization. Crime & Delinquency. | 10.1177/00111287241261326 | Large-N longitudinal | Fills gap — divergent downstream consequences by gender | Yes |
| C13. Sexual shame, faith, and moral incongruence in men | Taught-to-be-ashamed model of men's psychosexual development in Christian contexts; conceptual extension of Grubbs moral-incongruence framework. | Smith, C. S. (2026). Taught to be ashamed: Sexual shame, faith, and moral incongruence in men's psychosexual development. Sexuality & Culture. | 10.1007/s12119-025-10503-4 | Conceptual / synthesis | Fills gap — male-specific framing complements heavy focus on women's outcomes in C5–C9 | No |
D. Sexology Measurement Infrastructure Intersecting Religion
Instruments that could feed future quantitative Vela-side work or external replication.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1. SIS/SES dual-control foundation | 14-item validated measure of sexual excitation (SES) and sexual inhibition (SIS1, SIS2). Higher religiosity associated with higher SIS — inhibition as the psychophysiological mechanism through which shame may operate. However, large-N studies directly combining SIS/SES with religious upbringing remain limited. | Janssen, E., Vorst, H., Finn, P., & Bancroft, J. (2002). The sexual inhibition (SIS) and sexual excitation (SES) scales: I. Measuring sexual inhibition and excitation proneness in men. Journal of Sex Research, 39(2), 114–126. | 10.1080/00224490209552130 | Psychometric development (N = 408); subsequent hundreds of studies | Fills measurement gap — corpus has no psychophysiological infrastructure | Yes |
| D2. Chivers — category-specificity of arousal | Women show less category-specific genital arousal than men; measurement paradigm well-established, religious upbringing not a study variable in the foundational paper. | Chivers, M. L., Rieger, G., Latty, E., & Bailey, J. M. (2004). A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal. Psychological Science, 15(11), 736–744. | 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00750.x | Large-N psychophysiological | Gap: whether religious upbringing changes category-specificity has not been formally tested | N/A for current question |
| D3. Mosher Sex Guilt Scale — foundational | Mosher's Sex Guilt subscale of the Forced-Choice Guilt Inventory: dominant instrument for measuring shame about sexuality since 1968. Higher scores correlate consistently with intrinsic religiosity. | Mosher, D. L. (1988). Revised Mosher sex-guilt inventory. In C. M. Davis, W. L. Yarber, & S. L. Davis (Eds.), Handbook of sexuality-related measures. Sage. | WorldCat | Foundational scale; 50+ years of use | The single most meta-analyzed instrument in religious-sexuality research | Yes |
| D4. Male Sexual Shame Scale | Operationalizes sexual shame as a multidimensional construct rather than generic shame. Valid for male samples. | Gordon, A. M. (2018). How men experience sexual shame: The development and validation of the Male Sexual Shame Scale. Journal of Men's Studies, 26(1), 105–123. | 10.1177/1060826517728303 | Psychometric validation | Fills measurement gap the corpus cannot address | Yes |
| D5. Sexual Shame Inventory | Broadens available measurement toolkit but remains dissertation-level rather than a settled field standard. | Seebeck, J. (2021). Development of the Sexual Shame Inventory (doctoral dissertation). Seattle Pacific University. | Institutional repo | Dissertation psychometric | Fills gap but measurement infrastructure is younger than historical literature might suggest | Not yet |
| D6. Kyle Inventory of Sexual Shame | Emerging but validation work remains dissertation-level. | Lim, J. S. (2019). Validation study of the Kyle Inventory of Sexual Shame (doctoral dissertation). Liberty University. | Institutional repo | Dissertation psychometric | Fills gap but measurement maturity limited | Not yet |
| D7. Sexual Minority and Religious Identity Integration (SMRII) | Not a religious-sexual-shame scale, but validated tool for quantifying whether religious and sexual identities are integrated or experienced as conflictual. Enables measurement of reclamation outcomes. | Etengoff, C., et al. (2024). Development and validation of the Sexual Minority and Religious Identity Integration Scale. Journal of Homosexuality. | 10.1080/00918369.2023.2201870 | Psychometric validation | Fills reclamation/identity bridge the corpus does not reach | Yes |
| D8. Sanctification of Sexuality Scale | Closest validated positive counterpart to shame-based measures — operationalizes sacred meaning in sexual relationships rather than sin/incongruence alone. | Hernandez, K. M., Mahoney, A., & Pargament, K. I. (2011). Sanctification of sexuality: Implications for newlyweds' marital and sexual quality. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(5), 775–780. | 10.1037/a0025103 | Large-N empirical | Fills major gap — religion/sexuality linkage can be measured on generative, not only inhibitory, dimensions | Yes |
| D9. No field-standard religious-sexual-shame scale exists | No peer-reviewed, field-standard measure cleanly and specifically named a "religious sexual shame scale" was verified in this merge. The field currently relies on adjacent constructs: sex guilt, sexual shame, purity-culture internalization, moral incongruence, and identity integration. | No strong primary source located. | — | Field gap | Explicitly names a silence the corpus noted — the empirical bridge is still instrument-poor | No |
E. Cross-Tradition Empirical Comparisons
The corpus names the East/West divergence and the Jewish counter-case. This section positions that claim against what empirical research has actually measured.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1. Denomination vs. devoutness | Across Christian/Jewish/nonreligious groupings, within-group religiosity often explains more sexual conservatism than denomination alone. | Ahrold et al. (2011) — see B4. | 10.1007/s10508-010-9621-4 | Large-N empirical | Complicates any straight line from "Catholic/Protestant/Mormon" to outcome without measuring lived religiosity | Yes |
| E2. Catholic vs. Protestant sexual guilt | Catholics and mainline Protestants show similar sexual guilt scores; evangelical Protestants score significantly higher; weekly-attending Catholics are intermediate. | Regnerus (2007) — see C5. | WorldCat | Large-N empirical | Fills gap on denominational comparison | Partial |
| E3. Cross-tradition (Christian and Muslim) | Religiosity predicts restricted sexual behavior partly through sexual guilt, inhibition, and reduced sexual pleasure-seeking in both Catholic and Muslim traditions — mechanisms may travel across traditions even when doctrinal content differs. | Rigo, C., & Saroglou, V. (2019). Religiosity and sexual behavior: Tense relationships and underlying affects and cognitions in samples of Christian and Muslim traditions. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 40(2–3). | 10.1163/15736121-12341359 | Small-to-medium empirical | Fills cross-tradition comparison empirically rather than impressionistically | Yes |
| E4. LDS (Mormon) population — among highest shame scores | LDS populations show patterns of high sexual guilt, high distress about pornography use, highest rates of perceived pornography addiction. | Grubbs, J. B., Stauner, N., Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., & Lindberg, M. J. (2015). Perceived addiction to internet pornography and psychological distress: Examining relationships concurrently and over time. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 29(4), 1056–1067. | 10.1037/adb0000114 | Large-N empirical (N = 207 + 382 cross-validation) | Fills gap — Mormon theology is a post-Protestant development not in corpus; provides test case for whether Augustinian heritage predicts or denominational purity norms independently predict shame | Yes |
| E5. LDS — married heterosexual couples | LDS-specific peer-reviewed work on sexual shame is thinner than popular discourse suggests, but qualitative studies of married couples point to secrecy, inhibition, and later renegotiation as salient dynamics. | McKiernan, D. M., Clawson, A., et al. (2022). From secrecy to openness: Sexual satisfaction in couples from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sexual and Relationship Therapy. | 10.1080/14681994.2022.2047643 | Qualitative small-N | Fills denominational gap the corpus does not address | No |
| E6. LDS — sexual minorities + identity integration | Among sexual and gender minority people in LDS contexts, nonintegration is tied to guilt, shame, and conflict; better integration is more protective. | Lefevor, G. T., et al. (2023). Ways to navigate sexual minority and Latter-day Saint identities: A latent profile analysis. The Counseling Psychologist, 51(3), 368–394. | 10.1177/00110000221148219 | Medium-N empirical | Fills bridge between conservative theology and contemporary identity outcomes | Yes |
| E7. Orthodox Christianity — empirical gap | Greek and Russian Orthodox populations have not been studied at scale in English-language empirical sexual psychology literature. The East/West theological divergence in the corpus has no direct empirical test of whether different shame profiles result. | No strong primary source located. | — | Field gap | Most important unaddressed empirical question following from the corpus's East/West divergence claim. See novel-contribution §K.3 | N/A |
| E8. Evangelical vs. mainline Protestant | Evangelical adolescents significantly more likely to take virginity pledges and to experience STI consequences from pledge-breaking; mainline Protestants are statistically indistinguishable from secular peers. | Bearman & Brückner (2001) — see C2. | 10.1086/338099 | Large-N empirical | Supports corpus claim that specific theological content (purity doctrine as Augustinian inheritance) matters, not general religious affiliation | Yes |
| E9. Orthodox Jewish comparator | In adult Orthodox Jewish adolescents, stronger religiosity and moral disapproval associated with greater sexual shame — reinforces mechanism that travels across tight religious regulation, not specifically Christian. | Kaplan, M., et al. (2025). The association between moral disapproval of prohibited sexual behaviors, religiosity, and sexual shame among Orthodox Jewish adolescents. Sexuality & Culture. | 10.1007/s12119-025-10400-w | Large-N empirical | Supports corpus's shame framework as specifically Christian-heritage in form but not in mechanism | Yes |
F. Theological Alternatives and Reclamation Literature
Where the corpus stops (reinterpretation as theoretical possibility), the modern literature begins empirical testing.
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship | Meta-analyzable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1. Early "sacral" alternative to shame | Religious meaning attached to sexuality is not uniformly shame-producing; sacred valuation of sex can predict greater satisfaction and more integrated sexuality. | Murray-Swank, N. A., Pargament, K. I., & Mahoney, A. (2005). At the crossroads of sexuality and spirituality: The sanctification of sex by college students. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 15(3), 199–219. | 10.1207/s15327582ijpr1503_2 | Small-N empirical | Complicates corpus's inherited line — shows a modern Christian-positive alternative mechanism | Yes |
| F2. Marital sanctification | In newlywed samples, sanctification of sexuality predicts better marital and sexual quality — Christian reinterpretation can move religion/sexuality away from shame toward meaning, attachment, and satisfaction. | Hernandez et al. (2011) — see D8. | 10.1037/a0025103 | Large-N empirical | Complicates any monocausal account where religion only depresses sexual wellbeing | Yes |
| F3. Longitudinal sanctification effects | Positive side of sexual sanctification is not a one-off cross-sectional artifact; longitudinal work shows enduring associations with marital-sexual quality. | Hernandez-Kane, K., & Mahoney, A. (2018). Sex through a sacred lens: Longitudinal effects of sanctification of marital sexuality. Journal of Family Psychology, 32(4), 425–434. | 10.1037/fam0000392 | Large-N empirical | Fills key gap — reinterpretive religious meaning can have lasting measurable effects | Yes |
| F4. Sex guilt vs. sanctification — double-edged sword | Religiosity predicts poorer sexual outcomes when mediated by guilt/inhibition, but better outcomes when mediated by sanctification. | Leonhardt, N. D., Busby, D. M., & Willoughby, B. J. (2020). Sex guilt or sanctification? The indirect role of religiosity on sexual satisfaction. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 12(2), 213–222. | 10.1037/rel0000245 | Large-N empirical (N = 1,614) | One of the clearest empirical bridges between historical-theological inheritance and measurable contemporary alternatives | Yes |
| F5. Mahoney et al. — religion in the home | Meta-analytic review (97 studies) — sanctification framework for relationships extends beyond individual sexuality to marital practice. | Mahoney, A., Pargament, K. I., Tarakeshwar, N., & Swank, A. B. (2001). Religion in the home in the 1980s and 90s: A meta-analytic review and conceptual analysis of links between religion, marriage, and parenting. Journal of Family Psychology, 15(4), 559–596. | 10.1037/0893-3200.15.4.559 | Meta-analytic (97 studies) | Fills gap — the corpus discusses theological reinterpretation but no empirical data on whether reframing reduces shame | Yes |
| F6. Clinical Christian reclamation writing | Clinical pastoral model positing that religious shame about sexuality is a distinct, treatable condition. Direct RCT outcome trials not yet established. | Schermer Sellers, T. (2017). Sex, God, and the conservative church: Erasing shame from sexual intimacy. Routledge. | 10.4324/9781315560946 | Clinical case-series / theoretical synthesis | Fills pastoral-clinical side of the bridge the corpus deliberately left open | No |
| F7. Queer/religious identity integration — shame reduction | For religious gay men, identity integration is associated with lower guilt and shame — strongest empirical proxy for the effects of queer-theological or affirming reinterpretation. | Anderson, J. R., & Koc, Y. (2020). Identity integration as a protective factor against guilt and shame for religious gay men. Journal of Sex Research, 57(8), 1059–1068. | 10.1080/00224499.2020.1767026 | Medium-N empirical | Fills bridge between affirming reinterpretation and measurable shame outcomes | Yes |
| F8. Feminist/queer theological interventions | Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sarah Coakley, queer theology, and popular sex-positive Christian writers are theoretically rich, but direct outcome studies showing that exposure to those reinterpretations causally reduces sexual shame remain absent. | No strong primary source located. | — | Field gap | Explicitly names the most important unresolved bridge between interpretive theology and empirical sexology | No |
K. Novel-contribution section — candidate research-program questions
The corpus syntheses flag places where the Vela book-corpus is silent. This section positions those silences against the academic literature and names five specific, falsifiable research questions that bridge historical-theological inheritance and modern empirical measurement. Conservative novelty claims throughout.
K.1 Can historically specific Christian sexual theologies be operationalized as distinct modern psychological schemas?
No published program cleanly converts the historical lineages named in the corpus — Pauline pragmatism, Augustinian concupiscence, Latin penitential/legal codification, Byzantine therapeutic asceticism, Reformation maritalism, modern evangelical purity culture — into validated psychological measures that can be tested against shame, guilt, inhibition, desire, satisfaction, or moral incongruence.
A publishable bridge would build a scale battery that distinguishes:
- sexual desire as danger/temptation (Augustinian concupiscence schema)
- sexual desire as disordered will (classical Augustinian schema)
- sexual desire as sanctifiable good (marital-sacramental schema)
- sexual desire as identity threat (purity-culture schema)
- sexual desire as communal/ritualized obligation (codified legalist schema)
That would let researchers test whether "Augustinian" inheritance predicts outcomes above and beyond generic religiosity (B3, B4, E1).
K.2 Which matters more for contemporary sexual shame — doctrine, institution, or pedagogy?
The corpus implies Augustine matters, but later canon law (A11), confession, marriage teaching, abstinence pedagogy, and purity culture may matter more proximally. The empirical literature has not yet cleanly partitioned:
- formal theological belief
- family sexual messaging
- congregational pedagogy
- clergy counseling
- school-based abstinence instruction
- peer/community surveillance
A strong mixed-methods design could estimate whether present-day shame is better explained by explicitly held doctrine, remembered pedagogy, or embodied family/church scripts. That would answer a question the historical synthesis can pose but not settle.
K.3 Do East/West historical divergences produce measurably different shame pathways in living communities?
The historical literature (A8–A10) suggests real differences between Latin and Byzantine developments, but current empirical work is far too sparse — especially for Orthodox populations (E7) — to test whether those divergences map onto contemporary outcomes.
A cross-tradition comparative study matching Orthodox, Catholic, evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, and LDS participants on religiosity, age, gender, relationship status, and trauma history would generate genuinely new knowledge.
K.4 What is the psychophysiological pathway from purity-style moral formation to sexual inhibition?
The contemporary literature strongly suggests inhibitory mechanisms — sex guilt, shame, self-surveillance, disgust, fear of contamination, scrupulosity — but there is almost no strong modern work connecting purity-culture formation or historically Christian moral schemas to dual-control sexology measures (D1) and psychophysiological arousal (D2).
A novel program could combine:
- purity-culture internalization (Ortiz et al. PCBS, C7)
- moral incongruence (Grubbs, B7-B8)
- sexual shame (D4, D5, D6)
- scrupulosity
- SIS/SES dual-control measures
- lab or ambulatory arousal measures
That would test whether shame-based Christian formation depresses sexual functioning through inhibition, attentional interference, disgust, or trauma-linked hypervigilance.
K.5 Do affirming theological reinterpretations actually reduce shame over time, and by what mechanism?
The empirical literature is strongest on correlation and weakest on change. Suggestive evidence that sanctification (F2–F4) and identity integration (F7) can be protective, but almost no longitudinal or intervention work tests whether feminist theology, queer theology, affirming church participation, or sex-positive Christian reinterpretation (F8) move people from shame toward integration.
A bridge study would compare change over time among people exposed to:
- affirming theological communities
- nonaffirming but less legalistic communities
- explicit purity-culture deconstruction work
- secular sex therapy
- clinically integrated religious-sexual healing approaches (Sellers model, F6)
Key outcomes: sexual shame, self-compassion, moral incongruence, sexual satisfaction, attachment security.
K.6 Why these novelty claims are conservative
Each research question emerges from a clear mismatch in the present literature:
- historical-theological work is conceptually rich but rarely operationalized
- empirical work is increasingly sophisticated but historically flat
- psychometric tools exist but not yet in forms that discriminate among distinct Christian inheritances
- clinical reclamation literature is abundant, but outcome evidence is thin
- comparative denominational work remains far weaker than generic religiosity work
The strongest contribution would not be a reheated argument about whether Christianity "caused" sexual shame. It would be a new research architecture that tests which historical-theological inheritances survive psychologically, through what mechanisms, in which traditions, and with what possibilities for repair.
Short limitations note
- The historical backbone (§A) is much stronger than the empirical bridge (§B).
- Evangelical purity-culture research (§C) is now measurable and rapidly growing; Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant sexuality-shame outcome research remains much thinner.
- The best-supported contemporary mechanism is moral incongruence / sex guilt / identity conflict, not a generic claim that "religion" directly causes shame.
- No field-standard, peer-reviewed religious sexual shame scale was verified in this merge (D9).
- Direct intervention/outcome studies testing whether feminist, queer, or explicitly sex-positive Christian reinterpretations reduce shame remain sparse to absent (F8).
Downstream-artifacts index
How this literature map feeds the Vela writing pipeline and research-program arc. Each is a future assignment.
| Downstream artifact | Literature-map sections | Scope | Target venue or surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal Christianity-sex-shame literature review | A, B, C, D, F | Narrative synthesis positioning the three 2026-04-23 corpus syntheses against modern empirical research; bridges historical and empirical lines | Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, Journal of Sex Research, or Sexuality & Culture |
| Research proposals — K.1 to K.5 | K | Five specific falsifiable studies; scale-development program (K.1), mechanism-partitioning (K.2), East/West empirical bridge (K.3), psychophysiological pathway (K.4), intervention outcome (K.5) | Grant submissions (NSF SBE, John Templeton Foundation Religion & Sexuality program, Fetzer Institute) |
| Public-facing accessible version | Synthesis of A–F + K | Companion to "What Do You Actually Want From a Picture?" — an essay for the /research surface bridging history-of-ideas to contemporary measurement | vela.study/research + magazine companion |
| Magazine pieces | story hooks within A4 (Augustine's biographical formation), C1 (Klein's purity-culture testimony), F1–F3 (sanctification), K.5 (reclamation) | Vela-voice essays grounded in specific findings; contemplative register, not polemic | Vela Magazine |
| Christianity × Vela-engine integration | C, D | If Vela builds a text-side product (ASN-594) that includes religious-themed content, this map's moral-incongruence, purity-culture, and sanctification variables become candidate covariates | Internal platform policy |
Addendum — late OpenAI rework additions (2026-04-24)
A second OpenAI-produced rework landed after the ASN-595 merge. Most of its content overlaps with the merged map, but it surfaces several citations genuinely worth adding. Folded in here rather than rewriting the map.
B-prime — additional modern empirical psychology of religion rows
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B-prime.1 | Religious commitment is linked to poorer sexual self-esteem in majority-Christian female samples | Abbott, D. M., Harris, J. E., & Mollen, D. (2016). The impact of religious commitment on women's sexual self-esteem. Sexuality & Culture, 20(4), 1063–1082. | 10.1007/s12119-016-9374-x | Small/medium-N empirical | Fills a self-concept outcome gap absent from the corpus |
| B-prime.2 | Sexual shame is positively related to intrinsic religiosity and negatively related to sexual satisfaction; sexual shame emerges as the strongest negative predictor | Marcinechová, D., & Záhorcová, L. (2020). Sexual satisfaction, sexual attitudes, and shame in relation to religiosity. Sexuality & Culture, 24, 1913–1928. | 10.1007/s12119-020-09727-3 | Small/medium-N empirical | Directly fills sexuality × shame × religiosity gap |
| B-prime.3 | Nationally representative sample confirms: religiousness amplifies the porn-use → self-reported addiction link | Grubbs, J. B., Kraus, S. W., Perry, S. L., Lewczuk, K., & Gola, M. (2020). Addiction or transgression? Moral incongruence and self-reported problematic pornography use in a nationally representative sample. Clinical Psychological Science. | 10.1177/2167702620922966 | Large-N empirical | Population-level confirmation of moral-incongruence mechanism |
| B-prime.4 | Global cross-cultural test: moral incongruence model generalizes across genders, religions, and cultures | Bőthe, B., et al. (2026). A global investigation of the Moral Incongruence Model of Pornography Use across genders, religions, and cultures. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. | 10.1556/2006.2025.00540 | Large-N cross-cultural empirical | Fills major scalability gap |
| B-prime.5 | Independent replication: dysregulation, habits, and moral incongruence all contribute to perceived addiction | Lewczuk, K., Glica, A., Nowakowska, I., Gola, M., & Grubbs, J. B. (2020). Evaluating pornography problems due to moral incongruence model. | PubMed | Large-N empirical | Supports and refines Grubbs model |
C-prime — additional purity-culture rows
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C-prime.1 | In census-matched US sample, purity-culture beliefs outperform generic religiosity in predicting pornography outcomes | Griffin, K. R. (2025). An Examination of the Purity Culture Beliefs Scale and the Interaction of Religiosity, Purity Culture Beliefs, and Pornography Use in a Census-Matched United States Sample (doctoral dissertation, UNLV). | 10.34917/39385599 | Large-N dissertation | Answers "is it religiosity or purity culture?" more directly than published articles |
D-prime — additional measurement instruments
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D-prime.1 | Embodied Spirituality Scale — early sexuality–spirituality integration instrument developed in Christian samples | Horn, M. J., Piedmont, R. L., Fialkowski, G. M., Wicks, R. J., & Hunt, M. E. (2005). Sexuality and spirituality: The embodied spirituality scale. Theology & Sexuality, 12(1), 81–102. | 10.1177/1355835805057788 | Scale development | Fills infrastructure gap; indirect for shame specifically |
E-prime — additional cross-tradition rows
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E-prime.1 | Catholics report more introjected/guilt-related religious motivation than Protestants (not sexuality-specific but strongly suggestive) | Sheldon, K. M. (2006). Catholic guilt? Comparing Catholics' and Protestants' religious motivations. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 16(3), 209–223. | 10.1207/s15327582ijpr1603_5 | Large-N empirical | Complicates one-size-fits-all Protestant/Catholic reading |
| E-prime.2 | Evangelical/Pentecostal sexual minority youth report higher stigma and suicidal ideation than youth raised in other Christian traditions | van Bergen, D., et al. (2023). Stigma, depression, suicidal thoughts and coping of sexual minority youth raised with Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism compared with other Christian religions. Sexuality & Culture. | 10.1007/s12119-022-10050-2 | Small/medium-N empirical | Fills tradition-sensitive stigma gap |
| E-prime.3 | LDS sexual minorities: religion as both resource and stressor | Lefevor, G. T., Skidmore, S. J., McGraw, J. S., Davis, E. B., & Mansfield, T. R. (2022). Religiousness and minority stress in conservatively religious sexual minorities: Lessons from Latter-day Saints. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 32(4), 289–305. | 10.1080/10508619.2021.2008131 | Large-N empirical | Extends LDS line; strengthens E4 |
| E-prime.4 | LGBTQ+ teens and parents in LDS: recurring church-specific microaggressions function as shame induction | Sorrell, S. A., Lefevor, G. T., Bell, J. H., Berg, C. O., & Skidmore, S. J. (2024). "You're not gay; you're a child of God": Microaggressions experienced by LGBTQ+ teens and their parents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Family Process, 63(1), 243–264. | 10.1111/famp.12863 | Qualitative medium-N | Fills Mormon shame-induction mechanism |
| E-prime.5 | LDS sexual satisfaction strongly tied to relational factors — complicates any simple "conservative religion = low marital sex" narrative | Francis, H. M., Garcia, J. R., & others. (2019). They shall be one: Sexual satisfaction among men and women married in the LDS faith. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 45(1), 60–72. | 10.1080/0092623X.2018.1484402 | Empirical | Complicates E4/E5 reading |
F-prime — additional reclamation-literature rows
| Coordinate | Claim | Primary source (APA) | DOI / URL | Evidence strength | Corpus relationship |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F-prime.1 | Queer theology as explicit resource for re-reading Christian sexual ethics beyond shame regimes; empirical outcome literature not yet established | Althaus-Reid, M. (2000). Indecent Theology. Routledge. | WorldCat / Google Books | Theoretical theology | Fills interpretive gap only; no outcome evidence |
Also strengthened from the rework without needing new rows: Coakley, Ruether, Bolz-Weber already in §F — the rework framed them more explicitly as the "theological alternative but empirical evaluation absent" cluster that §F8 flags.