Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the study of the ethical life by Webb Keane, I argue that for the Russian Baptists sex is an ethical affordance. Using the example of "hardcore" converts, I illustrate how sex and gender order constitute the (Russian Baptist) Christian identity.

Paper long abstract:

I study a Baptist community in the northwest Russia. Drawing on my fieldwork in rehabilitation ministry for the addicted people (2014-2015) and the study of gender order and family values (2018-present), I regard sex as an example of what Webb Keane calls "ethical affordances" — "any aspects of people’s experiences and perceptions that they might draw on in the process of making ethical evaluations and decisions, whether consciously or not" (Keane 2016: 27).

Russian Baptists are complementarianists, believing that men and women are equal in value but different in role. They give special importance to relationships between genders as an essential part of the everyday morals. They believe that sex, which is only permissible within marriage, has multiple functions besides the childbearing, such as, joy, physical pleasure, getting to know each other, and spiritual unity. Ultimately, the Russian Baptist gender order and family values are an essential part of their Christian identity, which is manifested in living a Christian life.

Two most illustrative examples of sex as an ethical affordance are the moral transformation of "hardcore" converts and the failure of total submission. The adult converts with prison or addicted experience tend to meticulously follow all the principles of chastity during courtship, engagement, and marriage, because they contrast them to their promiscuous past. The failure of total submission to the Russian Baptist morals, in turn, inevitably lead a convert to a spiritual collapse and a consequent physical relapse. I will provide these claims with ethnographic examples.