"What is 'a furtive fumble with a handsome hedonist' against the promise of marriage and salvation, Ms. Eden asks. The chaste life is 'more hope-filled, more vibrant, more real,' than the 'superficial and libidinous' gallivanting of the 'Sex and the City'-style single girl, she promises.

"But how can she be sure that the 'forever kind of love' exists, when she has yet to find her heaven-sent soul mate? 'I imagine it this way: God is preparing a beautiful, romantic candlelight dinner for my future husband and me,' she explains, adding, 'It is taking Him an awfully long time.'

"Ms. Eden confesses she was not always so demure. But after seeing the light in 1999, she began to regard her youthful loss of virginity as a 'blip on the continuum of my sexual degradation' and embarked upon a path of chastity and modesty. There has been slippage, but she has toed the line in the last couple years, overlooking the practical concern that while you can have a relationship with God, you can’t have dinner with him on a Friday at Little Giant."