(LifeSiteNews) — Louise Perry, podcaster and author of the acclaimed book “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” converted to Christianity.
The host of the “Maiden Mother Matriarch” podcast, who a few years ago described herself as agnostic and not a “practicing Christian,” said in a September interview that since writing “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution,” she has “become a Christian.”
Perry said she is now much more willing to make her arguments against the sexual revolution in “theological terms,” noting that she used a “deliberately secular argument” in her book that comes to the same conclusion as that of natural law, cited by Christians.
“One of the reasons” she became a Christian is because she realized that she was “for a long time persuaded that Christianity is “sociologically true,” Perry told Peter Copeland, deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
This means, she explained, that “Christian societies tend to flourish and obeying Christian directives tends to be the right choice,” as shown, for example, by “the fact that monogamous marriage is, on net, really good for individuals and for societies and for children.”
She acknowledged that while Christianity’s being “sociologically true” doesn’t mean it is “supernaturally true,” “if it were supernaturally true, you would expect it to be sociologically true.”
“And observing how sociologically true it is was quite persuasive to me, and I know has been to others as well,” Perry said.
Before becoming a Christian, Perry’s worldview shifted from an embrace of liberal feminist ideas about sexuality to culturally conservative ones during her time working at a rape crisis center. She has said the experience reversed her former beliefs that there is “nothing wrong in porn, bondage, sadomasochism and hook-up culture.”
She went on to make a compelling case against these hallmarks of the sexual revolution in her book, arguing that the new sexual norms are particularly bad for women, as she witnessed firsthand at the rape crisis center.
Her points, while obvious and taken for granted by Christians, constitute a “radical” rebellion against today’s secular culture, as The Guardian, a leftist British newspaper, noted in a review of Perry’s book:
“In this cultural moment, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution could hardly be more radical. It is an act of insurrection, its seditiousness born not only of the pieties it is determined to explode, but of the fact that it is also diligently researched and written in plain English.”
The book’s arguments are summed up in its chapter titles: 1. Sex Must Be Taken Seriously 2. Men and Women Are Different 3. Some Desires Are Bad 4. Loveless Sex Is Not Empowering 5. Consent Is Not Enough 6. Violence Is Not Love 7. People Are Not Products 8. Marriage Is Good
In her book, Perry also committed the secular heresy of questioning the supposed “good” brought about by the birth control pill, observing, “The pill offers this illusion of sex being a meaningless leisure activity. But just because you’re taking a contraceptive pill does not mean that you’re not emotionally affected by sex.”
These positions reflected a Catholic worldview closely enough that she was mistaken for a Catholic at the time.
“People often assume that I’m Catholic, but I’m not,” she told the Irish Examiner in 2022. “I’m kind of culturally Christian, but I’m not starting from religious principles. I’m just ending up in agreement on some points.”
She told Copeland last month that she is now a Protestant Christian but is sympathetic to the Catholic position that there must be an authoritative interpreter of Scripture beyond the self.
“I say this as a Protestant, but there are moments when I think the Catholics are completely right to think that interpreting the Gospels all on their own is not a very good idea,” she said. “Because you see all the time, including from clergy, these incredibly present-centric and frankly incoherent interpretations of parts of the Bible to end up justifying the latest political fad.”
