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amado1This was a pretty solid book!
Simple question: Why did white evangelicals vote overwhelmingly for Trump when he goes against all their values and clearly doesn't know anything about the Bible?
To answer it, the author walks us through a history of white evangelicalism in the United States, starting in the early 20th Century and moving (in detail) through the Reagan years, the Satanic panic, the rise of the Quiverfull movement, post-9/11 militarism, and the Obama/Duck Dynasty era. In one sense, this book serves well as a catalog of names, a sort of "People of Interest" yearbook that you can use as a jumping-off point for more in-depth reading. I grew up in rural Amish country, so I have a childhood understanding of fundie culture, and as an adult I've been interested in knowing more, but it hasn't always been easy to get started. This book is handy because it provides an exhaustive list of names you can Google for yourself and read about in full.
The history convincingly shows the evolution of masculinity in evangelist circles, and the slow creep away from Bible-based theology into a more cultural focus on strong, tough, virile, tell-it-like-it-is men, with pretty, submissive, homesteading wives. By the end, I felt like the feminine side of evangelism was far more interesting, and I'd rather read a book on that -- I grew up with all this stuff, and the conclusions drawn felt very obvious, especially since the biggest message of the book is just:
"They voted for Trump because they DON'T care about family values, actually. Family values are just an excuse to uphold their patriarchal abuse system."
I would love an exploration of evangelist femininity because I don't think this book really properly captured it. It focused a lot on the sweet, submissive feminine angle, which is definitely what the evangelists PREACH, but it doesn't match reality. My experience of fundie women is a militant viciousness and a love for foul-mouthed swagger and political incorrectness, much the same as the men; a sort of mocking middle-school-bully style of antifeminism, focusing on looks... idk, I read an article yesterday that admittedly was difficult for me to understand and not written very well, but it touched on the usage of social media in adolescent boys vs. girls -- if a girl has stereotypically feminine traits, what does she use social media for? If she's more masculine, what does she use it for? And what about boys? If I read this article right, it looks like girls with traditionally masculine traits (aggression, determination not to show weakness) weren't likely to engage in masculine social media activities like competitive gaming. But they WERE likely to engage in stereotypically feminine social media activities, like posting selfies or comparing their appearance to other girls.
That struck me as very similar to the way women act in fundie cultures. The more aggressive, militant, and frankly mean they were, the more stereotypically feminine -- perfect makeup, trendy clothes, Instagram filters and thirst traps and homesteading... Facebook feeds filled with ~aesthetic~ photos of their pickled beets and tow-headed kids dressed in farm clothes, interspersed with hateful memes making fun of transgender celebrities or telling immigrants to go home.
I find this behavior harder to untangle and understand than the male side.
(Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars. It was not as readable, at the end, as "Strangers to Ourselves", but that's because it largely serves as a history book about the evolution of evangelicalism.)
Quotes:
But evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals' embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.
*****
For evangelicals, domestic and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin. Christian nationalism -- the belief that America is God's chosen nation and must be defended as such -- serves as a powerful predictor of intolerance toward immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians. It is linked to opposition to gay rights and gun control, to support for harsher punishments for criminals, to justifications for the use of excessive force against black Americans in law enforcement situations, and to traditionalist gender ideology. White evangelicals have pieced together this patchwork of issues, and a nostalgic commitment to rugged, aggressive, militant white masculinity serves as the thread binding them together into a coherent whole. A father's rule in the home is inextricably linked to heroic leadership on the national stage, and the fate of the nation hinges on both.
*****
Black Christians have long resisted embracing the evangelical label because it is clear to them that there is more to evangelicalism than straightforward statements of belief. Survey data indicate that on nearly every social and political issue, black Protestants apply their faith in ways that run counter to white evangelicalism.
*****
White evangelicalism has such an expansive reach in large part because of the culture it created, the culture that it sells. Over the past half century or so, evangelicals have produced and consumed a vast quantity of religious products: Christian books and magazines, CCM (Christian contemporary music), Christian radio and television, feature films, ministry conferences, blogs, T-shirts, and home decor. Many evangelicals who would be hard pressed to articulate even the most basic tenets of evangelical theology have nonetheless been immersed in this evangelical popular culture. They've raised children with the help of James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio programs or grown up watching VeggieTales cartoons. They rocked out to Amy Grant or the Newsboys or DC Talk. They learned about purity before they learned about sex, and they have a silver ring to prove it. They watched The Passion of the Christ, Soul Surfer, or the latest Kirk Cameron film with their youth group.
(Note from amado: my youth group played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and went to paintball matches; this is very relevant to the militarism aspect of evangelicalism. In school, during our "Religion" class, we'd learn about the evils of Islam and study the Quran to see all the scary bits; we sat through PowerPoints on Jihad and watched the snuff video of Saddam Hussein on the projector; then after school we'd play games about shooting Arabs in an unnamed Middle Eastern country)
*****
My own upbringing in the Christian Reformed Church, a small denomination founded by Dutch immigrants, is a case in point; for generations, members defined themselves against American Christianity, but due to the onslaught of evangelical popular culture, large swaths of the denomination are now functionally evangelical in terms of affinity and belief. Denominational boundaries are easily breached by the flow of religious merchandising. Indeed, one can participate in this religious culture without attending church at all.
(Another note: I highlighted this because I grew up in a German-speaking Lutheran church which was very gentle and focused on God's love ... when I was little. Our Jesus was the willowy "pretty boy" Jesus, always weeping and cuddling with a lamb or leading children to safety. But there was a rapid change post-9/11. We got a new pastor and new teachers, and the gentle kind-hearted gay men who used to be prominent figures in my church were driven back into the closet or out of the area entirely. German services ceased. We started singing Onward Christian Soldiers and The Armor of God; one pastor wrote "FLAMING HOMOS GO TO HELL" on our chalkboard during our confirmation classes. Etc etc.)
*****
During the Trump campaign, many pastors were surprised to find they wielded little influence over people in the pews. What they didn't understand was that they were up against a more powerful system of authority -- an evangelical popular culture that reflected and reinforced a compelling ideology and a coherent worldview.
*****
Offering certainty in times of social change, promising security in the face of global threats, and, perhaps most critically, affirming the righteousness of a white Christian America and, by extension, of white Christian Americans, conservative evangelicals succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of large numbers of American Christians. They achieved this dominance not only by crafting a compelling ideology but also by advancing their agenda through strategic organizations and political alliances, on occasion by way of ruthless displays of power and, critically, by dominating the production and distribution of Christian consumer culture.
*****
The products Christians consume shape the faith they inhabit. Today, what it means to be a "conservative evangelical" is as much about cultures as it is about theology. This is readily apparent in the heroes they celebrate. Establishment evangelicals might count Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield among their eminent fore-bearers, but evangelical popular culture is teeming with a different ensemble of heroes -- men like William Wallace (as brought to life by Mel Gibson), Teddy Roosevelt, the mythic American cowboy, Generals Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton, and the ordinary American soldier. And the actor John Wayne.
As the onscreen embodiment of the heroic cowboy and idealized American soldier, and also as an outspoken conservative activist in real life, John Wayne became an icon of rugged American manhood for generations of conservatives. Pat Buchanan parroted Wayne in his presidential bid. Newt Gingrich called Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima "the formative movie of my life" and Oliver North echoes slogans from that film in his 1994 Senate campaign. In time, Wayne would also emerge as an icon of Christian masculinity. Evangelicals admired (and still admire) him for his toughness and his swagger; he protected the weak, and he wouldn't let anything get in the way of his pursuit of justice and order. Wayne was not an evangelical Christian, despite rumors to this effect regularly circulated by evangelicals themselves. He did not live a moral life by the standards of traditional Christian virtue. Yet for many evangelicals, Wayne would come to symbolize a different set of virtues -- a nostalgic yearning for a mythical "Christian America", a return to "traditional" gender roles, and the reassertion of (white) patriarchal authority.
*****
By the 1960s, the civil rights movement, feminism, and the Vietnam War led many Americans to question "traditional" values of all kinds. Gender and sexual norms were in flux, America no longer appeared to be a source of unalloyed good, and God did not in fact appear to be on her side. Evangelicals, however, clung fiercely to the belief that America was a Christian nation, that the military was a force for good, and that the strength of the nation depended on a properly ordered, patriarchal home. The evangelical political resurgence of the 1970s coalesced around a potent mix of "family values" politics, but family values were always intertwined with ideas about sex, power, race, and nation.
*****
And Christian media promoted a distinctive vision of evangelical masculinity. Finding comfort and courage in symbols of a mythical past, evangelicals looked to rugged, heroic masculinity embodied by cowboys, soldiers, and warriors to point the way forward. For decades to come, militant masculinity (and a sweet, submissive femininity) would remain entrenched in the evangelical imagination, shaping conceptions of what was good and true.
*****
Evangelical militancy cannot be seen simply as a response to fearful times; for conservative white evangelicals, a militant faith required an ever-present sense of threat.
*****
Donald Trump appeared at a moment when evangelicals felt increasingly beleaguered, even persecuted. From the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate to transgender bathroom laws and the cultural sea change on gay marriage, gender was at the heart of this perceived vulnerability.
*****
Evangelical fears were real. Yet these fears were not simply a natural response to changing times. For decades, evangelical leaders had worked to stoke them ... Generations of evangelicals learned to be afraid of communists, feminists, liberals, secular humanists, "the homosexuals," the United Nations, the government, Muslims, and immigrants -- and they were primed to respond to those fears by looking to a strong man to rescue them from danger, a man who embodied a God-given, testosterone-driven masculinity. As Robert Jeffress so eloquently expressed in the months before the 2016 election, "I want the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-you-know-what I can find in that role, and I think that's where many evangelicals are."
These quotes are all from the introduction. While I highlighted bits and pieces throughout the entire book, it's mostly areas of evangelical history I want to read more about, not the sort of quote that would be fun to read out of context. Besides, I think these show you the tone and point of the book pretty well.
Simple question: Why did white evangelicals vote overwhelmingly for Trump when he goes against all their values and clearly doesn't know anything about the Bible?
To answer it, the author walks us through a history of white evangelicalism in the United States, starting in the early 20th Century and moving (in detail) through the Reagan years, the Satanic panic, the rise of the Quiverfull movement, post-9/11 militarism, and the Obama/Duck Dynasty era. In one sense, this book serves well as a catalog of names, a sort of "People of Interest" yearbook that you can use as a jumping-off point for more in-depth reading. I grew up in rural Amish country, so I have a childhood understanding of fundie culture, and as an adult I've been interested in knowing more, but it hasn't always been easy to get started. This book is handy because it provides an exhaustive list of names you can Google for yourself and read about in full.
The history convincingly shows the evolution of masculinity in evangelist circles, and the slow creep away from Bible-based theology into a more cultural focus on strong, tough, virile, tell-it-like-it-is men, with pretty, submissive, homesteading wives. By the end, I felt like the feminine side of evangelism was far more interesting, and I'd rather read a book on that -- I grew up with all this stuff, and the conclusions drawn felt very obvious, especially since the biggest message of the book is just:
"They voted for Trump because they DON'T care about family values, actually. Family values are just an excuse to uphold their patriarchal abuse system."
I would love an exploration of evangelist femininity because I don't think this book really properly captured it. It focused a lot on the sweet, submissive feminine angle, which is definitely what the evangelists PREACH, but it doesn't match reality. My experience of fundie women is a militant viciousness and a love for foul-mouthed swagger and political incorrectness, much the same as the men; a sort of mocking middle-school-bully style of antifeminism, focusing on looks... idk, I read an article yesterday that admittedly was difficult for me to understand and not written very well, but it touched on the usage of social media in adolescent boys vs. girls -- if a girl has stereotypically feminine traits, what does she use social media for? If she's more masculine, what does she use it for? And what about boys? If I read this article right, it looks like girls with traditionally masculine traits (aggression, determination not to show weakness) weren't likely to engage in masculine social media activities like competitive gaming. But they WERE likely to engage in stereotypically feminine social media activities, like posting selfies or comparing their appearance to other girls.
That struck me as very similar to the way women act in fundie cultures. The more aggressive, militant, and frankly mean they were, the more stereotypically feminine -- perfect makeup, trendy clothes, Instagram filters and thirst traps and homesteading... Facebook feeds filled with ~aesthetic~ photos of their pickled beets and tow-headed kids dressed in farm clothes, interspersed with hateful memes making fun of transgender celebrities or telling immigrants to go home.
I find this behavior harder to untangle and understand than the male side.
(Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars. It was not as readable, at the end, as "Strangers to Ourselves", but that's because it largely serves as a history book about the evolution of evangelicalism.)
Quotes:
But evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals' embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.
*****
For evangelicals, domestic and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin. Christian nationalism -- the belief that America is God's chosen nation and must be defended as such -- serves as a powerful predictor of intolerance toward immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians. It is linked to opposition to gay rights and gun control, to support for harsher punishments for criminals, to justifications for the use of excessive force against black Americans in law enforcement situations, and to traditionalist gender ideology. White evangelicals have pieced together this patchwork of issues, and a nostalgic commitment to rugged, aggressive, militant white masculinity serves as the thread binding them together into a coherent whole. A father's rule in the home is inextricably linked to heroic leadership on the national stage, and the fate of the nation hinges on both.
*****
Black Christians have long resisted embracing the evangelical label because it is clear to them that there is more to evangelicalism than straightforward statements of belief. Survey data indicate that on nearly every social and political issue, black Protestants apply their faith in ways that run counter to white evangelicalism.
*****
White evangelicalism has such an expansive reach in large part because of the culture it created, the culture that it sells. Over the past half century or so, evangelicals have produced and consumed a vast quantity of religious products: Christian books and magazines, CCM (Christian contemporary music), Christian radio and television, feature films, ministry conferences, blogs, T-shirts, and home decor. Many evangelicals who would be hard pressed to articulate even the most basic tenets of evangelical theology have nonetheless been immersed in this evangelical popular culture. They've raised children with the help of James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio programs or grown up watching VeggieTales cartoons. They rocked out to Amy Grant or the Newsboys or DC Talk. They learned about purity before they learned about sex, and they have a silver ring to prove it. They watched The Passion of the Christ, Soul Surfer, or the latest Kirk Cameron film with their youth group.
(Note from amado: my youth group played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and went to paintball matches; this is very relevant to the militarism aspect of evangelicalism. In school, during our "Religion" class, we'd learn about the evils of Islam and study the Quran to see all the scary bits; we sat through PowerPoints on Jihad and watched the snuff video of Saddam Hussein on the projector; then after school we'd play games about shooting Arabs in an unnamed Middle Eastern country)
*****
My own upbringing in the Christian Reformed Church, a small denomination founded by Dutch immigrants, is a case in point; for generations, members defined themselves against American Christianity, but due to the onslaught of evangelical popular culture, large swaths of the denomination are now functionally evangelical in terms of affinity and belief. Denominational boundaries are easily breached by the flow of religious merchandising. Indeed, one can participate in this religious culture without attending church at all.
(Another note: I highlighted this because I grew up in a German-speaking Lutheran church which was very gentle and focused on God's love ... when I was little. Our Jesus was the willowy "pretty boy" Jesus, always weeping and cuddling with a lamb or leading children to safety. But there was a rapid change post-9/11. We got a new pastor and new teachers, and the gentle kind-hearted gay men who used to be prominent figures in my church were driven back into the closet or out of the area entirely. German services ceased. We started singing Onward Christian Soldiers and The Armor of God; one pastor wrote "FLAMING HOMOS GO TO HELL" on our chalkboard during our confirmation classes. Etc etc.)
*****
During the Trump campaign, many pastors were surprised to find they wielded little influence over people in the pews. What they didn't understand was that they were up against a more powerful system of authority -- an evangelical popular culture that reflected and reinforced a compelling ideology and a coherent worldview.
*****
Offering certainty in times of social change, promising security in the face of global threats, and, perhaps most critically, affirming the righteousness of a white Christian America and, by extension, of white Christian Americans, conservative evangelicals succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of large numbers of American Christians. They achieved this dominance not only by crafting a compelling ideology but also by advancing their agenda through strategic organizations and political alliances, on occasion by way of ruthless displays of power and, critically, by dominating the production and distribution of Christian consumer culture.
*****
The products Christians consume shape the faith they inhabit. Today, what it means to be a "conservative evangelical" is as much about cultures as it is about theology. This is readily apparent in the heroes they celebrate. Establishment evangelicals might count Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield among their eminent fore-bearers, but evangelical popular culture is teeming with a different ensemble of heroes -- men like William Wallace (as brought to life by Mel Gibson), Teddy Roosevelt, the mythic American cowboy, Generals Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton, and the ordinary American soldier. And the actor John Wayne.
As the onscreen embodiment of the heroic cowboy and idealized American soldier, and also as an outspoken conservative activist in real life, John Wayne became an icon of rugged American manhood for generations of conservatives. Pat Buchanan parroted Wayne in his presidential bid. Newt Gingrich called Wayne's Sands of Iwo Jima "the formative movie of my life" and Oliver North echoes slogans from that film in his 1994 Senate campaign. In time, Wayne would also emerge as an icon of Christian masculinity. Evangelicals admired (and still admire) him for his toughness and his swagger; he protected the weak, and he wouldn't let anything get in the way of his pursuit of justice and order. Wayne was not an evangelical Christian, despite rumors to this effect regularly circulated by evangelicals themselves. He did not live a moral life by the standards of traditional Christian virtue. Yet for many evangelicals, Wayne would come to symbolize a different set of virtues -- a nostalgic yearning for a mythical "Christian America", a return to "traditional" gender roles, and the reassertion of (white) patriarchal authority.
*****
By the 1960s, the civil rights movement, feminism, and the Vietnam War led many Americans to question "traditional" values of all kinds. Gender and sexual norms were in flux, America no longer appeared to be a source of unalloyed good, and God did not in fact appear to be on her side. Evangelicals, however, clung fiercely to the belief that America was a Christian nation, that the military was a force for good, and that the strength of the nation depended on a properly ordered, patriarchal home. The evangelical political resurgence of the 1970s coalesced around a potent mix of "family values" politics, but family values were always intertwined with ideas about sex, power, race, and nation.
*****
And Christian media promoted a distinctive vision of evangelical masculinity. Finding comfort and courage in symbols of a mythical past, evangelicals looked to rugged, heroic masculinity embodied by cowboys, soldiers, and warriors to point the way forward. For decades to come, militant masculinity (and a sweet, submissive femininity) would remain entrenched in the evangelical imagination, shaping conceptions of what was good and true.
*****
Evangelical militancy cannot be seen simply as a response to fearful times; for conservative white evangelicals, a militant faith required an ever-present sense of threat.
*****
Donald Trump appeared at a moment when evangelicals felt increasingly beleaguered, even persecuted. From the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate to transgender bathroom laws and the cultural sea change on gay marriage, gender was at the heart of this perceived vulnerability.
*****
Evangelical fears were real. Yet these fears were not simply a natural response to changing times. For decades, evangelical leaders had worked to stoke them ... Generations of evangelicals learned to be afraid of communists, feminists, liberals, secular humanists, "the homosexuals," the United Nations, the government, Muslims, and immigrants -- and they were primed to respond to those fears by looking to a strong man to rescue them from danger, a man who embodied a God-given, testosterone-driven masculinity. As Robert Jeffress so eloquently expressed in the months before the 2016 election, "I want the meanest, toughest, son-of-a-you-know-what I can find in that role, and I think that's where many evangelicals are."
These quotes are all from the introduction. While I highlighted bits and pieces throughout the entire book, it's mostly areas of evangelical history I want to read more about, not the sort of quote that would be fun to read out of context. Besides, I think these show you the tone and point of the book pretty well.
