Cross Purposes: Love and Purity at a P uerto R ican Protestant High School

A “native” C hristian ethnographer finds religious education at this church‐sponsored school to pursue two distinct, and occasionally conflicting, curricula: “love” and “purity.” The curriculum of love draws on what Turner called liminality and communitas in an effort to promote spiritual “encounters with G od,” whereas the curriculum of purity stresses adult–student hierarchies as students are urged to reject “worldly” popular culture. Adults were caught between the two goals when one student asserted a gay identity.