The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family 9781978824492

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The Divine Institution

The Divine Institution White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family

SOPHIE BJORK-­J AMES

Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London

 Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Bjork-­James, Sophie, author. Title: The divine institution: white evangelicalism’s politics of the ­family / Sophie Bjork-­James. Description: New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020029114 | ISBN 9781978821842 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978821859 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978821866 (epub) | ISBN 9781978821873 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978824492 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: ­Family—­Religious aspects—­Chris­tian­ity. | Evangelicalism—­Political aspects—­United States. | Po­liti­cal theology and race—­United States. Classification: LCC BT707.7 .B59 2021 | DDC 261.8/35850973—­dc23 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2020029114 A British Cataloging-­in-­Publication rec­ord for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2021 by Sophie Bjork-­James All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—­Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. www​.­rutgersuniversitypress​.o­ rg Manufactured in the United States of Amer­i­ca

 To Marie

Contents

1 ­Family Values and Racial Politics

1

2

The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church

24

3

Reading the Bible with James Dobson: The F ­ amily and Christian Nationalism

44

4

Same-­Sex Attraction and the Limits of God’s Love

66

5

Paternal Politics

93

6

Losing (and Remaking) My Religion: The Transformation of White Evangelicalism from Within

115

7

Conclusion: The F ­ uture of White Evangelicalism

135

Acknowl­edgments 141 Notes 145 Bibliography 167 Index 179

vii

The Divine Institution

1

F­ amily Values and Racial Politics

In the late 1970s, white evangelicals across the United States entered the po­liti­cal fold to defend the ­family. Thus, in the de­cade ­after widespread successes of the civil rights movement, led by African American Christians, Jerry Falwell Sr. and other white evangelical leaders aligned a language associated with personal sanctification—­the work of becoming godly—to a po­liti­cal proj­ect of sanctifying the nation.1 This movement successfully began to shift national po­liti­cal debates away from questions of equality just as it worked to transform white evangelicalism from a somewhat po­liti­cally diverse religion into a po­liti­cal movement defined by conservative politics and anti-­abortion and anti-­LGBTQI stances.2 Before the late 1970s white evangelicalism was not associated with a par­tic­u­lar po­liti­cal position, and the evangelical movement a c­ entury e­ arlier focused on a variety of issues that ­today would register as progressive, from abolition to ­women’s suffrage.3 As late as the mid-1970s, a multiracial group of evangelicals ­were defining a progressive evangelical agenda that included support for racial justice and other progressive ­causes.4 While conservative religious leaders had been mobilizing po­liti­cally for almost a de­cade, sociologist Nancy Ammerman writes that the leaders “did not yet know that they w ­ ere a movement” u­ ntil the late 1970s.5 The concept of ­family values provided the conservative 1

2  •  The Divine Institution

po­liti­cal movement—­which since the success of the civil rights movement had been associated with e­ ither overt racism or economic elitism—­with new energy and a new base.6 Over the next forty years white evangelicals became one of the most consistent voting blocs in the country, representing nearly one-­quarter of the electorate and making the “evangelical voter” a mainstay in popu­lar media reporting. In po­liti­cal debates, white evangelicals became primary defenders of heterosexual privilege.7 ­These values voters understand themselves as defending their faith, and prioritize issues that defend the nuclear f­ amily, focusing on reproduction and sexuality. Despite evangelicals’ self-­concept, it is not faith alone that shapes evangelical politics. Since the emergence of the Religious Right, the politics of defending the ­family has drawn support from Christians almost solely on one side of the color line.8 While white evangelicals and Black Protestants are nearly identical in terms of “salience of religion, biblical literalism, certainty of God’s existence, and frequency of prayer and church attendance,” when it comes to voting no two religious groups diverge so significantly as white evangelicals and Black Protestants.9 While many African American churches embrace patriarchal gender roles, this has not translated into the same support for Religious Right politics as it has in white evangelicalism.10 Anthropologist Ellen Lewin importantly notes that in many Black churches a commitment to social justice traditions exists alongside a commitment to patriarchal gender roles and heterosexual norms.11 Race clearly has an effect on the politics that stem from ­these dif­fer­ent Christian traditions. White evangelicals are not a monolithic group, and an evangelical tradition focused on the ­family is not uncontested. ­There is a long tradition, epitomized in Jimmy Car­ter’s faith, of evangelicals emphasizing moral commitments to the poor over a defense of existing hierarchies. Vari­ous progressive evangelicals in this tradition continue to vocally advocate a dif­ fer­ent po­liti­cal emphasis in evangelicalism, as in the work of Jim Wallis and Sojourners. A robust group of evangelical feminists challenge the dominant emphasis on complementary gender roles, offering instead a biblical interpretation calling for egalitarianism.12 More recently, younger evangelicals are increasingly calling for a faith that advocates social justice over defending the ­family, and a vocal group of LGBTQ evangelical Christians are challenging the notion that their identities are incompatible with evangelicalism. And along with increasing demographic diversity, Asian and Latinx evangelicals ­will likely change the white evangelical-­led Religious Right in new ways.13

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 3

The Divine Institution focuses on a hegemonic tradition within white evangelicalism to ask, What allows for such significant po­liti­cal unity among many white evangelicals, and why does race play such a large role in shaping evangelical politics? And, given that white evangelicals have led opposition to LGBTQ rights for de­cades, why are sexual politics so central to evangelical politics? On a sunny F ­ ather’s Day in 2006, I drove across my hometown in Washington State to a popu­lar large, nondenominational church to begin to investigate ­these questions. I was preparing to start research on the politics of evangelicalism in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where the bulk of this research took place. That morning, when I drove into the large parking lot, orange-­vested traffic ushers greeted me and directed me to the closest parking spot, far away from the main door. Walking ­toward the church entrance along with hundreds of o­ thers, I passed by a line of vintage cars on display in the center of the lot. A shiny vintage Mustang was parked in the grass at the entrance to the church. ­A fter I found a seat in the back of the sanctuary, seven twenty-­something musicians who made up the church band entered the stage. The main lights went dark, and stage lighting lit the band in streams of deep blue light while jumbotrons bordering the stage broadcast the musicians’ f­ aces as they softly began strumming guitars, plucking a bass, and tapping drums. Their expressions shifted from meditative smiles to sincere joy as they began a raucous love ballad to Jesus called “Now That ­You’re Near,” written by the famous Australian church band Hillsong United. It began: Hold me in your arms Never let me go I want to spend eternity with you I stand before You Lord And give You all my praise Your love is all I need Jesus Y ­ ou’re all I need14

The audience responded to the enthusiasm of the band. ­People stood, jumping up and down to the m ­ usic and raising their arms skyward in that deeply symbolic gesture of evangelical worship. A ­ fter about twenty minutes of ­music and prayer, with the audience swaying and dancing, the main pastor walked onto the stage.

4  •  The Divine Institution

Wearing a Hawaiian shirt, knee-­length khaki shorts, and flip-­flop sandals, Pastor Joe stood center stage with eyes shut as the final ­music from the band began to die down. Hanging almost directly above him, suspended from the ceiling with thick steel cables, was a Harley-­Davidson motorcycle. “Good morning!” Pastor Joe fi­nally beamed at the crowd of three thousand gathered that morning, “Notice anything dif­fer­ent this morning? What do you guys think about my bike?” ­A fter the loud cheers fi­nally died down, he told us enthusiastically that he had transformed the church into a space more welcoming to men to celebrate ­Father’s Day. He told us that far more w ­ omen than men attend church e­ very week across Amer­i­ca, and that this needs to change. “See, folks,” Pastor Joe preached, “the prob­lem is that we have turned Jesus into a soft guy, into a weak person. But Jesus was a man’s man, Jesus w ­ asn’t a sissy! Who made Christians and sissies the same?” Jesus’s message, he said, had been domesticated and pacified, so instead of representing Jesus as a warrior, we think of his humbleness as weakness. This turns men away from the church. “The ­thing is,” Pastor Joe implored, “men want adventure, wildness, and risk. Jesus w ­ asn’t about safety, he was into danger, into messing with them, with the authorities.” He claimed that men hate g­ oing to church b­ ecause they “have to sing love songs to another man, even if it is to Jesus.” The congregation laughed loudly at this routine reference to gendered and heterosexual bound­aries of be­hav­ ior. He called our attention to the muscle cars in the parking lot as another mea­sure to make church a more inviting place for men. “We need more testosterone in the church!” Pastor Joe yelled gleefully. In the following eight years, a­ fter completing over sixteen months of research on white-­dominated evangelical spaces, including attending dozens of sermons, listening to countless hours of Christian radio, and completing one hundred interviews with evangelical leaders, pastors, and congregants, I realized that this first introduction to con­temporary white evangelicalism provided a key insight into my research questions. I came to see that just as Pastor Joe hung his motorcycle—as a symbol of masculinity—in the center of the church, masculinity and male headship, and a resulting female submission, structure the theological and social order of conservative white evangelical religious practice.15 This gendered order of authority and submission is represented in the nuclear ­family, which is broadly revered as a divine institution. Many studies have shown how this gender ideology shapes gendered and ­family life within evangelical cultures. ­Here, I am making a slightly dif­fer­ent argument. I found that this emphasis

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 5

on gender and the ­family structures a central religious ethic within the white evangelical tradition. In the spaces of this research, one’s relationship with God is a primary relationship, something many ­others have shown; but this relationship is also refracted through other relationships, particularly in heterosexual marriage and one’s relationship with one’s f­ather.16 Eventually I came to see this emphasis on ­family life in lived religion as a corollary to the Religious Right’s po­liti­cal emphasis on defending the ­family. Religious Right po­liti­cal sensibilities, I argue, are cultivated in large-­ church evangelicalism that emphasizes a par­tic­u­lar ­family form as the center of one’s faith. Defending the patriarchal ­family—­particularly through opposition to LGBTQ rights—­then, becomes a way to defend one’s faith and one’s understanding of God. While I found overt po­liti­cal commentary rare during my research (such as comments about voting or petitioning one’s elected officials), messages about ­fathers, gender norms, and heterosexuality are central to the theology articulated in much large-­church evangelicalism.17 This religious focus on the f­ amily, then, has far-­reaching po­liti­cal effects, particularly in motivating ongoing opposition to LGBTQ rights. The racial segregation that continues to shape the con­temporary geography of U.S. Chris­tian­ity ensures that t­hese po­liti­cal effects are ­shaped by race. H ­ ere I explore the racial politics of this theology of the ­family and the sexual politics attached to it. The churches, parachurch organ­izations, and Religious Right conferences that provide the foundation of this research are all majority-­white spaces with nearly exclusively white leadership.18 The Divine Institution argues that the main theological emphasis in post–­ civil rights era white evangelicalism is on the supremacy of the heterosexual, male-­headed nuclear f­ amily. This theology of the f­ amily inherently enforces racial in­equality in that it draws moral, religious, and po­liti­cal attention away from prob­lems of racial and economic structural oppression, explaining all social prob­lems as a failure of the individual to achieve the strong gender and sexual identities that ground the nuclear ­family. The consequences of this religious tradition are both personal suffering for individuals who cannot mea­sure up to prescribed gender and sexual roles and po­liti­cal support for conservative government policies that perpetuate structural disadvantage for LGBTQ p­ eople, p­ eople of color, and the poor. Exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the f­ amily is the solution to all social prob­lems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from this narrow theological emphasis and

6  •  The Divine Institution

t­ oward a more social justice–­oriented theology. The material and po­liti­cal effects of this shift remain to be seen. A number of studies explore the po­liti­cal dimensions of evangelicalism.19 ­There are also a number of studies of evangelical gender norms that note that while male headship is impor­tant in theory, more egalitarian arrangements are often enacted in practice in evangelical families.20 My approach explores how in this evangelical tradition, a gendered ethics connects religious praxis with po­liti­cal perspectives, rooted in a religious imaginary that produces a distinct understanding of social life.21 Throughout my research I rarely heard discussion of overt po­liti­cal issues during or even a­ fter church ser­vices, with the exception of occasional comments about abortion. What did saturate evangelical ethical discourse was a fixation on gender norms and the f­ amily. This approach recognizes that religion exists not only in sacred texts and sermons and sacralized spaces, but also in how individuals practice their religion, in how religion is lived.22 In observing how evangelicals live out their religious ethics I found that an emphasis on the ­family ­shaped a paired religious-­political worldview. Evangelicals I met tended to dismiss distinctions between the sacred and the secular. “God ­didn’t divide up the world,” evangelicals frequently told me, “so why should we?,” articulating a belief that every­thing one does is of religious significance, challenging secular divisions between po­liti­cal and religious practice that have often ­shaped social analyses of evangelicalism.23 The Divine Institution explores how this tradition is inseparable from a history of racial segregation and in turn reproduces a racial politics. The evangelicals in this study are, generally, passionately committed to color blindness and vehemently opposed to personal racial prejudice. They also live, like the majority of Americans, in deeply segregated neighborhoods, attend primarily segregated churches, and socialize within largely segregated friendship networks. This racial isolation provides a buffer from other experiences and perspectives. And as I ­will show, racial segregation has profoundly ­shaped the formation of this emphasis on the ­family, and the conservative social movement connected to it. The legacy of racial segregation in the United States has produced this distinct religious worldview that understands itself as nonracial, yet has significant racial impacts. Although fostered in weekly pastoral messages and in Christian media, this religious tradition manifests as racial as it fosters a politics emphasizing the protection of the patriarchal ­family as the center of moral responsibility, cumulatively directing po­liti­cal interest away from questions of racial

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 7

or social justice.24 This par­tic­u­lar emphasis implicitly reinforces the racial status quo. This is not an argument that the white evangelical movement is a secretly racist or an intentionally racist movement, but rather that this par­ tic­u­lar religious tradition stems from a history of racial segregation and that in turn the po­liti­cal defense of this worldview mobilizes a politics with racial effects.25 In the late 1970s, white evangelical activists such as Anita Bryant constructed the “homosexual threat” as a lightning rod to mobilize white evangelicals to engage in politics. In turn, the formation of an antigay movement helped to spur a national lesbian and gay rights movement.26 Opposition to LGBTQ rights has remained a central white evangelical priority, and I came to see this opposition as the corollary to the focus on the f­ amily that dominates so much of white evangelical practice. In his study of Bible-­believing churches in Philadelphia, historian David Watt found widespread marginalization against nonheterosexuals in the churches he studied. He found that discrimination and prejudice ­were justified through “a carefully worked-­ out set of axioms and arguments in which ‘God’ provided the warrants for discriminating against t­ hose who do not conform to heterosexual norms.” Watt writes, “Indeed, in the Bible-­carrying Christian churches I studied, that was one of the most impor­tant t­ hings that ‘God’ did.”27 I found a similar pattern in the religious spaces of this research in Colorado. R. Marie Griffith’s far-­reaching history of Christian conflicts over sexuality and gender, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics, reminds us that ­these concerns did not arise with the Religious Right in the late 1970s.28 Across the twentieth ­century, a dominant consensus about U.S. ­family life—­involving wifely submission, male headship, and monogamous, heterosexual marriage—­lost its hegemonic status. A wide variety of fears have motivated the movements working to “sustain the old sexual order,” fears about gender and racial change and also about national decline.29 Similarly, religious studies scholar Sara Moslener traces the history of con­temporary sexual purity campaigns to nineteenth-­ century evangelical campaigns that saw in white teenage sexual purity the ­future strength of the nation.30 ­These impor­tant histories encourage scholars of gender, sexuality, and religion to recognize how multiple issues become mobilized in sexual politics, including racial concerns and concerns about the nation. During the tumultuous 2016 presidential race, white evangelicals early on directed their support to Donald Trump. Trump’s vice presidential pick

8  •  The Divine Institution

of Mike Pence further cemented this support, and despite widespread accusations of spurring racist sentiments—­and the ticket’s accruing overt endorsements by all of the major white supremacist and white nationalist groups—­white evangelical support for Trump was undaunted. Indeed, Trump’s victory would not have been pos­si­ble without broad support by white evangelicals. Exit polls during the 2016 election showed that white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump at higher rates than they had voted for Mitt Romney.31 As one postelection Chris­tian­ity ­Today article put it: “Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals.”32 A ­ fter the election dozens of new anti-­abortion and religious freedom laws w ­ ere introduced at the federal and state levels, attempting to criminalize abortion and to protect the rights of Christians to discriminate against LGBTQ ­people. White evangelicals thus continue to exert a significant po­liti­cal impact in the United States. This group remains a leading force in anti-­LGBTQ politics.33 As I ­will show, heterosexuality profoundly defines the limits of this religious community. During my research I met many ­people who had never been married, c­ ouples where the wife made more money than the husband, or c­ ouples who did not have c­ hildren, none of whom expressed anxiety that their lives did not fit within conservative evangelicalism. Just as in Marla Frederick’s study of African American Christian ­women, I found that the evangelicals I met through this research practiced “creative agency” in choosing how to live out their faith.34 Individuals are meant to cultivate the internal capacity to hear and feel God’s presence so that they may submit their own agency to God, letting God be their own personal spiritual guide. Yet I also found that within the spaces of this research this creative license to allow one’s relationship with God to direct one’s life was l­imited by patriarchal and heterosexual norms. It was Christians who experience what they describe as unwanted same-­sex attraction who talked of their nonconformity to this ethical paradigm as a crisis. Often ­these Christians felt that their sexual attractions w ­ ere incompatible with evangelical Chris­tian­ity, b­ ecause of a failure to fit within the hierarchical ­family model that requires heterosexuality. This ethical order requires the possibility of joining a heterosexual marriage and having ­children, even if one does not actually get married or have ­children. This analy­sis helps to explain the contours of white evangelical politics, particularly around environmental issues. White evangelicals are the demographic group most likely to doubt the real­ity of human-­caused climate

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 9

change.35 And throughout my time in Colorado Springs I never witnessed a conversation about the climate crisis take place among evangelicals. I did, however, frequently hear negative comments about the environmental movement. Once, the lead pastor of a large Colorado Springs church preached in a sermon: “Who would show more compassion for an animal? It is crazy that t­ oday we have laws protecting the horned owl, but we ­don’t have any protection for the unborn baby!” Another time I saw a motivational speaker give a talk at Focus on the ­Family’s organ­ization headquarters, saying: “Some ­things ­aren’t right! Ever noticed that most p­ eople who support animal rights are for abortion? Hug an owl and flush a h ­ uman!” Such statements suggest that Christians need to choose between caring for ­humans or caring for nonhumans. ­There are several evangelical organ­izations working to mobilize evangelicals around the environment, including the Evangelical Environmental Network and Evangelical Youth for Climate Action, but I did not see evidence of this work in Colorado.

Race, Evangelicalism, and the Divine Institution Why have f­ amily values—as a shorthand for talking about reproductive politics, sexuality, marriage, and gender—­remained at the center of evangelical politics since the emergence of the national Religious Right movement? And what role does race play in shaping this link between evangelical lived religion and the Religious Right movement? To explore ­these questions this book analyzes, as po­liti­cal scientist Nancy Wadsworth encourages, “the interaction of religion (as a worldview, a set of practices, and a basis for identity) with other categories considered central to intersectionality.”36 Intersectionality is the theoretical framework put forward by l­egal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to analyze the ways that multiple forms of oppression are experienced. For example, one cannot understand the discrimination faced by Black ­women by looking solely at gender or race, but only through analyzing the nexus t­ hese identity categories form.37 Other feminist scholars have challenged this framework for implying that t­ hese social locations are more fixed than they sometimes are, suggesting other terms, such as “interlocking”38 or “assemblage.”39 Wadsworth proposes a corrective that she calls “foundational intersectionality.” This approach acknowledges “the dynamics whereby some categories co-­construct or co-­constitute one another and, as a result, are never neatly separable.”40 This allows us to engage in

10  •  The Divine Institution

analyses that do not require prioritizing one form of identity, but rather acknowledge the way multiple identity categories are formed and articulated together. Adding religion to this framework brings to the fore the historically inseparable ways that race, gender, sexuality, and religion have been co-­constituted in U.S. society. This corrective also exposes how religious identity, practice, and perspective are often s­ haped by and through other identities, such as race and gender. ­Whether in the Bible study groups I attended in Colorado Springs, the national ex-­gay movement, or the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., almost all of the participants in this study are white. If any other racial group dominated a movement in the United States, it would be marked as a racial movement. But whiteness has tended to function as a social norm and often goes unmarked.41 And as the norm, it is not always analyzed as relevant or even acknowledged. On an aggregate level race clearly ­matters with regard to conservative Chris­tian­ity, as po­liti­cal polling has repeatedly shown. I take anthropologist Henry Goldschmidt’s call seriously, that “in the socie­ties of the Amer­i­cas ­there are no such ­things as race, nation or religion, per se—­only race, nation, and religion as they are constructed in and through each other, and through other categories of difference.”42 The United States is no exception. The work of Winthrop Jordan and o­ thers has shown that before the Civil War, Eu­ro­pean Americans used “Christian,” “­f ree,” “En­glish,” and “white” interchangeably.43 Historian Edward Blum argues that whiteness “permeated” American Protestantism during the nineteenth ­century. Blum shows that at the close of the Civil War, northern Protestants shifted from an abolitionist position to one endorsing the idea of the United States as a “white republic,” working with southern Protestants to redefine the U.S. nation ­under the banner of godliness and whiteness.44 By the turn of the twentieth ­century, whiteness, imperialism, nationalism, and Protestantism ­were congealed.45 Throughout the Jim Crow era churches reflected the broader segregated community. With the formation of an or­ga­nized African American–­led civil rights movement rooted in Black Christian traditions came broad pushback from white Christians. Chris­tian­ity ­Today, one of the most influential evangelical publications, repeatedly published statements against the civil rights movement, g­ oing so far as to call the 1963 March on Washington a “mob spectacle,” and defended “voluntary segregation.”46 White evangelicals en masse began to migrate t­ oward the Republican Party beginning

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 11

in the 1960s, in direct response to Demo­cratic support of civil rights legislation.47 I contend that t­ hese racial histories continue to shape religious practice in the post–­civil rights era, often in unseen ways. The legacies of racism and racial segregation have created varied biblical traditions in the United States, traditions that provide broad cultural reservoirs of symbolism within distinct Christian traditions. For example, Eu­ro­pean American Christian traditions have often reframed the racial terror that is foundational to racial segregation as ordained by God.48 In contrast, the Black church has served as a primary institution for the development of a “black consciousness.”49 W.E.B. Du Bois wrote of the Black church as “peculiarly the expression of the inner ethical life of a ­people in a sense seldom true elsewhere,” one that provided a space outside of racist culture to develop self-­consciousness.50 Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham goes so far as to say that in the post-­Reconstruction South the Black church became a space for racial and gender self-­help ­because it was “the only space truly accessible to the black community.”51 The po­liti­cal role the Christian church played historically in African American life has led to specific historically and culturally rooted interpretations of scripture. From Jim Crow through the civil rights movement, segregation fueled racially distinct Christian practices and traditions in the United States. This history of racial segregation continues to influence U.S. Chris­tian­ity, not just in the fact that Christians tend to worship in segregated churches, but also in racially inflected biblical interpretations. ­These racially infused biblical traditions have in turn inspired distinct politics. As historian Mark Noll writes, “Religion has always been crucial for the workings of race in American politics. Together, race and religion make up, not only the nation’s deepest and most enduring moral prob­lem, but also its broadest and most enduring po­l iti­cal influence.”52 To understand the link between race and Christian traditions it is useful to turn t­ oward scholars of African American Christianities, who have shown how racial histories shape unique biblical interpretations with distinct po­liti­cal effects. The story of Exodus is a well-­researched example.53 Racially inflected interpretations of Exodus have both provided justification for racial in­equality and nurtured antiracist politics.54 Since the colonial era, a guiding mythos has fostered the narrative of the United States as a divinely inspired proj­ect. Linking the colonial proj­ect of Eu­ro­pean American expansion in the Amer­i­cas to the Exodus narrative worked to sanitize the vio­ lence of conquest, genocide, and enslavement by framing Amer­i­ca as a

12  •  The Divine Institution

promised land and a gift from God, thus turning racial terror into divine inspiration.55 Historian Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham shows how the ­Great Awakening and the “city on a hill” discourse that has dominated U.S. public culture made the Exodus narrative the property of whites.56 As Albert Raboteau and o­ thers have argued, African American Chris­tian­ity offered a contrasting reading of Exodus, one rooted in experiences of racism and one that can fuel re­sis­tance to white supremacy.57 African American Christians appropriated the Exodus narrative to assert their own equal humanity with whites and to create a shared historical narrative distinct from the dominant colonial interpretation.58 This ritualized reading of Exodus as nation-­constituting has ­shaped African American po­liti­cal thought in a variety of ways.59 If Eu­ro­pean Americans tended to look on Amer­i­ca as a new promised land, a par­tic­u­lar African American tradition describes it as Egypt, a place of bondage. In this way the framing of Exodus constituted a par­tic­u­lar view of the public sphere and informed a unique politics in African American Chris­tian­ity.60 The Divine Institution makes a similar argument about the role of race in shaping a specific religious tradition, along with an attendant politics.61 Numerous Bible passages can be quoted that celebrate ­mothers and f­ athers, provide commentary on sexual mores, and prescribe gender roles and familial norms. Yet like Exodus, t­ hese passages are emphasized and interpreted differently based on par­tic­u ­lar traditions. And just as African American readings of Exodus have i­ magined the public sphere in relation to racial histories and imaginaries, an emphasis on the ­family as a divine institution not only shapes ideas about proper gender and familial roles in the home, but also constitutes an understanding of a broader public sphere. Emphasizing the normative f­ amily as the focal point of religious life proposes a view of the social rooted in hierarchy, within relations of submission and authority. This in turn authorizes a variety of other forms of hierarchy. This emphasis also roots social prob­lems, and their solutions, in personal relationships, making structural inequalities invisible.62 The evangelical focus on the f­ amily that I observed in church ser­vices, Bible study sessions, and conversion narratives follows a long tradition of seeing in sexual activity the strength or demise of the nation, a framing that historically brought together concerns about whiteness, gender, sexuality, and the f­ amily.63 From parachurch po­liti­cal organ­izations to pastors, sexual activity is linked to the nation in evangelical discourse, uniting religious and national concerns.64 And it is this bridging of religious and

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 13

national interests that makes this theology of the f­ amily unique to white evangelicalism. Interpreting the United States, through Exodus, as a place of bondage makes racism vis­i­ble in the national narrative, and frames it as a prob­lem that should be addressed. In contrast, the emphasis on the ­family that structures con­temporary white evangelicalism offers a purportedly color-­blind understanding of society that renders structural racism invisible. It most often offers the nuclear f­ amily as the solution to social prob­lems. It also works to enforce the ele­ments that define privilege, “unstated norms, invisibility, fragility,” including claims to universality.65 Claiming that this understanding of the ­family is a mandate from God and a model for government makes other interpretations, and other po­liti­cal positions, appear as incorrect or even as opposing God.

White Evangelicals in Twenty-­First ­Century Amer­i­ca The definition of the term “evangelical” is currently used to mean dif­fer­ent ­things in dif­fer­ent contexts.66 The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) offers a widely used theological definition that includes belief in the Bible as the highest authority; prioritizing evangelizing; belief in Jesus’s death as the only pos­si­ble way to remove sin; and belief that eternal salvation is only granted to ­those who follow Jesus Christ alone as their Savior.67 However, the term has clearly taken on broader popu­lar significance, often conjuring up as much about politics as about theology. In the popu­lar press “evangelical” is actually often used as a racial term. Polling companies tend to disaggregate white Protestants into evangelical and mainline categories to reflect po­liti­cal differences between t­ hese groups. In contrast, African American Protestants tend to be categorized together, regardless of evangelical or mainline status, as their religious affiliations do not track onto po­liti­cal differences in the same way. While many African American Christians fit the theological definition of evangelicalism, they tend to not be included in polling as such, as they do not vote in the same bloc that white evangelicals do. In turn, many African American Christians choose to not identify as evangelical, as they associate the term with white Chris­tian­ity, and sometimes with racism.68 In Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Prob­lem of Race in Amer­i­ca, sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith investigate

14  •  The Divine Institution

what they call the cultural “toolkit” that white evangelicals use. They find that conservative white Protestant theology has an individualist bias that makes it difficult to see structural or institutional inequalities and instead tends to describe all prob­lems as stemming from individual failings. They call this frame “relationalism,” a view of the social rooted in a defining relationship with Christ. The po­liti­cal implications of this paradigm are significant in that personal relationships are seen as a cause of and a solution to social prob­lems.69 Through this emphasis on accountability in interpersonal relationships, structural solutions to poverty are seen as failing to provide the required accountable structure that evangelicals see as necessary for solving social prob­lems.70 Eric Tranby and Douglass Hartman argue that anti-­Black prejudice is more central to white evangelical ideologies than Emerson and Smith acknowledge. Engaging with the broader lit­er­a­ture on whiteness, they also argue that individualist values are not po­liti­cally neutral. They write, “American individualism not only blinds white evangelicals to structural inequalities involving race, as Emerson and Smith correctly emphasize, but it also provides a discourse and way of thinking that allows its adherents to justify, rationalize, and legitimate the racial status quo. It achieves this effect both by assigning blame to ­those who are disadvantaged by race and, more importantly, by naturalizing and normalizing the very cultural practices, beliefs, and norms that privilege white Americans over o­ thers.”71 Evangelicalism is so associated with European-­A merican norms that Native American evangelicals are often treated by white Christians as though they are practicing an impure, or incorrect Chris­tian­ity.72 Emerson and Smith’s work, as well as the broader conversation it has inspired,73 has made impor­tant contributions to understanding the role of race in white evangelical religious practice and belief. Yet this discussion tends to ignore the role of gender and the f­ amily in t­ hese religious politics. What I saw countless times in evangelical spaces was the invocation of one primary relationship that is meant to teach proper modes of accountability and re­spect. My research shows that the relationalism that defines white evangelical culture is rooted in an understanding of the f­ amily. This emphasis on gender and the ­family dominates a broad range of white evangelical institutions. By white evangelicalism I am referring not solely to evangelicals of Eu­ro­pean descent, but to the specific evangelical traditions and institutions that formed in response to the Eu­ro­pean American experience. This includes institutions that w ­ ere historically white as well as their

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 15

theological traditions. For example, t­ oday roughly one in five congregations that make up the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are majority ­people of color. However, historically the SBC was almost exclusively white, as it formed in a split with northern Baptists over support for slavery. The SBC has worked to overcome its historical racial exclusion, but is still informed by the religious traditions fostered by this history. Southern white evangelical traditions ­were able to spread in the post–­civil rights era once they ­were able to disassociate from a stigmatized relationship with overt racism;74 part of this tradition involved a valorization of the nuclear ­family.

Context and Research Site In 2008, I moved to Colorado Springs, the symbolic capital of conservative evangelicalism, to study the white evangelical churches that serve as the base for Religious Right politics.75 Over the next two years I became immersed in evangelical culture, participating in Bible study groups, attending church ser­vices, spending time with families and young adults, attending ex-­gay conferences, and interviewing pastors and Christian media producers. When I arrived in Colorado I started e-­mailing Bible study group leaders associated with two of the largest churches in town, and within a week of my arrival my calendar was filled with Bible study meetings, group social events, and invitations to join families for dinner and on outings around town. I made it clear from my initial e-­mail that I myself am an anthropologist and a non-­Christian, and asked if I could participate as an engaged observer in their groups. With a few exceptions, I was invited to participate in a variety of groups despite my position as an outsider. The social benefits of participation in large-­church evangelicalism ­were immediately clear. I had a nearly instant community to help me adjust to my new city. Over the course of my research I participated in ten dif­fer­ent small groups affiliated with ­these two churches. ­These small groups covered a range of topics and demographics, and all of them reflected the racial demographics of their churches. The population of the city itself is around 70 ­percent white, but is more racially homogenous and middle-­class in the northern end of town where nearly all of the large churches are concentrated. I spent eight months attending a Bible study group that brought homeless men together with suburban, middle-­class churchgoers; four months attending a group for middle-­aged ­women focused on emotional healing;

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ten months attending a small group focused on deepening one’s Christian walk; five months attending a small group for young adults; and several general Bible study groups. The vast majority of participants in ­these groups ­were white. I also conducted ninety primary interviews and fifteen follow-up interviews, including interviews with over twenty individuals involved in the ex-­gay movement; interviews with over thirty adult converts to evangelicalism; fifteen interviews with pastors; fifteen interviews with Christian media producers; and interviews with over thirty small-­group participants. Additionally, I participated in a variety of formal and informal socializing events connected to t­ hese churches, from volleyball parties, to aerobics classes, to hiking groups, to volunteering endeavors. ­These spaces provided ample opportunity for informal discussion and observing the variety of ways individuals brought their faith into all aspects of their lives. Beginning in the 1940s, a group of conservative, Bible-­believing Christians began to criticize fundamentalist retreat from society and politics, and began to develop a broad range of publishing ­houses and other institutions to provide news, po­liti­cal organ­izing, and other resources that represented their own worldview.76 As sociologist Tina Fetner writes, “The size and scope of ­these organ­izations is unique to the evangelical Christian community.”77 Interviews with evangelicals in this study affirmed the role of parachurch organ­izations and Christian media as strongly influencing their faith. The majority of interviews I completed included suggestions of books, songs, podcasts, and radio stations to look at or listen to. Many interviewees told me that instead of interviewing them to learn about their worldview I would be better off reading a par­tic­u­lar book that better explained their perspective. To explore the relationship between everyday evangelicalism and the or­ga­nized pro-­family movement I frequently listened to Christian radio, worship m ­ usic, and evangelical podcasts suggested by my in­for­mants while driving across the sprawling city. The local Christian radio stations often aired Religious Right po­liti­cal advertising and hosted programming with explic­itly po­liti­cal agendas. I also attended five national Religious Right conferences between 2007 and 2010 and spent January  2008 conducting archival research at the Sara Diamond Collection on the U.S. Right at the University of Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, where I had access to pro-­family movement publications dating back to the early 1980s. I returned to Colorado Springs to conduct follow-up research in 2016 and attended an Exodus International Conference in 2010 and Gay Christian Network conferences in 2016 and 2017.

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 17

I found that rather than engaging in explic­itly po­liti­cal teachings, most large-­church evangelicalism is permeated instead with intimate discussion about gender and the ­family. Beyond not endorsing par­tic­u­lar candidates— an action that would endanger their church’s tax status—­the pastors I observed tend to not engage in explic­itly po­liti­cal teachings on the issues. Rather, intimate discussions about gender and the f­ amily are interwoven into most large-­church evangelical ser­vices. In over sixteen months of field work among evangelical megachurches it was rare to attend a church ser­ vice where the pastor did not mention his wife and c­ hildren or grandchildren at some point in the sermon, enforcing the normativity of the patriarchal ­family. Rich Theibold,78 a youth pastor in Colorado Springs, made it clear to me that this emphasis on the ­family shapes evangelical understandings of God. He told me: “I always thought it in­ter­est­ing that God could have called himself anything, “the head honcho,” “the big dude,” or what­ever, to show he is bigger and more power­ful than you. But Jesus showed us that God wants to be known as our ­father; he d­ oesn’t want to see us as his servants but as his ­children. He established the ­family for himself. We are his c­ hildren, he cares about us. I find that in­ter­est­ing that the God of the universe who could do anything, he wants us as his ­children.”79 Such understandings of God as an intimate ­father are central to evangelical practice, as I witnessed it for this proj­ect.80 L ­ ater in our interview Rich connected this emphasis on ­fathers and families to an opposition to gay marriage, saying, “Not to be too blunt, but it’s Adam and Eve in the Bible, not Adam and Steve.” North End Church in Colorado Springs is a nondenominational congregation, one of several churches in town with over five thousand members, and is a focus of this study. On Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. the in-­house band enters the stage and the h ­ ouse lights dim. When the drummer first starts tapping a beat it often feels like four thousand attendees rise in unison with arms raised and f­ aces smiling, lit by multicolored lights projected from the ceiling that dance over the crowd. In the dark chapel, the thousands gathered sing song a­ fter song reminding us we are all counting on God. Messages about gender and the ­family structure North End Church. A dedicated marriage ministry stresses the importance of wifely submission in heterosexual marriage and offers quarterly marriage workshops. I only ever witnessed male pastors preach from the main pulpit,81 and almost ­every sermon included stories about pastors’ wives, ­children, and/or in-­laws,

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reinforcing that a godly life is lived in the nuclear f­amily. The leadership structures of t­hese churches are almost exclusively male, with a few ­women serving as ­women’s and ­children’s ministers or in other specialty ministry positions, such as marriage ministers. Like many nondenominational churches, t­hese churches include a broad in-­house ministry team supervised by all-­male ministry leaders, elders, and overseers who provide formal leadership for the direction of the church and aid during challenges. Although a small group of evangelical feminists advocate for the right for ­women to serve as lead pastors, I never heard any mention of this in Colorado. Indeed, gender structures the church hierarchy to such a degree that I never heard of anyone challenging, or even commenting on it in my research. Pastor Alex, a lead pastor at North End Church, once preached that he had already started praying daily that his two young ­children would one day marry a Christian. At the time his son and d­ aughter ­were both u­ nder ten. “I ­don’t care where their future spouses come from”—­nationality and race are not impor­tant, he stressed. “I just want them to have a heart for God!” And marriage was a central concern in his prayers for his ­children. Once during a sermon on spiritual gifts, including the gift of prophecy, Pastor Alex joked about a time he believed he had a prophecy to share with a congregant. He had pointed to a young man in the audience, only to have the young man say “he” was actually a “she.” “I said, ‘Well, you should wear more makeup then!’ ” Pastor Alex lampooned to a chorus of laughter, turning a self-­effacing story about spiritual false confidence into a joke about gender nonconformity. Twice yearly the church hosts marriage workshops teaching about male headship in marriage. The experience of individuals within heterosexual marriages was of course more complex, as often w ­ omen do work outside the home and men are expected to serve as kind leaders, and not dictators in the ­family. Male headship is no doubt more varied in practice. ­Toward the end of 2010 I interviewed Pastor Kevin Feldotto, who works at one of the larger churches in Colorado Springs. Friendly and open, he talked about concerns he had about how evangelical Chris­tian­ity is practiced and perceived. Although he said that po­liti­cally and philosophically he aligns with the Religious Right, he expressed increasing concern that the impact of his po­liti­cal views clashed with his theological ones. In his work counseling congregants, he frequently talks with ­women and men who are experiencing emotional breakdowns ­because they are trying so hard to be good Christians and are afraid of being judged or shunned by o­ thers. “As a

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 19

society w ­ e’re focused on externals, and as Christians that’s often the case,” Pastor Kevin told me. He went on, “I think that’s what evangelical Chris­ tian­ity teaches us, that God ­will love us if we perform, instead of realizing how much he just does love us.” He then drew two overlapping circles on the whiteboard in his office and wrote “Cultural Chris­tian­ity” in one and “Biblical Chris­tian­ity” in the other, saying this framing was inspired by a social media post he had read by the novelist Ann Rice where she declared she “quit being a Christian” but was still committed to following Christ.82 In her post Rice criticized many of the po­liti­cal positions that are seen as a requirement for conservative Christians, and said she wanted to separate out her faith from the demands of supporting po­liti­cal positions such as being “anti-­gay.” Pastor Kevin found resonance with Rice’s post, and said that evangelicalism for sixty years had been focused on separating oneself from sin. He said this leads to ideas like “ ‘I’m not g­ oing to hang out with someone who’s gay, cause they might rub off on me or something.’ So I remove myself and I ­don’t have any gay friends.” He said many Christians are more focused on cultural Chris­tian­ity than on biblical Chris­tian­ity. I asked what biblical Chris­tian­ity would look like, and he responded, “Unconditional love. Lots of mercy, practicing God’s mercy.” I’m not sure if Pastor Kevin, or many of the ­people in his position, would agree with the analy­sis in this book. However, I do know that a growing group of white evangelicals are uncomfortable with the alignment between a set of conservative po­liti­cal positions and religious practice, and the vari­ ous separations from stigmatized groups that this creates. Like Pastor Kevin’s Venn diagram, this book seeks to show the way a par­tic­u ­lar cultural formation has ­shaped an interpretation of the Bible, one that leads to divisive politics and stems from a divisive history. This research is bounded on all sides by ste­reo­types and skepticism. Two-­ plus de­cades of culture war politics have left many hurt feelings and lingering ste­reo­t ypes. Several in­for­mants introduced themselves with a laugh saying something like “I’m one of ­those right-­wing, Bible-­thumping, pro-­ family radicals you read about.” My evangelical in­for­mants w ­ ere well aware of the ste­reo­t ypes about themselves as anti-­intellectual or hate-­fi lled. Yet they welcomed me into Bible study groups and evangelical social gatherings. While I am critical of many of the politics that stem from white evangelical ethics, it is also my goal to be true to my interviewees and to acknowledge their sincerely held faith. I see this book as partially a work of translation, of trying to make the evangelical perspective understandable to ­those

20  •  The Divine Institution

unfamiliar with it. My interest is in showing the logic of this ethical system and why many feel the need to make significant sacrifices to remain within it. I also want to show the unexplored ways that U.S. racial history created the conditions for their emphasis on the ­family, an argument that most white evangelicals ­will certainly disavow. I hope I succeed in having my in­for­mants recognize themselves in this text, even if they disagree with some of my conclusions. * * * “Can I ask you a few questions now?” Jared Drake asked, fixing me with his deep brown eyes in a pointed stare. When I said yes, he asked, in a pleading tone, “I want to know why ­you’re not convinced about being a Christian. Is it about evolution, or Christian hy­poc­risy, or something ­else?” Jared is white, in his forties, and a passionate evangelist who makes a living as an engineer. He leads a Sunday morning Bible study group with his wife where his curiosity and intellect always inspire open and warm discussions. They have a small and loyal following. I had known Jared for the better part of a year, and had spent many Sunday mornings in his group. Jared exudes a compassion for o­ thers and an intellectual curiosity about the Bible that encouraged fellow seekers to join in community, to ask questions, and to explore their faith together. His Sunday morning Bible study groups discussed every­thing from the falsity of evolution to why Mormonism is inherently racist. I enjoyed g­ oing to the weekly gatherings, which ­were informal, full of laughter, and a ­great source of community for his faithful attendees. When I first met Jared. I told him that I was an anthropologist studying evangelicalism and that I was not a Christian myself, and he welcomed my participation in his group. As the months went by I found myself increasingly fond of Jared and his wife, Linda, who brought donuts and coffee each week and treated their small Bible study group as their own ministry. Warm and affectionate, the ­couple managed to turn the drab conference room in the church’s Center for Prayer into an inviting space. As the year went on it became clear that my failure to convert, or to choose to follow Jesus, was disappointing Jared. His pleading question occurred at the end of an interview ­after I had been attending his group for eight months. He had spent over an hour telling me about his own deeply personal relationship with God in a room just down the hall from his Bible study meeting spot, in a building on the sprawling North End Church campus. The

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 21

fluo­rescent lights showering the room chased away shadows from the standard-­issue chairs and mauve carpeting, creating a feeling reminiscent of anonymous conference rooms and airport ­hotels. The ordinariness of this space contrasted with the extraordinary feelings often cultivated ­there through raucous m ­ usic, ecstatic prayer, intense spiritual experience, and friendly community. Many nights a week the small worship space filled with young musicians who took attendees on emotional and prayerful journeys alongside pastors praying for the city and the souls gathered in the room. During our interview, Jared spoke about his conversion, his experiences countering the work of the devil in his life, about how he believed protecting the ­family is the most impor­tant po­liti­cal issue, and how he saw George W. Bush as a godly politician. He talked about growing up in an abusive f­ amily, of seeking religious answers in a variety of faiths before experiencing a life-­altering introduction to Jesus in his twenties. He shared his strug­gles with spiritual warfare, with overcoming an addiction to porno­ graphy, and of the peace and profound meaning he felt in his pursuit of Jesus and his marriage to Linda. He was asking a small t­ hing in return, for me to share some of my own journey. He asked, “Sophie, I want to know where you are at in this pro­cess. What is stopping you from believing?” I stammered. I did not know how to respond. In fits and starts, I said that the ethics of his Chris­tian­ity did not fully make sense to me, but I was not clear in my response. He soon cut me off, saying, “I get it, I get it.” I felt like I was unable in that moment to give him what he had just given me, an emotionally honest answer to difficult questions about faith, belief, and politics. What I could not communicate that after­noon in ­those hard-­backed chairs is that what I felt he was inviting me into was not just a belief in God, not just a relationship with Jesus and an awareness of the work of the devil, but a conversion into a new way of life shaping po­liti­cal sensibilities as much as spiritual ones. This religious movement is paired with a par­tic­u­lar politics informed by racial traditions as much as religious ones, and the normative ­family and a theological tradition privileging it shape both. I did not know how to describe the role of t­ hese aspects of his faith in my re­sis­tance. For Jared, and many of the evangelicals in this book, their relationship with God gives their life meaning. Many ­people I interviewed credited this relationship with saving lives and marriages, providing a secure identity, nurturing joy, inspiring forgiveness, and offering ecstasy and belonging. For

22  •  The Divine Institution

some, particularly ­those who experience same-­sex attraction, their relationship with God, and the meta­phors of the patriarchal f­ amily that animate it in evangelicalism, have also remained a source of torment.

Chapter Outline Chapter 2, “The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church,” explores the role of racial segregation in the formation of the Religious Right in the late 1970s. The pro-­family movement initially formed in the late 1970s around defending private Christian schools from desegregation efforts by the federal government. I show how this early movement understood itself not as advocating white supremacy, but as defending a worldview from perceived threats by a secular government. This chapter also analyzes the role of segregation in the church growth movement that helped to spread evangelicalism in the United States and internationally since the 1970s. To show the ways Christian media connect this emphasis on the ­family with the Religious Right po­liti­cal movement, I analyze a discussion that ran on Christian radio in 2008 between James Dobson from Focus on the F ­ amily and Al Mohler from the Southern Baptist Seminary that differentiates a white evangelical ethics rooted in the f­ amily from Black liberation theology. Chapter  3, “Reading the Bible with James Dobson: The ­Family and Christian Nationalism,” explores how male headship becomes impor­tant in evangelicalism and the role of Christian media in shaping ­these ideas and practices. I first show the ways familial relationships become impor­tant in lived evangelicalism. I trace how ideas about the f­ amily become impor­tant to embodying evangelical ethics across a variety of scales, from pastors, Bible study meetings, and Christian media. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ways this strict ­father theology provides the architecture for everyday religious practice and can provide the foundation for anti-­LGBT po­liti­cal stances. Chapter 4, “Same-­Sex Attraction and the Limits of God’s Love,” examines narratives of U.S. evangelicals who experience what they call “unwanted same-­sex attraction” and the therapeutic ex-­gay movement built around supporting them. It explores how the ex-­gay movement utilizes gender roles embedded in the f­ amily to coach participants to develop a specifically evangelical gendered interiority as a tool for transforming same-­sex desire. Countering popu­lar notions that same-­sex attraction is a ge­ne­tic

­Family Values and Racial Politic • 23

disposition, the ex-­gay movement has worked to frame it as a result of traumatic experience and of an incomplete gender identity. In this way, instilling proper—­normative—­gender roles, roles that are meant to emerge from a gendered interiority, becomes a way to secure one’s heterosexual identity. The chapter shows that many evangelicals imagine that the limits of God’s love extend only t­oward heterosexuality, an understanding that inspires widespread ostracisms within families and communities. It also investigates the ways race influences this worldview. Chapter 5, “Paternal Politics,” explores the broader po­liti­cal stakes of this theology of the ­family, explaining how theology translates into support for par­tic­u­lar policies and opposition to other po­liti­cal ­causes. A focus of this chapter is an analy­sis of interviews with individuals who converted to evangelicalism as adults and the resulting po­liti­cal transformations that often attend their new religious identity. Chapter 6, “Losing (and Remaking) My Religion: The Transformation of White Evangelicalism from Within,” explores vari­ous instances of individuals challenging the embrace of familism from within evangelicalism. I contrast an emergent ethical paradigm advocated by many evangelical youth to the gendered ethics of the Religious Right. Unlike the dominant relational ethics that is focused on defending the nuclear f­ amily, this emergent ethical paradigm is rooted in obligations to the poor and to social justice. For t­hese youth, this new ethical framework is more intentionally international and multiracial than that of their parents’ generation. Chapter 7, “Conclusion: The ­Future of White Evangelicalism,” comments on the changing role of white evangelicals in the era of Trump’s presidency and the ways race and a conservative theology of the ­family are reshaping US politics.

2

The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church

At the Values Voter Summit in 2009, two thousand Religious Right activists gathered in Washington, D.C., to discuss their national agenda. The ­Family Research Council, a Religious Right organ­ization founded by James Dobson in 1981, began hosting this annual gathering in 2006. It quickly became an impor­tant venue for Religious Right activists to network and work on a national agenda. The conference hosts breakout sessions on national security issues and anti-­abortion and anti-­LGBTQ rights activism. The main stage is transformed at dif­fer­ent points into place for preachers to hold a prayer ser­vice and a po­liti­cal platform for presidential hopefuls. The potential demise of Western civilization is a frequent topic of discussion. At an informal gathering at the conference, an African American w ­ oman entered the room to make an announcement: her husband was speaking to the Black Congressional Caucus l­ ater that day to encourage African American members of Congress to support the Tea Party. She asked the group to pray for her husband so that he would speak the truth and change hearts. The passion in the room was palpable. An impromptu prayer circle of the other eight men and w ­ omen pre­sent, all white, formed around her. I was the only who stood back. The group placed hands on her shoulders and back, and some kneeled to touch her shoes, bowing to place a forehead on her 24

The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church • 25

feet. For ten minutes the group called on God to help more African Americans “learn the truth” and begin supporting conservative ­causes. The prayer ended, and the w ­ oman left the room with a smile and a confident stride. This scene exemplifies much of the racial politics in con­temporary Religious Right activism. The size and scope of the conference represent a movement over thirty years in the making, one that had achieved significant institution-­building. The overwhelming whiteness of attendees has increasingly become a prob­lem for participants. While many white evangelicals dream that one day African American and Latino Christians ­will come to support a conservative evangelical po­liti­cal agenda, the movement remains racially homogenous. This racial homogeneity is not an accident. In this chapter I highlight the role of racial segregation in shaping the formation of the evangelical movement whose values and racial dynamics are highlighted at the yearly Values Voter Summit. It shows how in the post–­ civil rights era an evangelical culture formed with a theological-­political emphasis on the nuclear and male-­headed ­family. This emphasis—­while apparently race-­neutral—­reinforces racial in­equality through framing the ­family as the solution to prob­lems of in­equality and through directing po­liti­ cal attention t­ oward defending the nuclear f­ amily and away from questions of racial and economic justice. H ­ ere I also show how Colorado Springs became the symbolic capital of this movement, and introduce my research t­ here. Opposition to abortion and to civil rights for sexual minorities now defines the Religious Right agenda. However, ­these ­were not the issues that originally galvanized white evangelicals to form a conservative movement. The po­liti­cal b­ attle that helped to consolidate a national Christian Right po­liti­cal movement in the late 1970s was not about abortion or LGBTQ issues, but defending segregation.1 Segregation also became an organ­izing princi­ple for the church growth movement, which helped to transform the landscape of U.S. Chris­tian­ity in the 1970s, inspiring a religious migration away from the stained-­g lass–­fronted mainline churches and t­ oward the sprawling parking lots and utilitarian designs of evangelical megachurches. The church growth movement that spread evangelicalism across the globe and the U.S. heartland rested on the notion that segregation is a useful tool for spreading Chris­tian­ity. This chapter is not a comprehensive history of the formation of the Religious Right in the 1970s, as several excellent histories have been written.2 Instead, I highlight the ways that race and racial interests continue to shape the Religious Right po­liti­cal movement and how a focus on the f­ amily came to shape a dominant white evangelical tradition.

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­Here I argue that just as the history of segregation and institutional racism has inspired distinct African American Christian traditions, the same history has inspired corollary white Christian theological traditions. Since the 1980s Colorado Springs has played a significant institutional role in evangelicalism and is sometimes called—­tongue in cheek—­the “Evangelical Vatican.” In this chapter I also introduce the city and its role in this religious movement. In tracing the role of segregation in nurturing the evangelical theology of the f­ amily I seek to show that defending the patriarchal f­ amily has come to serve as a means to protect a white conservative culture. White evangelicals tend to understand this as a religious and not a racial position. Taking an intersectional analy­sis shows that it is in fact both.

The Growth of Evangelicalism in a Segregated Amer­i­ca Con­temporary conservative evangelicalism and its embrace of the normative ­family are products of the racially segregated suburbs that began to dominate U.S. cities a­ fter World War II. Over the mid-­twentieth c­ entury the center of evangelicalism had expanded from the southern Bible B ­ elt to the entire Sunbelt, where white evangelicals found a home in the expanding, racially homogenous suburbs within which evangelicalism flourished.3 Historian Lisa McGirr tells the story of the “kitchen ­table activists” in Orange County, California, in the 1960s who helped reshape American politics with their blend of Christian conservatism and white suburban sensibilities.4 As with other religious groups before them, particularly Jewish and Catholic immigrants, “the suburban sensibilities and culture of the late twentieth ­century affected the beliefs and practices of conservative Protestants.”5 ­These activists w ­ ere the precursors to the national Religious Right that formed at the end of the 1970s. McGirr finds that the racially and eco­nom­ically homogenous suburban context of Orange County provided a cauldron for developing a religiously based conservative movement that helped to form the New Right. Within this context, conservative churches and organ­ izations provided “a sense of coherence, community, and commitment that was other­wise absent from the larger world of Orange County.”6 The post–­ World War II suburban development model created spatial isolation, lack of community, and racial homogeneity, and white-­collar activists “saw their

The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church • 27

own lives and the affluent communities where they made their lives as tributes to the possibility of individual entrepreneurial success.”7 It was as though their neighborhoods, with homogeneity reflected in the identical rows of ­houses, spotless lawns, and similar phenotypes, reflected back to them the idea that individual effort ensured one’s success in the world.8 ­There is deep irony in this belief, of course, given that it was a government program, the G.I. Bill, that largely funded the building of t­ hese racially segregated suburbs, even as the conservative social movement the suburbs helped to spawn consistently critiqued governmental subsidies. And while the G.I. Bill was helping to reshape U.S. cities, it was also reshaping U.S. racial geography, as government-­enforced redlining and racist covenants ensured that the middle-­class suburbs w ­ ere filled almost exclusively with Eu­ro­pean immigrants and their descendants.9 The pro­cess of white flight that fueled the growth of the suburbs also helped to produce a new po­liti­cal sensibility that drove the right, as historian Kevin Ruse documents.10 While broader post–­World War II U.S. racial segregation patterns helped shape the context within which the white evangelical movement flourished, at least some of the racial segregation within evangelicalism is a product of an intentional effort. The church growth movement that worked to bring about a rapid expansion of evangelical megachurches across the United States—­and globally—in the late 1970s and the 1980s was driven by a segregationist philosophy known as the Homogeneous Unit Princi­ple. This princi­ple was taught in seminaries for de­cades11 and is summed up in the words of its chief proponent, Donald McGavran: “Men like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic or class barriers.”12 This theory proposes that conversion to Chris­tian­ity is easier if individuals can remain part of their own ethnic or cultural group, without needing to experience or be exposed to new forms of diversity. This philosophy was applied to church growth strategies globally, but in the highly segregated United States this resulted in reinforcing patterns of racial segregation. The church growth movement was remarkably successful. Between 1970 and 1985 mainline Christian church membership shrank by 15 ­percent, while evangelical congregations grew. By 1974, 34 ­percent of Americans described themselves as born-­again, and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) grew by 23 ­percent over this period.13 By 2005, conservative Christians boasted double the membership of liberal congregations.14 The ­causes of this

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transformation in U.S. Chris­tian­ity are debated,15 but regardless of the cause this transformation reshaped U.S. politics. The Jesus P ­ eople movement that started in Southern California helped to facilitate the ascendance of evangelicalism by changing evangelicalism’s relationship to youth culture. Prior to the 1970s, many evangelicals had resisted popu­lar youth culture, seeing in it a form of secularism and non-­ Christian influences. The hippy-­Christian hybrid of the Jesus ­People movement, with their embrace of alternative styles and rock and roll m ­ usic, created a new approach to worship through “Jesus rock,” which helped pop­ u­lar­ize and expand evangelicalism.16 This widespread embrace of Christian rock changed the tone of evangelical churches and encouraged a more informal approach to church ser­vices. Large churches have access to significantly more resources than smaller churches, and often invest in talented singers, musicians, and stage lighting. “Worship,” the portion of church ser­vices dedicated to ­music and worshiping God, often takes up more time than sermons on Sunday mornings at large churches.17 The fact that this change in worship style coincided with an increasing emphasis on biblical literalism and the patriarchal f­ amily helped at times to obscure the conservative nature of evangelicalism. In­for­mants frequently told me that worship—as a chance to experience a direct connection with God—is just as impor­tant as sermons to their church experiences.18 In many ways, evangelicals first seek au­then­tic connection and feeling with God, in making God real in their lives. The theological tradition they are introduced to also tends to shape a par­tic­u­lar po­liti­cal perspective, and emphasizes a par­tic­u­lar understanding of the f­ amily. At the same time that evangelicalism was embracing more casual styles of preaching and worship, many conservative Protestants began framing a liberal philosophy they called “secular humanism” as inspiring a number of be­hav­iors and policies they disapproved of.19 School curriculum became a focus of this critique, which evangelicals feared was beginning to reflect social changes, including civil rights and Black Power perspectives, depictions of f­ athers washing dishes, and decreasing Christian references.20 ­These cultural changes challenged the color blindness, individualism, and gender ideology at the center of evangelical culture. This list of concerns also shows how the evangelical religious culture combined racial, gendered, and ideological interests, as changes in each of t­hese arenas provoked a concerned reaction.

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As white evangelical culture was challenged by the post–­civil rights era shift in racial policies and feminist demands for gender equality, secular humanism became an impor­tant symbol representing a wide variety of liberal cultural and po­liti­cal shifts. Francis Schaeffer’s 1976 book and documentary, How Should We Then Live?, helped to transform many evangelicals into po­liti­cal campaigners against secular humanism. H. Edward Rowe, a leader in the Christian Freedom Foundation, published Save Amer­i­ca! the same year that How Should We Then Live? came out. According to Daniel Williams, it “translated Schaeffer’s ideas into a po­liti­cal program.”21 This text took Schaeffer’s general call for action and placed it into a specific conservative po­liti­cal effort. Newly inspired evangelical cultural warriors began to transform evangelical institutions, with a key success in the transformation in the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention. Now known as the largest evangelical denomination, the SBC was po­liti­cally centrist through the late 1970s. In the years before and after Roe v. Wade, the SBC voted to maintain an official pro-­choice stance, framing abortion as a personal choice for w ­ omen. U ­ ntil the late 1970s abortion remained a primarily Catholic po­liti­cal concern.22 Although a conservative contingent had criticized moderates in the SBC since the 1920s, “anger at denominational leaders who endorsed Brown v. Board of Education and the broader civil rights agenda forced them to coalesce.”23 While some po­liti­cally conservative evangelicals ­were mobilizing po­liti­cally in the mid-1970s, this was met with significant re­sis­tance. “­We’re not evangelicals,” Foy Valentine, the director of SBC’s Christian Life Commission, stated in 1976. He went on to say, “That’s a Yankee word. They want to claim us ­because we are big and successful and growing e­ very year. But we have our own traditions, our own hymns, and more students in our seminaries than they have in all of theirs put together. We d­ on’t share their politics or their fussy fundamentalism, and we d­ on’t want to get involved in their theological witch-­ hunts.”24 This confidence was short-­lived. By 1979 a group of conservative Baptists took over the SBC leadership, resulting in the reversal of its ­earlier support for abortion rights and ushering in a conservative leadership that has lasted for de­cades.25 Sociologist Lydia Bean writes of this change, “Once ­these dissenting voices ­were silenced, the Christian Right narrative of Christian nationalism became a cultural anchor that united the national evangelical movement.”26

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Segregation Academies and the Forging of a National Movement Before 1978, conservative Christian organ­izations and leaders had or­ga­nized around opposing LGBTQ issues, but they had not formed a definitive po­liti­ cal affiliation with ­either party, nor had they achieved a national movement. While Jimmy Car­ter received over half of the white evangelical vote in 1976, by 1980 two-­thirds of white evangelicals voted for Reagan,27 emerging as a resilient Republican voting bloc. This shift cannot be fully credited to the pro-­family movement, but is connected to broader changes.28 Between Car­ter’s and Reagan’s elections a national white evangelical movement formed in response to an aggressive desegregation effort u­ nder the Car­ter administration. The campaign targeted the hundreds of private Christian academies that w ­ ere formed across the South in the wake of the Supreme Court desegregation ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Pol­ itics, Thomas and Mary Edsall trace the emergence of the Religious Right to a 1969 court ruling that challenged the tax-­exempt status of ­these segregated Christian academies.29 While passed in 1969, it was not actively enforced for almost a de­cade. In 1975, the IRS revoked the tax-­exempt status of Bob Jones University in a widely reported case. Two years ­later, Car­ ter appointed fair tax advocate Jerome Kurtz as commissioner of the Internal Revenue Ser­vice, and Kurtz quickly focused on implementing the 1969 ruling, threatening to strip the tax-­exempt status of any acad­emy that failed to actively desegregate its student body. By 1970 around four hundred thousand ­children attended segregation academies across the South and in many areas formerly segregated public schools ­were simply replaced by a new segregation system of all-­white Christian schools and majority African American public schools.30 Southern states generally passed policies supporting t­hese segregation academies, with Mississippi offering tuition grants for students attending ­these schools. Richard Nixon himself quipped while in office, “Whites in Mississippi ­can’t send their kids to schools that are ninety ­percent black: ­they’ve got to set up private schools.”31 A two-­year study of segregation academies in 1976 concluded: “The academies ­were founded to perpetuate separatism. They have been havens from integration and association with other cultures and colors.”32 Many of t­hese schools started as more

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secular segregationist academies, but during the 1970s came to be dominated by conservative evangelicalism. Despite this real­ity, defenders of the segregationist academies disagreed with criticisms that they perpetuated racism. Instead, the majority of defenders of the private schools saw their efforts as protecting a conservative culture and value system, not as defending segregation. Despite ­these divergent understandings, the schools practiced de facto segregation. Paul Weyrich, who had recently founded the Heritage Foundation with funding from the Coors ­family, worked with Robert Billings on resisting ­these desegregation efforts. He invited pastors organ­izing on this issue to DC and fund-­raised to pay for a national study on evangelical po­liti­cal concerns. The study showed that evangelicals w ­ ere ­eager for their leadership to speak out in politics, and Weyrich used this information to mobilize Christian leaders, including Jerry Falwell, with the promise of a base of support and funding. With Billings he founded Christian School Action, l­ater to become the National Christian Action Co­ali­tion.33 This desegregation effort helped to consolidate a national white evangelical movement. New Right leader Richard Viguerie noted that it “galvanized the religious right. It was the spark that ignited the religious right’s involvement in real politics.”34 Weyrich stated, “What galvanized the Christian community was not abortion, school prayer, or the [Equal Rights Amendment]. . . . ​I was trying to get [evangelicals] interested in t­ hose issues and I utterly failed.”35 The proposed changes garnered 126,000 protest letters to the IRS. The Moral Majority itself is credited as forming largely out of the private Christian acad­emy networks, with the first executive director of the Moral Majority, Robert Billings Sr., coming directly from r­ unning the National Christian Action Co­ali­tion that led the fight against the IRS legislation (he would eventually leave Moral Majority to enter the Reagan administration). Billings, who himself graduated from the segregated Bob Jones University, stated, “The Christian school issue was the one ­thing that turned every­one on. Moral Majority came on the heels of that. The reason we could do chapters for Moral Majority was that t­ here ­were already chapters in existence.”36 The new IRS director, through this decision, was actually credited by Viguerie as having “done more to bring Christians together than any man since the Apostle Paul.”37 This mobilization largely succeeded in its goals. Republican legislators soon or­ga­nized to pass a rider blocking the enforcement of the antisegregation legislation. The 1980 Republican Party platform included a statement that Reagan would “halt the unconstitutional

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regulatory vendetta launched by Mr. Car­ter’s IRS Commission against in­de­ pen­dent schools.”38 In 1976, New Right leaders Howard Phillips, Paul Weyrich, and Richard Viguerie approached Southern Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell with a proposal of founding a conservative po­liti­cal organ­ization focused on mobilizing fundamentalists and evangelicals in the electoral pro­cess.39 Falwell had been a vanguard preacher for de­cades. ­After founding the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, ­Virginia, in the late 1950s, he went on to found Liberty Baptist College, several Bible institutes, and a tele­vi­sion and radio program, The Old Time Gospel Hour, which broadcast his sermons to millions. He originally declined the offer to join forces with t­ hese New Right activists, but in 1979, a­ fter the private Christian acad­emy campaign was in full swing, Falwell met again with the three activists and soon launched the Moral Majority. He then began directing his extensive ministerial and publishing outreaches, including 250,000 Old Time Gospel Hour donors, to his new mission of politicizing fundamentalism.40 The work of Falwell and o­ thers began to significantly change the culture of fundamentalist evangelicalism. Anthropologist Susan Harding describes this pro­cess as reframing the evangelical goal of proselytizing to cover not just the private sphere, but also the po­liti­cal sphere.41 Within a year of heavy promotion through “I Love Amer­i­ca” rallies, Moral Majority had forty-­ seven state chapters. Its membership was almost entirely white.42 Although the ­actual impact the Moral Majority had in the 1980 presidential election is debated,43 the group helped to usher the New Christian Right into national politics.44 Falwell’s decision to meld his religious preaching and publishing ventures into a po­liti­cal movement represented a significant, personal change. In the 1960s Falwell criticized pastors active in the civil rights movement for combining religion and politics, and often preached a generally pro-­segregationist position.45 In 1965 Falwell gave a sermon titled “Ministers and Marchers,” where he preached, “The gospel does not clean up the outside but rather regenerates the inside.”46 Citing the Bible passage “render unto Caesar the ­things that are Caesar’s,” Falwell continued, “I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving gospel of Jesus Christ, and begin ­doing anything else—­including fighting Communism, or participating in Civil-­ Rights reforms.”47 What then happened between the 1960s and 1979, when Falwell agreed to start the Moral Majority?

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Falwell acknowledged his changed perspective on politics in 1980, admitting, “Back in the sixties I was criticizing pastors who w ­ ere taking time out of their pulpit to involve themselves in the Civil Rights Movement or any other po­liti­cal venture. I said that ­you’re wasting your time from what y­ ou’re called to do. Now I find myself ­doing the same ­thing.”48 At another time he described his motivation to intervene in politics as about self-­defense. “Something had to change,” Falwell stated. “The government was encroaching upon the sovereignty of both the Church and the f­ amily.”49 Part of this perceived encroachment involved attempts to desegregate private Christian academies. Ronald Reagan championed the cause of defending segregated academies in his campaign. In 1980 he spoke at Bob Jones University, then in a suit against the IRS over having lost its tax-­exempt status over pro-­segregationist policies. Speaking to six thousand students and faculty, Reagan condemned the IRS campaign as an effort by the federal government to implement racial quotas. In 1982, Reagan followed through on ­these campaign efforts, reinstating Bob Jones’s tax-­exempt status and reversing the IRS ban on tax exemptions for segregated private schools, a move resulting in significant protest.50 Reagan’s criticism of this legislation, like that of the broader Religious Right movement, did not explic­itly mention race. Instead, it focused on defending a purportedly color-­blind conservative Christian culture. The threat of racial desegregation in the South was clearly one of a variety of issues spurring the formation of a conservative Christian po­liti­cal movement in the late 1970s. Randall Balmer goes so far as to argue that “the religious right of the late twentieth c­ entury or­ga­nized to perpetuate racial discrimination.”51 Importantly, t­ hese efforts w ­ ere largely discussed as having a religious basis, not a racial one. Desegregation efforts came to be seen by many white evangelicals as part of a broader secular, liberal attack on Christian values. Given the direct links between leaders of the Moral Majority and the fight against the IRS-­led desegregation effort, and the fact that nearly all of its initial supporters ­were white, race clearly played a role in the new organ­ization.52 However, unlike the previous efforts to defend segregation and institutionalized racism, the post–­civil rights era mandated a new framing of white racial interests. Racism had become a negative word, leading even the white supremacist movement to disavow the racist moniker, instead adapting the term “white nationalism” over white supremacy.53 Thus new forms of racial discrimination ­were couched in the language of

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color-­blind or nonracial prose, making the workings of race more complicated to address and explore. With the success of the private school campaign, the focus of this movement quickly shifted from defending segregation academies ­toward defending the ­family.54 In 1979, Robert Billings, at the time head of the National Christian Action Co­ali­tion, advocated for the passage of the F ­ amily Protection Bill. The Journal Champion, the newsletter of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Church, described this as a bill “that w ­ ill counteract much of the drift ­toward homo­sexuality, abortion-­on-­demand, pornography and other ungodly influences in Amer­i­ca.” How, then, did a movement that formed around defending racially segregated schools move so quickly to a focus on sexual politics and abortion? The Christian Right campaigns against the desegregation efforts ­were not framed as a defense of racial segregation, but instead as an effort to protect Chris­tian­ity from an overreaching secular state. A ­ fter the success of the segregation academies campaign, the newly formed movement shifted to defending the patriarchal ­family as a means to defend this religious worldview and culture. While the emergence of a conservative Christian movement made up primarily of white evangelicals in the late 1970s was described by the press as the New Christian Right and has come to be called the Religious Right, it has always had a preferred name for itself, one that defines the link between theology and politics: the pro-­ family movement. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? Multicultural Conservatism in Amer­i­ca, Angela Dillard suggests that as overt racism became increasingly unacceptable in po­liti­cal conservatism in the post-1960s United States, gender and sexuality have become more central features to t­ hese movements.55 We can see this trajectory clearly in the formation of the Religious Right.

The Evangelical Focus on the ­Family At the same time that evangelicalism was expanding in numbers and forming a po­liti­cal movement, evangelical churches and parachurch organ­izations came to defend a theological focus on the ­family. ­There is a long tradition of emphasizing the ­family as central to Protestant Chris­tian­ity.56 Since the seventeenth c­ entury, preachers in Amer­i­ca linked marital fidelity to fidelity to God, forging a unique form of “familism,” an understanding that the ­family is the foundation of both Christian practice and the social order.57

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CHRIST, the “Head” of the husband; lord of the family.

HUSBAND, the “Head” of the wife; chief authority over the children.

WIFE, the helpmeet to the husband (Genesis 2:18); secondary authority over the children.

CHILDREN, obedient to parents. FIG. 2.1.  ​The Divine Order, from The Christian ­Family

This theological emphasis came to define much of evangelicalism in the 1970s. Larry Christenson’s popu­lar 1970 book, The Christian ­Family, details this theological understanding of gender, authority, and the ­family that is common in much of evangelicalism.58 Christenson describes a “Divine Order” as flowing from God through the patriarchal f­ amily (see figure 2.1).59 Quoting 1 Corinthians 11:3, “The head of ­every man is Christ, the head of a ­woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God,” Christenson writes that this directive establishes an “order of authority and responsibility in the ­family” (emphasis in original).60 Defending this f­ amily form is framed as a tool for addressing social prob­ lems.61 Christenson critiques what he sees as “the feminization of our culture,”62 linking religious concerns directly to po­liti­cal opposition to w ­ omen’s rights.63 This Divine Order lines up authority and submission so that a direct link exists between God, f­ athers, ­mothers, and c­ hildren, and, in Christenson’s framing, failing to follow this hierarchy makes Jesus “unwelcome” in the home. Beginning in the 1970s, many mainline Protestant churches began to move away from a theological emphasis on the f­ amily, and instead began to shift t­ oward concern for social justice and care for the poor.64

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Si­mul­ta­neously, white evangelical churches began increasing in popularity, fully embracing the emphasis on male headship and familism as a centerpiece of Christian practice and a key tenet to a literalist view of the Bible. Christenson himself was a Lutheran minister, not an evangelical, but his views have lost prominence within many mainline Christian churches.65 This focus is nowhere more evident than in the work of James Dobson, psychologist, author, and founder of the organ­ization Focus on the ­Family. Dobson founded Focus, as it is referred to in Colorado Springs, in 1977 in Southern California. Combining self-­help resources for families with a Religious Right po­liti­cal agenda, the organ­ization has had a profound impact on evangelical culture. Over the next forty years he went on to found some of the most influential Religious Right organ­izations (including Focus on the ­Family Action—­the po­liti­cal lobbying arm of Focus—­and the ­Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.). In 1991, Focus boasted a bud­get of $63 million, and received and answered around ten thousand letters a day from listeners. Due in part to receiving a $4 million grant from the El Pomar foundation of Colorado Springs, Focus moved to a new forty-­five-­acre campus ­there in 1991. The annual bud­get grew consistently ­until around 2005, reaching a high of around $160 million for Focus and around $25 million for Citizenlink (formally Focus on the ­Family Action), the po­liti­cal arm of Focus. In the next ten years the organ­ization’s bud­get shrank, and about 25 ­percent of their staff was let go. However, Focus remains a prolific media producer, publishing over a dozen monthly magazines for young ­children, preteens, teens, adults, and parents, as well as a po­liti­cal magazine; c­ hildren’s radio programs; marriage radio programs that frequently host Christian sex therapists and ­couples’ counselors; po­liti­cal radio programs; and DVDs. Its campus receives so many visitors that it has its own sign on the state highway coming into Colorado Springs, and it h ­ ouses a museum and a large indoor playground and café. The campus hosts a large bookstore, an accredited semester-­long program for university students called the Focus Institute, a ­free counseling department that fields over 1,500 calls per week, and an army of letter writers who respond to over 250,000 letters each month from p­ eople asking for prayer and advice. While legally the organ­ization must financially separate po­liti­cal and nonpo­liti­cal activities in order to retain its tax-­exempt status, its psychological help and po­liti­cal directives are framed as two sides of the same coin: supporting families and parents in personal crisis while trying to shore up policy to defend the ­family in the po­liti­cal arena. The organ­ization

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maintains an active listserv discussing po­liti­cal issues and frequently produces videos discussing current events. Given how active it is in national and regional politics, I was surprised that many evangelicals I met did not view it as a po­liti­cal organ­ization. I met several ­people who supported Focus’s efforts to support families, but criticized its methods for po­liti­cal organ­izing ­because they ­were divisive and hurt Christian outreach efforts. But most evangelicals in Colorado Springs that I met saw Focus primarily as a ministry that provided help for families in need. Vari­ous Christian traditions emphasize an understanding of God the ­Father, but the f­amily celebrated by Focus takes a specific form. This was made clear in an interview with Manuel Belin, one of the few Latinos working at a large conservative evangelical nonprofit in Colorado Springs. He explained to me that he was passionate about outreach to other Latinos about the ­family, as, “­there are cultural t­ hings that need to be changed in the Hispanic culture, the Latino culture, that are r­ eally anti-­family.” He continued: “Even though we picture Latino families as f­ amily units, they are a very unhealthy structure to the way they do f­ amily. Where ­there’s not a leaving of the mom, um, in that [men] just c­ an’t attach to their wives very well, and the moms use the sons for their own emotional needs. And ­there’s also the issue with machismo, where the guys picture the w ­ omen as only in the home, and ­there’s not a team approach to life.” Manuel explained a prob­lem he sees with Latino families: when ­people get married they have an “inability to leave the families, their extended families, their parents, and that’s what r­ eally harms their own ­family.” It is not just any patriarchal ­family, then, that defines this par­tic­u­lar emphasis on the f­ amily, but the nuclear ­family with a very specific structure of authority, what Manuel describes as a “team approach.” In our conversation he critiqued both extended families (common in Catholicism) and machismo to frame nuclear families as ideal.66 Male headship is impor­tant in this narrative, but it also must function through what Bethany Moreton describes as “servant leadership.”67 Just as God the F ­ ather is now understood as both all-­powerful and kind and intimate, in evangelicalism ­fathers in the home must retain authority and a “team approach.”

Values Voters vs. Civil Rights Religion Defending segregation was central to the consolidation of a national movement that became known as the Religious Right, but race has done more

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than animate religious politics. As I argue, racial histories also have s­ haped distinct religious traditions. A rare discussion about race and theological traditions took place on a broadcast by Focus on the ­Family Action in 2008 that demonstrates the ways focusing on the f­ amily deflects from concern about racial justice. Analyzing this discussion demonstrates the racial stakes of this tradition, particularly the ways that emphasizing the f­ amily and reproduction are part of a theological tradition emphasizing hierarchy. Shortly ­after Barack Obama secured the Demo­cratic presidential nomination, James Dobson dedicated two of his radio broadcasts to criticizing Obama’s theology. In the first, Dobson interviewed Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler. This was a rare moment where two of the most prominent white evangelical leaders talked frankly about race and their religious views. In the discussion they contrast a white conservative evangelical concern for the ­family with an African American Christian concern for challenging oppression. In their exchange they critique Obama’s Chris­tian­ity as tinged with racial bias, and thus see it as an incorrect interpretation of scripture. If we understand this conversation instead as an articulation of a white evangelical perspective, itself influenced by the unique racial history of the United States, we can see a link between an emphasis on sexuality and white evangelicalism. In the broadcast, Dobson and Mohler discuss a recent Newsweek cover story about Obama’s faith. Mohler states, “He believes that Chris­tian­ity can be an impetus for social change in a liberal direction. Now I d­ on’t r­ eally think this is what most evangelical Christians think of when they think of a basic understanding of Chris­tian­ity.” He continues: “­Here’s a basic reading: if you believe that the Civil Rights Movement is the model for ­every single social issue, then you’ll paint e­ very single social issue as one of relieving oppression. . . . ​I d­ on’t think evangelical Christians share that worldview.” Mohler states that he is concerned that evangelicals are not paying enough attention to Obama’s liberalism. Mohler and Dobson criticize Obama’s Christian worldview as based on a “civil rights movement” model and the issues they focus on are telling. Instead of seeing Chris­tian­ity as a means for challenging oppression, Dobson and Mohler describe an understanding of Chris­tian­ity based on concerns about reproduction and the ­family. Dobson states: “­There’s no doubt, at least no doubt in my mind, about whose policies ­will result in more babies being killed. Or who ­will do the greatest damage to the institution of marriage and the ­family.” L ­ ater in the program Mohler says of Obama’s

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politics, “I d­ on’t think Amer­i­ca is ready to sign on to the full normalization of homo­sexuality and to the elimination of marriage as the ­union of a man and a ­woman as a distinctive institution.” Their criticism of Obama’s Chris­tian­ity is that it is implicitly clouded by race and that his worldview makes him misunderstand the Bible. They pre­sent their own understanding of the Bible as a view unencumbered by racial intonation. Mohler and Dobson describe Obama’s theology as liberation theology, but this could more accurately be described as a particularly American tradition of Black liberation theology. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who served as Obama’s spiritual mentor ­until Obama was forced to denounce him, espoused not liberation theology but an African American version of it. Mohler and Dobson are acknowledging that race influences ­these very dif­ fer­ent understandings of Chris­tian­ity, although admittedly in their telling they frame their understanding of Christian ethics as unbiased, arguing that it is only Obama’s Chris­tian­ity that is marked by race. When Mohler says most evangelicals do not have a worldview that sees Chris­tian­ity as a vehicle to relieve oppression, he is describing a dominant conservative interpretation of Chris­tian­ity. This view of Chris­tian­ity valorizes personal relationships above all e­ lse and makes defending the hierarchies that define this relational world of preeminent po­liti­cal importance. Hierarchy is essentially bound in ­these relationships of authority and submission as a link to God. Advocating relationships also becomes the model for addressing all social prob­lems. As this relational ethics is defined first by one’s relationship with Jesus, hierarchy in relationships is impor­tant to maintain, as ­these dif­fer­ent hierarchies rest upon each other. The patriarchal ­family is the bedrock of ­these nestled hierarchies, and is a key location for evangelicals to embrace this worldview.68 Thus their critique of Obama’s agenda focuses on sexuality and marriage. The ­family represents a lost social order in this movement, one that sutures a relationship to God to a broader social and po­liti­cal world. In this way defending the patriarchal ­family and working to make reproduction occur only within it became a means for defending a religious worldview.

The “Evangelical Vatican” Just as Vatican City serves as the symbolic and administrative capital of Catholicism, Colorado Springs h ­ ouses significant evangelical organ­izations

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and symbolically impor­tant churches and plays a unique role in global evangelicalism. Dr. Dobson is the city’s most famous resident. With a population of just ­under four hundred thousand, Colorado Springs has h ­ oused up to one hundred evangelical organ­izations since the 1980s. Although the region has a conservative and libertarian history, the city had a political-­ religious make­over beginning in the late 1980s. The city was facing financial prob­lems due to reductions in military funding and became known as the “Foreclosure Capital of the World.” The local Chamber of Commerce’s Economic and Development Council (EDC) developed a study on how the city could best improve its economy by attracting new private businesses. A study commissioned by the group determined that Colorado Springs was an ideal place to attract national nonprofits, and an evangelical member of the EDC, Alice Worrell, wanted to focus on attracting evangelical organ­ izations. This plan proved remarkably successful. By the mid-1990s over seventy religious ministries had relocated to the city.69 The majority of t­ hese organ­izations are funded by small donations from individual donors. The concentration of evangelical organ­izations t­ here has changed the identity of the city. As president of the American Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard stated, “God chose Colorado Springs to globalize Chris­ tian­ity.” The pastor of a five-­thousand-­member church in the city once described Colorado Springs as “Amer­i­ca’s spiritual NORAD,” referencing the North American Aerospace Defense Command, located nearby.70 Since World War II Colorado Springs has attracted several military institutions and is now bordered on three sides by the Air Force Acad­emy, Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base, Fort Carson, and NORAD and Cheyenne Mountain Air Station. A number of defense contractors are also located in the region. Partly due to this increasing military presence and partly due to general population growth in Colorado, the city’s population has more than doubled since 1970. This has left a small downtown with massive urban sprawl in primarily the northern and eastern parts of the city. P ­ eople sometimes joke about Colorado Springs, saying it is “a suburb looking for a city.” The state of Colorado was established in 1876. Traditionally, over fifty-­ five indigenous tribes occupied the region now known as Colorado, including the Ute, Cheyenne, Comanche, Shoshone, Arapaho, and Apache p­ eoples. Ute oral traditions trace their creation story to a dramatic rock formation just west of Colorado Springs known as the Garden of the Gods. Ute indigenous artifacts dating back over thirty-­five hundred years have been

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found in this area. Despite this history, and compared to other western states, the state of Colorado is home to only two federally recognized tribes, the Southern Ute and the Ute Mountain Ute tribes, both in the southern part of the state. And while Ute and other First Nations names remain across the region designating certain streets and other landmarks, the colonial history of the region is largely ignored by its con­temporary residents. So although just over a ­century e­ arlier Colorado was a primary location for the colonial bloodshed that became known as the Indian Wars, including one of the most controversial and vile massacres of the period, at Sand Creek,71 con­temporary Colorado (and Colorado Springs in par­tic­u­lar, the inspiration for “Amer­i­ca the Beautiful”) imagines its own creation story as beginning with its integration into the United States of Amer­i­ca and the introduction of Eu­ro­pean Americans into the region. Like most U.S. cities, Colorado Springs is largely segregated by race and class, with the majority of p­ eople of color living south of downtown. But the city is also unique in that it is po­liti­cally divided. The three largest evangelical churches are in the northern suburban part of town, and the largest evangelical organ­izations’ campuses are based in this area. In this section of town, w ­ hether you are in the cafeteria at Whole Foods, a corporate coffee shop, or a bakery, it is not uncommon to overhear ­people at the next ­table talking about God as an active force in their lives. I often overheard conversations where ­people said ­things like, “God brought me to the Springs to . . .” The coffee shops in northern Colorado Springs are filled with Bible study groups and young hipsters reading Bibles and talking about God. One gets the feeling that in this part of town evangelicalism is the mainstream, the dominant majority. Many of the ­people I met through my research work at evangelical nonprofits, in technological fields, or as defense contractors, and they often would self-­reflexively complain about living in a “Christian b­ ubble.” I would ask interviewees what percentage of their friends w ­ ere Christian, and the vast majority of responses said all or nearly all. While evangelicals had a self-­critique that many of them lived in a “Christian ­bubble,” where they mainly interacted with other Christians, the class-­and race-­stratified b­ ubble that many of them spent their time in was most often invisible. The one Bible study group I attended downtown was meant to bring together “suburbies” from the northern megachurches and homeless men who resided in encampments near the urban core. However, I rarely saw any attendees from North End Church or the other large evangelical churches in t­hese

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meetings. The non-­homeless attendees of the group tended to be Catholic or Presbyterian. Indeed, when I spoke about this group to p­ eople I knew from other Bible study groups I was told how hard it must be to spend time with ­people experiencing homelessness. Th ­ ere was an ongoing outreach to the homeless community by an evangelical youth group, but this consisted of weekly pizza nights, where teen­agers and youth group leaders would make the twenty-­minute journey from the northern suburban neighborhoods to proselytize and hand out pizza. Many of the Christian homeless men I came to know complained about t­ hese events as charity that did not change anything, b­ ecause no one got to know each other and no relationships ­were formed. The “Christian ­bubble” that my in­for­mants spoke about should ­really be understood as a white, middle-­class Christian b­ ubble, a form of social isolation that serves to reinforce the ideological pairing of conservative theology and politics in this worldview. Colorado Springs sits at the base of the Rocky Mountains in the shadow of Pike’s Peak, from the summit of which Katherine Lee Bates penned the poem “Amer­i­ca the Beautiful” in 1895. On a clear day one can see evidence that the song is more description than meta­phor: the purple mountains descend sharply into fields of grain extending into Kansas. Lightning storms that come over the mountains are stunning. I witnessed one that filled the sky with an hour-­long vibrant display with lightening d­ oing full-­circle loops in the air. Frequent rainbows cross the expansive sky, and b­ ecause of urban sprawl into what was recently their natu­ral habitat, one often sees all manner of wildlife even in the city. Brown bears and mountain lions are a common sight in private yards and on the University of Colorado campus, and foxes menace pets in town. When the light and clouds are just right you can see strips of light pierce through the clouds and descend upon the city, which some locals call “God light.” It is clear that the natu­ral beauty of the region can lead one to think that this city stands out, that it is special, that it is indeed the city upon the hill.72 In June 2008, a controversy broke out in Colorado Springs about how non-­Christians represent evangelicals. The local paper ran a front-­page story covering the reception of the play The Beautiful City, about evangelicalism in Colorado Springs, which had recently opened in Washington, D.C. The Gazette article was titled “Play’s Version of Springs Is Not All ‘Beautiful.’ ” The Civilians theater com­pany had produced the play based on over one hundred interviews with evangelicals in the city. Yet evangelicals felt they had been caricatured. The Gazette article quotes a DC theatergoer saying

The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church • 43

she had laughed throughout the show. “ ‘I knew Colorado Springs was a gorgeous place, but that’s pretty much all I knew,’ she said. ‘­After seeing the show, yeah, I am a l­ ittle scared. Would I ever want to live ­there? Prob­ably not.’ ”73 I arrived in Colorado Springs to begin my research a week a­ fter the article appeared, and some ­people I met w ­ ere suspicious of my intentions and my research. Soon a­ fter I arrived I met Anna Devon through a young adult Bible study group. She is kind and curious and became a close friend during my research, but the first day we spent time together socially she questioned my intentions. Four of us w ­ ere on our way to see a movie a­ fter a Bible study meeting and the topic of The Beautiful City came up. All three of the ­people in the car with me had read the article, as had I. Expressing her discomfort with what she had read about the play, Anna asked me pointedly what my intentions w ­ ere for my research and how I would portray my subject ­matter. Every­one knew I was not a Christian. I attempted to describe my intentions as about curiosity and openness to learning. They ­were very concerned about repre­sen­ta­tions of evangelicals that reinforced ste­reo­types. Similarly, Joseph Troess, a Christian counselor who worked at a large Christian nonprofit introduced me to his supervisor thus: “Sophie is an anthropologist studying Chris­tian­ity and the ­family and she’s not a Christian, but I ­don’t feel any hate coming off of her.” He repeated in exaggerated amazement, “And she’s not a Christian! And I ­don’t feel any hate from her!” Since the 1970s po­liti­cal leaders have worked to mobilize primarily white evangelicals to see a defense of the nuclear f­ amily and its gendered hierarchy as God-­ordained. In the following chapters I show how ideas about the ­family not only dominate evangelical politics, but also structure white evangelical lived religion, so much so that embodying gendered norms and sexual identities that allow one to fit within this ­family has become a defining feature of evangelical life, a way to make one’s pursuit of God vis­i­ble to oneself and o­ thers. This racial history of the formation of the Religious Right should remind us that this focus on the f­ amily stems from a racial history as well as a religious one.

3

Reading the Bible with James Dobson The F­ amily and Christian Nationalism In the nondenominational evangelical spaces of this research, cultivating a relationship with God is the center of one’s religious life. Evangelicals are taught that they need to transform an inherently selfish nature into a channel for God. This involves learning to develop an internal dialogue with God and thus a new language, as anthropologist Susan Harding has shown so clearly,1 and the capacity to hear God.2 Pastor Alex preached at North End on this theme frequently. One Easter Sunday he told us: “Only t­ hose that lay down their lives w ­ ill survive. The only group of ­people who ­will make it through the toughest times are ­those who have already surrendered their lives: only dead men walking ­will live!” Living as a Christ follower or engaging in one’s Christian walk is an active pro­cess. “Dead men walking” are ­those who have developed the internal capacity to let God lead their lives; they have learned to submit their own agency so that God is in charge of their decision making. In the next chapters I explore how this theology of the ­family leads to discriminatory treatment of p­ eople who identify as LGBTQ and inspires 44

Reading the Bible with James Dobson • 45

par­tic­u­lar po­liti­cal perspectives. H ­ ere, I show how this emphasis on strict ­fathers animates everyday religious practice, establishing the nuclear f­ amily as a training ground for developing a relationship with God. I found a united emphasis on ­fathers and heterosexual marriage across individual understandings of God, small-­group discussions, pastoral messages, and the Christian books and radio programs that my in­for­mants read and listened to. Whereas individuals connected their relationship to God to their relationships with their own f­ athers, Christian media producers such as James Dobson connected the fate of ­fathers to the fate of the nation, and to an opposition to nonheterosexual identity and practice. Christian media explic­ itly link this focus on ­fathers to white Christian nationalism and the idea of American nationalism. In this chapter I first discuss the significance of relationships in the religious world of my study. Next, I show how ­fathers become metonyms for God within evangelical practice, so that individuals understand their relationship with God through their relationship with their ­fathers. Then I show how Bible study groups and other informal church events reinforce t­ hese ideas. In the final section, I turn to the ways Christian media portray the patriarchal f­ amily and heterosexuality as the foundation of the nation and as the solution to all social prob­lems.

From Rules to a Relationship In 1970 a mere fifty megachurches dotted the U.S. landscape.3 ­Today ­there are over thirteen hundred. This shift represents a profound change in U.S. Christian practice and a radical shift in church architecture. Whereas traditional mainline Protestant churches are often set apart with stylistic ele­ ments such as vibrant stained-­glass win­dows, towering steeples, and ornate crosses, perhaps the closest architectural inspiration (at least from the outside) of many megachurches is Walmart Supercenters.4 The interiors of large evangelical churches often more closely resemble conference centers, spaces associated with secular, cap­i­tal­ist, con­temporary suburban life than with transcendence. Just as evangelical architecture emphasizes experience and congregational participation in worship over outward displays of religiosity, so too does evangelical religious practice prioritize interior life.5 I found that the par­ tic­u ­lar aesthetic of the large church reflects closely a changed religious emphasis, where interior experience is revered over external pre­sen­ta­tion.

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North End Church is emblematic of t­ hese changes. The outside closely resembles a megastore, dominated by an expansive parking lot and a nondescript facade. The inside functions like a theater with an emphasis on comfort and audience experience, with a large stage and professional stage lighting.6 ­There is thus a symmetry between the architectural and stylistic choices of the church, which avoid physical displays of religiosity, and the common pastoral message of centering interior life and relationships. This theme of relationships is reflected in many congregants’ stories. Marjorie Benson explained this emphasis to me. Five years before I met her she had moved to Colorado from Orange County, California, and she remembered well what it was like to move to a new town, as I had just done when we met. She began inviting me to local outings with her three young ­children. One morning we sat at the café in the church lobby, sipping tea, and I asked Marjorie if she grew up in a religious home. “I certainly did!” she responded. “­There ­were so many rules we had to follow.” She went on to describe growing up in a Lutheran ­family that prioritized following directives over experiencing God. She recounted how in her twenties a friend invited her to attend an evangelical church. The m ­ usic moved her, but it was the message of the new church that transformed her life. She told me, “For me now, I’ve moved from following a set of rules to experiencing a relationship with God. I see religion as about following rules. I ­don’t have a religion now, I have a relationship.” This description of a move from rules to a relationship was a common refrain I heard in interviews, everyday conversation, and from pastor’s pulpits. The term “religion” connoted a negative focus on rules and outward be­hav­ior. Like Marjorie, ­Virginia Simmonds contrasted her religious childhood with her current understanding of Chris­tian­ity. She described her verbally and physically abusive parents as legalistic, a common evangelical criticism of Christians who focus on following rules and looking good on the outside over embodying a relationship with God. V ­ irginia told me, “So I would say I grew up in a religious home, but not a Christian home with all the attributes and evidence of a loving God.” Instead of following rules, then, the center of evangelical lived religion is developing a personal relationship with God.7 Most of the ­people in my study also prefer the term “Christ-­follower” to describe their “faith journey,” rather than terms like evangelical or even Christian, reflecting this re­sis­tance to labels and conformity.8

Reading the Bible with James Dobson • 47

This interior submission to God often takes a specific form in daily religious practice and pastoral messages, with heterosexual marriage and the patriarchal f­ amily as key tools for practicing submission to God. Pastors approach this topic in distinct ways. Mark Driscoll, the former pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church,9 often preached that a feminized version of Jesus turns men away from church, much as the pastor I observed in Washington State had said (see chapter 1). Driscoll criticized the U.S. church for turning Jesus into “a Richard Simmons, hippie, queer Christ.”10 Pastor Ed Young of Texas, who wrote the book Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Inti­ macy with Your Spouse, centers marital sexual intimacy in his theology of the family. He celebrated the book’s publication with a “bed-in” with his wife on the roof of his Texas megachurch.11 An emphasis on the heterosexual ­family is at the center of such approaches and provides a structure to the dozens of evangelical sex manuals published since the 1950s.12 Religious Studies scholar Amy DeRogatis quotes one such manual, which states, “Born again is a sexual term,”13 demonstrating the central role of a par­tic­u­lar form of sexuality to evangelical lived religion. Pastors often tell their congregants to practice and embody their relationship with God through and in their families. Importantly, a religious symmetry is established between the relationships that occur within the nuclear ­family—­between ­husbands and wives and between parents and ­children—­and the relationship individuals are meant to have with God. They both embody, ideally, a relationship of authority and submission. In this way, a par­tic­u ­lar form of patriarchal ­family structure becomes a central training ground for one’s relationship with God. F ­ athers and paternal authority are particularly impor­tant in this relational order.

“God Is Inviting You into His ­Family” Pastor Alex frequently preaches on the similarities between one’s relationship with God and one’s relationship with one’s own f­ ather. In one sermon just before Christmas he preached on the importance of participating in daily communication with God. He told his congregants that being a Christian is not about simply following a set of rules, or speaking the right form of “Christianese” (insider language or jargon that Christians use with other Christians). “Some of you have never made Jesus your Lord,” Alex declared.

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“­You’ve reduced it down to be­hav­ior modification, sin management. Let me tell you something: your sin ­will decrease; your be­hav­ior ­will get better. But what the Holy Spirit is inviting you into is a ­family! It’s about ­family and being together!” Pastor Alex said that when he was saved when he was seventeen he did not know if he was ready to “be good.” He was young and wanted to have fun and feared that becoming a Christian would make him miss out on experiences. He went on, “But it’s more than this. . . . ​Some of you have never experienced real ­family ­here on earth. But, let me tell you something. God is inviting you into his ­family, and he’s the perfect dad!” In another sermon, Pastor Alex preached on the importance of maintaining a childlike faith. He implored us to ask ourselves: “Do you see God as dad? Do you feel like you are in the palm of a good dad’s hand?” Just as Jonathan Edwards’s fiery speech three centuries ­earlier captured the Puritanical view of God as punitive and distant, casting Christians as “sinners in the hands of an angry God,” I found that Pastor Alex’s understanding that we are ­children in “the palm of a good dad’s hand” typifies a con­temporary white evangelical understanding of God. In this view God is not only loving and intimate, as many ­others have shown, but is also inseparable from ideas and practices about the nuclear f­ amily. God is dad, and in turn, dad becomes a stand-in for God. This point was made clear in another sermon where Pastor Alex preached about how he taught his two young c­ hildren to obey him and listen to his voice. He told his congregation that when he is at home with his c­ hildren and he calls their names, then they come, the first time. “­T here is no re-­calling their names up the stairs ­until they feel like answering,” he preached. “They know that if they challenge me ­there ­will be consequences so they come when I call. B ­ ecause for now, my voice is the voice of God to them. If they learn to listen for my voice, then they ­will also eventually learn to listen to God the ­Father’s voice.”14 The f­ ather ­here is a metonym for God, providing a symmetry between one’s relationship with God and relationships between ­fathers and c­ hildren. Such pairings of f­ athers and God the F ­ ather can shape evangelical discourse in both formal and informal spaces. In a Bible study group I attended that brought together self-­described “suburbies” and homeless men, the theme of God’s love came up frequently. Mitch, the suburbie leader of the group, one day discussed the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a New Testament story about a f­ ather whose son leaves the f­ amily home and squanders his inheritance before returning in poverty due to prodigal be­hav­ior. He comes

Reading the Bible with James Dobson • 49

back apologizing, but instead of chastising him for his be­hav­ior his f­ ather calls for a large feast celebrating his return. Mitch recounted the story and then asked the group: “Imagine you ­were a ­father; would you take your son back?” Every­one said yes. Mitch continued, “God’s love is bigger than my sin. This is always so hard to figure out. Do we deserve to be in the ­family? No! We d­ on’t deserve it, but God’s love continues.” The f­ ather invoked in this parable is interpreted as embodying the fatherly ideals of early twenty-­ first c­ entury U.S. culture, a f­ ather who is actively interested in his child’s life, who exhibits compassion and caring action. Repeatedly emphasizing biblical passages about ­fathers and framing one’s relationship with God as one between a child and a “perfect dad,” as Pastor Alex says, makes this relationship legible within a dominant cultural framework in con­temporary culture. This trope of God not as the distant and possibly disproving Heavenly F ­ ather, but as the good dad, pairs a secular ideal with a religious worldview, helping to orient prac­ti­tion­ers to a religious world, as sociologist Orit Avishai might describe it.15 Using this gendered f­ amily form as a primary architecture for religious experience also has the effect of aligning f­ athers and God, something I witnessed in multiple ways. Through repeated discourse about one’s ­father and God, the ­family becomes a training ground for experiencing God. In one example, an evangelical friend in Colorado told me that she had been working on overcoming old wounds and fears that her ­father had rejected her, and ­until she healed from ­these she could not fully understand God’s love for her. Now that she is healed from ­these feelings of rejection from her ­father, she told me she can now believe on a deeper level that God the ­Father loves her too, and she is now f­ ree to pursue a deeper relationship with him. This symmetry was a theme across many interviews and discussions during this research. One young man I interviewed who grew up in Colorado Springs and now identifies as ex-­ex-­gay16 was raised in an evangelical f­ amily and u­ nder pressure from his parents underwent reparative therapy to try to leave homo­sexuality before deciding to leave the church instead. In describing his home life while he was growing up, he stated, “In my f­ amily, a traditional evangelical ­family structure, where parents represent God, I ­didn’t know I could ­really challenge them.” This did not occur to him u­ ntil he was in his late teens. In this pro­cess many evangelicals also transform their relationships with their own ­fathers. For instance, Tyron Ray was ­adopted from China when he was five by a single, non-­Christian dad. I met Tyron in Colorado, where

50  •  The Divine Institution

he worked for a defense contractor and participated in young adult Bible study groups a few times a week. In college he asked his roommate who Christ was, which preceded a conversion to evangelical Chris­tian­ity. He told me that he came to judge his f­ ather’s lifestyle and this eventually led to their alienation. Tyron told me, “My ­father now is ­really my heavenly F ­ ather. He made me, cared for me, cares about me more than anyone. He is a perfect father-­figure, he is faithful, he gives gifts.” In this way, his relationship with God actually came to supplant his relationship with his adoptive ­father. As the f­ amily is a model of God in the world, heterosexual marriage and biological reproduction also become symbols of one’s relationship with God. Dylan Jones is a Christian counselor who focuses on what he describes as treating men with sexual addictions, focusing on men who experience unwanted same-­sex attraction. When he was in college Dylan was exploring his sexuality and felt like he might be gay. But ­after a new conversion experience and a dedication to Chris­tian­ity and to counseling he now describes his sexual attractions as transformed and is now married to a ­woman. He told me that when he was younger he feared he would never have a f­ amily, and that this was devastating to him, as the ability to be in a reproductive heterosexual marriage was a central part of the Christian walk as he saw it. He told me, “I had a hard time believing in Genesis—­that man ­will leave his f­ amily and live with a w ­ oman. Now I’ve found [my wife], and we represent the image of God to our c­ hildren.” ­Because he chose heterosexuality he explained, “my life has produced life.” Such intimate connections between a biblical order and a heterosexual f­ amily lead to individuals aligning their own families and c­ hildren to God’s creation, but also lead many Christians, particularly ones with unwanted same-­sex attraction, to fear that they cannot fit within this religious order.

Love and Re­spect It is not just fatherly relationships that help to structure white evangelical religious life. Heterosexual marriage is often emphasized in pastoral messages and Bible study groups as a primary relationship that defines this worldview. In the fall of 2010 I joined a new Bible study small group in Colorado Springs that brought together single young adults from several area churches, providing an example of how this focus on the ­family is mobilized.

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We met weekly in the home of a middle-­aged ­couple, Paul and Lynn Murphy. The Murphys had been married for over twenty years and ­were kind, generous, and social. They ­were both active in their local church and have two c­ hildren who ­were away at college. For four months they hosted weekly gatherings in their home with ten to twenty young adults. We would chat for a half hour over tortilla chips and brownies in their kitchen and then move downstairs to a large TV room to discuss a book by a Christian author or watch a video, ending with a discussion of the material. For one of our final meetings Paul and Lynn wanted to share a video from a marriage ministry they found deeply inspirational. The video was led by Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs and is based on Emerson’s popu­lar book, Love and Re­spect: The Love She Most Desires, the Re­spect He Desperately Needs.17 Paul told us that they had attended one of the Eggerichses’ marriage workshops hosted by their church two years ­earlier and it had changed their relationship. “We d­ idn’t realize we w ­ ere speaking dif­fer­ent languages to each other,” Paul told us. Repeating a theme from the love and re­spect franchise, Paul went on, “We wear pink or blue hearing aids that filter every­thing through them.” Emerson Eggerichs is fond of saying that God made men and ­women as unique as pink and blue, so just as we all can see that pink and blue are indeed dif­f er­ent, so too are men and ­women. Masculinity and femininity are understood h ­ ere as distinct, knowable, and diametrically opposed. As Eggerichs likes to say, “Pink and blue, not wrong, just dif­fer­ent.” The difference though, is crucial, and this was the message Paul wanted to convey that Sunday eve­ning in his den. The video summarized the theme of Emerson’s book, a theme that crept into dozens of discussions and interviews throughout my research. The basic premise is that in relationships ­women need unconditional love and men need unconditional re­spect, and if we do not learn ­these dif­fer­ent languages, then marriages—­which are always already heterosexual—­will suffer. Paul wanted to share t­ hese insights with the young adults gathered in his den that eve­ning, telling us that if he had known this information at the start of his marriage ­things would have been much easier. Part of the teaching in this book, as in virtually all evangelical marriage manuals and sex manuals, is an emphasis on the importance of male headship in marriage. Paul went on, acknowledging the awkwardness of the topic, and began on the defensive, again sharing a theme from the book. He said, “If ­we’re ­going to accept that husbands are responsible to put their lives on the line for wives or ­women, that if a ship is

52  •  The Divine Institution

sinking that men ­will let w ­ omen and ­children go on the lifeboats first, so they w ­ ill die first, then ­we’re ­going to agree that they have 51 ­percent of the responsibility and then should have 51 ­percent of the final say.” Paul went on to say that this is not a right or a privilege but a responsibility. Lynn chimed in, telling us that this is not about an extreme in­equality. “At times in our relationship I’ve made more money than Paul,” Lynn told us, “and at times he has made more money. We’ve been partners.” But Lynn also confirmed that they have had to work on having Paul be the leader in the f­ amily, to allow him to have the final say in most of their decisions. Lynn had the professional job in their marriage, working as an administrator at a nonprofit organ­ization while Paul coached high school basketball, and in many ways Lynn comes across as the dominant partner, but they both agreed that Paul o­ ught to be the leader of the f­ amily, and that they work together to implement this. This kind of gender in­equality is rooted in what Melanie Health calls “soft-­boiled masculinity.”18 Pop­u­lar­ized by the Promise Keepers movement, something Paul had participated in, this new Christian masculinity redefines patriarchy as compatible with expectations that f­ avor more equitable relationships. Patriarchy remains impor­tant, but men are also tasked with respecting and caring for their wives. Although influenced by new gender norms resulting from feminist movements, this Christian masculinity movement demonizes feminism as an attack on marriage and men. A central theme of Love and Respect is a criticism of feminism as a false ideology that destroys relationships. The love and re­spect franchise is addressed to evangelicals living in a changed gendered and economic landscape and attempts to offer the emotional tools to conform to the patriarchal ­family. This requires par­tic­u­lar emotional disciplines within the ­family, but also a view of the po­liti­cal sphere defined by patriarchy. Much of this work teaches Christians how to therapeutically embody unequal relationships harmoniously. On his website, Eggerichs posts a review he says he received from a ­woman about how much one of his marriage conferences changed her life: “I am able to view conflict totally differently now. Instead of seeing my husband as an egotistical maniac, I have some peace and confidence about who God made me to be and who God made him to be. And I’m not feeling so frustrated about our differences.”19 As the website instructs, “Refusing to get frustrated is the key.” Survey research on evangelicals confirms that Lynn and Paul are emblematic of white evangelical culture. Christian Smith and Sally Gallagher

Reading the Bible with James Dobson • 53

describe this as an embrace of symbolic traditionalism alongside a pragmatic egalitarianism.20 The majority of white evangelicals support male headship in theory, while in practice economic and cultural changes make this difficult to implement. Male headship is, then, something that must be practiced, and something that requires multiple actions, often leaving a more egalitarian structure in place, yet committing in princi­ple to male headship. Despite the fact that male headship looks dif­fer­ent in practice, I came to see heterosexual marriage as central to evangelical ethics ­because it is a model of authority and submission, and this unequal relationship structures the broader evangelical ethical world that I observed. But as the case of Lynn and Paul shows, ­there is actually a significant amount of flexibility for embodying t­hese hierarchical relationships.21 Though dif­ fer­ent in practice, male headship is central symbolically to evangelical lived religion. In this Sunday eve­ning Bible study meeting, sitting ­under the large flat-­ screen TV that had recently beamed Emerson’s tanned and smiling face, Paul implored his youthful group to accept male headship as the foundation to both a happy and a godly marriage. Accepting this real­ity, Paul and Lynn repeated, creates marital harmony and understanding, where every­ one w ­ ill receive the love and recognition they need. For Paul and Lynn this was a crucial part of their Christian walk, a lesson they worked on implementing for years and one they wanted to pass on. The young adults in the group that night, all of whom w ­ ere unmarried, w ­ ere reluctant to talk about ­these marital issues about negotiating gender roles. The one question about ­these topics they wanted to discuss was if a man could ever be okay if his wife was the sole breadwinner, and ­there ­were dif­fer­ent opinions about this. Every­one acknowledged that this is happening more. Many evangelicals see this work of embodying a gendered, marital ideal as a central aspect of one’s spiritual journey, and a wide variety of Christian books reinforce this idea. It also shows that as t­ hese young adults do get married, a variety of experts, pastors, and media are available for instructing them in living out t­ hese gendered roles. The Murphys’ insistence on engaging in this conversation also reinforced the focus on the f­ amily within one’s Christian walk. Within evangelical practice much work goes into aligning one’s relationship with God to a par­tic­u­lar f­ amily structure and to relationships with ­fathers. In the next section I show how this emphasis is linked to a nationalist narrative with racial implications.

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­Fathers as Servant Leaders The evangelical emphasis on male headship is a par­tic­u­lar type of patriarchal relationship, one that has been described by Bethany Moreton as “servant leadership.”22 As such, f­ athers are meant to lead but also to express compassion and to communicate their emotions. A variety of tools teach ­fathers how to embody this role of kind patriarch, including the Promise Keepers movement, which peaked in popularity in the 1990s.23 Paul Murphy described first encountering the Promise Keepers movement in the 1990s and being transformed by the message of the movement, which he told me focused on “one, treat kids better, and two, treat wife better.” He told me: “I grew up without a f­ ather, and a lot of us d­ idn’t know how to be a dad. I ­didn’t want to be like my grandpa and beat my kids with razor straps. So many of us ­didn’t know how to be a godly man. A lot of men thought making money was every­thing, so men started changing jobs, started prioritizing spending time with their families.” The therapeutic messages of the Promise Keepers helped Paul to begin to transform himself into the type of servant leader that he felt he should be. Part of this transformation was a challenge to feminism, where he came to see feminists as sharing valid complaints about men who did not know how to be ­fathers and husbands. He thus saw the Promise Keepers as precluding the need for feminism, even as he saw that many feminist complaints ­were valid. Instead of gender equality, Paul learned through the Promise Keepers to see the solution to feminist demands as a new type of kinder, gentler patriarchy. Bethany Moreton argues that the evangelical emphasis on “servant leadership” is a reflection of the new ser­vice economy.24 The 1970s found increasing numbers of ­women entering paid employment and more men working in traditionally feminized positions, with significant changes in U.S. ­family life. By the mid-1970s less than a quarter of all h ­ ouse­holds in the United States fit the nuclear ­family mold.25 Many commentators from across the po­liti­cal spectrum talked about the ­family at this time as though it w ­ ere experiencing a crisis, with a variety of transmogrified f­ amily forms emerging with increasing visibility: the “broken home,” the “single ­mother,” the “latchkey kid,” and the escalating “crisis” of divorce. The new ser­vice economy threatened the gender hierarchies of work and race that Fordism enforced. Through redefining masculinity as achieving power through submission, Moreton writes, evangelical “servant leadership . . . ​was how the ser­ vice economy made patriarchy safe for postmodernity.”26 As in Paul’s narrative,

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this redefinition of patriarchy served to address some feminist concerns about abuse of power while justifying the need to retain gender in­equality.

Focusing on the ­Family This emphasis on f­ athers and male headship is often linked to par­tic­u ­lar issues by Christian media. I often asked my interviewees to tell me who has been the most influential to their spiritual walks, and ­people mentioned Christian books, radio programs, podcasts, and m ­ usic with far more frequency than their own pastors. Most large churches h ­ ouse bookstores selling a wide range of Christian books, from self-­help topics about dieting, parenting, or marital conflict, to study Bibles. This focus on self-­help within evangelicalism is part of a broader therapeutic culture that is dominant in the United States, one that frames the self as a fragile, potentially harmed entity requiring healing.27 The variety of Christian books and podcasts suggested by my in­for­mants attests to the breadth and influence of what media studies scholar Heather Hedershot calls the “Christian lifestyle market.”28 The landscape of Christian media tends to reflect the broader racial segregation patterns that shape U.S. Chris­tian­ity.29 For instance, Black religious media has worked to challenge racist ste­reo­types that frame African Americans as morally inferior to whites, providing resources to challenge white supremacist culture.30 At the same time, Black Christian media tends to contain messages about conformity to marital heterosexuality, but unlike the white-­dominated conservative Christian media platforms does not embrace a broader conservative politics.31 In contrast, white-­dominated conservative evangelical media commonly links t­ hese personal proj­ects of ethical self-­cultivation—­through sexual practices and gendered identities—­directly to attempts to sanctify the nation. It employs the self-­help genre to encourage par­tic­u­lar practices just as it directs one’s ethical life t­oward specific po­liti­cal engagements. And unlike most pastoral teachings, Christian media is often explic­itly po­liti­cal. Focus on the F ­ amily is a primary example of the power of white-­ dominated Christian media authorities in shaping understandings of Chris­ tian­ity, sexual practices, and politics. In 2006, the board of directors of Focus on the ­Family voted to approve a new guiding princi­ple for the organ­ization on gender and sexuality titled “The Value of Male and

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Female.”32 This statement opposed the increasing presence of trans rights activism, justifying a binary gender system as God-­given and framing marriage as a joining together of complementary (not equal) parties. While Focus ministers to a multiracial, international Christian community, the staff and leadership have historically been nearly exclusively white, and the institution has been criticized for practicing implicit racism through not supporting the leadership of ­people of color.33 A view of the ­family and its relationship to Christian nationalism is seen most clearly in a twelve-­week DVD Bible study program published by Focus called the Truth Proj­ect. The ambitious proj­ect was a response to a 2003 poll by the Barna Group that reported that in the United States “only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-­making.”34 The poll found that even among “born again Christians” only 9 ­percent “have such a perspective on life.” The Truth Proj­ect was originally published in 2006 with the explicit purpose of encouraging Christians to develop a Biblical worldview.35 It was marketed to churches across the country, and Focus estimates that roughly three million p­ eople have completed the Bible study program. Over a series of topics ranging from “Sociology: The Divine Imprint” to “The American Experiment: Stepping Stones,” a clear Christian nationalist narrative rooted in the nuclear ­family is explained. Each week’s video consists of a lecture by Dr. Del Tackett, a stately gray-­ haired man of Eu­ro­pean descent, who lectures in a formal classroom with brown wood paneling and a large chalkboard. A multiracial group of participants make up the audience and are sometimes asked questions and participate in discussion. Tackett begins the tour by asking ­people why Jesus came to the world. Students respond in vari­ous ways: to redeem us; to “set the captives ­free”; to save the world. But Tackett tells his students they are all wrong. He cites John 18:37, that Jesus came to “testify to the truth,” and quotes John 4:6, “Every­one on the side of truth listens to me.” He asks a student, “What does this imply?” The student responds, “That means t­ here are sides.” Tackett nods solemnly, pauses, then says: “You know this ­doesn’t play well in our . . . ​tolerant world, right. This idea of t­ here being sides, ‘­Can’t we all just get along?’ Jesus is actually bifurcating the world.” He calls this a cosmic b­ attle and says this b­ attle goes back to the beginning, to the Garden of Eden. The stakes of the Truth Proj­ect are immediately clear: we live in a Manichean world, with God and the devil in a cosmic b­ attle over truth. Th ­ ere is a definitive truth, and if you do not follow it you are not following God,

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and you are following the devil. ­People who disagree are labeled opponents, and Tackett instructs us to “picture outsiders [non-­Christians] as captives. Picture them in POW clothes.” We are told not to view them with an arrogant attitude, but to view them as captives. ­There is then immediately no space for discussion, no gray area or multiple viewpoints. Th ­ ere is God’s truth, and the dev­il’s lies. Implicit in this opposition is an understanding that God’s ­will is knowable and unquestionable and that Tackett is an interpreter of God’s truth. At the center of this Manichean order, we learn, is a ­battle over worldviews. And the biblical worldview presented ­here is defined by hierarchical relationships and rooted in Christian nationalism. In week three, “Anthropology: Who is Man?,” we are introduced to the idea that ­human nature is inherently sinful, and thus directives about “following one’s heart” or seeking “self-­fulfillment” go against God’s social order and only lead to sin. This worldview is as po­liti­cal as it is theological. The series states, “The world says that man is naturally good, so evil must derive from the social institutions that stop him from d­ oing what he wants.” Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs is framed as a pernicious secular lie that fails to acknowledge evil in the world. In this Christian view that sees evil as originating in the individual, self-­actualization is framed as a route to evil. The video also criticizes po­liti­cal perspectives that see humanity as occupying just one part of the natu­ral world, as opposed to understanding ­humans as being at the top of a hierarchy of nature. The leader’s guide that goes along with the Truth Proj­ect asks Bible study leaders to take the discussion explic­itly to politics. It asks: “What presuppositions lie b­ ehind the radical environmental movement (not just our common desire to protect nature)? Or b­ ehind the animal rights cause? The abortion movement? What other societal trends can you trace to a belief that man is just another product of nature?” In this view, humanity is both prone to evil and requires institutions to create good and rein in evil. Humanity is a reflection of God and therefore separate and above the rest of creation. And this theological tradition is explic­itly po­liti­cal. ­These views are further articulated in week seven, in “Sociology: The Divine Imprint.” Tackett begins with a discussion of the triune nature of God, where he draws a circle on the chalkboard and writes inside the circle “­Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” in a slight hierarchy with F ­ ather on top and Holy Spirit on the bottom. He states, “They are in perfect harmony and relationship with each other.” He then transitions to discussing one of God’s

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sacred institutions, that of the f­ amily. He asks, “What are the members of the ­family?” The students respond in unison: “The husband.” Tackett draws a matching circle and writes “­father” slowly in it. He pauses as he turns back to the students, who say, “The wife.” He writes “wife” on the board, and then turns back to the students who say in unison, “­Children” or “Kids.” He then draws lines between t­ hese figures, showing a symmetry between the two circles, symbolizing the triune nature of God and the ­family as also containing its own triune nature, each with an embedded hierarchy. Tackett turns to the students and asks, “When Jesus was praying to the f­ ather he said that he and the ­father ­were what?” The students reply: “One.” “In­ter­est­ing,” Tackett responds, and continues, “The wife submits to her husband. . . . ​The son submits to the ­father. Now, let me stop. My guess is that at this point we could prob­ably stop and recognize that when I say the word ‘submission’ that is what, Lena?” Tackett addresses one of the students in the room: “A negative word, is it not?” Lena responds slowly, “It is.” But Tackett explains that submission “in the triune nature of God” is “glorious.” He says it is the world—­meaning the flesh and the devil—­that has “distorted it and made it ugly.”36 Instead of seeing in­equality in this model, Tackett describes this hierarchical model as embodying “perfect unity. Perfect relationships. Perfect equality. Roles and authority and submission. What an incredible social institution.” By linking this relationship of authority and submission to both the patriarchal f­ amily and to God, he frames this f­ amily structure as sacred. This relational model rooted in submission and authority provides the framework for all social institutions and relationships in this worldview. For example, the leader’s guide provided by Focus describes the sphere of l­ abor as ordered on biblical relationships, citing Ephesians 6:5–9, which says that slaves should obey their masters. The guide states: “God has granted the stewardship of His material goods to o­ wners; and t­ hese o­ wners are in turn accountable to Him for the use of His ‘stuff’ and responsible for the welfare and productivity of the workers who operate ­under their direction and authority.” The ethical world described in this worldview is, then, one preeminently dedicated to defending hierarchies—­hierarchies rooted in the nuclear f­ amily—­and God is said to work only through t­ hese hierarchies. Throughout the series, Tackett repeatedly returns to this hierarchy based in the f­ amily. In week ten, “The American Experiment: Stepping Stones,” this worldview is framed within an explic­itly Christian nationalist lens, one with decidedly racial overtones. H ­ ere Tackett describes seeing a series of

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paintings in the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C., with the paintings containing a message that God takes a special interest in the nation. The first painting is The Landing of Columbus, portraying a conquering Columbus planting a flag on what is likely Hispaniola, claiming it for Spain. In describing this painting, Tackett is narrating a racial origin story of the Amer­i­cas. Through framing Columbus as the first ­bearer of Chris­tian­ity to the Amer­i­cas, he narrates the colonization that ensued as godly work. While the historical rec­ord is clear that Columbus engaged in extreme acts of vio­lence, Tackett describes him as having “suffered greatly at the hands of historical revisionism.” Instead of describing Columbus as serving as an agent of colonization and genocide, Tackett revives a long-­standing story that Columbus was working for God. He continues, “Christopher believed that providentially he had been given the name Christ-­opher, which means one who bears Christ. His purpose has been rewritten. Why?” he asks, without waiting for an answer, but implying it is the dev­il’s work. Next, Tackett talks about the painting The Baptism of Pocahontas, which depicts a head-­ bowed Pocahontas in a virgin-­white shroud, kneeling in the ­middle of a church. She is surrounded by white colonists elevated in pews above her, and half-­naked First Nations p­ eople in the shadows below. The painting depicts perfectly the colonial narrative of civilizing indigenous ­people through Chris­tian­ity, while sidelining the genocide upon which this narrative rests. Tackett tells us that this is another story that has been subject to historical revisionism. The final painting Tackett discusses is described as “this beautiful painting of the pilgrims,” The Landing of the Pilgrims. In this painting a large book of scripture is open in the center of a group of Pilgrims, who form a half-­moon shape around the book. All eyes are ­either cast down in prayer or up to heaven. A rainbow shines in the background. Again, we are told this is a history being rewritten. Tackett explains that growing up in Idaho he was taught that the United States was a secular country, but that ­these paintings helped him to see that this was a lie. He tells his audience, “All of t­ hese memorial stones ­were profoundly Christian!” He explains that they show that Amer­i­ca was not formed as a secular country, but one intimately connected to God. Tackett portrayed t­ hese paintings as evidence of God’s involvement with Americans since the nation’s inception, while each painting was only commissioned by Congress in the mid-­nineteenth ­century. Together ­these paintings tell a racial story about the founding of the U.S. settler state. Tackett’s exaltation

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of Columbus seems especially cynical. In Hispaniola alone, nearly all of the Taino indigenous occupants w ­ ere killed through disease, enslavement, and murder within thirty years of Columbus’s first landing t­ here. This type of cele­bration of Columbus relies on the narrative of manifest destiny, retelling a story of genocide and conquest as one of divine w ­ ill. Throughout the telling of the American story, the history of institutional racism is ignored, so much so that the leader’s guide states in bold italics: “In the late 1800s, Amer­i­ca began a long journey away from its founding beliefs and princi­ples.” This statement refers to the growing prevalence of Darwinism and the emerging secularization of law and education, but in the context of U.S. race relations it seems appalling to say that the United States began losing moral ground ­after the abolition of slavery. ­There is actually no mention of slavery in the hour-­long video on Amer­i­ca’s special relationship with God. However, Tackett does mention it in a short postscript video. ­There he states that Amer­i­ca began with the right foundations. “Of course,” he continues, “we had inherited the rot of slavery, but it was ­these foundations that helped us to understand that that was an injustice.” The overall lesson during this week’s DVD session is the claim that Amer­i­ca is an exceptional nation, that p­ eople attempting to follow God’s desires founded the nation, and that its government is inspired by biblical directives. During a montage in the video a thirteen-­year-­old named Kyle states, “If we sit around and try to be peaceful with every­one, eventually someone is g­ oing to strike us and our city on the hill is g­ oing to fall.” This is the warning of the video, that the world needs the American nation as a strong power inspired by God, that the American nation is a force for God in the world. This telling of the U.S. story of colonization, genocide, and slavery as one of divine inspiration is part of a white racial tradition, in line with the popu­ lar Eu­ro­pean American Exodus narrative that frames the American nation as a new Israel. This contrasts with nineteenth-­century African Americans, who Eddie Glaude shows framed the nation as stained by the practice of slavery.37 While African American and Native American Christians have challenged the racist Exodus narrative for centuries, it remains popu­lar within conservative Protestantism and is revived in the Truth Proj­ect videos. The Truth Proj­ect’s resolute refusal to acknowledge the centrality of racism in the history of the United States is rooted in and productive of what phi­los­o­phers Charles Mills, Linda Martin Alcoff, and ­others call an “epistemology of ignorance.38 This manufactured ignorance produces

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an ideological understanding of U.S. history that requires a dismissal of the racial horrors at the foundation of the U.S. settler state. This telling also shows the enmeshment of this Christian nationalist narrative and racial ignorance. The worldview taught in the Truth Proj­ect begins with the ­family as a foundational hierarchy, and then builds a symbolic order around this basic unit that is linked to a nationalist proj­ect. The Truth Proj­ect’s interpretation of the triune nature of God as a foundational hierarchy that defines familial, gendered, and economic relations is framed as the foundation of this broader racial history of the United States. This linkage shows the ways that a vision of Christian nationalism understands the f­ amily as a foundation for the social order, one facilitated by Christian media.39

The Strict F­ ather Theology and Heterosexuality I found that this emphasis on ­fathers and the nuclear ­family often serves as a foundation for evangelical opposition to LGBTQ rights. I explore this further in chapter 5, but want to show h ­ ere the ways that f­ amily hierarchies are taken up to oppose LGBTQ rights. An example comes from Vernon Burke, who identifies as having left homo­sexuality and works for an evangelical parachurch organ­ization in Colorado Springs. I saw him give a talk to a group of young evangelical college students where he described ­going from being a gay-­identified young man to a Christian youth pastor and eventually meeting the w ­ oman who is now his wife, who used to work as a prostitute. Over the course of his testimony he shared a slide show featuring pictures of his marriage and then his c­ hildren, and at the end of the story his wife and ­children actually walked into the room, as evidence of his transformation, having—­unknown to the audience—­been waiting in the next room. Vernon said, “Sometimes we worry, you know, ‘I am so dark! You [God] ­will never be able to use me,’ but God puts p­ eople around us who help us achieve our dream.” And in Vernon’s testimony the dream was leaving homo­sexuality, of joining a heterosexual marriage, and having c­ hildren. In the room that day with dozens of young evangelicals, Vernon’s arm around his wife and his sons sitting next to him provided proof of this change. ­A fter this speech Vernon played a short video for the students that was meant to demonstrate the extent of God’s fatherly love. The video told the story of Dick Hoyt, whose son, Rick, was born with severe disabilities

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limiting his ability to control his muscles. When Rick was fi­nally able to communicate as a teenager by means of a computerized device, he asked his ­father to help him train for a five-­mile charity run, with his ­father pushing his wheelchair. They completed the run, and eventually Rick asked his ­father to run a marathon and then an Ironman Triathlon. During the next thirty years, Dick Hoyt trained as a competitive runner, teaching himself to swim to participate in an Ironman Triathalon where he pulls Rick on a raft during the swim portion. Together they have completed hundreds of races. The video was inspirational, filled with moving worship ­music and shots of the Hoyts ­running across beautiful scenery highlighting Dick’s anguished expressions as he pushes his body to its limits ­running while pushing his son in his wheelchair. At one point in the video Dick tells Rick, “I want to make your dreams come true!” Immediately ­after showing this video as a repre­sen­ta­tion of a f­ ather’s love for his son, meant to represent God’s love for ­every Christian, Vernon played a short promotional clip from the Love Won Out conference, which at the time brought together Christian leaders to teach how homo­sexuality can be cured through counseling and godly relationships. The experience of sitting through the speech and films was dizzying for me. Vernon seemed to take such enormous leaps, ­going from his own journey in “overcoming homo­sexuality” to his love for his ­children and wife, to a secular, deeply moving video about a ­father’s love for his disabled son, to an evangelical message that gay, lesbian, and trans identities can be cured. Yet tying Vernon’s pre­sen­ta­tion together is an interwoven story where God and f­ athers blur, where we are to see in Dick Hoyt’s dedication to his son God’s enduring love for each of us, where God can help us overcome enormous obstacles, including same-­sex attraction. This secular message about a ­father’s commitment to his son is then embedded within an evangelical narrative about God’s enduring love for his ­children. “Have faith,” Vernon told his audience, “and God ­will take you to where you need to go.” Central to this discussion, more overtly than in most evangelical discourse about the ­family, is the crucial role heterosexuality plays in this patriarchal, religious order. Vernon’s pre­sen­ta­tion repeatedly conveyed the message: God ­will shelter you and love you and help you overcome all of your obstacles just like a good dad, so long as your journey is a heterosexual one. Another example comes from an Exodus International conference I attended in 2010 as part of my research. The conference brought together around one thousand Christians for a weekend with the message that p­ eople

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can leave homo­sexuality. Although the conference was nondenominational, white evangelicals made up the vast majority of attendees and leaders of the organ­ization, and worship sessions at the conference drew from the regular canon of evangelical worship m ­ usic. Jumbotrons at the conference broadcast the lyr­ics of the worship bands, but many participants already knew the song lyr­ics from their home church bands. The second night’s keynote speaker, Ted Mallon, a former football player, gave a speech entitled “What Did Your ­Father Name You?” He began with a personal story about his own f­ ather, who died when Mallon was young. His m ­ other remarried an abusive man, so instead of growing up with his heroic and kind biological ­father, he grew up with a distant and angry stepfather who left emotional scars. When Mallon himself had c­ hildren, he also became an angry f­ ather. He stated: “Then one day God told me: ‘­You’ve learned to hear my voice through the broken voice of your stepfather.’ I thought that God was judging me and angry with me. When I asked God why I was mean to my c­ hildren, he said, ‘That’s how you talk to yourself.’ ” In his talk Mallon lays out a clear order where his relationship with God can only be understood through his relationship with his stepfather, which in turn influenced how he behaved as a ­father. He felt judged by his stepfather, and so he assumed his Heavenly F ­ ather was also judging him. In order to ­really understand God, Mallon spoke of the need to heal from ­those feelings of rejection and judgment. ­A fter establishing the relationship between self-­worth, ­fathers, and God, Mallon moved to the focus of his talk: identity. This moved from emphasizing individual emotional life to designating certain identities as Christian and godly, and o­ thers as negative. He framed this through the meta­phor of ­fathers needing to give their ­children a “name,” meaning a valued identity and place of belonging in the world. If your ­father was absent, abusive, or other­wise failed in this pro­cess, Mallon said, then you ­will not be able to fully understand God’s love for you. You ­will need and seek affirmation elsewhere. You ­will be oriented to this world, the flesh, as opposed to the divine order, and thus ­will focus on finding an identity also away from God. Although the talk focused on sexual identity, Mallon, who identifies as “ever-­straight”—­the term used within the ex-­gay movement to designate individuals who have never “strug­gled with homo­sexuality”—­continued to speak from his own experience in seeking his identity through sports. For Mallon, the name he identified with was “football player,” meaning that he sought his identity in sports and not in God. He went on to say, “I needed

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to be successful to feel worthy,” and tried to prove his self-­worth through football. He then connected his need for an identity in sports success to ­those who seek an identity in the LGBTQ community. He continued: “How about for t­ hose ­children who are abused and then they get confused: am I a boy or a girl? The e­ nemy [the devil] comes along and gives you a new name, ‘­you’re gay! And you can have a new community.’ But, I’ll tell you something. It’s just as much a sin to be named a football player as it is to be named gay. . . . ​ The church says, ‘Get over your sexual sin,’ but what we r­ eally need is to have a new name! We are adolescents u­ nless we are given a new name by our ­father.” His speech closed by asking every­one who did not experience a loving earthly ­father—­for anyone who needed a new name—to come forward. Around 80 ­percent of the thousand attendees did, flooding the stage and the front of the auditorium with individuals on bent knees praying and weeping. Mallon then stated, as he raised his arms out to the hundreds gathered around him, himself standing in for their ­father and for God, “Your name is no longer about your brokenness, about your sexual sin—­gay.” Mallon spoke to the crowd gathered now at his feet. “Your name is now ‘beloved.’ ” As the tears, shaking, and weeping of so many attendees showed, this message devastated at least a dozen p­ eople ­there that night. The transition into worship ­music that eve­ning had many ­people crying. ­There was much at work in this talk and the messages about God, ­fathers, identity, and sexuality are central themes across the evangelical spaces of this research. Mallon emphasized a link between ­fathers, God, and Christian identity. In the speech, Mallon emphasized that God has provided all of his followers with a beloved identity, but this message is also communicated through f­ athers, who through abuse, absence, neglect, or their own flaws can teach their ­children insecurity instead. The groupness of this ritual, through linking emotional catharsis to a message about God as the ultimate loving ­father, allowed for a par­tic­u­lar form of collective effervescence, inviting visceral displays of emotion that helped individuals to internalize and cement ­these ideas about sexual identity and God. A strategy of this emotional cultivation was asking ­people to reflect on what their own ­fathers taught them about love, identity, and belonging. Laced throughout Mallon’s message is the theme that God loves like a perfect ­father, but his ac­cep­tance does not extend to t­ hose who identify as gay, to t­ hose whose identity precludes their membership in the patriarchal f­ amily. Diana, another presenter from the same Exodus International conference, led a workshop titled “The Roots of Lesbianism” and spoke of similar

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themes. The workshop focused on the importance of the f­ ather in shaping a child’s gender identity. She stated, “Dad’s role is to individuate child from parent. If he is not speaking into that chaos [of gender identity development] then this d­ oesn’t happen.” She thus conflated God’s role in Genesis (speaking into the chaos of the world to create life) with a ­father’s role in providing his ­children with a gendered identity. The historicity of Genesis is thus continually re­created in father/child relationships. She went on to argue that God gave men more power than w ­ omen, ­because men have the power to name. F ­ athers ­here are framed as responsible for ensuring that c­ hildren develop a strong gender identity, and the gendering of God as male shapes an understanding that ­fathers also have more authority.

Conclusion: Sacred Familism In my observations of pastoral messages, Bible study groups, and individual attempts to live out a godly life, I found a consistent theme of seeing the hierarchy of the patriarchal ­family as the center of evangelical practice. In Christian media, and sometimes in pastoral messages, I saw this understanding of the f­ amily as a foundation for Christian practice linked to a national story. As Del Tackett states, hierarchy is seen within conservative evangelicalism not only as central to this religious order but as a link to God, a central requirement in Christian practice, and a defining ele­ment of Christian relationships. Indeed, enacting this hierarchy links one not only into a ­family form that is understood as preferential, but also into a divine order established by God. Seeing this ­family form as also the foundation for the nation brings this divine order squarely into the realm of politics, so that defending this ­family in policy can then be understood as stemming from God’s directives. With the increasing secularization of U.S. cultural institutions, defending the patriarchal ­family has become a way to define evangelical culture as unique and contrasting to U.S. public culture. As in the Truth Proj­ ect, patriarchy within the home serves as a foundation for both a religious order and a nationalist narrative. As evidenced in some of the discussion in this chapter, this emphasis on ­fathers and families in this religious order often reinforces opposition to LGBTQ policies and p­ eople, which I turn to in the next chapter.

4

Same-­Sex Attraction and the Limits of God’s Love

Since Anita Bryant’s antihomosexuality campaign in the late 1970s garnered national attention and a theatrical pie in the face (delivered by a gay rights activist at a public rally), Religious Right activists have worked to challenge ­every extension of civil rights for individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgendered.1 From passing statewide and national Defense of Marriage Acts against same-­sex marriage to attempts to replace National Coming Out Day with a National Coming Out of Homo­sexuality Day to decades-­long campaigns against LGBTQ foster parents, white evangelicals have led forty years of organ­izing against civil rights for sexual minorities. And while the Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) extended the l­egal right to marry to same-­sex ­couples across the United States, white evangelicals continue to lead opposition to LGBTQ rights, now largely through so-­called religious freedom legislation securing the right of Christians to discriminate based on sexual and gender orientation, attempts to limit LGBTQ adoption, and opposing antidiscrimination mea­ sures. In addition to po­liti­cal organ­izing, widespread practices of ostracism of LGBTQ Christians and the ­family and community members who support them continues across evangelical Amer­i­ca. While I do not recall ever hearing an overt reference to LGBTQ issues from a pastor in the pulpit 66

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during my research, many told me this does happen. Yet even without pastoral messages, the focus on limiting LGBTQ rights in Christian media and evangelical politics has created a belief held by many evangelicals that it is impossible to be both gay and a Christian, so that in common discussions Christians and queers are discussed as competing groups with competing interests.2 This means that many evangelicals who experience same-­sex attraction come to believe, and often are told, that they have to choose between ­these identities that are seen as contradictory. In this chapter I explore stories of evangelicals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans, or who experience same-­sex sexual attractions but work to limit t­ hese desires, to show the multiple ways that ideas about the ­family, gender, and sexuality work to structure lived evangelicalism. In getting to know lesbian, gay, and trans evangelicals, and evangelicals who identify as having left homo­sexuality,3 it became clear that many believe God’s fatherly love extends only as far as heterosexuality reigns. Although I was often told that God loves LGBTQ p­ eople—in that God loves all sinners—­many still believe that p­ eople who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans do not belong in God’s kingdom, or cannot achieve an intimate relationship with God.4 This c­ auses widespread suffering, reflected in multiple harrowing stories of shame, guilt, and spiritual alienation that evangelicals experience when they grapple with what they often call unwanted same-­sex attraction. It is also made vis­i­ble in the multiple relationships lost by p­ eople who come out as LGBTQ, and by their parents or allies who come out in support of LGBTQ rights. Through hearing numerous stories of relationships with parents lost, of ostracism from church communities, and of experiences of spiritual alienation, I came to understand that challenging heterosexuality becomes a mea­sure of the limits of God’s kingdom within evangelicalism.5 Studying this issue shows that the evangelical focus on the ­family in religious life is entwined with personal suffering for ­those who cannot or do not ascribe to exclusionary heterosexuality and cisgendered status. Focus on the F ­ amily in par­tic­u­lar has played a key role in ­these politics nationally, especially in their work in opposing same-­sex marriage. The organ­ization has produced countless examples of radio, print, and video content encouraging Christians to vote against LGBTQ rights and has donated millions to Defense of Marriage Act campaigns. It is common to hear advertisements against “Bathroom Bills” on Christian radio denouncing legislation protecting the rights of transgender p­ eople. The language has changed

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somewhat since Jerry Falwell railed against “sodomites” and the “homosexual agenda” in the 1980s. Yet a through line remains across forty years of white evangelical po­liti­cal engagements opposing LGBTQ rights.6 In some cases, the language has remained the same. Franklin Graham, current president of Liberty University and son of Billy Graham, in 2014 celebrated the limiting of LGBTQ rights in Rus­sia ­under Putin, asking, “­Isn’t it sad, though, that Amer­i­ca’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—­protecting ­children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda—­ Russia’s standard is higher than our own?”7 A therapeutic movement focused on supporting Christians with unwanted same-­sex attraction (widely referred to as SSA) formed in the 1970s in the United States and grew into an expansive, international network with residential treatment programs, conferences, support groups, and celebrity authors and speakers. Collectively, this movement worked to reframe same-­sex attraction as a result of trauma and an incomplete gender identity and as something that can be changed. Since 2012, many of the groups and organ­izations making up this movement in the United States have closed, although much of the movement continues to grow inter­ nationally.8 But the prob­lem this movement emerged to address—­t hat many Christians experience same-­sex attraction as incompatible with Chris­tian­ity—continues. I began to study this movement when many ­people I met in Colorado Springs suggested that I attend an Exodus International conference to better understand what was often described to me as a biblical approach to sexuality. While several scholars have studied the ex-­gay movement,9 this is the first study that explores this movement as one part of a larger evangelical religious culture. This is impor­tant, as most of the leaders of the movement come from this tradition and its key institutions. For example, Focus on the ­Family launched the ex-­gay conference Love Won Out in 1998 and hosted the conference ­until it was sold to Exodus International in 2009. I found that rather than being a unique therapeutic movement, the central themes of the ex-­gay culture are shared by the broader evangelical world, specifically the importance of gender and the heterosexual f­ amily in defining religious life. H ­ ere I focus specifically on the role of gender in the ex-­gay movement and how this reflects the broader evangelical focus on the f­ amily. The movement ­adopted the idea that each individual has an essential God-­given gendered identity that is meant to blossom into a heterosexual identity at puberty ­under the right conditions. Nurtured by a loving heterosexual

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f­ amily, this essential gender identity becomes the foundation for adult evangelical subjects, and is meant to provide individuals with a secure and confident identity rooted in one’s masculinity or femininity. The heterosexual ­family becomes both the foundation of this identity and the end goal. Through excavating ideas found in this movement I seek to show how it reflects t­ hese broader themes about the f­ amily in evangelicalism. This chapter also shows how within a dominant evangelical ethos God’s love—or at least his acceptance—is ­imagined as only flowing through heterosexuality.10 I ­will argue that this emphasis on heterosexuality has much to do with racial history, specifically with the importance of sexual and gender norms in dominant white culture. Within this religious culture, prioritizing heterosexuality is understood as a purely theological issue, one disconnected from po­liti­cal and racial history. But the anti-­LGBT po­liti­cal movement and the ex-­gay movement have drawn from predominantly white evangelical traditions and have been dominated by white evangelicals themselves. Linking this con­temporary emphasis on heterosexuality and the f­ amily with its historical antecedent shows a continuity of norms around whiteness that emerged a­ fter World War II and continue to shape this religious subculture. For instance, in 2010 when I attended the Exodus International conference, nearly the entire leadership structure, presenters, and audience of the conference ­were white. ­Here I also explore the ways ­either supporting LGBTQ issues or identifying as an LGBTQ person becomes a primary test for the bound­aries of this i­ magined paternal love. Many Christians have lost church positions and relationships with f­ amily members over their support for LGBTQ issues, demonstrating that the evangelical Christian community is ­imagined as extending over t­ hose who also commit to the possibility of joining a patriarchal ­family. Many LGBTQ Christians or Christians who experience unwanted same-­sex attraction understand this as a rejection of their very identities. Importantly, not all forms of Chris­tian­ity have the same position regarding LGBTQ issues, not all denominations are opposed to sexual diversity,11 and many Christians experience no conflicts between LGBTQ and Christian identities.12 Many conservative Protestants who experience same-­sex attraction join liberal or reconciling Christian congregations or join the Metropolitan Community Church, a church formed in Los Angeles in 1968 specifically to conduct outreach into the gay community.13 A number of congregations have made statements and ­adopted policies welcoming

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Christians who identify as gay and lesbian into their congregations, yet evangelicalism as a ­whole has maintained a po­liti­cal and ethical stand against same-­sex relationships. ­There are impor­tant ways that race shapes t­ hese sexual politics. In the U.S. context, sexual norms and racial norms developed together, so that whiteness and heterosexuality ­were linked and mutually reinforcing.14 Sexual politics have been central to anti-­Black racism, as Patricia Hill Collins has elaborated.15 This is the history explored in The Heart of Whiteness: Nor­ mal Sexuality and Race in Amer­i­ca, 1880–1940, where Julian Car­ter writes, “By 1945 . . . ​impor­tant ele­ments of white racial identity w ­ ere conventionally communicated through discreet depictions of normal sexuality.”16 A hallmark of this normalization was “the ability to construct and teach white racial meaning without appearing to do so.”17 Normality, as in the “reproductive heterosexuality of ‘normal’ married ­couples . . . ​made it pos­si­ble to discuss race and sexuality without engaging the relations of power in which they ­were embedded and through which they acquired much of their relevance.”18 Normality discourse is in some ways a continuation of civilizational discourse, as ­these terms ­were sometimes used interchangeably.19 The power of the newly emerged normality discourse is that it “appeared to be po­liti­cally neutral in large part ­because it so often framed its racially loaded dreams for the reproduction of white civilization in the language of romantic love.”20 The language of normalization helped to expand the category of whiteness to include previously excluded Eu­ro­pean groups, so long as they adhered to t­hese sexual and familial norms around “marriage, love, and babies.”21 Thus, in the post–­World War II context the ­family emerges as a saturated symbol of race and gender, although no longer explic­itly tied to civilizational or racial proj­ects, but instead as representing a normal way of life, expressed through the language of ­children, love, and romance. The understandings of sexuality embedded in con­temporary white evangelicalism are inseparable from t­ hese nineteenth-­and twentieth-­century ideas connecting whiteness and normality through ideas of the heterosexual ­family.

The Ex-­Gay Movement What can broadly be called the ex-­gay movement formed in response to gay rights achievements. In 1976, two years ­after the American Psychiatric

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Association removed homo­sexuality from its cata­logue of ­mental disorders (then the DSM-­II) due to pressure from gay activists, Exodus International formed in California. During my research I met a founding member of Exodus, a short, broad-­shouldered, slightly effeminate man of Eu­ro­pean descent in his late sixties with cropped white hair. He handed out fliers at an Exodus conference and wore an Exodus T-­shirt. With a jovial grin he described the first Exodus conference as a group of gay Christian men who did not want to be gay any more. They got together to pray, and began to craft a national organ­ization to help p­ eople in similar predicaments. Over the next thirty-­six years Exodus grew into an international organ­ization with over 150 chapters globally. Between 1976 and 2013, the year the president and board shut the organ­ization down, Exodus or­ga­nized a yearly conference that eventually attracted around one thousand attendees annually, each paying around $1,000 in tuition and housing to attend the conference. Exodus was a nondenominational Christian organ­ization, but it primarily drew white evangelical Christians,22 and the annual conference offered worship, prayer, and ­music similar to that of most large evangelical ser­vices. To study the ex-­gay movement, I completed interviews with twenty adults who have ­either left homo­sexuality or who identify as ex-­ex-­gay (­people who have participated in the ex-­gay movement but then have come out as gay, lesbian, and so on) and conducted additional interviews with counselors and parents of Christians who strug­gle with same-­sex attraction. I also attended an ongoing local support group for “strugglers” and attended two Gay Christian Network conferences in 2016 and 2017. As lesbian, gay, transgendered, and queer activism has changed laws and cultural repre­sen­ta­tions, so too have Christian organ­izations’ efforts at advocating and promoting conversion to heterosexuality grown in sophistication. And just as complex new identities and language have formed to define all t­ hings queer, signaled by the ever-­growing acronym LGBTTIQQ2S,23 so too have new identities and terminology emerged in what can be described as the ex-­gay movement. This network of conferences, support groups, and lit­er­a­ture created a substantial subculture. When I attended the Exodus conference in 2010 I learned quickly that I had to develop a new lexicon in order to understand the workings of the conference and this subculture. ­People drop the term “SSA” frequently to refer to same-­sex attraction, refer to themselves as “strugglers” (struggling with same-­sex attraction) or “ever-­ straight” (never having experienced same-­sex attraction) or “in lifestyle” (identifying as gay, bisexual, or lesbian). Strugglers (particularly w ­ omen) also

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frequently use words like “enmeshed” to describe negative aspects of their former same-­sex relationships, using therapeutic language commonly employed by Exodus speakers to interpret their previous experiences and relationships. The term “ex-­gay” is actually controversial among Christians who have left homo­sexuality. Many do not want to be defined by “something they are not” or by their sexuality. The president and board of Exodus abruptly shut down the organ­ization in 2013, a­ fter an emotional meeting with participants in the Gay Christian Network with many former Exodus participants sharing stories of how their participation in the movement caused emotional harm. Allan Chambers, the final president of Exodus, made a statement of apology to the gay community prior to shutting the organ­ization and admitted, despite his ongoing admonitions other­wise, that his own same-­sex attractions had never gone away. This sudden shift prior to the shutdown reversed a thirty-­six-­year history. The context of the ex-­gay movement thus remains in flux. As I show h ­ ere, the complex position evangelical Christians with unwanted same-­sex attraction find themselves in is not easily resolved. Even the Gay Christian Network conference divides attendees between Side A and Side B. Both sides believe that Christians should accept individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, but Side B Christians believe that ­these ­people should commit to a lifetime of celibacy, believing that queer identities should be accepted within the broader Christian community but that queer sex should not.24 ­There are mixed perspectives on trans identity in this movement. Side A Christians believe in full ac­cep­tance of LGBTQ p­ eople. When the ex-­gay movement formed in the mid-1970s, Exodus and other ministries began to frame same-­sex attraction not just as sin, but as a product of trauma. Utilizing a variety of tools from secular psy­chol­ogy, this therapeutic movement began to frame same-­sex attraction as a disease or addiction. This allowed the movement to then frame itself as focused on healing, and the movement increasingly understood itself not only as teaching ­people to sin less, but understood itself as offering psychological healing. A popu­lar Christian therapist and author on female same-­sex attraction, Jolene Lofton, told me in an interview, “This is not about recovering from homo­sexuality, but from trauma.” Outsiders, she continued, do not understand this movement. “They think ­we’re trying to change ­people, but ­we’re not! W ­ e’re trying to work on deeper needs, and then their sexual desires eventually change.” Throughout my research on this movement, counselors

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and participants attempted to downplay the centrality of sexual conversion. Like Lofton, they framed their work and participation in terms of emotional healing. And, as in the dominant evangelical culture that shapes this ex-­gay movement, the focus is on normative gender roles that are seen as opposite, complementary forces. Indeed, in this therapeutic movement, embodying gender norms—in the form of an au­then­tic, gendered interiority—­becomes both a sign of healing and a requirement for salvation.

The Healing Power of Gender Tina Edwards is an artist I met at a young adult Bible study potluck while she visited friends in Colorado Springs. In her late twenties, with light brown hair and pale skin, Tina lived and worked with a diverse group of artists, whereas most of the evangelicals I knew in Colorado Springs lived in what they called a “Christian ­bubble,” working and socializing in Christian-­ dominant communities. I was curious how Tina experienced living in this liberal culture. Tina and I met for dinner at a downtown Italian restaurant, and she told me over Caesar salads about her experiences playing the standup bass and traveling with primarily non-­Christian musicians. She also told me that she had been in a same-­sex relationship in college and, as she put it, “experienced a lot of darkness and self-­loathing” b­ ecause of it. She was raised as a Christian and believed that same-­sex relationships ­were wrong, but was attracted to this friend in college, despite “a voice” telling her not to engage in the relationship. She told me of the first time she visited her f­ uture girlfriend: “I went into her dorm room and it felt dark. It w ­ asn’t the posters on the wall or the feng shui; t­ here ­were demonic spirits in the room. The girl suffered from significant self-­doubt. Her ­father had never paid any attention to her.” She continued, “Even though I felt so much joy that night, the voice is not always fun to listen to, b­ ecause sometimes it nags.” She had already established an identity as a Christian, and this internal voice nagged at her to break up the relationship. She understood this internal voice as God speaking to her. She eventually broke up this relationship ­under the mentorship of another Christian w ­ oman who taught her to see the relationship as unhealthy and co-­dependent. Tina said that she now sees homo­ sexuality as about “­people with holes, that is what homo­sexuality is.” Tina never told me ­whether she had attended an ex-­gay ministry or if her mentor had training in this area, but many of the themes in her story are represented

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throughout the ex-­gay movement. Tina’s story also shows how many evangelicals experience same-­sex attraction as something to be ashamed of and something to squelch. This message is often reinforced by other evangelicals, in this case Tina’s mentor, who encouraged her to end the relationship and to understand it as an unhealthy and ungodly pursuit. Through continuing to circulate ideas that same-­sex relationships and identities are hollow, incomplete, and unsatisfying, ­these messages are internalized, even as ­these experiences and relationships may bring individuals personal joy and connection. ­Later that year when I attended the Exodus conference in Southern California I began to understand Tina’s story better, particularly through attending a workshop entitled “The Roots of Lesbianism.” A twenty-­seven-­ year-­old Jodi Foster look-­alike whom I w ­ ill call Diana Dickens led the workshop. Diana described herself as an ever-­straight tomboy who likes football and sports. She began by saying that no one is completely heterosexual or homosexual, that ­women’s sexuality is fluid, and that several issues might lead to female same-­sex desire. At the center of this work is an embrace of what she described as “biblical femininity,” which is distinct from cultural femininity. She defined this femininity as a “helpmeet” in relation to male “leaders.” W ­ omen are naturally “receivers,” Diana told us, something that is inscribed in female physiology, in the breasts and the uterus. Reconnecting with this biblical femininity, then, was offered as a way to heal from same-­sex attraction. She insisted that godly femininity is not about dressing a certain way, but about being and feeling a certain way, an understanding emphasizing interiority over appearance. Diana then distributed a worksheet on gender identity development. In the center of the worksheet was a line with arrows pointing to the left and right indicating that every­one falls somewhere on a spectrum between homosexual and heterosexual. Stick figures representing a ­mother, ­father, and ­daughter stood in a spatial hierarchy below this line, with each figure below the ­father taking up less space. The link between this normative f­ amily and where one ends up on the sexuality spectrum, we are told, is determined by one’s gender identity. Diana told us that the f­ ather is meant to love and re­spect his d­ aughter, to tell her that she is beautiful and worthy. A f­ ather needs to offer his d­ aughter protection, to teach her, “I ­don’t need to be tough ­because this man ­will protect me.” A ­father needs to treat her as “other than” him, as embodying gendered difference.

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Heterosexuality in this movement is presented not as natu­ral state of being, but as something of an achievement and a pinnacle of health.25 In this understanding of sexuality, a strong gender identity is required to develop a heterosexual identity. Diana instructed participants on how each stage of gender development is needed for a child to develop a healthy—­ meaning heterosexual—­sexuality. She listed a number of potential prob­ lems that can disrupt this pro­cess, including a submissive or too dominant ­father, a dominant or too submissive ­mother, divorce, abuse, early parental death, failure to bond with one’s same-­sex peers, and so on. Familial relationships h ­ ere are the cause of one’s sexual identity. Diana went on, “God gave us a love of ­things we find mysterious. This is why boys ­don’t want to be in friend zones with girls, ­because they are no longer mysterious. A lesbian feels the draw of mystery to other girls since she h ­ asn’t connected to her mom, so the mystery draw is to other w ­ omen. When puberty hits, hormones start raging, and two broken ­people find each other and this is eroticized.” In the Q and A following the workshop, one middle-­aged ­women stood up to ask, “My m ­ other died when I was eight. Do you think this could have led to my same-­sex attraction?” The answer was “possibly.” Janelle Hallman, the leading expert on unwanted female same-­sex attraction, commonly demonstrates this pro­cess in workshop pre­sen­ta­tions using building blocks. As she talks through vari­ous developmental milestones that must occur for girls to achieve what is deemed a healthy gender identity, she places wooden blocks on the podium to make a pyramid shape. She then dramatically knocks them over, with blocks scattering to the floor, leaving only two or three on the podium as she explains that this is a lesbian gender identity: it is undeveloped. ­These ideas of same-­sex relationships as hollow and unhealthy, and, in turn, of normative gender identity as a requirement for psychological health circulate throughout ex-­gay discourse. The work of applying t­ hese strategies to one’s own life and narrative is a proj­ect many are e­ ager to pursue. Take for example an ex-­gay man I met in Colorado Springs. John Thompson was transformed by his encounter with the ex-­gay movement and credits a change in his gender identity as providing a change in his sexual identity. He grew up in Southern California and told me that his parents w ­ ere very involved in a conservative church, saying, “It’s almost like I was born into it.” He participated in a child evangelism club and remembers giving himself to God for the first time when he was four or five years old. The one time in his life

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when he questioned his faith was in his late twenties, and it was then that he began to be involved in same-­sex relationships. He had previously seen a Christian counselor to work on overcoming his same-­sex attractions and was torn between his sexual desires and his religious beliefs. When he started frequenting gay bars and dating men, he also began to question his faith. I found that this was a common experience articulated by evangelicals with unwanted same-­sex attraction: experiencing same-­sex desires leads to feelings of a crisis and attempts at ­either diminishing their sexual desires or feeling they need to leave Chris­tian­ity. When this does not work they often begin to question their faith. For John, questioning his faith and experimenting with same-­sex sexuality and gay culture happened in unison, but he was always apprehensive about leaving Chris­tian­ity. It never occurred to him that he could be gay and a Christian. Instead, as he started to tell ­people about his same-­sex attractions, a young pastor told him about a conference called “Healing for the Homosexual,” and through this he learned about the ex-­gay movement. For John, ex-­gay resources w ­ ere the answer to his prayers. Eventually he participated in an ex-­gay support group, Homosexuals Anonymous, and other forms of therapy, and began to develop emotional tools to diminish his same-­sex desires. Th ­ ese therapeutic resources taught him to see his sexual attractions as rooted not in an innate sexual orientation, as in the popu­ lar LGBTQ movement, nor as a gateway to hell or an abomination, as in popu­lar Christian perspectives, but as based in unmet emotional needs rooted in his ­family of origin. For John, leaving homo­sexuality involved developing an understanding that his same-­sex attractions resulted from a need to connect emotionally with other men. He told me that before participating in Homosexuals Anonymous, he had never felt comfortable around men. He felt effeminate and shy, and came to see his desire for platonic male sociality as one of the c­ auses of his same-­sex attraction. Importantly, he learned to begin to see his same-­sex attractions as something having a cause, and thus open to solutions. This cause was found in an unformed gender identity, and shoring up his masculinity became a path out of homo­sexuality. John told me about several experiences that helped him to change his sexual attractions. He said he developed more close relationships with other men, where he was able to experience nonromantic, emotional intimacy with men, including living with heterosexual male roommates. Through this pro­cess he developed a new gender identity, allowing him to engage in

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homosocial relationships. He credits a shift in his gender identity as allowing him to shift his sexual attractions. He told me, “­Every week I’d be in a support group with three other guys. We’d pray together and keep each other accountable. And social stuff, g­ oing down to the beach, having barbecues together, where we’d have bonfires and drink beer. So yeah, living with healthy connection with other guys changed me.” He also began attending a more charismatic church, being prayed over by o­ thers, and developed a more personal relationship with God, what he describes as “listening to the Holy Spirit more.” Collectively, ­these led to changes in his sexual life; he told me he ­stopped ­going to gay bars and eventually broke his habits of using porn and even masturbating. “My relationships changed,” he went on. “Learning how to connect with other guys, my identity, my emotions, my heart, my w ­ hole faith went through a w ­ hole transformation pro­cess. Now I know that God is still moving ­today. I now know that God is my ­father too. I’d never known that kind of God before.” Structuring this narrative are two interlocking ideas: gay and Christian identities are incompatible, and same-­ sex attraction results from a weak gender identity. John frequently talked with pride about his own f­ amily—­his wife and c­ hildren—as sources of joy in his life, and signs of his commitment to Chris­tian­ity.

Undisciplined Disciplines and Therapeutic Gender The workshops, conferences, support groups, and media that make up this movement function as what anthropologist Charles Hirschkind calls “undisciplined disciplines.”26 They collectively seek to achieve the emotional and bodily training that allows individuals to achieve an au­then­tic Christian habitus. Hirschkind argues that “undisciplined disciplines play a far more pervasive role in shaping traditions, both religious and secular, than their more serious (rigorous and systematic) counter­parts.”27 While religious institutions cohere authority and often attempt systematic teachings, Hirschkind reminds us that the more informal modes of religious practice—­ such as the production and distribution of religious media—­influence religious subjects in significant ways. They accomplish this through molding and mobilizing the affective terrain; they train one’s emotions and dispositions to remain oriented to the religious universe. The tools used in this pro­cess are also taken from the broader evangelical culture. Ex-­gay therapeutic forms are steeped in a deeply Western

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therapeutic culture, where the self is understood in psychological terms, and childhood experiences and the Oedipal ­family are seen as giving shape to a subterranean psyche. ­These disciplines utilize written language, confession (through testimony), prayer, and worship as key sensory modalities that attach con­temporary corporeal experience to par­tic­u­lar religious histories. The undisciplined disciplines of the ex-­gay movement are effective ­because they blend the mediums with which con­temporary North Americans are familiar: a pop psy­chol­ogy focus of self-­help and healing infused with generic Freudian conceptions of the psyche as products of an Oedipal complex and a fascination with one’s f­ amily of origin.28 ­These messages are also distinctly evangelical. This framework offers the ­family as a foundation for both a biblical order and the gendered development of ­children. The work of this movement is to reframe certain childhood experiences and emotional histories within a specific ideology of affect and trauma. Th ­ ese technologies circulate through media (books, DVDs) and therapeutic encounters (conferences, support groups and small groups, and counseling sessions), and together they promise that internalizing ­these techniques w ­ ill impart a change in one’s desires. Diana Dickens, the workshop leader from the Exodus workshop, outlined one of t­ hese narrative strategies: find evidence in one’s f­ amily of origin of traumas, often covert, and frame them as leading to an incomplete gender identity. Part of this strategy involves understanding previous prob­lems in same-­sex relationships as stemming from psychological wounds from one’s childhood. I met many ­women through this work that describe their previous same-­sex relationships as “enmeshed,” shorthand for describing a co-­dependent relationship, an unhealthy dynamic the ex-­gay movement frames as normal for lesbians. In almost ­every interview I conducted with former lesbians, their narratives linked psychological framings common in ex-­gay discourse to their own relationship histories. Developing a properly gendered self as a tool for changing one’s orientation took dif­fer­ent forms for men and w ­ omen. Male headship is a focus of all evangelical religious life, and teaching male headship—­how to compassionately lead or submit based on one’s assigned gender—is widely talked about as healing within the ex-­gay movement. For instance, at the Exodus conference in 2010 a twenty-­something male gave a testimony from the main stage on how developing a secure identity as a male leader helped him to leave homo­sexuality. From the stage, he talked about how he had known from the time he was five that he was gay, and strug­gled to change his desires

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for years. Fi­nally, in his twenties he started to attend an Exodus ministry and learned that his same-­sex attractions stemmed from psychological wounds. He described how the most healing part of this pro­cess involved dating a w ­ oman who would let him lead, giving him authority in the relationship. Her submission helped him to fi­nally feel like a real, heterosexual man, and this helped him begin to heal from his same-­sex attractions. For ­women, the work of leaving homo­sexuality required developing, as Diana Dickens calls it, “Godly femininity,” which is rooted in submission. Another Exodus speaker joked how early on in the movement ­there was a focus on make­overs, saying this was less about an emphasis on external pre­sen­ta­tion than about opportunity, given that many of the men had skills as hairdressers, while many of the w ­ omen lacked skills in looking feminine. By 2010 the movement had developed a nuanced understanding of this concept, where gender identity was broadly recognized as an internal disposition rather than an external pre­sen­ta­tion. Coreen Clemens exemplifies this new understanding. On the first night of the conference I met Coreen a­ fter someone recommended that I speak with her for my research. She asked if I was a Christian, and I told her I was not. She responded immediately, “Well, the God I believe in d­ oesn’t create random encounters, s­ ister. Every­ thing he does has a purpose. I’d love to talk to you.” She seemed to always wear a button-up shirt and knee-­length shorts. Her casual style, shoulder-­ length hair, and sporty sunglasses made her look, to me, like an evangelical member of the Indigo Girls. I came to see Coreen as an impor­tant member of this ex-­gay social world. Her confidence and friendliness made her an informal mentor for many of the younger ­women, and she would often host weekend working parties with other w ­ omen from the conference at her ­house, building a deck or a fence, playing guitar, and singing together. Coreen recounted to me a history full of dramatic disruptions in her sexual identity. She was raised with a Christian identity, but in college took on a lesbian identity and lived in an extended queer community. She told me that at times she embraced this gay identity, and described having only gay friends and gay doctors, and g­ oing on gay vacations. In her thirties she converted to evangelicalism through a close mentorship with her evangelical ­brother, and soon found a support group for strugglers. Coreen described the importance of developing a new identity in her quest to leave homo­sexuality: “I used to be gay and had that identity, then had an ex-­gay identity. But our identity shapes our be­hav­ior, and that ­wasn’t all God wanted for me! God showed me w ­ omen can love power tools and still be w ­ omen! My core

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identity is a child of God!” And being a “child of God,” for Coreen and for so many Christians, precludes her ability to also be a lesbian. For Coreen this did not mean having to change her gender pre­sen­ta­tion or her ability to love power tools. It did, however, preclude her from forming a ­family with another w ­ oman. Natalie Winkler, an artist I met at the Exodus conference, also exemplified the ways gender and identity shape ex-­gay narratives. Natalie had lived “in lifestyle” (as a lesbian) from her teenage years through her early thirties. She is from a middle-­class, Eu­ro­pean American ­family in the southern United States and speaks with a slow southern drawl. She told me that her life as a lesbian artist began to feel hollow and that she lost patience with experimentation and uncertainty, with the lack of concrete truths in her life. This led her back to her childhood Chris­tian­ity and eventually away from lesbianism. She told me: And I w ­ asn’t ­really looking for God. My salvation experience is that I was just ­really unhappy with the person I had become, and I had a lot of concern that I ­didn’t love anymore, and my life was consumed with work and striving and ­things and I d­ idn’t like my course in life and I wanted out and I ­didn’t know how. And just one night, I was in the shower, and I said, “God, if y­ ou’re true just show me y­ ou’re true and I w ­ ill submit to that even if it is dif­fer­ent from what I want it to be.” And a few nights ­later I had an encounter with Jesus Christ. A friend called and said, “God knows you.” And he’s a New Ager, he’s not a Christian, and he said, “God knows you,” and that’s all he said, and that just broke me. And I said, “God, you can come into my life and have what­ever you want.” I was just aware that that was Jesus. It was like he was standing right t­ here, and I was just aware of his wounds and his hands and his feet right t­ here.

When she began to develop a Christian identity she found a local church to attend, and the transition to becoming a Christian involved a number of changes in her gender identity and gender pre­sen­ta­tion. She went on: “So I started to go to this church. It took me about a year to make friends. I guess I was scary to look at. I had to cut the color out of my hair, I wore combat boots and club clothes, and I had to buy clothes to feel like I could even go to church to fit in. I went through this huge crisis of identity. I’m an artist and I’m also a believer. I had my antennas out for rejection. I looked like a lesbian. I had short hair and I lifted weights, I wore men’s clothing, so I

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looked the part. I knew if I went to church and stepped in that environment I would stand out.” While Natalie recounted a number of internal changes that she underwent in becoming a Christian, outward appearance was something she clearly felt she needed to change. When I met Natalie she had long, straight hair and wore flowing feminine clothing, clearly having made a significant change in her gender pre­sen­ta­tion. She described ­these external changes as reflecting interior shifts. She explained to me that she has always felt that men w ­ ere only interested in taking advantage of her sexually, that her lesbian persona was at least partly about not feeling safe and that she had sought to look tough as a way to protect herself. Becoming a Christian meant learning to embrace submission, which required overcoming her fear of men. She told me that ­after becoming more secure in her Christian identity she wanted to work on transforming her outward gender pre­sen­ta­tion as well, and asked a former model at her church to give her lessons in walking in a feminine way, which they practiced together a­ fter church in the parking lot. Developing godly femininity, or godly masculinity, is talked about as an internal disposition, but t­ hese internal strategies for changing one’s dispositions often map onto outward change in one’s pre­sen­ta­tion. Several parts of Natalie’s testimony paralleled messages central to the ex-­ gay movement. She told me: “When I was young I clung to Mom, but my mom attended to my younger s­ ister, and I felt r­ eally rejected and abandoned. I d­ idn’t get the attention I needed ­because I was the strong one. I was the old one. And I found with my relationships with ­women that subconsciously I was repeating this. I was always dating ­women who ­were like ­mothers to me. It was something that I wanted to reclaim in my mind. I ­don’t know, I just wanted that cycle to stop.” Finding ­causes for same-­sex attraction in one’s ­family of origin and then linking them to the specific kinds of ­people one is attracted to is a key strategy in this transformation. As I discuss elsewhere, the evangelical emotional economy links one’s relationship to one’s ­family of origin, particularly with one’s f­ ather, directly to one’s ability to develop a relationship with God. Ex-­gay lit­er­a­ture and ministries promise that internalizing ­these lessons about gender and ­family ­will result in a transformation in one’s sexual desires and a healing of one’s emotional wounds. They promise a stable gender identity. All of the individuals I met working on leaving homo­sexuality or who identify as having left homo­sexuality interlaced t­ hese messages about trauma and one’s ­family of origin into their own life histories. The similarities in

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this narrative work reminded me of Foucault’s writing on the “repressive hypothesis,”29 in that the “uncovering” and “discovering” of traumas often felt more like productions than discoveries. The similarities in t­ hese narratives made me think that the circulation of ­these ideas about gender, ­family of origin, and trauma worked to produce new meanings and understandings of one’s past experiences. At the same time, this strategy provided individuals with a pro­cess through which many claimed success in changing sexual and gender identities, though many o­ thers have challenged that this is impossible. Through t­ hese narratives of sexual transformation, gender identity and gender pre­sen­ta­tion became both methods for change and demonstrations of success. Collectively, ex-­gay therapeutic spaces and media offer tools for individuals to discipline themselves into developing a new interior landscape. Many describe this experience as healing, but the assumption in the movement is that a sacred gender identity resides at the heart of e­ very individual, and that healing from vari­ous wounds and traumas w ­ ill allow this identity to shine forth, to allow this interior space to become one’s new identity. The promise is that heterosexuality or at least celibacy ­will surely follow. Many find solace in this message, yet the pursuit of this type of healing can also create a wide variety of emotional harms.

Out of Bounds: Same-­Sex Love and the Bound­aries of God’s Kingdom In 2016, five years a­ fter attending one of the final Exodus International conferences and three years a­ fter Exodus shut down, I attended the Gay Christian Network (GCN)30 conference in Houston as part of follow-up research. The GCN formed in 2001 and organizes an annual conference that now attracts over fifteen hundred LGBTQ Christians and their allies. I was curious if evangelical Christians who experienced same-­sex attraction ­were attending the GCN and how sexual politics had changed since my research in Colorado. Many individuals who once attended Exodus now attend the GCN. At the four-­day conference I heard dozens of stories of ­people losing their communities, families, and sometimes their faith in response to ­either coming out as LGBTQ or taking a position supporting LGBTQ rights. One young man at the conference described having “religious PTSD” that kept coming up during prayer at the GCN. He described growing up

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in a Pentecostal church with corporate prayer, where e­ very week someone would pray over him that he no longer be gay. He said that during prayer at GCN he would have moments of panic, feeling that someone was g­ oing to do this to him, but when he realized he would be accepted for who he is in this Christian space, a profound peace washed over him. While the theme of God’s love dominates much of large-­church evangelicalism, spending time with Christians who identify as LGBTQ demonstrates the profound limits of this i­ magined godly f­ amily. This idea is reinforced in countless f­ amily units where evangelical parents choose to break off a relationship with a child who comes out as gay, lesbian, or trans, and with many o­ thers who come out as allies of LGBTQ p­ eople and similarly lose relationships, families, and often churches. I met a w ­ oman at the GCN conference, Amber Cantorna, who exemplifies ­these limits.31 Amber’s parents ­were always highly involved in church. She told me that she sang her first church solo when she was only two, and describes photos of her taken when she was three or four with all of her stuffed animals lined up in a row praying with her. Her f­ amily moved from Montana to Southern California and eventually to Colorado Springs, following her dad’s ­career at Focus on the ­Family. Her m ­ other homeschooled her, and her ­father was prominently known in the Colorado Springs evangelical community through his work. When she was in her early twenties, Amber fell in love with a female roommate and was confused by the experience. She describes growing up in a sheltered environment where she did not know anything about lesbian or gay issues or ­people, telling me, “I d­ idn’t even have being gay on my spectrum. I’d never been exposed to it, other than hearing ­those ­people are so wrong and bad.” Her parents found out about her feelings for her roommate, telling her “it was a big m ­ istake,” and cautioned her “not to tell anyone about it b­ ecause it would ruin [their] reputation.” She describes wrestling with ­these feelings for several years “on my own and in the dark.” She grew up with the idea that she just needed to wait for the perfect husband, so she found her feelings of same-­sex desire confusing. She had signed a purity pledge when she was young and wore a purity ring her ­father had given her. Eventually she found a gay-­a ffirming church in Denver, over an hour drive away, and started attending it regularly. In this pro­cess Amber found a new community that supported her regardless of her sexual orientation, and within six months she came out as lesbian. When she came out to her parents her ­father walked out of the room, saying, “I have nothing to say to

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you.” ­A fter a time of trying to maintain a relationship, her parents eventually cut off all communication with her. A few years l­ ater when Amber married her now wife, she describes how her new church community filled all the pews on her side of the church designated for f­ amily, as no one in her ­family attended her wedding. She has not spoken to her parents or grandparents in years and has only intermittent contact with her ­brother. Amber told me, “My parents told me that they love God more than they love me and that they ­will choose God over me.” Amber said she thinks her parents believe that to accept her lifestyle would put their own salvation at stake, and thus their only option is to cut off communication from their d­ aughter. It seems ironic that it is her f­ ather’s position at an organ­ization dedicated to the f­ amily that has also imposed limits on their ability to maintain a relationship with their ­daughter. I believe that symbolically, many evangelicals see LGTB p­ eople as also outside of the bounds of God’s f­ amily, and this spiritual ostracism is mimicked countless times within f­ amily units. Mary Jean also learned about t­ hese limits first hand. I met Mary Jean at a downtown coffee shop a­ fter several p­ eople encouraged me to speak to her about my proj­ect. Wearing pumps and a pencil skirt, she talked to me about her transition from male to female, and from the center of the religious right into an activist who succeeded in securing civil rights for transgendered citizens in Colorado. Assigned male at birth, she was a lifelong Christian and a Bible study leader, and counted Religious Right leaders among her closest friends ­until she came out as female in her mid-­forties. Her wife insisted she seek counseling, so she followed her pastor’s advice to attend a Christian support groups for sex addicts (they suggested that this might help her accept a male gender identity), but eventually she de­cided that she could no longer live as a man. In the pro­cess of coming out as transgendered Mary Jean lost all of her friendships within her church, her wife demanded a divorce, and she was fired from her job in a secular business. At the time ­there was no ­legal recourse from discriminatory employment practices around gender identity in Colorado. One ­mother from Southern California whom I met at the GCN conference told me that two of her three adult c­ hildren now identify as gay. A ­ fter years of strug­g le, she and her husband came to accept the fact that their ­children ­were not ­going to change their sexual orientations and chose to support their ­children regardless of their sexual identities. They continued to attend their conservative evangelical church. One day the f­ ather posted a happy photo of their ­daughter’s same-­sex wedding to his Facebook page,

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which led to the elders from their church contacting them the next day for a meeting. The elders said that if the parents wanted to stay in the church they could not publicly share any more photos of their lesbian ­daughter or gay son. The parents chose to leave that church and began attending a “Third Way” church, a church that does not take a stand on LGBTQ issues. In choosing to support their ­children, they not only lost their original church community, but also relationships with their parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews who refused to maintain a relationship given their support for their nonheterosexual c­ hildren. Another m ­ other at the conference spoke about how accepting her transgendered son meant losing the rest of her ­family. She talked about how the previous Christmas they had to celebrate alone for the first time. The ­mother described GCN as her ­family now, and told of her church attempting to excommunicate her son when he transitioned his gender. Nearly all of the p­ eople I met in this movement are of Eu­ro­pean American decent, and most came from middle-­class families. Attending the annual Exodus conference was expensive, with fees and lodging ­running around $1,000 for each participant, so participating in this movement is not open to every­one. The whiteness of the movement also raises questions about why white evangelicalism places such a unique emphasis on heterosexual norms for its congregants.

White Sexual Politics The stories in this chapter show that t­ here is a continuity of emphasis on heterosexuality between lived evangelicalism and Religious Right politics. Taking a historical look at this focus on the f­ amily and heterosexuality brings to the fore the role of nationalism in t­ hese religious politics. White evangelicals have a long history of connecting sexual purity to the strength of the nation, ­going back to nineteenth-­century sexual purity campaigns.32 This emphasis on sexual respectability and national strength has an in­ter­ est­ing correlate in Eu­ro­pean secular nationalism. George Mosse’s historical analy­sis of Eu­ro­pean nationalism shows how respectability and its opposing force, degeneracy, dominated nationalist narratives in modern Eu­rope.33 Respectability was defined through proper gender roles and sexuality, connecting middle-­class manners to the i­ magined community of the nation. Outsiders, both sexual and racial, w ­ ere seen in the discourse of

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degeneracy as threatening the purity and health of the national body, thus respectability in the form of sexual purity and proper gender roles was inherently connected to racism. While the bourgeoisie in Eu­rope defined their respectability in opposition to class-­based o­ thers, Ann Stoler argues that for Eu­ro­pe­ans “in the colonies respectability was a defense against the colonized and a way of more clearly defining themselves.”34 Thus the white evangelical religious nationalist emphasis on sexual practices, the ­family, and proper gender roles has a long history in the United States, but also is part of a larger trend in modernity of establishing the nation through the iconography of the f­amily and sexuality, something white evangelicals have emphasized over time. R. Marie Griffith writes of the historical hegemonic status of a par­tic­ u­lar ­family form in the United States, one that helped to shore up ­t hese respectability politics: “Up through the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, what­ever ­else Americans disagreed about . . . ​most accepted, and took for granted as natu­ral, a sexual order in which men ­were heads of ­house­holds, wives w ­ ere to submit to husbands, and monogamous heterosexual marriage was the only sanctioned site for sexual relations.”35 Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham’s work on Black Baptist w ­ omen at the close of the nineteenth ­century shows the racial effects of this hegemonic ­family.36 In the 1860s it was progressive to represent Black ­women as able to embody the moral standards and f­ amily values embraced by the white m ­ iddle class, especially “at a time when white society viewed black w ­ omen as innately promiscuous and undeserving of protection from insult and even rape.”37 As Patricia Hill Collins’s work shows, ste­reo­types about Black sexual politics have remained a central justification for racism.38 Sexual and familial norms ­were articulated as racial in the colonial Amer­ i­cas; Eu­ro­pean settlers found Native American sexual and familial practices troubling, as First Nations cultures tended to see marriage as a choice, not a lifelong commitment, and childrearing was often collective.39 In contrast, Eu­ro­pean settlers understood the patriarchal f­ amily as a Christian, moral good, one connected to private property. Historian Estelle Freedman writes that ­these “beliefs in the superiority of the white, Eu­ro­pean ­family and sexual practices provided a justification for the appropriation of land and the cultural devaluation of conquered p­ eoples.”40 U.S. governmental policy often focused on attempts at implementing the patriarchal f­ amily structure in traditional Native American cultural systems. For instance, the

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Dawes Act of 1887 attempted to force Native p­ eoples to adopt the patriarchal ­family through privatizing land and forcing patrilineal inheritance.41 In When Did Indians Become Straight?, Mark Rifkin argues that U.S. initiatives aimed at reor­ga­niz­ing Native American social life can be seen as a sexual proj­ect: “Compulsory heterosexuality provides a more integrative framework for considering imperial interventions into native residency, ­family formation, collective decision-­making, resource distribution, and land tenure.”42 Thus, through Rifkin, we can place two hundred years of U.S. imperial efforts against Native Americans within the framework of attempting to “make them ‘straight’—to insert indigenous p­ eoples into Anglo-­A merican conceptions of ­family, home, desire, and personal identity.”43 While the white-­dominated spaces of this research rarely discussed issues around First Nations ­peoples, this history remains relevant, as it shows the ways whiteness was historically articulated through gendered, sexual, and familial ideals, raising questions about the extent to which the white evangelical focus on the f­ amily continues this tradition. In the con­temporary context, defending the supremacy of heterosexuality is not the sole domain of white Christians.44 Most African American Christian traditions, similar to white evangelicalism, prioritize heterosexuality45 and male headship;46 however, the vast majority of pro-­family movement leaders and activists and ex-­gay movement participants have been white. White evangelical churches have fully sacralized the post–­World War II norms around sexuality with their implied racialization, so that a par­tic­u­ lar form of sexual citizenship47 now defines religious belonging. Evangelicals who experience same-­sex attraction are often forced to try to redirect their desires into an identity recognizable and accepted within their church communities. Elites and leaders in the Religious Right, particularly the group Concerned ­Women for Amer­i­ca (CWA), continue this tradition through constructing changes in sexuality and reproduction as a threat to the nation.48 In CWA and other Religious Right organ­izations “Christian” and “American” concerns are often conflated. In a history of ­women’s leadership in the Christian Right, Emily Suzanne Johnson shows how white evangelicals since the early 1970s have actually changed their sexual politics, through celebrating heterosexual marital sexual desires for both men and ­women.49 Changing a significant tradition, ­going back to Paul’s framing of sexuality as an unfortunate necessity, and early twentieth-­century evangelical taboos against discussing sexuality, Tim and Beverly Lahaye’s

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The Act of Marriage, published in 1976, along with a growing canon of evangelical sex manuals, influenced a new approach to sexuality through advocating the importance of mutual sexual plea­sure within heterosexual marriage.50 As Johnson writes, “Domesticating sex . . . ​within marriage was the flipside of renouncing homo­sexuality and extramarital sexual activity while still remaining culturally relevant in a changing society.”51

Out of Exodus: New Directions Since Exodus’s closure in 2013, the state of the ex-­gay movement remains in flux. A new organ­ization, the Hope for Wholeness Network, began offering a similar conference the year ­after Exodus closed. And as this research shows, u­ ntil the broader evangelical culture changes, t­ here likely w ­ ill continue to be a need for an ex-­gay movement to offer the promise of change for individuals experiencing unwanted same-­sex attraction. Shortly before concluding my field work in 2010, I attended a support group for Christians with what they describe as unwanted same-­sex attraction, hosted by ­Virginia, a member of North End Church. The meeting took place at V ­ irginia’s h ­ ouse, with five of us sitting around her comfortable suburban living room. Her husband, Brad, participated in the group discussion while their two rescue dogs lounged among us. Like many evangelical homes I came to know, their home was peaceful and warm, exuding an intense calm. A ­ fter an initial prayer, V ­ irginia led the group with a discussion of the importance of forgiveness and healing, and we all talked about how we react to pain and hurt. A theme was how to break out of our patterns that we learned in childhood. ­Virginia talked about how useful journaling is as a way to pro­cess your emotions, and most of the group agreed, talking about how useful this has been for them. The discussion was a familiar offering of generic self-­help interspersed with Christian terminology, where ungodly and demonic emotions get us stuck in reactive patterns that lead to addictions. During the eve­ning ­Virginia kept reminding us of the importance of relying on God, of remembering how much God loves us. She told us you can approach tomorrow with one of two ­handles, faith or fear. Throughout our conversations, participants did not talk about their sexual identities or their sexual attractions, and instead engaged in the challenging work of renarrating their childhoods, and trying to understand how their previous hurts shape current harms, one of which they labeled as same-­sex attraction. Not all of

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us that night seemed to fit within the gender ideals celebrated in evangelical culture, but in this space that was okay. And the group supported each other in learning how to embody God, to heal, and to feel okay. As the meeting wound down and every­one began talking about their Christmas plans the following week, V ­ irginia said that she was recently told by a spokesperson for the church that they wanted her to change the name of her group due to fear that it would generate attention from protesters. At V ­ irginia’s that night, every­one agreed that if homo­sexuality ­were talked about from the pulpit more regularly, particularly a­ fter a former pastor’s same-­sex sex scandal, this would not be an issue now. Evangelical churches have responded to the legalization of same-­sex marriage in a variety of ways. I only know of two evangelical churches that have come out in f­ avor of marriage equality, and both no longer identify as evangelical. Many more churches are softening their language if not their stances on LGBTQ rights. As LGBTQ ­people are increasingly winning po­liti­cal, ­legal, and cultural changes, many churches are attempting to take fewer overtly po­liti­cal stances against LGBTQ rights. However, for evangelicals who experience same-­sex attraction, ­there are still numerous daily reminders about the importance of normative gender roles and the heterosexual ­family as key sites for living a godly life. Increasing po­liti­cal pressure against reparative therapy and the closure of Exodus have changed the possibilities of this movement. But I also came to see that for many Christians with unwanted same-­sex attraction the ex-­gay movement provided a welcoming reprieve from the broader evangelical culture and its requirement for heterosexuality. Due to the ways familism structures white evangelicalism, many believed that changing their orientation was the only option for remaining within God’s love, and his ­family. Exodus and support groups like ­Virginia’s provided spaces where p­ eople could be honest about their strug­gles, but many ­people who have participated in ­these groups have also recounted ­these experiences as causing harm.

Concluding Thoughts Three days into the Exodus conference I attended I was walking with my conference roommate, Sandy, when we heard someone yell, “Ladies, need a lift?” We turned and saw Dixon and Coreen pull a golf cart to a stop next to us. Coreen Clemens yelled with a characteristic smile, “Hop on in, ladies!”

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Dixon Smith worked for one of the organ­izations affiliated with Exodus and played a role in organ­izing the conference and was often on stage as an MC. With short hair and a soft lilt in his voice, he talked openly at the conference of never having fit in like a “normal” guy. He told stories of being made fun of throughout his childhood for not fitting in and had never been in a relationship with a ­woman. Sandy and I jumped on the back of the golf cart, our legs dangling off the backwards-­facing seats, and Dixon pulled us forward up the hill, honking at every­one we passed. We w ­ ere all laughing at the absurdity of the golf cart and the thrill of slightly breaking the rules by letting us on the back. I caught myself in the moment completely enjoying myself, laughing and feeling like a participant in the moment more than an observer, a rare experience for me during my research. The tone of the Exodus conference was not what I expected. Many critics of the ex-­gay movement would see this scene as an example of how ex-­gays or strugglers (as they prefer to be called) are e­ ither duped or delusional, as p­ eople who are gay but are trying to wear a straight win­dow dressing. And each year the conference was picketed by gay rights organ­ izations lobbying t­ hese criticisms, making conference attendees very much aware of the critiques against them. One night at dinner I chatted with a group of ­women about the protesters who picketed the conference each year. One attendee stated sharply, “They see us as a bunch of homophobic, self-­ loathing, dupes. That’s not who we are. I’m happy that Exodus is ­here.” While critics of the ex-­gay movement see ex-­gays as trying to hide who they ­really are, as denying a true fact about their identity, many ex-­gays see themselves as working to construct a dif­fer­ent type of self, one that prioritizes religious feeling and a relationship with God over sexual attractions—­one not defined by one’s sexual desires. With ongoing changes in U.S. sexual citizenship,52 including the expansion of marriage equality to same-­sex c­ ouples across the United States, evangelicals with unwanted same-­sex attraction are faced with an increasingly complex ethical context. Millennial evangelicals are statistically much more open to gay marriage than their parents and grandparents, but the ethical scape of white evangelicalism remains deeply enmeshed and invested in familism and a binary and unequal gender opposition that requires heterosexuality. Evangelicals are encouraged to work at cultivating the right dispositions so they may feel God’s presence in their life, and for evangelicals trying to leave homo­sexuality this also involves changing their sexual

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desires. Developing a normative gendered habitus often becomes a lifelong commitment. The ex-­gay movement was one place during my research that publicly acknowledged the fact that for many, families of origin and f­ athers in par­tic­ u­lar have been sources of pain. For example, V ­ irginia talked frequently about growing up with an emotionally abusive ­father and how this affected her religious identity. She told me, “When I was seventeen I de­cided I’d had enough of God, and turned my back on the church. I’d go and enjoy life, it’s too much for me. I can never please God anyways. And I know now that that’s b­ ecause I actually could never please my dad, that’s exactly where that came from.” Multiple times in ex-­gay support group settings ­people talked about the pain caused by ­fathers who ­were absent, abusive, or indifferent. The evangelical promise that developing a relationship with God is like floating in a loving dad’s palm provides healing for many who have been hurt by their ­fathers. ­Virginia’s story shows this. But this understanding of God as dad is particularly difficult for evangelicals who experience same-­sex attraction, for they are promised the unconditional love of a perfect dad alongside a message that this loving God cannot accept them if they choose to identify with or to pursue their same-­sex attractions. They are often told that they ­will not receive the fullness of that love and relationship ­unless they leave homo­sexuality. Since almost every­one in this situation finds this an impossible task, the relationship to God is often strained, and instead of developing a healing relationship with God, many believe that God is rejecting them. Evangelical pastors and laypeople frequently made statements claiming that t­ here is no ranking of sins, that homo­sexuality is one sin among many. But it became clear in my research, particularly through spending time with ­people who have left homo­sexuality and ­people who identify as ex-­ex-­gay,53 that in practice homo­sexuality is not treated simply as one of many sins, similar to, say, gluttony or greed, but that sexual sins carry a significant ethical weight in evangelicalism. I heard of no similar division for other sins in my field work. P ­ eople strug­gled with many habits and desires they considered sinful—­pornography, alcohol and drug addiction, overeating, selfishness, anger—­but none received the vitriol that same-­sex attraction and sexual habits and desires did. Lynne Gerber’s study of evangelical support groups similarly found that despite rhetorical attempts at “demo­cratizing sins,” “­there is, in practice, a hierarchy of sins that mea­sures sins of sexuality by a

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very dif­f er­ent yardstick than ­those of judgment or of food and body size.”54 None received the displacement of self, of unbearable feelings of nonbelonging, of expulsion from God’s banquet that nonnormative, nonheterosexual, nonmarital sexual habits and desires received. It is as though sex is the fastest way out of God’s benign kingdom, and cultivating the correct—­ heterosexual and gendered—­sexual identities and desires is a requirement for remaining in this ethical world.

5

Paternal Politics

Most of the interviews I conducted for this research concluded with a question about ­whether ­there are any social or po­liti­cal issues that Christians have a responsibility to engage in. Tyron Ray’s response to this question was typical. He told me he did not want to be influenced by the world, but rather directed his attention to God and the Bible. He told me: “I want to know what the Bible says, so I’m not that interested in politics. I’ve always been conservative. Politics becomes legalistic, about judging ­people. But, if ­there ­were amendments about keeping marriage as a man and a ­woman or against abortion I ­will vote for ­those. Other ­things I’m not sure about I ­won’t get involved.” To clarify he said, “Biblical ­things I’ll vote for, if I’m not sure I ­won’t vote.” Jared Drake gave a similar answer. Jared leaned ­toward libertarian po­liti­cal views before converting to evangelicalism when he was around twenty. When I interviewed him, he was in his forties and led a Bible study group. He told me: “Thinking about the last twenty years, the most impor­tant po­liti­cal issue has been protecting the ­family. This is an institution God gave to ­people; it’s entirely clear in the Bible that homo­sexuality is wrong. Protecting the ­family is a most impor­tant concern.” In over eighty interviews I completed with evangelicals, ranging in age from twenty to seventy, when I asked if Christians had a responsibility to support any po­liti­ cal issues, nearly every­one said yes, and t­ hese ­were nearly consistently ­limited 93

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to two issues: criminalizing abortion and ­either defending the ­family or challenging same-­sex marriage. And like Tyron, individuals typically would identify ­these issues only ­after a series of disclaimers, stating that they w ­ ere motivated by the Bible and not politics, or insisting that ­there are no po­liti­ cal rules stemming from their faith. Despite ­these protestations, interviewees gave me consistent answers about ­these two po­liti­cal priorities. I did meet po­liti­cally engaged evangelicals in my time in Colorado Springs who identified as part of the Pro-­Family movement and claimed an explic­ itly po­liti­cal identity, and I met several evangelicals who vocally challenged what they saw as the narrow po­liti­cal interests of this movement, but both of ­these positions ­were rare. Instead I found that while the Pro-­Family movement is defined by a variety of national po­liti­cal organ­izations and conferences, the vast majority of evangelicals I met did not consider themselves to be part of a movement nor particularly motivated by explicit politics. Despite this disavowal, I found a distinct agreement on po­liti­cal perspectives. In this chapter I show how the religious proj­ect of emphasizing the fatherhood of God, and in turn of linking the role of fatherhood to God, has po­liti­cal impacts. This emphasis on the ­family animates both po­liti­cal opposition to LGBTQ rights and widespread ostracism of ­those who challenge the supremacy of heterosexuality. I found, at least in the evangelical culture in Colorado Springs, that a focus on a par­tic­u­lar form of heterosexuality and gendered identity is central to how evangelicalism is lived. While this framing informs explicit po­liti­cal be­hav­ior—­particularly with voting and discussion of policy issues—it stems from a religious logic that does not segregate “politics” from “religion,” or “faith” from “­family.” Lived religion in the evangelical spaces of this study consists of a primary focus on relationships, a focus which in turn shapes a broader worldview with impacts far beyond individual ­family life.1 ­Here I explore Bible study sessions that reveal the politics of this tradition as well as religious conversion narratives, or testimonies, that often involve a simultaneous po­liti­cal conversion. I came to see t­ hese simultaneous conversions—­religious and political—as connected to a tradition in evangelicalism that roots spiritual life in the f­ amily. An emphasis on male headship is frequently framed in pastoral messages, popu­lar marriage workshops and marriage manuals, and Christian media as a center of one’s “walk with God.” In turn, defending the heterosexual f­ amily in policy has become, for many white evangelicals, a way to defend their faith. Being

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introduced to this tradition often results in changing individual lives and relationships, and often leads to new understandings of social and po­liti­cal relations defined by male headship in the ­family. Christian media—­from books to radio programs to DVD Bible studies—­often link self-­help proj­ ects on parenting and marital relationships directly to po­liti­cal messages. The messages about gender and the f­ amily that dominate Christian media and are often the center of Bible study groups profoundly shape how converts understand Chris­tian­ity. Linguist George Lakoff writes that a key difference between liberal and conservative politics is distinct conceptions about parenting.2 He contrasts a “Strict ­Father” to a “Nurturant Parent” model of parenting and finds that t­ hese dif­fer­ent meta­phors are connected to distinct po­liti­cal perceptions. In this way he argues that morality is linked to politics through conceptions of the f­ amily.3 In this chapter I explore three arenas in which the politics of this focus on the ­family is evident within white evangelicalism. First, I analyze conversion narratives to show the profound impact exposure to this strict f­ather worldview has on converts’ sexual and po­liti­cal lives. I also include de-­conversion narratives demonstrating how this pro­cess can also work in reverse. Next, I explore the ways Bible study groups can reinforce this paired religious and po­liti­cal worldview. Fi­nally, I show how a variety of evangelical institutions—­from Religious Right conferences to church marriage ministries—­reinforce a politics of the ­family as central to one’s faith.

Po­liti­cal Conversions Early on in this research I interviewed Joseph Troess, a Christian counselor, who expressed an interest in this proj­ect. We kept in touch and he introduced me to several other p­ eople he encouraged me to interview. A ­ fter completing a ­couple of ­these interviews, I realized that the interviewees all had something in common: they had all converted to evangelical Chris­tian­ity as adults. My sense was that the intention ­behind ­these introductions was to encourage me to consider conversion myself. But early on I saw ­these as a boon to my research, as ­these stories helped me to understand the link between evangelical religious practice and perspectives on politics. The po­liti­cal implications of the evangelical focus on the ­family ­were made particularly blatant in the stories of individuals who converted to evangelical

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Chris­tian­ity as adults. ­These testimonies often recounted seamless changes in their sexual, po­liti­cal, and religious lives. Gregory Sessions, who worked for an overtly po­liti­cal evangelical organ­ ization in Colorado Springs, epitomized t­ hese changes. He talked about being a womanizing, socialist, antiwar leftist in the 1970s ­until his boss introduced him to his Bay Area evangelical church and Gregory found Jesus. “So h ­ ere I am now!” he said to me with a jovial laugh. We both glanced around his office, filled with conservative po­liti­cal books and stacks of newspapers and policy briefs. ­Today he lives and breathes a Religious Right po­liti­cal agenda, and in his story this po­liti­cal conversion went hand in hand with his religious conversion. I asked him to explain this further—­how his politics had changed and who influenced this—­and he had a hard time understanding what I meant. In his narrative, his po­liti­cal views, sexual practices, and religious identity, or lack of it, w ­ ere all rolled into one. He eventually responded, “When I became a Christian none of my old friends would talk to me anymore. Th ­ ey’d tell me ­things like, ‘We c­ an’t hang out with you anymore. Now ­you’re g­ oing to support war and nuclear power!’ ” So he developed a new community of Christians and soon met a Christian ­woman who became his wife, whom he went on to have five ­children with. Although he once embraced an ethic of f­ ree love, when I met Gregory he spent most of his time po­liti­cally defending the nuclear ­family and fighting LGBTQ rights. Noah Schultz’s conversion provides another example of how religious and po­liti­cal changes often occur si­mul­ta­neously. Noah worked as a journalist and became a Christian partially through a friendship with an evangelical ­woman whom he eventually married. He was raised by atheist parents and worked in journalism for years before his conversion, a­ fter which he eventually started working for a conservative Christian media producer. When he was considering converting he prayed to have a tangible experience with God. He describes his upbringing as very analytical, as he comes from a ­family of scholars, so he wanted tangible proof that God existed before he could fully commit to becoming a Christian. I asked him what proof entailed, and he described the following: “I could feel God. The presence was more real than hearing him. Before I became a Christian, I thought, frankly, that Christians ­were stupid. So that’s why I ­don’t bash p­ eople in the press who think that Christians are weirdos and freaks, ­because I was ­there. And frankly the Bible talks about it, that ­we’re ­going to have tribulation and ­we’re ­going to have opposition. For me, I felt God’s presence, I heard

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him, and that was a big transformation for me. I c­ ouldn’t turn back from ­there and I hope I never ­will.” ­A fter this experience, Noah found it easy to identify as a Christian. He describes his post-­conversion life as radically dif­ fer­ent. As he put it, “Essentially I am not living for myself any more, I am living for God.” For Noah, po­liti­cal changes happened more gradually, and he describes needing to overcome ste­reo­t ypes he held about Christians before he could change his mind about abortion, as before his conversion he believed that ­women had the right to choose to terminate or keep their pregnancies. He stated: “Christians have done a lot of bad ­things over the issue of abortion. But God sincerely convicted [sic] me about abortion a few years a­ fter I became a Christian and ­really showed me what abortion was. So, my politics, it ­wasn’t like my ­whole belief system was just turned over. As a Christian that happened, but my politics shifted much more gradually.” I found his explanation of his changing perspective on abortion in­ter­est­ing, as it was his wife’s pregnancy that eventually changed his perspective. Seeing sonogram images of his d­ aughter in utero made him question his perspective. He said, “I mean, I saw my ­little ­daughter, however ­little, with arms, feet, and hands, or what­ever it was, and to me that’s pretty straightforward, that’s life!” He started then to question the ethics of abortion, and since he no longer thought that ­people should live their lives for themselves, and instead should live their lives for God, he de­cided t­ here was no ethical justification for abortion. What convinced him about abortion, then, was seeing in the sonogram that a fetus has a miniature ­human form and connecting this image to rhe­toric from the pro-­life movement. Many evangelical converts may change their perspectives on abortion and gay rights but not identify as an overtly po­liti­cal person. For some, po­liti­cal conversions are more dramatic and are coached by pastors. Marnie Stafler went from identifying as a fairly apo­liti­cal libertarian to being a Religious Right activist when she converted to Chris­tian­ity. Marnie is strikingly beautiful, with a beatific face and a kind disposition, and had shared with me that she had become a Christian t­ oward the end of college when she was living in the Northeast. Before she became a Christian, she believed that each person was entitled to his or her own opinion, and she was not involved in many po­liti­cal issues. Now, she is strongly against abortion, but told me, “I’ve never been to a rally or worn a T-­shirt or even talked about it, but I think that [my conversion] did affect my views. Like, I c­ an’t support choice ­because t­ hese are babies and God created them.” She describes her po­liti­cal change in dramatic terms: “And part of that was b­ ecause I went to a church

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that was r­ eally po­liti­cal, and the pastor was r­ eally driven in that way. I came from a pretty apo­liti­cal f­ amily and was just developing my own perspectives, so if anyone said a po­liti­cal view was biblically based, I wanted to be ­there.” For Marnie, conversion to Chris­tian­ity was sudden and came with many changes. She broke up with her boyfriend and took a vow of celibacy u­ ntil marriage, changed her po­liti­cal views, and became an active part of a new social and spiritual community. While many of ­these changes have remained, she has developed a more nuanced view on politics, and this she credits as well to the same pastor who initiated her initial po­liti­cal conversion. The charismatic pastor who led her new church was involved in a scandal a few years a­ fter her conversion when it became public that he had been having had an affair with another man. This par­tic­u ­lar pastor had frequently preached against gay rights, and the scandal ended up breaking up the church. Marnie said that ­after the scandal many of the younger ­people who ­were brought up in the church started to question their faith, and many ­people left the church. Not long ­after this scandal Marnie moved to Colorado Springs and began attending a large church ­there. Four months ­later a similar scandal rocked her new church, where the charismatic, po­liti­cal pastor who vocally opposed gay rights also became embroiled in a scandal involving a sexual affair with another man, this time with a gay prostitute. In contrast to her previous church, her new church did not fall apart in the wake of the scandal. Many ­people left the church, but it survived and eventually began to grow in size. Th ­ ese experiences, of watching two pastors who railed against homo­sexuality get caught in homosexual scandals, made Marnie start to question a dogmatic embrace of Religious Right politics. Although she continues to hold anti-­abortion po­liti­cal views, she also believes that it is impor­tant to protect the environment and does not see politics in a black and white, “Republican or Demo­crat” way, as she put it, but embraces more flexibility around her politics. Converts often described changes in their sexual, gendered, and familial lives as well. This is impor­tant to include ­here ­because it shows the ways an emphasis on the normative f­ amily s­ haped my in­for­mants’ lived theology as well as their politics. Linda Drake converted to evangelicalism in her twenties ­after she and her husband experimented with several dif­f er­ent faiths and churches. For fifteen years she participated actively in her church, but in her late thirties her faith began to diminish. She worked in an office with several non-­Christians who she began socializing with, and during this time she started to question her religious beliefs. She told me: “So it got to the

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point where I was like, ‘I ­don’t need a husband.’ I ­stopped g­ oing to church. All of my friends w ­ ere not Christians. I d­ idn’t have a lot of positive voices in my head. So, I told my husband one day, this ­isn’t working. I want a divorce.” Her husband, Jared, an engineer, encouraged her instead to attend an intensive Christian marriage counseling program recommended by Focus on the ­Family. They attended this one-­week program, meeting four hours a day to talk about their marriage and God. Linda told me, “One month l­ ater I quit my job, started homeschooling, and Jared quit his job so that he ­wouldn’t travel so much. And that’s when we started focusing on God.” ­Today the c­ ouple frequently host Bible study classes together and describe their relationship as solid and strong. I include this ­here ­because while it does not address po­liti­cal be­hav­ior, it does emphasize the ways that evangelical institutions exist to reinforce the patriarchal f­ amily as a main focus of religious life, and often work in tandem with keeping ­people within the fold of this religious community. In Linda’s case a desire for a divorce and to leave Chris­tian­ity went hand in hand, and it was an evangelical marriage counseling program that saved both her marriage and her Chris­tian­ity. Acknowledging the feminist dictum that the personal is po­liti­cal, it can follow that changes in one’s familial and gendered life have a par­tic­u­lar politics in and of themselves. Another example comes from Dustin Henry, who also experienced changes in his gendered and sexual life a­ fter conversion. I met Dustin when he worked for a conservative evangelical organ­ization in Colorado Springs that worked to oppose LGBTQ rights. Over a de­cade e­ arlier he was living as an out gay man in Washington, D.C., where, he told me: “I knew I could be out and proud and it ­wouldn’t be a big deal. And it ­wasn’t! For thirteen years. And, um, in a way it was a big deal ­because in a sense I d­ idn’t feel quite right about it. But I was ­going to a gay church, lived in a gay neighborhood, I went to a gay gym, I was in a gay bowling league, I was in a gay volleyball league, I lived in a gay world. I had a gay boss: he had a gay boss. I mean, life in some ways was ­really awesome, in terms of being out. But, you know, deep down, I was still like, I’m not sure this is ­really right.” Dustin was raised in a liberal Protestant church but had not been ­going to church regularly, and when he did it was to a liberal, gay-­affirming church. One eve­ning he had an experience he describes as a personal encounter with the divine where he felt enveloped in a white light full of grace and mercy that left him in tears. Dustin felt that God was offering him forgiveness in exchange for returning to God’s plan, and he quickly began to change his life in dramatic

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ways. He told me, “I woke up the next day and I just knew for the first time that I was wrong about abortion.” In his telling ­there was no one ­else in his life providing this religious anti-­abortion message. Instead, Dustin credits that his newly formed—or rekindled—­relationship with God taught him to change his perspective immediately on this topic. Within the next six months he eventually came to believe that homo­sexuality was also not part of God’s plan. He found and joined a local ex-­gay ministry, which helped him to leave homo­sexuality, as he describes it. ­Today, Dustin is single and says that he now is attracted to ­women, but does not know if he ­will ever be able to start a ­family. And he actively works to oppose LGBTQ rights po­liti­ cally and supports a Religious Right agenda. Just as conversion to evangelicalism often involves po­liti­cal shifts, interviews with p­ eople who have left evangelicalism show similar changes in their sexual and po­liti­cal lives. Tyler Foot is typical of many evangelicals who leave their faith. I met Tyler at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs while he was completing a master’s degree. Sporting an easy smile and shaggy brown hair, Tyler seemed easygoing and passionate about his studies. He was in his early thirties. When he heard about my research from a mutual friend he wanted to meet to tell me his story. He was raised in a saturated Southern Baptist environment in Oklahoma. His grand­father was a pastor, and his ­father worked as a pastor and a missionary. Tyler grew up attending Christian schools attached to his ­father’s church and eventually received a football scholarship to a state university, making him the only one of his siblings not to attend a Baptist college. When he began college two t­ hings started making him question his relationship to Chris­tian­ity. The first was an astronomy course. Learning about a scientific view of the universe and recognizing our solar system as part of only one of many galaxies changed his perspective significantly. As he states, “I realized how small we are, and this made me question ­whether we ­were the center of the universe. I started seeing the Bible as a myth, just like all p­ eople tell themselves myths.” He also started to befriend local artists at his university, and ­these friendships encouraged him to question his faith further. His college experience led Tyler to eventually stop identifying as a Christian, but he did not want to tell his parents this, fearing they would take it as a sign of rejection. It took him almost ten years to fi­nally tell his parents about his changed religious identity, and when he fi­nally did so it was not

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planned, and the discussion was not about religion, but about politics. In 2008 his dad was visiting Colorado Springs and noticed a book about Barack Obama on the coffee t­ able in Tyler’s apartment. In a discussion about the book his dad said, “If I ­didn’t know any better I would think that y­ ou’re a liberal!” Tyler responded, “I kind of am, Dad.” And this is how Tyler came out as a non-­Christian to his f­ ather, by admitting that he was not po­liti­ cally conservative. The story Tyler shared contains many typical ele­ments of religious conversions: exposure to new information and a new worldview; encountering new social environments; and the accumulation of increasing numbers of experiences and exposure to perspectives that question a previous worldview. It is also telling that in describing his conversion away from Chris­tian­ity, he uses po­liti­cal affiliation as a marker of this change, one that both he and his ­father recognized. For Tyler, the Chris­tian­ity he grew up with went hand in hand with conservative politics, so that changing his po­liti­cal perspectives was a clear sign of a changed religious perspective. This was a common dynamic I found in adults who had converted to or from Chris­tian­ity—­that developing a new ethical paradigm often resulted in a changed po­liti­cal paradigm as well. Another example of a po­liti­cal change resulting from a religious change comes from Renee Evans, a fifty-­something Christian ­mother of a gay teen who lives in Florida. Renee has a blonde bob and is talkative and friendly. I met her at the Gay Christian Network conference in 2017 in Pittsburgh. She told me she had always been close to her son, and when he came out to her as gay when he was a teenager he told her by saying, “Mom, I’m gay and I’m a Demo­crat.” She told me, “That was one of the hardest points!” She was raised as a Southern Baptist and had never questioned God or the Republican po­liti­cal views shared by her community. When her son came out she was in shock and confessed that for a time she hated her son and hated God. She told me that her best friend had done lots of research on lesbian and gay issues b­ ecause she thought her d­ aughter was gay, so Renee called her on the phone the first night, and they talked for four hours. Her friend asked if she knew how brave her son was to come out and if she knew how hard it was to live like that, which helped Renee come to accept her son and his sexual identity. For Renee, accepting her son meant beginning to question the orthodoxy of her church, an experience I found common for conservative Christian

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parents of LGBTQ kids. Once she started questioning what she had been taught was a Christian position on sexuality, she started questioning other ­things. She told me: “It’s like my faith is a mirror shattered on the ground. I am still putting it back together. But now I r­ eally believe t­ hese t­ hings. I’m not just ­doing what I am told.” She described herself as having been living in a “Christian ­bubble,” speaking “Christianese,” and confessed she would not have ever thought about homo­sexuality if it had not “happened ­under my roof.” The previous election, she explained was hard, as she promised her son that she would vote for Hillary Clinton, which was jarring, as she was a lifelong Republican. Questioning her beliefs about sexuality led to a variety of changes about her faith and led to a significant po­liti­cal transformation as well.

The First ­Shall Be Last? Adults who converted to Chris­tian­ity would frequently tell me that before their born-­again experience they could not read the Bible. Converts would say ­things like “It ­didn’t make sense,” “I found the Bible boring,” or “I just ­couldn’t concentrate on the Bible.” ­A fter a born-­again experience the Bible often “came alive.” ­People relayed this experience in colorful language: “Suddenly I could understand every­thing so clearly,” or “It was almost as though some sections ­were highlighted, calling me to read them, and I understood them so clearly, like God was speaking directly to me through ­these passages, guiding my reading.” Part of the pro­cess of developing a Christian identity is learning how to read the Bible, and for many evangelicals this involves significant note taking in the ­actual text.4 Evangelicals ­will claim they engage in literalist-­reading practices and that they interpret the Bible solely based on what is written in its pages. But in practice I found that one’s ethical frame ­shaped how one interprets scripture. This point became clear soon ­after I arrived in Colorado Springs. It was summer, and I was attending a small young adult Bible study group. It was an informal group of twenty-­something white professionals, many of whom worked for ­either local defense contractors, the military, or Christian nonprofits. We would meet in someone’s ­house, read the Bible, and sing songs while someone played guitar. One night we discussed a passage from Mark, often titled “The Rich and the Kingdom of God.” This passage recounts a conversation between Jesus and a disciple:

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21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One t­ hing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell every­thing you have and give to the poor, and you w ­ ill have trea­sure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, ­because he had ­great wealth. 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples ­were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “­Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:17–31, New International Version)

The passage ends with the enigmatic phrase, “But many who are first ­will be last, and the last first.” As is common practice in Bible study groups, we took turns reading through the passage, spent a c­ ouple of moments in silence, and then started to discuss what we took the passage to mean. I was surprised that none of the six p­ eople in our group took up Jesus’s discussion about wealth or in­equality. Instead, every­one agreed that Jesus was not condemning money or wealth. The group de­cided that the passage directed Christians to condemn any practices that interfere with one’s relationship with God. This could involve many t­ hings, and examples w ­ ere given, including loving food too much, choosing your friends over worshipping God, or even playing video games too much. In the discussion, all of ­these issues ­were offered as t­ hings that could potentially interfere with one’s relationship with God. I sat through this discussion not r­ eally knowing how to participate. For me the passage criticized excessive wealth as being incompatible with a Christian walk and involved a critique of materialism. The “first w ­ ill be last, and the last first,” coming so soon a­ fter the critique of wealth, read as a clear statement about one’s class position not securing one’s ethical position. Yet no one ­else in our small group that summer eve­ning read anything about class or money into this passage. During the discussion I sat s­ ilent and baffled, feeling as though I was missing something. How could we be reading this passage so differently, particularly given that the Christians I was with all claimed to use a literalist interpretation of the Bible and that the meaning of this passage seemed so clear, yet inspired a very dif­fer­ent conversation than what I had assumed? Reading practices are couched within a broader training about what is significant in the Bible, and a dominant white evangelical framework emphasizes personal relationships as the center of ethical life, a framework that sidelines structural critiques such as class

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in­equality. Thus, my fellow Bible study participants that day interpreted ­these biblical messages through their understanding of relationships. In the large suburban churches they attended, wealth and in­equality ­were not typically discussed as prob­lems. Charity was impor­tant, and ­there would be an occasional food drive or effort to provide ser­vices to ­people in poverty, especially outside of the United States. However, I do not recall any pastoral messages from a large evangelical church criticizing the accumulation of wealth, or even commenting on the burgeoning homeless community that resided in makeshift camps around the urban core of the city. Pastoral messages instead focused on the importance of relationships, and this framework tended to shape how evangelicals read their Bibles. The homogeneity of Bible study groups tended to reinforce this type of interpretation. Nearly all of the Bible study groups I attended avoided explicit discussions of politics, but I did participate in one group dedicated to po­liti­cal involvement. The leaders w ­ ere a ­couple in their late forties who w ­ ere passionate about conservative politics and often hosted Bible study groups focusing on po­liti­cal engagement. One meeting took place at their ­house, which is or­ga­nized to facilitate such meetings. Their living room held about a dozen chairs in a U-­shape, around a large, flat-­screen TV that could be hooked up to a computer. Their ­children quietly played downstairs during the meeting and seemed used to the rules of needing to remain quiet and out of the living room u­ ntil snack time when the meeting closed. Like almost ­every Christian home I visited, it was orderly, and the ­children clearly followed strict rules, but ­there was also a prevailing sense of peace in the ­house. At the start of the meeting, the leader, Bill, led us in a prayer. He then maneuvered us through almost a dozen po­liti­cal issues with such speed and so few transitions that it was hard to keep up. The dominant t­ hing we talked about was what he referred to as the homosexual agenda, and each time he mentioned this, Bill would reach out his hands like they w ­ ere trying to grab something, as though he was embodying an agenda he saw as bent on destroying all that he valued. Bill told us that his ­brother is a homosexual but is not po­liti­cally involved, so he knows that not all p­ eople who identify as homosexual are pursuing a po­liti­cal agenda, but, he reminded us, most are. For Bill and the other members of this group, Christians are the last to get involved po­liti­cally; they are twenty-­five years too late and are just starting to wake up. “Only 11 ­percent of believers actually vote!” Bill worried, and reminded the group of the need to do voter drives at church.5 I received

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a pamphlet at the meeting asking for a $3 donation, titled “Pastors, Pulpits, and Politics,” encouraging pastors to get involved in politics, within the realm of the law. Every­thing was framed as an attack on us, leading us into a fight we did not want or choose. The first fifteen minutes w ­ ere spent on stories about a variety of anti-­ Christian and anti-­nationalist sentiment. Bill told us the story of a young boy whose dad is a soldier in Af­ghan­i­stan who de­cided to bike to school with an American flag on his bike. Other students ­were “offended” by the flag and asked him to remove it. “And that’s all they have to say now. I’m offended by that,” Bill lamented. Doris, a retired w ­ oman in the group, responded, “An American flag! But, this is Amer­i­ca!” Bill assured us that Canada is even worse and told us that several pastors have now been arrested in Canada for reading the Bible, b­ ecause the Bible is now deemed hate speech t­ here ­because it is anti-­homosexual. “You know this could happen in Colorado too,” Bill warned us. “The bathroom bill has language in it against hate speech.”6 The group responded vocally: “No!” “That’s crazy!” “I ­can’t believe it.” We then watched part of a F ­ amily Research Council webcast that aired that day against the repeal of ­Don’t Ask, ­Don’t Tell legislation, although ­others had already watched it. Then we started to watch a Citizenlink (the po­liti­cal wing of Focus on the ­Family) video, but Bill ­stopped it in the ­middle to give us an update on Proposition 8, the anti–­gay marriage proposition that had passed in California and was still in court. “The homosexual agenda ­people are trying to rush it to the Supreme Court ­because they think they have a favorable court right now,” Bill told us. Bill then showed us the Heritage Foundation’s website as a ­great place to get more information about the START Treaty. He told us we should all know about the treaty ­because it makes Amer­i­ca, but especially Israel, less safe. We then watched a short clip from a group I had not heard of, Parentsrights​.­org, against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; it was a polished video about the encroachment of the UN between parents and their ­children. Bill told us that Hillary Clinton is r­ eally ­behind this attack on parents’ rights. Denise, a middle-­aged blonde wearing a T-­shirt emblazoned with the American flag, gasped: “She does! Even as a parent!?” Edith, Bill’s wife, retorted, “Well she did write that it takes a village, remember.” The video warned that if the convention passes, then our ­children ­will believe every­thing the government tells them. They ­will not know what is right and wrong. And we ­will lose our nation. Edith said, “They need this kind of treaty in Africa where kids

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are being drafted to be child soldiers, but in the US and Canada where we have clean drinking ­water we ­don’t need this treaty!” The video showed a ­father who was arrested for spanking his child, which every­one in the room found terrifying. Bill then spent some time trying to locate a map of what he described as the “thirty places in Amer­i­ca where Shari’a law is already being practiced!” Bill gave up and said it would take him awhile to find the map, and Edith jumped in to tell us the differences between natu­ral law and Shari’a. “Natu­ ral law is all about respecting life, but Shari’a is all about saying you must kill your ­daughter if she disobeys you,” Edith told us. We concluded our formal discussion with a critique of the recent overhaul of the Food and Drug Administration and a reminder that “this is a spiritual ­battle, we must remember, not a po­liti­cal b­ attle.” We closed in a prayer for Israel. The prayer focused on casting out what was described as demonic influences in American politics t­ oday and the demonic strategy that makes many homosexuals distrust Christians ­because they think Christians hate them, and then push aside the ­people who could most likely help them. They prayed for Congressman Jim DeMint to not get bullied into forgetting about the Tea Party. They prayed thanks for Jesus stopping some legislation and for Jesus to be pre­sent in Washington, then they prayed for me, my research, and an end to my gluten allergy, which I communicated by having to turn down the donuts they had brought to the meeting. ­A fter the closing prayer, Edith started talking more about the inefficiencies of the FDA, which led to Doris talking about prob­lems with our food. She said she was cutting out wheat from her diet for a few months to see if she feels better, and that she was concerned about the number of food allergies occurring ­today. She wondered ­whether it is ­really the wheat that ­people are allergic to or that instead perhaps it is all the chemicals used as fertilizers and pesticides that are hurting us. “The soil is totally depleted,” Doris said, “so we have to add all t­ hese synthetic fertilizers, then we add pesticides, then we think about all the other products and foods we eat. We get it in our food, our w ­ ater, from the animals we eat. W ­ e’re overloaded, so it’s causing all ­these allergies. ­Isn’t it only in the past fifteen years or so that the peanut allergies are so bad?” For a moment every­one was quiet, nodding in agreement, pondering this pos­si­ble prob­lem that cut so deeply, affecting our ability to achieve sustenance that did not harm us. But this moment was brief, and then Bill interrupted our reverie, saying dismissively, “Well, what can we do about it?” That is indeed the question. The only suggestion

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mentioned to address this was Doris stating that she tries to buy organic food when she can, but she blamed governmental regulation on making organics cost-­prohibitive. No one in the room articulated a po­liti­cal response to this prob­lem of an industrial food chain that every­one agreed might be harming our health. While every­one in the room could imagine this prob­lem, no one suggested a po­liti­cal response to it or placed it within the realm of Christian concern. Why, then, did defending the flag and opposing LGBTQ rights make so much sense as Christian responsibilities, when concern about the environment and the health of our food supply remained outside of the realm of both po­liti­cal and religious concern? This broader focus on the ­family within evangelicalism, and the multiple hierarchies protected in this paired religious and po­liti­cal proj­ect, seem to animate certain po­liti­cal issues while leaving o­ thers less pronounced. And certainly the role of Christian institutions in creating shareable media about certain topics helps to reinforce ­these bound­aries, leaving a vast number of silences difficult to imagine and acknowledge. A link between white evangelical Christian practice and po­liti­cal framings is evidenced in conversion stories and Bible study groups, but this link is made most explic­itly in Christian media and institutions, which I turn to next.

“God or Government” The pastoral messages at North End Church emphasized the patriarchal ­family as a divine institution and the center of religious life. Po­liti­cal actors affiliated with the Religious Right often talk about the ­family in a similar way, but frame it as a competing institution to the government with very specific po­liti­cal aims. While helping the poor is a deeply Christian ethic, state-­sponsored poverty alleviation programs are frequently criticized by white evangelicals for displacing God from the center of charitable efforts. Private charity is advocated instead. Anthropologist Omri Elisha argues that what structures ­these evangelical ethics is an emphasis on accountability, where Christian relationships provide an accountable relational structure that encourages o­ thers to live a godly life and avoid sin.7 The secular state is seen as interfering with this relational-­accountable matrix, leaving the state’s role within this ethical paradigm ­limited to enforcing its moral (and, hence, sexual) codes, and minimizing other activity such as poverty alleviation.

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Examples of this come from two Values Voter conferences that took place in 2009 and 2010. Th ­ ese are the largest annual Religious Right gatherings in the country and draw around two thousand attendees. In 2009, ongoing vitriolic criticism of an African American president was generating a steady stream of allegations of racism against conservatives in general and the Religious Right in par­tic­u­lar. Several conference keynote speakers that year addressed this concern, one of whom was Star Parker. The fifty-­year-­ old African American now makes her living touring the conservative conference cir­cuit and ­running CURE, a conservative think tank addressing urban poverty through market-­based solutions. Her early life was marked by poverty, and she spent seven years receiving welfare benefits prior to an encounter with God that fostered a conservative conversion. Parker is often one of the few speakers of color at Religious Right events. In 2009, she addressed the Values Voters audience, telling them not to worry about allegations of racism, saying that t­ hese critiques are just an attempt to hurt the conservative cause. She confessed, “­They’re not ­really calling me racist. Well . . . ​they might be calling me racist b­ ecause I know you,” she whispered breathily into the microphone. In the same talk she recounted her own experiences receiving welfare, which she framed as inhibiting her ability to develop a relationship with God. She then proclaimed, “We need to remove the heavy hand of government so that [welfare recipients] may hear the Lord, like I did to crawl out of my dark cave.” She continued, “It is God or government. One or the other.” The crowd went wild with applause, and, as usual at such events, Parker received an extended standing ovation. For Parker, the state can only offer material resources, but cannot offer salvation, and since the state is not supporting the infrastructure of this spiritual relationship it is seen as an oppositional force; thus it is one or the other, God or government. Religious Right po­liti­cal positions are often framed through the lens of the ­family. Former senator Rick Santorum provided a classic example of this at the Values Voters Summit in 2010. In his speech Santorum celebrated “American freedoms” and framed an opposition between “­family values” and governmental programs. Using racially coded language, Santorum stated: “Go into the neighborhoods in Amer­i­ca where t­ here is a lack of virtue and what w ­ ill you find? Two t­hings. You w ­ ill find no families, no ­mothers and ­fathers living together in marriage. And you ­will find government everywhere: police, social ser­vice agencies. Why? B ­ ecause without faith, f­ amily, and virtue, government takes over. In this way, a conservative

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commitment to a ­limited welfare state is framed as a necessary correlate to a commitment to f­ amily values, as this framing implies that only the f­ amily can produce virtuous citizens. Governmental action ­here is the inverse of the ­family. Whereas the ­family can provide virtues that then lead to social stability, governmental interventions are framed as a failing. At an awards breakfast sponsored by Focus on the ­Family at the Values Voter Summit in 2008, the largest annual Religious Right gathering, I sat next to a middle-­aged white l­awyer from Tennessee. He talked about his passion for conservative politics and the importance of ­family values. He explained that while 30 ­percent of American families ­were living in poverty, poverty affected only 5 ­percent of two-­parent families (his numbers). “­Isn’t that amazing?” he said. “It just shows how impor­tant the f­ amily is, and how much we need to support it.” I heard similar appraisals of the role of the ­family many times during my research, where evangelicals describe the ­family as not only an impor­tant Christian institution, but also as a primary solution to social and economic prob­lems. The poverty rate among single-­mother ­house­holds is indeed much higher than for married ­house­holds, with around 31  ­percent of female-­headed ­house­holds living in poverty compared to 6 ­percent for married c­ ouples.8 However, implying that marriage is the solution ignores a complicated breadth of data, not the least of which is the fact that, as stated in a 2015 Pew Center report, “­there is no longer one dominant ­family form in the U.S.”9 Only 46 ­percent of c­ hildren are currently living with parents who are in their first marriage, with many c­ hildren living in single-­parent families (26 ­percent), with stepparents (15 ­percent), or with unmarried cohabiting parents (7 ­percent). ­There is also a large racial discrepancy in ­family formation, with 69 ­percent of white ­children and 81 ­percent of Asian American ­children living with two parents they are biologically related to, and only 30 ­percent of African American and 54 ­percent of Hispanic c­ hildren living in such families.10 The p­ eople I met during my research for this study and Religious Right leaders tended to interpret the relationship between poverty and female-­ headed h ­ ouse­holds as validation that marriage is the solution to poverty. Social scientists have a dif­fer­ent interpretation of ­these statistics. What we are seeing now in the United States and western Eu­rope is a new phenomenon where marriage is often a marker of class stratification, where wealthier individuals are more likely to get and stay married.11 It is not, then, that marriage leads ­people out of poverty, but that increasingly the majority of ­people getting married are already financially well off. The a­ ctual reasons

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why poverty rates are lower for married ­couples are thus complex, reflecting the broader real­ity of increasing class stratification. Whereas evangelicals often see marriage as the solution to poverty, the data suggest the inverse. Alleviating poverty would likely see the marriage rate increase, as many working-­class individuals value marriage but prioritize economic stability in a partner, with many choosing not to marry if they cannot find a financially secure partner. Arguing that marriage and the ­family offer private solutions to poverty also provides moral justification for opposing the welfare state. Instead of favoring a callous position that lacks sympathy for the poor, its proponents can instead understand this position as rooted in compassion, as evangelicals believe that the f­ amily is the solution to both poverty and social stability. The po­liti­cal application of this theology of the ­family serves to protect the white suburban middle-­class families that provide the base for evangelical churches.

Paternal Politics Patriarchal gender relations are integrated into many forms of religious practice, with varied po­liti­cal implications. In my interviews I found that this religious tradition manifests as po­liti­cal, as it often connects not just f­ athers and God, but also f­ athers and government. This means that many evangelicals understand defending the patriarchal f­ amily as their primary po­liti­cal concern. Pastors and Christian media leaders map the links between f­ athers and God onto a broader understanding of society, where patriarchal in­equality is required for social stability. Take, for instance, Mike Creston, who works at a conservative evangelical organ­ization that publishes vari­ous media about the f­ amily. He told me, “The f­ amily unit from a biblical perspective is actually a ­little thumb print of God’s participation in this world. ­Because you have a ­father, ­mother, and child, and that’s a very profound manifestation of his wishes.” Another employee of the same conservative parachurch organ­ization, Walt Stephens, explained this philosophy. “Chris­ tian­ity is incarnational,” Walt told me. “Jesus incarnated a body, which makes it unique. And the f­ amily is one of the most incarnational aspects of your faith, ­because so much is demanded within a ­family setting. We came across all ­these quotes about how the ­family is the domestic church, or the spiritual laboratory. That’s what ­we’ve come to realize, that t­ here are a lot of dividing lines between the sacred and the secular; for some ­people it’s easy

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to think that what happens in the ­family is very separate from what happens in the church, but we actually believe that’s where you’ll be the most tested. It r­ eally is about living out a faith.” Denise Theibold, a marriage minister at a Colorado Springs evangelical church, explained to me why what she described as “defending the f­ amily” is so impor­tant for evangelicals. She told me she did not mean anything “radical” by saying we must defend the f­ amily. She went on: “It’s just the most impor­tant ­thing. Someone told us a while ago that God created the ­family before he created the church or the government or anything e­ lse, when he made Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden. God cares about the ­family, and it’s not something you fight about, it’s just that every­thing ­else springs from that.” I frequently heard similar statements during my research that reaffirmed the f­ amily as a central theological and po­liti­cal concern. Part of this worldview involves a linkage between heterosexual marriage and social stability. Tom Beverely, who works at a Christian nonprofit in Colorado Springs, told me, “­People who know history know that the slow cycles of society, whenever a society goes from the traditional ­family to homosexual marriage, you can watch the w ­ hole t­ hing crumble from the inside. It’s like a decaying h ­ ouse that just caves in.” Lyle Longston, a teacher at a conservative evangelical institute in Colorado Springs, shared a similar sentiment, saying, “A society ­doesn’t continue to exist, as you well know studying anthropology, ­unless the next generations are brought up in the traditions and cultures of how they w ­ ere brought up.” The ­family has become a battleground for anti-­secular movements for a variety of reasons, not least of which is articulated by Talal Asad. Challenging secular assumptions that presume a division between the public and private spheres, Asad points to the ways the private sphere helps to shape the public sphere, as “the private space of home and school is crucial to the formation of subjects who ­will eventually inhabit a par­tic­u­lar public culture.”12 Evangelicals understand this. Just as the patriarchal f­ amily links individuals to God, maintaining that ­family hierarchy becomes impor­tant in the reproduction of evangelical culture and its idealized understanding of the American nation. The cultivation of ties of authority and affect between individuals, f­ athers, and God within evangelical religious practice is then united with a po­liti­cal emphasis on heterosexual marriage and patriarchal reproduction in politics. Religious Right leaders, ­going back to Jerry Falwell’s “I Love Amer­i­ca” rallies, link this understanding of the f­ amily to a nationalist proj­ect. In this

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way the private sphere of the f­ amily is the moral foundation of the nation.13 This also makes issues related to the f­ amily primary po­liti­cal concerns, as defending the ­family is understood as a way to defend both God and the nation. ­There are a variety of reasons why this is a racialized pro­cess. The nationalist telling of Amer­i­ca as an exceptional Christian nation, a narrative that structures Religious Right politics, is an explic­itly racial story. The United States was founded as a “racial dictatorship,”14 ­after all, and maintained overtly racially biased laws for nearly two hundred years. Celebrating the United States as a divine proj­ect requires framing this history of racial in­equality, and the genocidal campaigns against First Nations p­ eople that went into forging the U.S. nation, as an unfortunate side note, and not the foundation of the nation. This racial history often leads to dif­fer­ent forms of affective ties to the nation influenced by race. In Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon writes about the relationship among race, the f­ amily, and government. “In Eu­rope,” Fanon writes, “the ­family represents in effect a certain fashion in which the world pre­sents itself to the child. Th ­ ere are close connections between the structure of the f­ amily and the structure of the nation.”15 He quotes Herbert Marcuse: “For the individual the authority of the state is a reproduction of the authority of the ­family by which he was ­shaped in his childhood.”16 In Fanon’s writing, this linkage between ­fathers and governments is defined by race.17 He contrasts the Eu­ro­pean model to racialized or colonized individuals who, he argues, are caught in a tug-­of-­war between the f­ amily and society, as t­ here is no unbroken relationship between rule in the home and outside it. This suggests that a racialized order exists between state power and patriarchal power in the home. I found that the predominantly white evangelical Chris­tian­ity of this study is defined by a relational world that connects every­one and every­thing from the h ­ uman zygote to the heavenly God in a series of hierarchical relationships.18 The f­ amily is a solid requirement in this chain. The ­family—as idealized meta­phor, lived experience, and ethical symbol—is also reinforced as sacred through an emotional economy nurtured within a variety of evangelical institutions. Every­one is promised a welcome space within this godly f­ amily, so long as they embrace the gendered and sexual norms that form its structure. Yet, the policy implications of this familial ethics have disproportionally affected groups facing historical inequalities, as this ethics most often translates into a view that the answer to all social prob­lems is the ­family, not a reduction in poverty or an attempt to establish economic

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equality. The white evangelical movement since the late 1970s has worked to defend gendered and sexual hierarchies as po­liti­cal priorities. Among my in­for­mants, ­these issues remain central po­liti­cal concerns tied to their faith. Emphasizing ­these hierarchies works to shore up racial hierarchies as well, often indirectly through shifting the emphasis in politics away from ensuring equality and ­toward policing morality. This emphasis also diminishes the role of structural realities in perpetuating in­equality. This analy­sis speaks to some of the ways that white and Black evangelicals may approach politics differently, an issue that has become particularly pronounced with Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency. For many white evangelicals, defending the nuclear ­family is a way to defend God’s order, taking pre­ce­ dence over many other issues. For Black evangelicals, and other p­ eople of color, the issue of racial in­equality and structural racism can be more difficult to overlook. Even if the f­ amily is stressed in other evangelical traditions, it may not always align with a focus on the government and the nation in the same uncomplicated way as within white evangelicalism. As I began ethnographic research in 2010, Colorado Springs—­like cities across the United States—­experienced a bud­get crisis that left the city government shrinking dramatically and visibly. Colorado Springs is governed by a rule that any tax increase must be passed by popu­lar vote, and as the residents had rejected a recent vote to increase taxes, the city faced a bud­ get shortfall of over $27 million. As a result, the city auctioned off their police he­li­cop­ters, turned off one-­third of all streetlights while giving residents the option to privately “adopt a streetlight” for $100 a year, ­stopped trash pickup in all area parks, and threatened to close community centers.19 An AP story about Colorado Springs’s experiment in ­limited government was widely reprinted nationally, prompting e-­mails from friends from across the country about what was g­ oing on in my new temporary home. Strangely, the suburban churches I attended and evangelicals I spent time with barely mentioned the city’s fiscal crisis and the dramatically shrinking local government. It was not that t­ here was no evangelical response. A group of Christian homeless men I knew started volunteering to mow the medians along a central thoroughfare. A local mega-­church started r­ unning one of the community centers abandoned by the city. However, the cuts w ­ ere felt mainly in the southern part of the city, where ­there was significant poverty and where the community centers provided impor­tant resources. In the northern part of the city, the suburban, middle-­class stronghold where all of the local megachurches and the large evangelical organ­izations w ­ ere

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located, the rapidly shrinking state elicited few comments. In ­these megachurches and parachurch organ­izations, where almost every­one advocated for ­limited government, ­people neither fretted over the impacts of the dramatically shrinking state (as my distant friends and liberal neighbors downtown did) nor celebrated them (as Religious Right activists might). Rather, pastors worried about consumerism and the pressures put on families trying to live up to middle-­class norms. I explore this contradiction further in the next chapter, but include it ­here, as it shows the ways that only a narrow range of po­liti­cal issues emerge as relevant within this evangelical subculture. The stories of Gregory, Noah, Marnie, and o­ thers from this chapter are just a few of the many examples of individuals who understand that conversion to evangelicalism requires conformity to a collection of heterosexual norms and familial relations inseparable from a narrow group of po­liti­cal priorities around defending the f­ amily. In becoming evangelical subjects, they learned that they have to adopt par­tic­u­lar gendered and sexual norms, and in embodying t­ hese norms they are taught they are learning to relate to God. A range of Christian sources, from books to Bible study DVDs to radio programs to marriage pastors, explic­itly connect this biblical interpretation to a po­liti­cal worldview, so that many converts to evangelicalism believe that becoming a Christian requires not only certain heterosexual practices but also po­liti­cal commitments. ­These po­liti­cal commitments are understood as directives from God, but they also tend to direct attention ­toward po­liti­cal platforms that at best ignore the real­ity of racism, and oftentimes work to exacerbate racial in­equality. In the next chapter I analyze many trends within evangelicalism challenging this paired theological/ po­liti­cal tradition, but the overall consensus within white evangelicalism remains focused on the f­ amily and a narrow application of this theological tradition.

6

Losing (and Remaking) My Religion The Transformation of White Evangelicalism from Within In step with larger religious trends, younger evangelicals are leaving their faith in significant numbers, and t­ hose who remain within evangelicalism are redefining their faith in new ways.1 In this chapter I explore several stories of evangelicals who are challenging the dominant white evangelical ethical focus on familism. Many of the younger pastors and church members even at North End Church ­were advocating new understandings of their faith, and often attempting to lead congregants into work they understood as outreach efforts rooted in social justice.2 Older evangelicals tend to view ­these changes with derision. Over the past de­cade Religious Right conferences have focused on what they refer to as the prob­lem of millennials, as many younger evangelicals are leaving the church and the Republican Party. In this chapter I explore how exposure to experiences that undermine the idea that an emphasis on the f­ amily is the solution to all social prob­ lems is causing a younger generation of white evangelicals to shift away from the focus on the ­family that has defined lived evangelicalism, leading many 115

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to embrace a more social justice–­oriented religious practice. I show how ­these changes are reflected in the religious landscape of Colorado Springs itself. An emergent ethical paradigm is advocated by many evangelical youth; unlike the dominant relational ethics that is focused on defending the nuclear ­family, this emergent ethical paradigm is rooted in obligations to the poor and to social justice.

­After the Evangelical Vatican? In 2016 I returned to Colorado Springs to complete follow-up research and found the city somewhat transformed. Since 2008, the organ­ization Focus on the ­Family had lost over half of its staff due to cuts in donor support and the retirement of James Dobson, who subsequently founded a competing radio program called ­Family Talk, with many donors migrating to fund his new program. The 2008 financial crisis affected many Focus on the ­Family’s larger donors, decreasing donations further. Two of the largest conservative churches in town had begun to focus on local poverty outreach work in attempts to change the city in new ways, not just through politics but through assisting the poor. A large church with its main campus on the northern edge of town now operates a weekly Sunday morning ser­vice in a high school downtown that attracts hundreds of ­people. The same church opened an office in the small central business strip downtown, nestled across from the new gluten-­free restaurant and next door to the café that has anchored the downtown district for de­cades. Kitty-­corner from the office, a hip new coffee shop and beer hall has opened, run by former evangelical ministry leaders. The café blurs the religious/secular line through hosting Bible study meetings followed by Sunday after­noon curbside beer drinking sessions. The conservative evangelical community that had been so geo­ graph­i­cally divided from the rest of the city was now also decidedly in the downtown core. A few months before I arrived back in town, a radio program on the local NPR station aired an episode called “­A fter the Evangelical Vatican,” exploring the current state of evangelicalism in the Springs while determining that the city’s tenure as the center of conservative evangelicalism was over. At the same time that this episode was meant to air, a lone gunman drove into Colorado Springs from just outside of town and engaged in a daylong armed standoff at a local Planned Parenthood office, killing two p­ eople.

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An intensive security infrastructure at the office undoubtedly saved more lives from being lost that day. Conservative evangelicalism had lost a significant amount of influence in the town, yet remnants of the ideology of the pro-­family movement continue to be felt, sometimes in more radical forms. In many ways the transformation of Colorado Springs is reflective of shifts within white evangelicalism more broadly. Focus on the F ­ amily, which led the national Religious Right po­l iti­cal agenda for the previous two de­cades, has recently scaled back to focus more on providing self-­help support to families and less on overt po­liti­cal engagements. This change reflects new leadership, with the retirement of the more po­liti­cally oriented James Dobson, as well as reductions in funding. This has left somewhat of a leadership vacuum within the Religious Right nationally. In my experience, watching t­hese changes occur in the former “evangelical Vatican,” the most significant change happening in the primarily white evangelical churches of this study came from a group of young adult ministers and churchgoers advocating a new ethical paradigm. Many young evangelicals, and some middle-­aged ones, have become frustrated with the polarization that comes from a Religious Right po­liti­cal agenda. In challenging this alignment between conservative politics around the ­family and faith, many evangelicals are offering new understandings of their faith, ones that challenge the familism that has framed much of white evangelicalism for de­cades. ­These new ethical paradigms prioritize responsibilities in helping ­those experiencing injustice and poverty. I found that several f­ actors ­were responsible for shaping this new ethical paradigm among primarily young evangelicals. If the emphasis on the f­ amily that has ­shaped evangelicalism for the past few de­cades was fostered in part by a defense of the history of the white suburban milieu that helped to foster evangelicalism’s growth,3 it is largely the emphasis on international missionary work that has helped to nurture an alternative po­liti­cal/ethical framework among younger evangelicals. I found numerous stories of young evangelicals raised in conservative homes or attending conservative churches whose participation in international missionary work led to a transformation of their faith. Many have spent time ­doing missionary work abroad and return with new perspectives based on personal observations of poverty and in­equality, making ­these politics of the ­family seem narrowly focused on supporting a middle-­class U.S. lifestyle. Encountering systemic poverty, new cultures, and new ways of practicing Chris­tian­ity through missionary trips has led many younger evangelicals to question the Christian nationalism

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of their parents’ generation, so that defending the patriarchal ­family no longer makes sense as the focus of their faith. Many Religious Right leaders are in equal parts afraid and angered by ­these generational shifts. In a Focus on the ­Family podcast on July 24, 2008, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler and James Dobson discussed the changing perspectives of young evangelicals. The interview began with a complaint by Dobson about negative media discussions about evangelicals in general and Dobson in par­tic­u ­lar: “Our local paper, the [Colorado Springs] Gazette, recently put a ridicu­lous cartoon of me on the front page, above the fold, making the case that my influence was done for, was over. They ­didn’t explain if that was true, why they put me on the front page of the paper and why I’ve been in over a thousand newspapers this summer.” He went on to criticize a recent article circulating in the secular press that claimed that evangelicals are adopting new po­liti­cal perspectives and that “its leaders are old and aging.” Mohler’s take was somewhat more tempered. He said that many younger evangelicals believe the evangelical movement “has gained a bad reputation as being against t­ hings rather than for them.” He sympathized with some of this criticism, saying: “I think the younger generation of evangelicals looks at a lot of older evangelicals and says: ‘You just d­ on’t get it. ­You’re not connecting with the issues. ­You’re too happy. ­You’re too consumerist. ­You’re too materialistic. ­You’re living in an evangelical subculture,’ and t­ hey’re not all wrong about that.” The suburban milieu itself is inspiring significant critiques among the younger evangelicals of this study, particularly against the consumerist ethos that shapes middle-­class American suburban life. While Christian media and pastors prioritize the patriarchal ­family as the center of white evangelical faith, the suburban, consumerist culture that their congregations so often reside in is an often-­unacknowledged point of tension regarding living out one’s faith. During my research it became clear that some of the main tenets of the post-­Fordist economy are seen as undermining the evangelical walk. Melani McAlister calls a new ethical framework emerging among younger evangelicals “enchanted internationalism.”4 This is described as a “feeling-­practice: not only or exactly an ideology, not only or exactly an emotion, but a combination of t­ hese. Enchanted internationalism is an orientation, a stance ­toward ­others and an expectation for the self.”5 While ­family relationships and an understanding of God the F ­ ather may remain impor­tant to this emerging ethical framework, the po­liti­cal emphasis is no longer on defending the patriarchal ­family but on helping the poor. This new

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emotional ethics is rooted in international obligations, missionary work, and what evangelicals describe as “a heart for the poor.” It typically involves some form of an embrace of social justice, and at times, though certainly not always, challenges anti-­LGBT bias. This competing ethical framework often leads to dif­f er­ent types of po­liti­ cal implications, which is why Religious Right leaders are so vocal about changes among millennial evangelicals. I found that most participants in this new paradigm do not want to see their faith as “po­liti­cal”; rather, they want to see a separation between their faith and politics.6 Many younger evangelicals see their parents’ paired religious and po­liti­cal identities as a prob­lem. Seeing the f­ amily as the solution to all social prob­lems has meant that many evangelicals see support for the f­ amily as the solution to poverty and other social prob­lems. The po­liti­cal application of this vision of familism has meant an embrace of small government, in the form of limiting welfare programs. Through prioritizing the ­family as the foundation of the social order, white evangelicals imagine a level playing field where anyone raised with strong f­ amily values can be successful, and ­will contribute to social stability. This understanding makes poverty a moral prob­lem stemming from poor relationships and rooted ­either in poor ­family values or poor ­family structure, not a product of legacies of racism and structural economic in­equality. The solution to poverty, then, is also found in the private realm, in the ­family. Younger evangelicals who have spent time among ­people living in extreme poverty in non-­suburban contexts often return to their suburban homes no longer taking for granted the privileges that attend that lifestyle, and often see in the Pro-­Family focus on heterosexuality a narrow vision.

Transformations in the Global Mission Field In the summer of 2008 I met with Walt Stephens, a forty-­something who worked for a conservative evangelical organ­ization in Colorado Springs ­doing outreach to young adults. Through his work he helped to moderate a blog for young adults to discuss issues of concern, and he was passionate about the perspectives of young Christians. His work was challenging, as he was tasked with creating a fragile bridge between a po­liti­cally conservative organ­ization—­one that exemplifies the defense of familism—­and a growing number of young adult Christians who w ­ ere experimenting with

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and embracing very dif­fer­ent ethical and po­liti­cal paradigms. Walt had a theory for why young evangelicals ­were advocating a new po­liti­cal vision. He told me that he thought ­these changes ­were the result of simply a cohort effect, where p­ eople in the youth and young adult cohort would always embrace a dif­fer­ent perspective and politics than older generations. When they got older, he assured me, they would change their perspectives once again to match t­ hose of their parents. While he was certain this was just a passing phase, he also had sympathy for and insight about where ­these new perspectives ­were coming from. He talked about how few Christians are worried about consumerism, and that “most of them d­ on’t even know that ­they’re drinking the ­water. They ­don’t know how consumerist they are.” He went on to link international missionary work with new ideas about justice: “You’ll see a lot of the social justice work amongst Christians or ­people ­doing environmental work is among p­ eople who have gone out of the country, done a missions trip, and seen another country and seen that we are eating ourselves to death, w ­ e’re not leading sustainable lives, and being wise stewards. So ­there is a lot of good intention to t­ hose Christians using social justice language.” Although he disagrees with the direction and politics of evangelical young adults who embrace social justice, Walt’s sympathetic assessment of their motivation was in stark contrast to his organ­ization’s sole po­liti­cal focus on defending the patriarchal f­ amily, while also supporting cap­i­tal­ist values. Jake Braiden exemplifies this trajectory outlined by Walt. He is a veteran who served in the ­Middle East and converted to evangelicalism in his mid-­ twenties ­after several years of what he describes as “partying” and “promiscuity.” When he converted he developed a new friendship network and a new purpose in life. He now hopes to eventually go to seminary, but over the past few years his politics have become more defined, and increasingly contrast with t­ hose of most of the other evangelicals he spends time with. Jake and I attended the same young adult Bible study group for a few months, and around the election in 2010 he posted “Go Dems!” on his Facebook page. Many ­people in the group ­were incredulous. Members of the group talked with a genuine awe about his posts and said they w ­ ere curious about how he came to ­these po­liti­cal positions. They could not understand how a dedicated Christian such as Jake could also support the Demo­cratic Party. Jake and I met once for coffee at a local café to chat. The café was on the north end of town and had a view of the Rocky Mountains to the west and the prairies to the east. Th ­ ere was a stunning lightning storm during our

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meeting, with continuous lightning strikes for over an hour in the majestic landscape. We talked about his po­liti­cal Facebook posts and the responses they inspired. He said, “I just get so upset that so many of my friends just seem to want to protect their lifestyle h ­ ere. It’s true in the US we have a g­ reat lifestyle, but why should we just defend it and not help the poor?” He said he wants to forge a new way of interpreting the Bible, not having to choose between liberal or literal, but focusing more on the complete context. He also talked about how his travel to several impoverished countries had ­shaped his views on politics. Although he had seen poverty throughout his travels, he had never seen anything like the poverty he saw during a medical missions trip to Palestine, which he completed with North End Church. He described seeing c­ hildren without shoes with significant foot prob­lems. ­There ­were no eyeglasses or other medical care for p­ eople who needed them. The missions group of primarily North End members had brought prescription eyeglasses, and he talked about meeting a girl with severely ­limited vision who tried on pair ­after pair of glasses only to realize none ­were the perfect prescription. For Jake, becoming a Christian settled his mind and allowed him to alleviate some anxiety that he had felt before he became a believer. And while he experienced significant conversions in terms of his sexual be­hav­iors, social network, and ethical paradigm, his politics, while becoming more pronounced post-­conversion, did not follow a typical conservative course. Part of this was due to his travels making him critical of any po­liti­cal positions he perceived as only defending a middle-­class U.S. lifestyle, but he also became exposed to several authors associated with the “emergent church” movement, and ­these books led him to develop par­tic­u­lar po­liti­cal commitments based on a distinct ethical paradigm. The figure he credited as having most influenced his political-­ethical commitments was Brian McLaren.7 This nondenominational movement is identified primarily with new churches, challenging common orthodoxies within Chris­tian­ity, embracing new hermeneutic approaches, and attempting to address life in “postmodern” society. Conservative evangelical leaders often criticize pastors and authors affiliated with the emerging or emergent church, and Brian McLaren in par­tic­u­lar, for being unbiblical. For Jake, t­ hese studies led to a broader ethical and po­liti­cal vision. For example, I asked him to define a godly man and godly w ­ oman, and he responded, “­There is this Galatians verse that says we are no longer gentile and Jew, male and female, but a f­ amily of God, God’s ­adopted f­ amily. So, for me the Godly man and Godly w ­ oman are the same;

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they may have some differences, but are the same.”8 This passage and this par­tic­u­lar interpretation of it ­were not something I commonly heard during my research. Jake’s experiences demonstrated Walt’s hypothesis well. ­Because his travel experiences exposed him to ­people suffering ­under poverty, Jake is uncomfortable with any po­liti­cal frameworks he sees as simply defending a suburban lifestyle. I found another clear example of the effects of missionary experience on po­liti­cal perspectives when I met Andrea, a young ­mother who grew up “in the mission field” in Ethiopia. I learned early on in my research that one did not simply grow up with missionary parents: rather, if a f­ amily is engaged in a long-­term missionary trip, the w ­ hole ­family participates in the missionary work. Andrea and her f­ amily lived in Ethiopia throughout the early to mid-1990s and w ­ ere ­there during the war with Eritrea and the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia.9 She told me that she grew up embarrassed to be an American, and would often tell p­ eople she was Canadian to avoid the stigma of anti-­Americanism due to U.S. foreign policy. The disparities between her own f­amily’s resources and the poverty of the surrounding community also led to feelings about her privilege. She told me, “Out of all the ­people who lived in Ethiopia I questioned God why I was the only one living in a ­house, and not just any h ­ ouse but a nice ­house.” She said that this experience ­shaped both her ­career goals and her politics. “I wanted to go do something that was helpful,” she said, “not be a missionary.” Her parents ­were not happy with the po­liti­cal effects of this experience on Andrea. She said, “My ­father just about died when I was eigh­teen and registered [to vote] as an in­de­pen­dent. He said, ‘We are Republicans!’ But a politician’s views on international affairs are very impor­tant to me. You can support our troops, but if you want to go invade ­every other country I d­ on’t support that.” Currently Andrea works as a teacher and has five c­ hildren, but she and her husband are interested in someday ­doing international NGO work, and she told me she would rather work for a secular organ­ization than a Christian one. While Andrea’s views about international affairs and foreign policy ­were impacted by her experience living abroad, she also believed that Christians had a responsibility to defend marriage as a heterosexual institution. Thus, ­these new ethical engagements do not necessarily challenge the tenets of familism; they sometimes just expand them. Sometimes young evangelicals’ experience with international missionary work leads them eventually out of evangelicalism and into more liberal

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Christian churches, which is the case for Dania Coleman. I met Dania when I returned to Colorado Springs in 2016, and she suggested we meet at the new coffee shop downtown run by ex-­evangelicals. It was a sunny January day, uncharacteristically warm, and the sliding glass doors w ­ ere left open to allow fresh air into the space. Dania told me she grew up as a pastor’s kid in an Assemblies of God church, where her f­ ather eventually came to work as a chaplain. She talked about ­going to an Assemblies of God national conference when she was six and responding to an altar-­call ­there, being surrounded by kids speaking and praying in tongues. This was a common experience in her childhood. ­A fter graduating from high school, she moved to Colorado to work for a missionary organ­ization and led small-­g roup missionary trips in Asia. ­There she worked with a group of p­ eople who put together a video about the Israel/Palestine conflict that challenged Christian Zionism, a common perspective in conservative evangelicalism. Dania led a mission to Palestine and became friends with Palestinian Christians, which in turn led her to begin questioning dif­fer­ent aspects of the literalist Christian framework she was raised within. She had been taught growing up to interpret the Bible as saying that God gave Israel to the Jews and that ­because of this Christians should support Zionism.10 But visiting Palestine and befriending Palestinian Christians ­there challenged this perspective. She became aware of vari­ ous forms of suffering Palestinians experienced due to Israeli policy. Once she began to challenge the literalism of her upbringing regarding Israel, she also started to challenge other biblical interpretations, and l­ ater changed her perspective on abortion and LGBTQ issues as well. Eventually Dania left the missionary organ­ization and became a worship leader at a large evangelical church in Colorado Springs, but a­ fter some time was fired by a pastor who told her she “­didn’t tweet enough about Jesus.” She described this pro­cess as demoralizing. She felt as though her faith and politics had changed and no longer fit in with the conservative evangelical culture she had immersed herself in in Colorado. She knew it was time to leave her job with the church, but losing her job led to a financial slump where she was unable to find work for some time. She had spent her entire adult life working for conservative Christian organ­izations or churches. Although she had never questioned God or her identity as a Christian, her experience losing her position led to a time when she quit ­going to church. A ­ fter a few months she started attending two new churches, an evangelical church located downtown and a mainline Protestant church also

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downtown that is gay-­a ffirming. She loved the worship experience at the evangelical church but eventually came to realize that her perspectives on gender and sexuality had changed too much to allow her to remain within the church. Once, during a question and answer session with a pastor at the evangelical church, someone asked about the pastor’s views on female ordination, and the pastor responded that the church’s view was that only men should be ordained. What fi­nally made her leave the church, and to leave evangelicalism in general, was a sermon series on Corinthians. She knew the pastor would be preaching on homo­sexuality as part of this series, and she knew that he would be accepting on this issue only up to a point. She told me, “I knew they would say something like, ‘We all are sinners, who are we to judge?,’ but that it ­wouldn’t extend t­ oward ac­cep­tance. The message would only go as far as we s­ houldn’t condemn you, but it is wrong.” She realized she did not want to sit through this message, that she no longer believed this stance. She then started exclusively attending the mainline Protestant church nearby, where she now works. Her experience with international missionary work, then, first led Dania to question the literalist interpretation of the Bible she had been raised with, eventually leading her to challenge the sexual ethics that dominates conservative evangelicalism. It was this questioning that eventually led to her decision to leave evangelicalism. She now wants to go to seminary and become a college chaplain, and even though she is following in her f­ather’s footsteps, her parents do not understand her new Chris­tian­ity or her politics. She told me that her changed perspectives helped her to see for the first time how central the emotion of fear is in under­lying much of evangelical faith. “The talk may be of grace, but t­ here is a tremendous fear of hell,” she told me. This fear seems to keep this literalist interpretation together. Thus, challenging literalism and the familism at the center of conservative evangelicalism led Dania to develop a new emotional relationship with her faith, one no longer defined by fear. Dania now works for a progressive, gay-­affirming church. Dania’s experience with structural inequalities through missionary work led to her questioning some of the conservative Christian interpretations she was raised with, and eventually to find a new church community that could embrace this new ethics. She is embarking on this path with many ­others. While we chatted on this sunny Colorado day in that hip café, she smiled and waved to many other customers as she sipped her beer, interjecting that one patron was also an ex-­worship leader or telling me that another patron was also an ex-­evangelical. Like many young evangelicals, or former

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evangelicals, Dania is working to create new interpretations of her faith, leading to simultaneous new po­liti­cal perspectives.

Evangelicals and the Crisis in Consumerism While I rarely heard pastors preach against consumerism from the pulpit, with the exception being young adult ministers or occasional comments about “consumer Chris­tian­ity,” in private interviews many pastors worry about what they see as the negative effects of consumer culture on their congregations and their congregants’ relationship to their faith. In private interviews pastors expressed concern about the personal isolation created in a suburban milieu dominated by private “back yards” instead of public “front porches”; they worried about families choosing to have both parents work to meet the economic pressures of suburban living; they waxed poetic on the dangers of having consumer choices dominate evangelicals’ search for church. However, this criticism of the impact of cap­i­tal­ ist values on religious practice remained a primarily private concern, one that did not lead to broader ethical and po­liti­cal criticism. Conversely, the defense of the patriarchal ­family in politics almost consistently goes hand in hand with an embrace of free-­market capitalism. This contradiction came to the fore with younger evangelicals. This was a theme at the Grind. E ­ very Thursday night, a large evangelical church swells with nearly a thousand young adults who gather to praise Jesus and “practice fellowship,” or socialize with fellow Christians. Amid the endless supplies of ­free coffee and tea, the exuberant in-­house Christian rock band, and kids lining the halls and overflowing the rows of chairs, leaders of the Grind, the young adult ministry, focus on teaching biblical lessons and making Jesus a real part of the lives of the youth. The Grind started in the 1990s, with around thirty kids attending each week. Now, consistently each Thursday night kids come from vari­ous local high schools and churches, from the Air Force Acad­emy, from all the local colleges, from their parents’ homes and their own apartments, to worship the Lord a thousand youth strong. The sermons at t­ hese Thursday night worship sessions ­were actually much longer than the usual Sunday morning sermons, which typically lasted u­ nder half an hour. Sermons at the Grind have many similarities to the larger church it sits within, and much of the focus is on shaping the gender roles and dating

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habits of the attendees. However, additional messages about consumerism are also common. The broader culture the youth lived within was frequently criticized as a negative influence, and a focus of the Grind is providing an alternative cultural landscape for the youth. Consumer culture was a frequent topic of discussion in this young adult space. One Friday Andrew Jacobsen, the head young adult pastor of the ministry, began a sermon with a mock dialogue with himself, complaining, “I’m not happy right now with my wife!” and responding, “Well maybe I’m not supposed to be happy!” He went on to say that the purpose of marriage is not to make Christians happy, but to make them better followers of Jesus. He then read from a ­children’s Bible story: “­Every story whispers Jesus’s name. Jesus r­ ose from the grave. He lives! So every­thing is dif­f er­ent: our lives, our f­ utures, every­ thing is dif­fer­ent!” Instead of focusing on our own happiness, a selfish pursuit, he encouraged the crowd to focus on Jesus and who Jesus wants us to be, which is a par­tic­u ­lar type of person. ­People already adapted to this subjectivity would know that he means that each Christian must see themselves as a member of God’s f­ amily, and should see every­thing as belonging to God. ­Because of Jesus, “every­thing is dif­fer­ent.” This means that e­ very action, thought, and hope is God’s, and that how one spends one’s time and money are a ­matter for God. Pastor Andrew continued with a story from Colossians: So Paul is battling for the imagination, the Christian imagination. Now, if ­you’re not intending to let your imagination be ­shaped by God then its being ­shaped by culture. . . . ​What are some of t­ hese t­ hings shaping our imagination? ­Every American sees five to twelve thousand corporate images a day. We are constantly bombarded with messages to buy something. Maybe if it is not the Roman Empire that’s shaping our imagination t­ oday [as it was in Jesus’s time] it’s the economic empire, of being a consumer. Being a consumer is all about being served. Consumer culture shapes us to think that life is about us. That happiness comes from accumulation.

Pastor Andrew thus frames a central concern at the heart of his understanding of evangelical practice: consumerism is based on an opposing model of subjectivity to evangelicalism. Consumerism values ­things that connote status and the enjoyment of material relationships, but even more importantly, it privileges the self as the center of one’s universe; it prioritizes selfish and self-­focused happiness. Where is t­ here space for God in this identity,

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when so many evangelical messages are directed at re­orienting the self to be porous, filled with God, oriented ­toward relationships with one’s spouse, friends, Bible study group members?11 Consumerism instead calls on the self to be filled with and defined by t­ hings. Young adult evangelicals often criticized the role of consumerism in shaping U.S. culture and church culture. Ryan Sidney, a pastor at North End Church who works with many younger Christians, articulates this new ethical paradigm that challenges consumerism. When I told Pastor Ryan about how many interviews I had conducted with evangelicals who say a Christian’s po­liti­cal responsibility extends only to defending heterosexual marriage and opposing abortion, he shook his head. “Yeah, why t­ hose two issues above every­thing ­else?” he asked, continuing: “How about war!? We should not be ­people of war, you know. I do think, though you may not see it in this city as much, b­ ecause of some of the overtones of Christian ministries h ­ ere, I do think across the country a ground swelling of young p­ eople are saying, ‘Yes we do care for the unborn, we do think marriage is one man one w ­ oman, but t­ here are way more po­liti­ cal issues than t­ hose two t­ hings.’ ” And he saw this change not as “something millennials are making up,” but rather recovering a tradition from the early church that focused as much on the practical aspects of looking ­after one another as on proselytizing. Pastor Ryan’s theological interpretation differed from that of the main pastor of the church, and he often preached about environmental issues. He challenged the po­liti­cal focus only on f­ amily issues, saying, “­There’s this more thoughtful and sometimes conflicted approach. I think we should be a voice against oppression, but you know what, maybe capitalism is more oppressive than some of the other ­things we are fighting against.” He asked, “So why are ­there not more of us advocating concerns about how greed leads to abuse and unfair trade and h ­ uman trafficking? What about creation? ­Don’t we care?” Pastor Ryan said that most evangelicals do not have a framework for caring about more than abortion and marriage. He said, “It is very easy to see, ‘Oh, abortion, we got to advocate for t­ hese unborn babies, man.’ And it’s true, it’s easy to see why we should be advocates for, um, marriage being between a man and a ­woman. But, I mean, are t­ hose the most oppressive issues out ­there? Maybe the abortion one is, but the gay marriage ­thing, is that the most repressive cause that we need to undo, or are t­ here other systems, structures, ­things of injustice and oppression that we should be subverting more? I’m just saying we should be asking that question.” And in

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his sermons, he is asking ­these questions, not overturning a po­liti­cal interest in abortion and marriage, but providing an expanded ethical framework that prioritizes environmental concerns (what Christians call creation care) and issues of justice. Anthony King is another young pastor who works with Pastor Ryan and articulates a similar ethical paradigm. Like many young evangelicals I met who espoused a broadened ethical paradigm, Pastor Anthony speaks of his views with a missionary zeal. When we met in his office he spoke quickly and passionately, with urgency, as though he felt change was in the air and he needed to help it move forward. He comes from a Lutheran ­family, and although he strayed from Chris­tian­ity somewhat in high school, he started attending evangelical churches soon ­after, and ­these churches helped him to change his life significantly. Eventually he felt called into ministry work and began working in global ministries before taking on a new position directing local outreach efforts. When I told him about how common it was for my in­for­mants to list Christian responsibilities as extending only as far as limiting abortion and defending heterosexual marriage, like Pastor Ryan he shook his head, exclaiming, “It’s just not like that! It’s so much bigger than that.” He talked about how evangelicals find missionary work abroad central to their faith, but that a disconnect has meant less outreach and fewer efforts at alleviating poverty and suffering closer to home. Expanding ­these efforts to influence the local community is the focus of his ministry. I asked him why he thinks t­ here is a shift happening among primarily younger evangelicals, and he responded that he does not think it is generational, but instead thinks it is more about “postmodernism.” He explained: “We are radically deconstructing modernism and realism and a system that relies on the scientific method, and this notion that we can have it all figured out has led to many negative ­things, so you see the results of that, like wars and disasters. So we are deconstructing some of ­those ideas. We ­didn’t even know that how we did missionary work or evangelism w ­ ere based in the Enlightenment, and so now we are seeing the Gospel work in a new light. Which is exciting.” He sees postmodernism as allowing for a focus on relationships instead of rules. This group of younger evangelicals still cared about the ­family, and the majority of them still opposed abortion. They are just structuring their faith around a new set of concerns. Many of them are dissatisfied with the conservative familism that shapes so much of white evangelicalism, and are proposing new ethical models that lead to broader ethical engagements

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around justice and the environment. One way that millennial Christians are developing this alternate ethical framework is through mission trips and the exposure to new cultures and to poverty that often attends t­ hese experiences.

“Focus on Your Own Damn ­Family” Evangelical youth and young adults are leading efforts to create new ethical directions within the faith, but I also found several evangelical leaders from the Baby Boomer generation who w ­ ere struggling to challenge some of the white evangelical entanglement with pro-­family politics. I met several ­people through my research who identified as po­liti­cally conservative, but who began to see a contradiction between Pro-­Family politics and the Christian commitment to love thy neighbor. Kevin Feldotto was one of them. A pastor at one of the largest churches in Colorado Springs, he told me he identifies as a member of the Religious Right but has over the past several years come to take a more nuanced position on his po­liti­cal engagements. A few years ago Pastor Kevin was inspired to write an op-ed in the liberal Colorado Springs weekly paper, the In­de­pen­dent, about po­liti­cal polarization in the town. The article begins: I live in Colorado Springs, home of God. ­There are more Christian ministries in this town than you can shake a Harry Potter book at. Apparently, this makes us some sort of Christian Mecca. I’m not buying it. The ugly truth is that we are a town divided by hate. It’s the granola eating, pacifist, pro-­ homosexual tree-­huggers versus the holier-­than-­thou, flag-­waving, pro-­life, Bible-­thumpers, and we have been divided for a de­cade. We d­ on’t have time to stand in the park and yell at each other, so we wage war with our bumper stickers. “focus on your own damn ­family” is a popu­lar bumper sticker that reveals more about our community than about any organ­ization.12

In the article he talks about driving in town and laughing when he saw a car with the bumper sticker “­Doing my part to piss off the Religious Right.” He fantasized about being able to take the p­ eople in the car out for a beer and to actually listen to their perspectives and how they feel about the religious and the right, a type of conversation that does not happen very often. He then writes, “I was still laughing about the ‘religious right’ sticker when

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it hit me: If Jesus had a car, he might have had that bumper sticker on it, right next to the one that said ‘what would I do?’ ” He talks about how in the Bible, “whenever Jesus went on the attack, who did he launch against? It ­wasn’t the liberals; it was the religious right, the conservatives. It was the religious leaders who knew the Scriptures like they ­were written on their underwear. The pious ­people who ­were convinced that they had the corner on being right.” This type of arrogance and righ­teousness was the target of most of Jesus’s attacks, and while Pastor Kevin identifies po­liti­cally as a member of the Religious Right, he was ner­vous about the attitude held by many Christian conservatives that correlated being right po­liti­cally with being correct and beyond reproach. He asks rhetorically in the article “what this says about evangelicals,” and responds, “We need to be willing to honestly ask ourselves if we have been wrong. No, I take that back. The question should not be ‘Am I wrong?’ but ‘Where am I wrong?’ ” He ends the article with the following proposal: “If y­ ou’re a pro-­homosexual, tree-­ hugging pacifist, let’s talk.” I met Pastor Kevin in his church office, and he told me he received over one hundred e-­mails in response to the article. Many responses w ­ ere long and thoughtful and described how individuals have been, in his words, “wounded by Christians.” Many of the respondents ­were gay, and Kevin began corresponding with some of them. He told me: “I ended up meeting this one man who was gay, and he has a lot of friends who are Christian and he ­doesn’t want to let them know that b­ ecause he is afraid of what w ­ ill happen. He’s worried ­he’ll get judged or ostracized and ­they’ll start working on be­hav­ior management instead of just loving him. The ­thing is, God ­doesn’t love him if he stops being gay, God just loves him. So if we say, ‘You can only be in our camp once you stop being gay,’ then ­we’re telling him that the God that we represent w ­ ill only love you once you stop being gay.” Pastor Kevin was surprised that so few of the responses he received w ­ ere critical of his approach. I asked him how politics fit into this view, and he said that the focus should not be politics but attitude: “­There are just so many issues about the sanctity of marriage, and sex before marriage, that I believe in so strongly, but I’m surrounded by ­people who ­don’t believe ­those ­things, so what do I do in this situation? Do I want to try to get them to be just like me? Do I want them to hold my same views, and if they d­ on’t do I push them away? Do I spend all my energy trying to get them to be like me? I think the obvious, hopefully the obvious answer, is no.” But this is more complicated in

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practice. Pastor Kevin went on to talk about how the emphasis should not be on be­hav­ior modification, but on relationships, for if someone has a relationship with God then their desires w ­ ill start to line up with God’s desires. He said, “If someone does not have a relationship with God and their character is contrary to God, it’s like, ‘Well duh!’ ” This is an in­ter­est­ing take on the relationship between the emphasis on relationships and familism and po­liti­cal involvement. Pastor Kevin’s criticism is a logical extension of this ethical framework: legislation is all about be­hav­ior, e­ ither protecting or prohibiting dif­fer­ent be­hav­iors, and can be seen as working in opposition to the logic of relational accountability that structures so much of evangelicalism. Pastor Kevin began to change his views on po­liti­cal engagements when he started to see how divisive they could be, and how much harder it is to build relationships with non-­Christians in a po­liti­cally polarized environment. In our conversation, it also seemed clear that for Kevin, developing relationships with p­ eople who identify as gay, and openly listening to their stories of pain and ostracism from the Christian community, led him to soften his po­liti­cal rhe­toric further. A final example comes from an executive at one of the main Religious Right organ­izations in Colorado Springs. Harry Andersen is tall, confident, and handsome. He gives the impression that he might once have played varsity football. I met Harry in his large office at the Christian ministry he held a se­nior position in. His beaming smile, kind face, and welcoming presence made him look like he would be just as comfortable as a sportscaster on the nightly news as he was in his position as a communications expert for the organ­ization. Harry told me at the beginning of our interview that his first introduction to God was through joining Alcoholics Anonymous in the late 1980s. He “gave [himself] to Christ” a few years l­ater, partly from the influence of meeting an evangelical w ­ oman who is now his wife. But, he wanted to assure me, “she d­ idn’t date me into Chris­tian­ity.” At first he did not want anything to do with Chris­tian­ity, and he credits AA’s policy of talking about a higher power as opening a win­dow for him to start thinking about God without being turned off by language of God and Jesus that he was not interested in. He describes himself as formerly selfish and self-­focused, and credits his relationship with God as helping him to become calm and peaceful. He told me that he has not wanted a drink since the day that he dedicated his life to Jesus. Harry experienced not only significant personal and emotional changes with his conversion, but also po­liti­cal changes. He had worked as a journalist

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for over a de­cade, and before his conversion lived a life of drinking, practicing infidelity, and not caring much about politics. When I asked him how he went from being a liberal editor to working for conservative po­liti­cal ends, he laughed, saying: “God has a sense of humor. I came to a point where I wanted to use the gifts I had for God. I wanted to work on behalf of biblical princi­ples, not ­things that are more temporal, like ­really good stories that are written ­really well that make ­people happier or what­ever. Po­liti­cally speaking, I began to see God’s view on abortion and the sanctity of marriage that began to inform my po­liti­cal decisions. That being said, it’s not as s­ imple as Republicans versus Demo­crats. I w ­ asn’t ­really a po­liti­cal person before, and I’m still not an avid policy wonk. My views on policy changed right away when I became a Christian.” He thus frames a classic conversion narrative I heard repeatedly during this research. He is introduced to a new ethical world, has it reaffirmed by another source, and eventually adopts this ethical worldview, experiencing dramatic emotional changes and changes in identity and community, and eventually po­liti­cal changes. Though describing himself as “not an avid policy wonk,” his job had him defending leading Religious Right policies in the media. Harry, like Pastor Kevin, had an additional po­liti­cal conversion more recently that reshaped how he expresses his politics. In his work in communications he is often representing the politics of the pro-­family movement in the press, and thus often represents controversial and polarizing views, since his organ­ization is against the l­ egal recognition of same-­sex rights. He admitted, “I can flow negative sound-­bites like the best of them, but I’m working on changing my ways.” An example of this change is in a new relationship he developed with one of the country’s leading gay rights activists, whom I ­will call Bernie. Harry told me of how they met. “Periodically we would debate each other in the press, and we’d say ­really snarky ­things about each other, and one day I just felt overly condemned by the Lord about that. And ­we’re supposed to be able to take criticism with a grain of salt, but this guy, every­thing he said both­ered me. So I prayed about it. Why does he bother me so much? And the Lord, I felt very clearly the Lord tell me, e­ very once in a while I can hear his voice, but I could feel very clearly him telling me, ‘It’s b­ ecause ­you’re basically that guy just on the other side of the line.’ That’s not something I wanted to hear.” Harry then de­cided that he could do something about changing the dynamics of this debate. Soon a­ fter he was convinced about changing the tone of his work, he was scheduled to be at an awards ceremony in a dif­fer­ent city that he knew Bernie would also

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be at to protest. Harry said, “So I called him up and said, ‘Let’s meet for pizza.’ We did, and I told him ­after we met that I r­ eally like the guy, I characterize us as friends.” Since meeting for pizza a few years ago they have stayed in touch, and Harry is willing to admit, “We are very much alike.” During their meeting Harry made a commitment that while he was not ­going to change his po­liti­cal views or agenda, he would stop engaging in personal attacks. And in Harry’s perspective the tone of their disagreements in the press has become much more tempered since their meeting. Recently when Harry and his wife ­were traveling they met up with Bernie and his partner for lunch. This opening in friendship has led to in­ter­ est­ing po­liti­cal conversations as well. Harry explained: He gave a speech at an event protesting an ex-­gay conference, and he invited me t­ here. And I brought some of my staff with me, and at this event t­ here w ­ ere men dressed as ­women and all that, and I was like, we need to do this more often. B ­ ecause when I met this activist, I found out he was a h ­ uman being who I liked, and it was the same ­thing about being in this room. The ­people t­ here ­couldn’t have disagreed with us more, but they w ­ ere as respectful as could be to us. He’s a good guy, and we still totally disagree, but that’s okay. ­Because at one point, he’s kind of a non-­practicing Jew, and at one point I felt like I needed to tell him that God loves him as much as anyone. And I said I ­didn’t want him to be offended, and he laughed and said, “Okay, how about I’ll give you three proselytizing attempts a year.” And the fact that he felt comfortable enough with me that he could joke about it shows that he ­really trusts me.

Harry’s demeanor dramatically shifted when telling me this story. His confident tone softened, and his voice slowed down. It was clear that this relationship and the transformation it represents in his own approach to politics meant something deeply personal to him. He finished telling me this story with the following: “­There are p­ eople who d­ on’t know the Lord out t­ here, but they ­don’t need my poison pen, they need my love and compassion.” It was clear that this was part of his new mission. This transformation was significant, but it focused only on how he does politics; his positions on limiting ­legal protections based on sexual orientation and same-­sex marriage have remained in place. But, as with many o­ thers, I won­der how much this opening ­will change his perspectives over time. It seems, then, that just as traveling outside of the racially segregated suburban enclaves in the United States into a global mission field has led many

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young evangelicals to question the Religious Right politics of their parents, so too does moving out of the homogenous evangelical culture and meeting ­people with dif­fer­ent sexual identities sometimes change perspectives. And even if ­these encounters do not diminish evangelical dedication to defending heterosexuality, building relationships with ­people who have been harmed by both Religious Right rhe­toric and policy and seeing the pain this has caused can lead to more complicated po­liti­cal positions.

7

Conclusion The F­ uture of White Evangelicalism

Christian media and po­liti­cal organ­izations have played a central role in national strug­gles opposing LGBTQ rights, working to continually define white evangelicalism as rooted in a par­tic­u­lar form of sexual citizenship.1 The extension of the right to marry for same-­sex ­couples represents a turning point in sexual citizenship in secular politics. Yet t­ hese expansions of rights for same-­sex ­couples in the United States has done ­little to transform the heterosexual ideals that or­ga­nize white evangelical religious life. In many ways, this has only made white evangelical leaders more focused on their opposition to LGBTQ rights. Many have worked to pass what have been called religious freedom laws that allow Christians to discriminate against LGBTQ p­ eople. This commitment to institutionalized heterosexuality is reflected in policies and mission statements. For example, since the early 1990s the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest evangelical denomination, has listed two means by which a par­tic­u­lar church may be expelled from its fellowship: ­either failing to provide financial contributions to the convention or acting to “affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual be­hav­ior.” The SBC 135

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put this policy into action in 2014 when it unanimously voted to “disfellowship” the church of Southern Baptist pastor Danny Cortez over his position on homo­sexuality. The pastor of a small church in Southern California and the ­father of a gay teen, Cortez publicly questioned church teachings condemning homo­sexuality. In a similar case, when a famous country singer told the BBC that her evangelical megachurch pastor supported LGBTQ rights, Pastor Stan Mitchel of Tennessee was thrust into the national spotlight. Although he pastored for an in­de­pen­dent congregation and thus did not have a congregational authority to contend with, he experienced similar consequences. Since advocating this position, he has lost the majority of his church membership and was forced to sell his church campus, and now shares a sanctuary with another church. Through this pro­cess he has become a vocal advocate for evangelicals to change their position on LGBTQ rights and a resource for young LGBTQ Christians contemplating suicide. I was able to interview Pastor Stan in 2017. During the interview he commented that t­ here are many sacrifices one has to make when challenging evangelical orthodoxy on LGTB issues. When I pressed him for more explanation, he said that he personally has experienced “social, familial, and not the least financial pressure” regarding his decision to come out publicly for LGBTQ rights. It is impossible to know how many o­ thers want to challenge this consensus but are fearful of the consequences awaiting them if they do, but Pastor Stan told me that pastors frequently contact him about their own changing perspectives on LGBTQ rights and their fears about g­ oing public on this topic. Despite increasing enfranchisement in secular national politics, po­liti­ cal ­battles over sexual politics have fixed an evangelical position so that heterosexuality has explic­itly come to be seen as a requirement for citizenship in the Kingdom of God for many evangelicals. This position was articulated in January 2016 in a radio conversation on James Dobson’s radio program ­Family Talk. During the broadcast, Dobson conducted a Q and A with Franklin Graham, the evangelical leader and son of Billy Graham. The discussion began with Graham saying he wants Amer­i­ca to “confess its sins,” then he launched into a warning about Christians ­doing outreach to ­people who identify as gay. Graham said: We have allowed the E ­ nemy [the devil] to come into our churches. I was talking to some Christians and they w ­ ere talking about how they invited ­these gay ­children to come into their home and to come into the church and

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that they w ­ ere wanting to influence them. And I thought to myself, t­ hey’re not g­ oing to influence ­those kids; t­ hose kids are g­ oing to influence t­ hose parents’ ­children. What happens is we think we can fight by smiling and being real nice and loving. We have to understand who the ­Enemy is and what he wants to do. He wants to devour our homes. He wants to devour this nation and we have to be so careful who we let our kids hang out with. We have to be so careful who we let into the churches. And you have immoral ­people that get into churches and it begins to affect the o­ thers in the church, and it is dangerous. So I am g­ oing to encourage the church to take a stand for the church.2

Graham went on to warn against schools and universities that offer “inclusion classes” that are talked about as promoting diversity, but are r­ eally pushing what he calls a pro-­homosexual agenda. Saying he does not want to “bash gays,” as God does love them, he also asserted, “You cannot stay gay and continue to call yourself a Christian.” This frames the issue of LGBTQ rights within the language of spiritual warfare, of a po­liti­cal and moral ­battle, not within the language of evangelism, compassion, and love. Leaders like Graham and Dobson have defined their c­ areers by advocating an understanding of evangelicalism as rooted in a sexual and familial model that must be policed. They have not only helped to make heterosexuality a requirement for belonging within the evangelical ­family, but also have worked to prioritize a po­liti­cal agenda that challenges LGBTQ rights. In this same radio program Dobson and Graham talk about the need for Christians to get involved in politics, to fight against the pro-­LGBTQ stances that many schools are embracing, and for Christians to take over school boards across the country. I found throughout my research that this emphasis on heterosexuality and gender norms has come to frame a popu­lar evangelical theology. And within this white evangelical tradition, unequal relationships within the ­family serve as the foundation for a broader social order, making heterosexuality and patriarchal reproduction central issues of concern to both the church and the nation. Dobson and Graham’s discussion exemplifies this white Christian nationalist perspective. Graham links LGBTQ rights to national sin, one that the nation must repent from, and prioritizes LGBTQ issues as a threat to Christian ethics. Graham goes so far as to imply that LGBTQ p­ eople are agents of Satan, who w ­ ill take advantage of Christian hospitality to pollute the church. And he again links the home with the

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nation by framing Satan as attempting to devour our homes and gives the message that Christians should not befriend ­people who identify as LGBTQ. This message increasingly lacks resonance for many younger Christians, and for conservative Christians who have gone against Graham’s advice and have befriended LGBTQ ­people and begun to learn about vari­ous forms of pain caused by this type of message. Many younger evangelicals w ­ ill hear this message as failing to address more crucial issues facing the church, such as poverty, in­equality, or creation care. In this broadcast Dobson asks, “You know what the ‘B’ stands for [in LGBTQ], bisexual. That’s orgies, that is lots of sex with lots of p­ eople.” He then says that the new issue is polyamory, meaning many loves, saying, “It is the end of an understanding of what morality is all about.” ­There are two ­things happening ­here. First, his understanding of bisexuality as about sexual practice, and not preference, goes against how most young ­people, even young evangelicals, understand this term. Most young p­ eople understand that preference and be­hav­ior are not necessarily linked, in that someone may be bisexual but also engaged in monogamous relationships. Second, Dobson explic­itly defines morality as rooted in sexual relations when he says that polyamory is “the end of an understanding of what morality is all about.” For many younger evangelicals, or evangelicals who have read some of the writings of emergent church leaders, this message appears increasingly narrow, rooted in misunderstandings and bigotry or in a po­liti­cal vision that extends only t­ oward defending the lifestyle of white, middle-­class, heterosexual churchgoers. The new ethical perspectives advocated by the younger evangelicals of this study are still in development, and it ­will take some time to see if and how they transform their churches and the po­liti­cal perspectives inspired in them. Many of t­ hese ­people are developing an expanded understanding of the public, one that must account for the impacts of anti-­LGBTQ stances on individual ­people and ones that recognizes that for many p­ eople poverty and environmental destruction and climate chaos are causing widespread harm. The politics that w ­ ill stem from this expanded idea of a religious public continue to unfold. This expanded understanding of morality, one that seeks to alleviate suffering and can include concerns about economic in­equality, racial justice, imperialism, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis, can also work to challenge the racial homogeneity of the movement. In an ethnography of a network emerging out of the Black Pentecostal tradition, anthropologist Ellen Lewin shows how LGBTQ Christians can reinterpret

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homophobic traditions within new frameworks in the practice of “radical inclusivity.”3 It is thus pos­si­ble for new directions to emerge from a traditional religious practice, ones that challenge some of the hierarchies upheld by the church. Time ­will also tell what role racial demographic changes ­will play in evangelical politics. The Religious Right emerged in the 1970s to defend white Christian values, and has remained a largely racially segregated movement since. Demographers proj­ect that within the next twenty years whites w ­ ill become a minority in the United States. How this ­will impact evangelical politics is unclear. With increasing numbers of Asian and Latinx evangelicals in the United States, evangelical institutions and politics w ­ ill likely change in the coming years.4 In an increasingly racially diverse United States, white evangelicals face a challenge. As Robert Jones reminds us in The End of White Christian Amer­i­ca, white Christians are already a minority in the United States, and anxiety about this minority status can fuel many dif­fer­ent kinds of politics.5 In facing this new real­ity, white evangelicals and the po­liti­cal movement they represent and provide the base for are faced with two broad options. The first is to actively work to become multiracial and thus antiracist. This means not just recruiting token leaders of color who espouse the same politics and theology, but learning from multiple theological traditions and experiences to develop an antiracist politics. The po­liti­cal shifts that could come from this are unclear, but likely would involve an expansion beyond a focus on respectability, nationalism, sexuality, and reproduction. Immigration reform, police brutality, prison reform or prison abolition, poverty alleviation, opposition to structural racism, robust public health efforts: many issues could emerge from this tradition that build on the history of white evangelicalism that lend themselves t­ oward antiracism.6 The second pos­si­ble white evangelical response to increasing racial diversity is racial recalcitrance.7 Instead of acknowledging the potential racial bias built into their politics and communities, this response can downplay racism and the prob­lems of segregation. Studies indicate that increasing racial diversity may lead to increased racial hostility. Such fears of “status threat,” or the fear of losing dominant-­group status, have been shown as a driving ­factor in current politics, particularly for white Americans.8 Surveys of white Americans show that many see racism as a zero-­sum game, where racial groups are understood as fighting for power, and multiracial democracy and egalitarianism are dismissed.9

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The historical intertwining of racial and sexual norms in the United States shows us that historically whiteness was represented and embodied within norms around the nuclear f­ amily. Vari­ous racial proj­ects defended white supremacy through framing white sexual politics as morally superior to ­those of other racial groups. The recouping of ­these norms within white evangelicalism has been effective at shaping a racially homogenous religious movement, one understood by its advocates as a moral, religious movement, yet one that has si­mul­ta­neously received virtually all of its support and leadership from p­ eople of Eu­ro­pean decent. Michael Emerson, Christian Smith, and David Sikkink have shown that adopting the relational model that defines white evangelicalism is correlated with a difficulty in understanding the dynamics of racism, instead framing in­equality as a product of personal and familial failures.10 And this concern ­will remain an impor­tant arena of observation and analy­sis in the years to come.

Acknowl­edgments

My utmost gratitude to all of the p­ eople in Colorado Springs and beyond who gave of their time to speak with me about this proj­ect. To retain the anonymity of t­ hose who contributed to this research I abstain from naming individuals, with the exception of public figures who agreed to allow their names to be used. It would have been impossible to write this book without their openness and willingness to share their time with this stranger and to answer her many questions. Several pastors, Bible study leaders, and media producers spent a significant amount of time answering my questions and introducing me to o­ thers. I am deeply thankful to all of you. Financial support provided by the CUNY Gradu­ate Center, the Wenner-­ Gren Foundation (grant 8038), the Mellon Foundation, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the LGBT Policy Lab at Vanderbilt University all made this work pos­si­ble. I began the research for this book as a gradu­ate student in the CUNY Anthropology Department at the Gradu­ate Center, where I was lucky to find such a supportive intellectual community. My adviser, Leith Mullings, provided ongoing encouragement and feedback. Her feedback also ensured that the final product was intellectually rigorous, and I benefited from her profound insights about race and power. I could not have asked for a better adviser and am deeply grateful for her efforts and support. Jeff Maskovsky provided early encouragement for this proj­ect and remained a supportive reader and interlocutor. Jeff was always available to meet at each stage of the proj­ect, and his feedback surely made the book better. 141

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Talal Asad and Omri Elisha provided helpful early advice on the development of this proj­ect and on conducting field work. Conversations with Talal early on helped shape the trajectory of this proj­ect. Omri also gave thorough feedback on an e­ arlier version of this work. Hylton White, Don Robotham, Ida Susser, and John Collins all provided encouragement and feedback at dif­fer­ent points in the early stages of this work. Janet Jakobsen’s comments ­were instrumental in improving it. My commitment to understanding how racial ideologies are often co-­ articulated through gender was nurtured by Sherene Razack, who advised me at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Sherene’s brilliance and commitment to excavating the workings of race and racism have remained an ongoing source of inspiration for me. My gradu­ate experience was made infinitely more rewarding through support from many colleagues, including Risa Cromer, Monica Fagioli, Adeola Enigbokan, Mary Taylor, John Warner, Darini Nicholas, Josh Lerner, Renate Lunn, Karen Williams, Kaja Tretjak, Manissa Maharawal, Ana Vinea, Mariya Radeva, Janny Llanos, Nathan Woods, Sadia Rahman, Sahar Sadjadi, Daisy Deomampo, Christine Folch, and Nazia Kazi. I am thankful to have had such a robust intellectual and po­liti­cal community. Dinners and debriefs with Jessica Levy helped im­mensely. The Social Science Research Council’s Spirituality, Po­liti­cal Engagement, and Public Life Conference, or­ga­nized by Courtney Bender and Omar McRoberts, provided a productive space for me to develop an early draft of this work. The 2011–2012 seminar “Economies of Affect,” led by Ulla Berg and Ana-­R amos Zayas, provided an ideal space for developing my writing on emotion. The intellectual community in Colorado Springs helped make my field work far more rewarding. In par­tic­u­lar, I appreciate friendships with Sara Hautzinger, Abby Ferber, Andrea Herrera, Tre Wentling, Stephany Rose Spaul­ding, and the late and ever-­inspiring Daryl Miller. The Ibsen f­ amily of Denver provided incredibly generous support for my transportation by lending their cars to this distant cousin to complete her research. Numerous scholars have shared their work or time with me in ways that helped my proj­ect. My sincere thanks go to Pamela Klassen, Joel Robbins, Vincent Crapanzano, and Ann Burlein for speaking with me or providing feedback at dif­f er­ent stages. The late Sandra Morgen’s comments and encouragement ­were invaluable, and her genius remains a constant inspiration and guide.

Acknowl­edgments • 143

Parts of chapters three and four w ­ ere published in the article, “White Sexual Politics: The Patriarchal ­Family in White Nationalism and the Religious Right,” Transforming Anthropology 28, no. 1 (2020): 58–73. Sections of chapters three and four w ­ ere published in “Training the Porous Body: Evangelicals and the Ex-­Gay Movement,” American Anthropologist 120, no. 4 (December 2018): 647–658. A small section of this manuscript was published in the article “Christian nationalism and LGBTQ Structural Vio­ lence in the United States,” Journal of Religion and Vio­lence 7, no. 3 (2020): 278–302. The writing group originally or­ga­nized by Karen Williams has remained a source of inspiration for my writing. I am grateful to Karen, along with Daisy Deomampo, Maggie Dickinson, Risa Cromer, and Martha Lincoln, for embodying both rigorous scholarship and feminist support. Rebecca Barret-­Fox’s Any Good Th ­ ing writing group has served as an impor­tant source of inspiration and collegiality. Sahar Sadjadi has remained an ideal writing partner even at a distance. Laura Portwood-­Stacer provided invaluable feedback at a crucial time, and her editing certainly improved this book. In many ways, the final version would not have been pos­si­ble without her feedback. Maggi Kamitsuka’s suggestions encouraged helpful changes ­toward the end of this proj­ect. Vanderbilt University provided a supportive space as I developed the final manuscript, and I am particularly grateful to Beth Conklin, Lesley Gill, Ken MacLeish, Sara Safronsky, Alison Schacter, Ben Tran, Anand Taneja, Sheba Karim, Tara McKay, Latonya Trotter, Odie Lindsey, Rebecca VanDiver, Alexis Wells-­Oghoghomeh, and Aimi Hamraie. In Nashville Rachel Wright, Rachael Pomerantz, Dana Deloca, Tomiko Peirano, and Alesandra Bellos provided encouragement and reprieve in equal mea­sure. Sabrina Canfield, Liz Tilly, Pauline Luppert, Sue Ball, Elaine Yuen, Joyce Tseng, Mari Spira, Aadika Tsing, and Saneta deVuono-­powell remain a dream team of long-­distance comradeship. I would like to thank Elisabeth Maselli, my editor at Rutgers University Press, for her constant encouragement and steady guidance in bringing this book to fruition. Sherry Gerstein provided excellent production help. Having my m ­ other Marie in my cheering squad proved an immea­sur­able boon on this journey in more ways than I can count. I would also like to thank my late grand­mother, Eileen, my aunt Carol, my b­ rother Ott, and my sister-­in-­law Mullane for always being t­ here. Carolyn and the late Frank provided many kinds of support that I am grateful for as well. The pro­cess

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of completing this research and writing was made far sweeter and the end product far stronger due to Carwil. With you far more t­ hings are pos­si­ble. My two muses, Calliope and Thalia, came into the world at dif­fer­ent times during this writing, and I thank them e­ very day for making my world a more loving and joyous place.

Notes

Chapter 1 ­Family Values and Racial Politics 1 ­There are several impor­tant histories of the emergence of this movement: Nancy Ammerman, “North American Protestant Fundamentalism,” in Media, Culture, and the Religious Right, ed. Linda Kintz and Julia Lesage (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Susan Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2001); James Hunter, American Evangelicalism: Conservative Religion and the Quandary of Modernity (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983); Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2001). 2 Daniel K. Williams, God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 133–170. 3 This is not to say a conservative po­liti­cal tradition was lacking with U.S. evangelicalism. Billy Graham’s revivals helped to define U.S. evangelical culture as associated with conservative politics (see Frances FitzGerald, The Evangelicals: The Strug­gle to Shape Amer­i­ca [New York: Simon and Schuster, 2017]). 4 See the discussion of the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern in Randall Balmer, Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Car­ter (New York: Basic Books, 2014). 5 Ammerman, “North American Protestant Fundamentalism,” 98. 6 See Seth Dowland, “­Family Values and the Formation of a Christian Right Agenda,” Church History 78, no. 3 (2009): 606–631; Seth Dowland, ­Family Values: Gender, Authority, and the Rise of the Christian Right (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 20. 7 Jessica Martínez and Gregory A. Smith, How the Faithful Voted: A Preliminary 2016 Analy­sis (Washington: Pew Research Center, 2016). Robert Jones points out that this number has remained consistent even as overall numbers of white

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16

17

Christians have been in decline over the same period (The End of White Christian Amer­i­ca, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016). Anson Shupe and William Stacey, Born Again Politics and the Moral Majority: What Social Surveys ­Really Show (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1982). Robert P. Jones and Robert D. Francis, “The Black and White of Moral Values: How Attending to Race Challenges the My­thol­ogy of the Relationship between Religiosity and Po­liti­cal Attitudes and Be­hav­ior,” in Faith and Race in American Po­liti­cal Life, ed. Nancy Wadsworth and Robin Dale Jacobson (Charlottesville: University of V ­ irginia Press, 2012), 129–130. One example comes from views on LGBTQ rights. While statistical analy­sis shows that higher rates of African Americans than white Americans view homo­sexuality as morally wrong, largely due to differences in religiosity, African Americans are more likely to support the granting of rights to LGBTQ ­people. Gregory B. Lewis, “Black-­W hite Differences in Attitudes ­toward Homo­sexuality and Gay Rights,” Public Opinion Quarterly 67, no. 1 (2003): 59–78; Jeni Loftus, “Amer­i­ca’s Liberalization in Attitudes t­ oward Homo­sexuality, 1973–1998,” American So­cio­log­i­cal Review 66, no. 5 (2001): 762–782. Religious Studies scholar Monique Moultrie demonstrates that a patriarchal tradition in the Black church can focus on controlling Black w ­ omen’s sexuality, while also often supporting antiracist po­liti­cal goals. See Monique Moultrie, Passionate and Pious: Religious Media and Black W ­ omen’s Sexuality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017). Ellen Lewin, Filled with the Spirit: Sexuality, Gender, and Radical Inclusivity in a Black Pentecostal Church Co­ali­tion (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2018). See Julie Ingersoll, Evangelical Christian ­Women: War Stories in the Gender ­Battles (New York: New York University Press, 2003). Janelle Wong, Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change (New York: Russell Sage, 2018). Hillsong United, “Now That ­You’re Near,” 2002. Many evangelical feminists challenge ­these patriarchal assumptions and the gender-­based hierarchies that define much of evangelicalism. See Ingersoll, Evangelical Christian ­Women; Pamela D. H. Cochran, Evangelical Feminism: A History (New York: New York University Press, 2005). And some scholars challenge that female submission is even what plays out in ­actual evangelical ­family structures—­even if evangelicals pay lip ser­vice to the princi­ple. Several studies have shown the importance of male headship and female submission in evangelical life, highlighting how t­ hese ideals are often more complicated in practice. R. Marie Griffith, God’s ­Daughters: Evangelical W ­ omen and the Power of Submission (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Christian Smith and Sally Gallagher, “Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism: Con­temporary Evangelicals, Families, and Gender,” Gender and Society 13, no. 2 (1999): 211–233; Sally Gallagher, Evangelical Identity and Gendered ­Family Life (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003). This is not to assume that the categories “religion” and “politics” exist in separate spheres. As Talal Asad argues, this perception could only be i­ magined in the establishment of public secularism in the modern West. Religion has always involved systems of power and authority. See Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Chris­tian­ity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

Notes to Pages 5–7 • 147

18 Parachurch organ­izations are Christian ministries not affiliated with any one denomination or congregation that provide ser­vices and engage in outreach and evangelizing. 19 Several key texts that explore evangelical politics include Randall Balmer, The Making of Evangelicalism: From Revivalism to Politics and Beyond (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010); Lydia Bean, The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2014); Don S. Browning, From Culture Wars to Common Ground: Religion and the American F ­ amily Debate (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997); Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell; Donald Heinz, “The Strug­g le to Define Amer­i­ca,” in The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation, ed. Robert Wuthnow and Robert Liebman (New York: Aldine Transaction, 1983), 133–148; Hunter, American Evangelicalism. 20 See John Bartkowski, Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001); Gallagher, Evangelical Identity and Gendered ­Family Life; C. Smith and Gallagher, “Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism”; Brenda Brasher, Godly ­Women: Fundamentalism and Female Power (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998). 21 An example of this is found in sociologist Kimberly Kelly’s work on crisis-­ pregnancy centers. Kelly finds that evangelical participation in anti-­abortion action is a form of d­ oing religion within evangelical culture. Kimberly Kelly, “Evangelical Underdogs: Intrinsic Success, Orga­nizational Solidarity, and Marginalized Identities as Religious Movement Resources,” Journal of Con­ temporary Ethnography 43, no. 4 (August 1, 2014): 419–455, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​ .­1177​/0 ­ 891241613516627. 22 For a discussion of this shift in interest in religious studies to how religion is practiced, see David Hall, ed., Lived Religion in Amer­i­ca: ­Toward a History of Practice (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1997). 23 As Frances FitzGerald writes in her extensive history, late twentieth-­century evangelicals challenge an e­ arlier belief in separating church and politics, instead espousing a view that politics are central to Christian concerns. FitzGerald, The Evangelicals. 24 For an analy­sis of how the po­liti­cal formation of the Religious Right shifted national po­liti­cal conversations away from questions of racial equity, see also Dowland, ­Family Values. 25 This argument is in line with Howard Winant, who writes that racial mobilizations of whiteness t­ oday take vari­ous forms, some of which are racial, some racist, and some antiracist. Howard Winant, “­Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Con­temporary U.S. Racial Politics,” New Left Review 225 (1997): 73–88. 26 Tina Fetner, How the Religious Right S­ haped Lesbian and Gay Activism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). 27 David Harrington Watt, Bible-­Carrying Christians: Conservative Protestants and Social Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 116. 28 R. Marie Griffith, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (New York: Basic Books, 2017). 29 Griffith, xi.

148  •  Notes to Pages 7–10

30 Sara Moslener, Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 31 See Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “White Evangelicals Voted Overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, Exit Polls Show,” Washington Post, November 9, 2016, https://­w ww​ .­washingtonpost​.­com​/­news​/­acts​-­of​-­faith​/­wp​/­2016​/­11​/­09​/­exit​-­polls​-­show​-­white​ -­evangelicals​-­voted​-­overwhelmingly​-­for​-­donald​-­trump​/­. 32 Kate Shellnutt, “Trump Elected President, Thanks to 4 in 5 White Evangelicals,” Chris­tian­ity ­Today, November 9, 2016, http://­w ww​.c­ hristianitytoday​.c­ om​ /­g leanings​/­2016​/­november​/­trump​-e­ lected​-­president​-t­ hanks​-­to​-­4-​ ­in​-­5​-­white​ -­evangelicals​.­html. 3 3 I want to acknowledge that this shortened version of the acronym fails to capture the diversity of this community, better captured in the longer LGBTQQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, and intersex). 3 4 Marla Faye Frederick, Between Sundays: Black W ­ omen and Everyday Strug­gles of Faith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 8. 3 5 A national Pew poll in 2009 found that only 34 ­percent of white evangelicals attributed global warming to h ­ uman activity, while 31 ­percent denied that solid evidence shows the earth is warming at all. See Pew Research Center, “Religious Groups’ Views on Global Warming,” April 16, 2009; N. Smith and A. Leiserowitz, “American Evangelicals and Global Warming,” Global Environmental Change 23, no. 5 (2013): 1009–1017, https://­doi​.o­ rg​/­10​.­1016​/­j​.g­ loenvcha​.­2013​.­04​.­001. See also Robin Globus Veldman, The Gospel of Climate Skepticism: Why Evangelical Christians Oppose Action on Climate Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019). Sophie Bjork-James, “Lifeboat Theology: White Evangelicalism, Apocalyptic Chronotopes, and Environmental Politics,” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, forthcoming. 36 Nancy D. Wadsworth, “Intersectionality in California’s Same-­Sex Marriage ­Battles: A Complex Proposition,” Po­liti­cal Research Quarterly 64, no. 1 (2011): 200, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1177​/­1065912910376386. 37 Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and ­ egal Forum 140 (1989): 139–167. Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago L 3 8 Sherene Razack, for instance, suggests the term “interlocking” to replace intersecting, as it more clearly speaks to the way t­ hese multiple forms of oppression reinforce each other and mandate that they be challenged si­mul­ta­neously. See Sherene Razack, Looking White P ­ eople in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 39 Jasbir Puar suggests that the concept of “assemblage” is more useful than that of “intersectionality,” as it does not imply fixed identities, nor the subject, but rather, as Jasbir Puar writes, through Deleuze and Guatarri, assemblages are about becoming: they are dynamic. See Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonation­ alism in Queer Times (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007). Also Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (London: Continuum, 1980); Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri, Anti-­Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizo­phre­nia (London: Continuum, 2003). 4 0 Wadsworth, “Intersectionality in California’s Same-­Sex Marriage ­Battles,” 203. 41 Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical White Studies: Looking b­ ehind the Mirror (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 1997); Mike Hill, Whiteness:

Notes to Pages 10–12 • 149

A Critical Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1997); Pamela Perry, Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identity in High School (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002); Mary Weismantel, Cholas and Pishtacos: Stories of Race and Sex in the Andes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). 42 Henry Goldschmidt, “Introduction: Race, Nation, and Religion,” in Race, Nation, and Religion in the Amer­i­cas, ed. Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 7. 43 Winthrop Jordan, The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 53. 44 Edward J. Blum, Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865–1898 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2005), 9. 45 Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 244. 46 Gary Dorrien, “Evangelical Ironies: Theology, Politics, and Israel,” in Uneasy Allies? Evangelical and Jewish Relations, ed. Alan Mittleman, Byron Johnson, and Nancy Isserman (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 118. 47 Mark Noll writes, “For white evangelicals, the civil rights revolution was the key to changing attitudes about participating in politics as well as for the direction that this po­liti­cal action took.” Mark Noll, God and Race in American Politics: A Short History (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2010), 156. 48 Missionary attempts to convert Native Americans to Chris­tian­ity have been have criticized as perpetuating a Euro-­A merican bias, interlocking missionary and colonial or genocidal efforts, even when they w ­ ere not overtly linked. See George E. Tinker, Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993). 49 C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990). 50 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Pocket Books, 2005), 130. 51 Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righ­teous Discontent: The W ­ omen’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 7. 52 Noll, God and Race in American Politics, 1. 53 Johnson writes, “Israelitic[’] appropriations . . . ​have exerted the most enduring narrative influence upon the American religious imagination.” Sylvester Johnson, The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-­Century American Chris­tian­ity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 1. 5 4 See Forrest G. Wood, The Arrogance of Faith: Chris­tian­ity and Race in Amer­i­ca, (New York: Knopf, 1990). 55 Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of Amer­i­ca’s Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968). John Hall quotes John Winthrop, the Puritan leader, as saying that in fleeing Eu­ro­pean oppression “the church hath no place to fly into but the wilderness.” John R. Hall, Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), 147. 56 Higginbotham, Righ­teous Discontent, 47. 57 See Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Albert J. Raboteau, A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-­American Religious History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). 5 8 See also Eddie S. Glaude, Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early Nineteenth-­ Century Black Amer­ic­ a (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 9. Laurie F.

150  •  Notes to Pages 12–14

Maffly-­K ipp provides an extended analy­sis of how African Americans crafted racial stories opposing oppression entwining racial and religious narratives. See Laurie Maffly-­K ipp, Setting Down the Sacred Past: African-­American Race Histories (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), https://­w ww​.­hup​ .­harvard​.e­ du​/­catalog​.p­ hp​?i­ sbn​=­9780674050792. 59 Glaude writes, “Nineteenth c­ entury African Americans framed the nation as stained by the practice of slavery,” thus “Amer­i­ca was not symbolized as a promised land in the wilderness of North Amer­i­ca. Rather, it was Egypt, the enslaver of the black Israel, God’s chosen ­people,” Glaude, Exodus!, 10. 60 ­There is some debate regarding the types of politics African American Christianities have inspired. See Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Random House, 1976); Glaude, Exodus! 61 For a historical discussion of the ways racial history has inspired often contradictory politics and theologies, see Noll, God and Race in American Politics. 62 For an analy­sis of evangelical “moral ambitions” and the importance of accountability in evangelical practice, see Omri Elisha, “Moral Ambitions of Grace: The Paradox of Compassion and Accountability in Evangelical Faith-­Based Activism,” Cultural Anthropology 23, no. 1 (2008): 154–189; Omri Elisha, Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). 6 3 Moslener, Virgin Nation. Moslener traces the history of con­temporary sexual purity campaigns to nineteenth-­century evangelical campaigns that saw in white teenage sexual purity the f­ uture strength of the nation: “The ideological connections drawn between sexual immorality and national security include several cooperating impulses: evangelical po­liti­cal activism, deep anxiety over gender roles and changing sexual mores, fear of moral decay, apocalyptic anticipation, and American nationalism” (4–5). 6 4 Leslie Dorrough Smith, Righ­teous Rhe­toric: Sex, Speech, and the Politics of Concerned ­Women for Amer­ic­ a, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 65 Caroline Mala Corbin, “Justice Scalia, the Establishment Clause, and Christian Privilege,” First Amendment Law Review 15 (2017), 220. 66 Elisha, Moral Ambition, 10. 67 See Ed Stetzer, “Defining Evangelicals in Research,” National Association of Evangelicals (website), Winter 2017/2018, https://­w ww​.­nae​.­net​/­defining​ -­evangelicals​-­research​/­. Balmer, The Making of Evangelicalism, proposes a similar definition of evangelicalism that includes belief in the Bible as the inspired work of God, the significance of being “born-­again,” and the need to evangelize. 6 8 See for instance the criticism put forward by Marquez Ball, “Trump’s Challenge to Evangelical Values and Racism,” Reformed African American Network, June 8, 2016, https://­w ww​.­raanetwork​.­org​/t­ rumps​-e­ vangelical​-­values​-r­ acism​/­. 69 Michael O. Emerson, Christian Smith, and David Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World: White Conservative Protestants and Explanations of Black-­ White In­equality,” Social Prob­lems 46, no. 3 (1999): 401. 70 Omri Elisha argues that what structures t­ hese evangelical ethics is an emphasis on accountability, where Christian relationships provide an accountable relational structure that encourages o­ thers to live a godly life and to avoid sin. Elisha, Moral Ambition.

Notes to Pages 14–26 • 151

71 Eric Tranby and Douglass Hartmann, “Critical Whiteness Theories and the Evangelical ‘Race Prob­lem’: Extending Emerson and Smith’s Divided by Faith,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47, no. 3 (2008): 342. 72 See Richard Twiss, Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014). 73 See Tranby and Hartmann. 74 Noll, God and Race in American Politics, 156. Partly this involved the broad cultural challenge to racism that freed southern religious culture from a stigma so that it could more easily be exported across the country. 75 At one point the city ­housed over one hundred evangelical organ­izations, including Focus on the ­Family, and several impor­tant large churches. I discuss this in more detail in the next chapter. 76 For a discussion of this history see Fetner, How the Religious Right S­ haped Lesbian and Gay Activism. 77 Fetner, 5. 78 I use pseudonyms for all interviewees and preachers, and for the church, except in cases where an interviewee is publicly known and requested I use their real name. 79 In accordance with The Chicago Manual of Style, this book does not capitalize pronouns that refer to God or Jesus. 8 0 This contrasts to the Catholic emphasis on motherhood and the figure of Mary. In my experience, Mary plays a minimal role in everyday theological understandings in evangelical culture. 81 Evangelical churches differ regarding the ordination of ­women, and many evangelical feminists continue to fight for access to ordination. However, the majority of the large nondenominational churches and the largest denominations only ordain men. 82 See Anne Rice, “­Today I Quit Being a Christian,” Chris­tian­ity ­Today, posted 8/2/2010 5:34 p.m., http://­w ww​.­christianitytoday​.­com​/­g leanings​/­2010​/­august​ /­anne​-­rice​-­today​-­i​-­quit​-­being​-­christian​.­html.

Chapter 2  The Divine Institution and the Segregated Church 1 See Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992). 2 A few include Randall Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens Amer­i­ca; An Evangelical’s Lament (New York: Basic Books, 2006); Balmer, Redeemer; Melinda Cooper, ­Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (Brooklyn, NY: Zone Books, 2017); Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-­Wing Movements and Po­liti­cal Power in the United States (New York: Guilford Press, 1995); Sara Diamond, Not by Politics Alone: The Enduring Influence of the Christian Right (New York: Guilford Press, 2000); FitzGerald, The Evangelicals; Hunter, American Evangeli­ calism; William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in Amer­i­ca (New York: Broadway Books, 1996); Williams, God’s Own Party. 3 Darren Dochuk, From Bible ­Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-­Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism, (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

152  •  Notes to Pages 26–29

4 McGirr, Suburban Warriors. 5 Eileen Luhr, Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 6. 6 McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 9. 7 McGirr, 8. 8 In her study of U.S. gated communities, anthropologist Setha Low argues that white racial norms actually can be inscribed onto suburban landscapes, so that conformity and cleanliness come to represent white racial values of niceness and fear of o­ thers. See Setha Low, “Maintaining Whiteness: The Fear of ­Others and Niceness,” Transforming Anthropology 17, no. 2 (2009): 79–92. 9 See Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold Story of Racial In­equality in Twentieth ­Century Amer­i­ca (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005); Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated Amer­i­ca (New York: Liveright, 2017). 10 Kevin Ruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2005). 11 See Deborah Jian Lee, Rescuing Jesus: How ­People of Color, ­Women, and Queer Christians Are Reclaiming Evangelicalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015). 12 Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (­Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 163. 13 Paul Boyer, “The Evangelical Resurgence in 1970s American Protestantism,” in Rightward Bound: Making Amer­i­ca Conservative in the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 33. 14 Boyer, 34. Faye Ginsburg writes that in the early 1980s many anti-­abortion activists in her study ­were migrating from mainline to evangelical churches for po­liti­cal reasons. See Faye D. Ginsburg, Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community, updated ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 15 For a study of the multiple ways that evangelicals cultivate this relationship with God, see Tanya Luhrmann, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (New York: Knopf, 2012). 16 See Larry Eskridge, God’s Forever ­Family: The Jesus ­People Movement in Amer­i­ca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 267–271. For a discussion of the relationship between worship practice and religious identity, see Mark Noll, A History of Chris­tian­ity in the United States and Canada (­Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992). 17 For a discussion of worship m ­ usic and affect, see Jon Bialecki, “Between Stewardship and Sacrifice: Agency and Economy in a Southern California Charismatic Church,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. 2 (2008): 372–390. 18 Worship is experienced. I remember meeting a w ­ oman early on in my research at a social gathering who had grown up evangelical but had since left the faith. When I told her about my interest in studying how the f­ amily linked everyday faith and politics in evangelicalism, she responded strongly, stating, “For many evangelicals the focus is ­really about ecstatic worship. The politics ­aren’t impor­tant; they come second.” I came to agree with this understanding. 19 Williams, God’s Own Party, 133. 20 Williams, 134–135. 21 Williams, 141.

Notes to Pages 29–32 • 153

22 Williams, 155. 23 Paul Harvey, “Race, Religion, and the Right in the South, 1945–1990,” in Politics and Religion in the White South, ed. G. Feldman (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 101. 24 Quoted in Williams, God’s Own Party, 157. 25 Bean, The Politics of Evangelical Identity, 33. 26 Bean, 34. 27 E. J. Dionne, Why Americans Hate Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 227. 28 Williams argues that what happened at this time was not that evangelicals began to become involved in politics, as they had remained involved in vari­ous ways for de­cades, but that instead this time should be seen as a po­liti­cal consolidation, where evangelicals “­were taking over the Republican Party.” Williams, God’s Own Party, 2. 29 Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction; see also Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come. 3 0 Joseph Crespino, “Civil Rights and the Religious Right,” in Rightward Bound: Making Amer­i­ca Conservative in the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 93. 31 Quoted in Crespino, 94. 32 Quoted in Crespino, 97. 3 3 Williams describes this fight as not focused on segregation. Rather, he describes conservative Christians as seeing IRS oversight as an extension of a secular government into the Christian community. He also describes many ­people as supporting Christian schools b­ ecause they did not support the secular direction that public schools ­were heading. However, I argue that it is impossible in this case to separate racial concerns from religious-­cultural concerns. Williams, God’s Own Party, 171–172. 3 4 Quoted in Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 132–133. 3 5 Quoted in Barry Hankins, American Evangelicals: A Con­temporary History of a Mainstream Religious Movement (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 144. 36 Quoted in Edsall and Edsall, Chain Reaction, 133. 37 Quoted in Edsall and Edsall, 133. 3 8 Diamond, Not by Politics Alone, 66. Crespino points out that it was actually Nixon who first proposed denying tax exemptions. Crespino, “Civil Rights and the Religious Right,” 103. 39 Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. 4 0 James Guth, “The New Christian Right,” in The New Christian Right, ed. R. Liebman and R. Wuthnow (New York: Aldine Publishing, 1983), 32; Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 128–129. 41 Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. Sara Diamond would eventually dub this movement “dominionism,” the idea that Christian values should have dominion over the po­liti­cal pro­cess and the state, although evangelicals do not usually use this term. Diamond, Roads to Dominion. 42 Guth, “The New Christian Right,” 33; Shupe and Stacey, Born Again Politics and the Moral Majority. 4 3 In his first press conference following his 1980 election, Reagan was asked two separate questions specifically about the expected role of the Moral Majority in

154  •  Notes to Pages 32–34

influencing his presidency given its prominent role in the preceding election. Cf. Shupe and Stacey, Born Again Politics and the Moral Majority. 44 “Transcript to Reagan News Conference,” New York Times, November 7, 1980, 15. 45 It is impor­tant to note that by the time of the founding of the Moral Majority, Falwell had disavowed the pro-­segregationist stance he had preached on in the 1950s and 1960s. Susan Harding writes that Falwell’s sermons from t­ hese de­cades ­were not included in his archive at Liberty College, but a few sermons from the era w ­ ere available elsewhere and clearly articulated a pro-­segregationist stance (Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell, 22, 286n24). In 1965, Falwell criticized Martin Luther King and other ministers’ po­liti­cal involvement, stating, “We need to get off the streets and into the pulpits and prayer rooms.” At the time of the founding of the Moral Majority, Falwell instead commented that “this idea of ‘religion and politics d­ on’t mix’ was in­ven­ted by the devil to keep Christians from ­running their own country” (quoted in Harding, 22). In the late 1970s he invoked the civil rights movement in a very dif­fer­ent vein, as a model for the po­liti­cal involvement of fundamentalist Christians. Harding writes, “The effect of Falwell’s founding of the Moral Majority and equivalent barrier-­breaking events of the early 1980s was, at least momentarily, comparable to the effect of the first black sit-­ins at white drugstore c­ ounters in the South in 1960” (23). 46 Quoted in James A. Speer, “The New Christian Right and Its Parent Com­pany: A Study in Po­liti­cal Contrasts,” in New Christian Politics, ed. David Bromley and Anson Shupe (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1984), 19. 47 Quoted in Speer, 20. 48 Quoted in James Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the G ­ reat Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 318. 49 Quoted in Gregory, 318. 50 See Crespino, “Civil Rights and the Religious Right,” 104. The Supreme Court reversed this decision in 1983. 51 Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come, 17. 52 A 1982 survey found that support for the Moral Majority—­the first national Religious Right organ­ization—­was ­limited to “fundamentalist (white) Chris­tian­ ity,” with no multiracial support even in the South. Shupe and Stacey, Born Again Politics and the Moral Majority, 103. 53 Beginning in the 1970s many leaders of the Ku Klux Klan began to splinter from the century-­old organ­ization to found a new white racial movement framed not in the language of supremacy but in rights and racial pride. Cf. R. Sophie Statzel, “Cybersupremacy: The New Face and Form of White Supremacist Activism,” in Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler (Boston: MIT Press, 2008), 405–428. 5 4 See Dowland, ­Family Values. 55 Angela D. Dillard, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? Multicultural Conserva­ tism in Amer­i­ca (New York: New York University Press, 2001). 56 Indeed, this emphasis goes to the very foundation of Protestantism. Martin Luther himself prioritized a similar view of gender and authority, writing: “Men are commanded to rule and to reign over their wives and families. But if w ­ oman, forsaking her position (officio), presumes to rule over her husband, she then and ­there engages in a work of which she was not created, a work which stems from her

Notes to Pages 34–36 • 155

own failings (vitio) and is evil. For God did not create this sex to rule. For this reason domination by ­women is never a happy one.” Martin Luther, “The Natu­ral Place of W ­ omen,” in Sexual Love and Western Morality: A Philosophical Anthology, ed. D. P. Verene (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 135. Luther goes on to compliment w ­ omen on their ability to talk about domestic ­matters, but he says ­women “speak so confusedly and absurdly when they talk about politics that nothing could be worse. From this it appears that w ­ oman was created for domestic concerns but man for po­liti­cal ones, for wars, and the affairs of law courts” (136). See also Kevin Christiano, “Religion and the F ­ amily in Modern American Culture,” in ­Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Socie­ties, ed. Sharon House­k necht and Jerry Pankhurst (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 45. 57 William Bradford Wilcox, Mark Chaves, and David Franz, “Focused on the ­Family? Religious Traditions, ­Family Discourse, and Pastoral Practice,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43, no. 4 (2004): 492. See also Christiano, “Religion and the ­Family in Modern American Culture”; W. Lloyd Warner, The ­Family of God: A Symbolic Study of Christian Life in Amer­i­ca (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961). The Middletown studies of the 1920s and 1930s show the continued dominance of Christian familism; respondents described the f­ amily as the center of a Christian community. 58 Larry Christenson, The Christian F ­ amily (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1970). The text is inspired by the German Protestant theologian H.W.J. Thiersch’s ­ amily Life. 1854 text Christian F 59 Christenson, The Christian F ­ amily. Christenson quotes from Thiersch’s text so frequently that he actually just uses an asterisk each time he references the text to avoid having to use formal citation indexes. 6 0 Christenson, 17. 61 Christenson writes: “It is impor­tant to recognize this structure at the outset, for it is so l­ ittle understood in our day, still less practiced. Yet God has made the well-­being and happiness of the ­family absolutely dependent upon the observance of His divinely appointed order. Any change from that which His ­will has ordered only brings forth a misshapen form, for which ­there is no cure except a return to God’s original order” (18). 62 Christenson, 45–46. 6 3 In this framing, to remain in line with God’s plans, to resist the workings of the devil, w ­ omen must avoid paid employment, men must lead their h ­ ouse­holds, and ­children must receive discipline, including corporal punishment, for disobedience. Christenson writes, “The spanking must go beyond the point of anger. It must evoke a w ­ holesome fear in the child” (107), a sentiment that also shapes James Dobson’s treatise on disciplining ­children that came out the same year, Dare to Discipline. 6 4 See Dean Hoge, Benton Johnson, and Donald Luidens, Vanis­hing Bound­aries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994). While mainline Protestantism is typically more associated with social justice, many mainline churches have been divided on their positions on LGBTQ rights. 65 One area where this difference in emphasis is most clear is in regard to LGBTQ rights. While many mainline Protestant churches have a­ dopted affirming policies

156  •  Notes to Pages 37–46

66

67 68 69 70 71 72

73

around LGBTQ Christians, this is not true for all mainline churches. The United Methodist Church, for instance, voted in 2019 to reinforce a ban on same-­sex marriage, representing a broader anti-­a ffirming position. For more on Methodist debates about LGBTQ issues, see Dawne Moon, God, Sex, and Politics: Homo­ sexuality and Everyday Theologies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Anthropologists have shown that as North American missionaries spread evangelicalism throughout Latin Amer­i­ca, transformations in kinship structures often accompanied religious conversions, resulting in a movement away from extended families into nuclear families, defined by male headship. See Elizabeth Brusco, The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995); Lesley Gill, “ ‘Like a Veil to Cover Them’: ­Women and the Pentecostal Movement in La Paz,” American Ethnologist 17, no. 4 (1990): 708–721. Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Walmart: The Making of Christian ­Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). See Linda Kintz and Julia Lesage, Media, Culture, and the Religious Right (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998). Ann Burlein, Lift High the Cross: Where White Supremacy and the Christian Right Converge (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). Quoted in Burlein, 171, 177. Ari Kelman, A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). The “city upon a hill” is a phrase from Matthew 5:14, used popularly by the Puritans to describe the Christian community they w ­ ere building in the Amer­i­ cas. The phrase has been used by numerous U.S. politicians, most often to describe American exceptionalism through a biblical lens. Brandon Fibbs, “Play’s Version of Springs Is Not All ‘Beautiful,’ ” The Gazette (Colorado Springs), June 14, 2008.

Chapter 3 Reading the Bible with James Dobson 1 Harding, The Book of Jerry Falwell. 2 Tanya Luhrmann, “How Do You Learn to Know That It Is God Who Speaks?,” in Learning Religion, ed. David C. Berliner and Ramón Sarró (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007), 83–102. 3 Megachurches are defined as t­ hose with two thousand or more attendees. See Mark Chaves, “All Creatures G ­ reat and Small: Megachurches in Context,” Review of Religious Research 47, no. 4 (2006): 329–346; Scott Thumma and D. Travis, Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from Amer­i­ca’s Largest Churches (San Francisco: Jossey-­Bass, 2007); Barney Warf and Morton Winsberg, “Geographies of Megachurches in the United States,” Journal of Cultural Geography 27, no. 1 (2010): 33–51. 4 See, for instance, photographer Lisa Anne Auerbach’s photo-­documentary of U.S. megachurch architectural styles, https://­lisaanneauerbach​.­com​/­megachurches​/­. 5 See also Bialecki, “Between Stewardship and Sacrifice.” 6 For a history of evangelical architectural trends, see Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When Church Became Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). In the

Notes to Pages 46–52 • 157

twentieth and twenty-­first centuries this shift has reflected a broader transformation in religious practice, characterized in part by an emphasis on Christian rock ­music and the professional musicians and audio, lighting, and sound technicians who produce this weekly ritual of worship, expertly crafted for emotional experience. 7 Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann has similarly observed that evangelical practice focuses on developing the capacity to hear God, to feel God in one’s body, and to communicate with God on a daily basis through Bible study and prayer. This emphasis on the practices evangelicals use to develop a relationship with God is well documented in vari­ous studies. Tanya Luhrmann, “Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity,” American Anthropologist 106, no. 3 (2004): 518–528; Luhrmann, “How Do You Learn to Know That It Is God Who Speaks?”; Luhrmann, When God Talks Back. See also James Bielo, Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study (New York: New York University Press, 2009). 8 I use the term “evangelical” in this book even though participants generally do not use it themselves. Watt, Bible-­Carrying Christians, uses the term “Bible-­believing” to describe this group. I choose the term “evangelical” ­because it has come to mean, in broader parlance, both a religious practice and a po­liti­cal position. While many participants in this study are challenging the po­liti­cal dimensions of this term, I believe it is useful as an analytic category, even if it is not an emic term. 9 For a discussion of Driscoll’s church, see Jessica Johnson, Biblical Porn: Affect, ­Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018). 10 Quoted in Molly Worthens, “Who Would Jesus Smack Down?,” New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2009. 11 See Amy DeRogatis, Saving Sex: Sexuality and Salvation in American Evangelicalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 12 DeRogatis. 13 Amy DeRogatis, “ ‘Born Again Is a Sexual Term’: Demons, STDs, and God’s Healing Sperm,” Journal of the American Acad­emy of Religion 77, no. 2 (2009): 275–302, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.1­ 093​/­jaarel​/­lfp020. 14 See also Burlein, Lift High the Cross, 153. 15 Orit Avishai, “ ‘­Doing Religion’ in a Secular World: ­Women in Conservative Religions and the Question of Agency,” Gender and Society 22, no. 4 (2008): 409–433. 16 ­There are no available numbers for how many ­people have gone through some version of “reparative therapy” or other therapy attempting to leave homo­ sexuality; however, the number is well into the tens of thousands. Th ­ ere are thus many p­ eople who have left what is sometimes called the “ex-­gay” movement, and some have formed the “ex-­ex-­gay” movement and often call themselves “ex-­gay survivors.” See beyondexgay​.­com for more information on this movement. 17 Emerson Eggerichs, Love and Re­spect: The Love She Most Desires, the Re­spect He Desperately Needs (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004). 18 Melanie Heath, “Soft-­Boiled Masculinity: Renegotiating Gender and Racial Ideologies in the Promise Keepers Movement,” Gender and Society 17, no. 3 (2003): 423–444, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1177​/­0891243203017003008. 19 Accessed October 10, 2019. From http://­loveandrespect​.­com​/­blog​/­pink​-­and​-b­ lue​ -­not​-w ­ rong​-­just​-d­ ifferent​-­video​/­.

158  •  Notes to Pages 53–58

20 Smith and Gallagher, “Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism.” Also see Gallagher, Evangelical Identity and Gendered ­Family Life; Griffith, God’s ­Daughters. 21 Other impor­tant work has shown this diversity, for example, Brasher, Godly ­Women; Bartkowski, Remaking the Godly Marriage. 22 See Moreton, To Serve God and Walmart. 23 See Heath, “Soft-­Boiled Masculinity.” 24 Bethany Moreton, “The Soul of Neoliberalism,” Social Text 25, no. 3 (2007): 103–123. 25 Matthew Lassiter, “Inventing ­Family Values,” in Rightward Bound: Making Amer­i­ca Conservative in the 1970s, ed. Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 14. 26 Moreton, “The Soul of Neoliberalism,” 111. 27 See Frank Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age (New York: Routledge, 2004). For more on ideas about the modern psyche, see Eva Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-­Help (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 28 Heather Hedershot, Shaking the World for Jesus: Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). 29 For a discussion of the ways race ­shaped gender norms among evangelical female celebrities, see Kate Bowler, The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangeli­ cal W ­ omen Celebrities (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2019). 3 0 Carolyn Moxley Rouse, John L. Jackson, and Marla Faye Frederick, eds., Televised Redemption: Black Religious Media and Racial Empowerment (New York: New York University Press, 2016). 31 Frederick, Between Sundays. 32 Adding to the previous pillars of evangelism, marriage, parenting, sanctity of ­human life, and social responsibility. The organ­i zation describes “The Value of Male and Female” as “a bold declaration that gender m ­ atters in God’s plan for humanity and that even if we d­ on’t always live up to God’s standards, the grace and love of Christ compels [sic] Christians to reach out to t­ hose who are lost and hurting with a message of hope and healing.” The statement explaining Focus’s position explic­itly discusses sexuality: “Sexuality is a glorious gift from God to be offered back to Him e­ ither in marriage for procreation, u­ nion and mutual delight or in celibacy for undivided devotion to Christ” (http://­w ww​.­pureintimacy​.­org​/­t​ /­the​-­value​-o­ f​-­ male-­and-­female/). 3 3 See Clarence Shuler, Winning the Race to Unity: Is Racial Reconciliation R ­ eally Working? (Chicago: Moody, 2003). 3 4 “A Biblical Worldview Has a Radical Effect on a Person’s Life,” https://­w ww​ .­barna​.­org​/b­ arna​-­update​/a­ rticle​/­5​-­barna​-­update​/­131​-­a​-b­ iblical​-­worldview​-­has​-­a​ -­radical​-­effect​-­on​-­a​-­persons​-­life#​.­UyyQgV7TZG4. 3 5 Del Tackett and Mark ­Waters, The Truth Proj­ect (Colorado Springs, CO: ColdWater Media and Focus on the F ­ amily, 2006). 36 The leader’s guide accompanying the videos continues: “Relationship, u­ nion, communion, intimacy, fellowship, love, and community—­these ­things have existed from all eternity within the economy of the Godhead. Accordingly, they serve as the basis for the smooth and ordered functioning of creation. It is for this

Notes to Pages 60–68 • 159

very reason, Dr. Tackett argues that basic social institutions such as marriage, ­family, and church have come ­under such heavy attack in our day. Just as the world, the flesh, and the devil hate the Creator with a fervent and undying hatred, so they inevitably stand opposed to the social order that bears the imprint of His divine nature.” 37 Glaude, Exodus! 38 See Shannon S­ ullivan and Nancy Tuana, Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007). 39 Sophie Bjork-­James, “Christian Nationalism and LGBTQ Structural Vio­lence in the United States,” Journal of Religion and Vio­lence 7, no. 3 (2020): 278–302.

Chapter 4  Same-­Sex Attraction and the Limits of God’s Love 1 In 1977 Anita Bryant formed the organ­ization Save Our ­Children to c­ ounter a recent civil rights ordinance in Miami, Florida, that sought to ban discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryant quickly became nationally known for this stance, and during a press conference an activist walked up to her and threw a pie in her face. 2 See Sophie Bjork-­James, “Training the Porous Body: Evangelicals and the Ex-­Gay Movement,” American Anthropologist 120, no. 4 (2018), https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1111​ /­aman​.­13106. 3 I ­will call the broad movement serving Christians with what they describe as unwanted same-­sex attraction the ex-­gay movement. I found that most individuals chose not to identify with this term. Many individuals preferred to say simply that they had left homo­sexuality. 4 See Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (New York: New York University Press, 2003). 5 Evangelicals ­will insist that they believe that God still loves the LGBTQ community, even though they believe he disapproves of their choices and identities. However, many in­for­mants express the fear that their relationship with God is challenged by their same-­sex attractions, or believe that God is not interested in a relationship with them for having ­those feelings. Often too families choose to break off relationships with individuals who come out as gay or lesbian or trans, and given the symmetry constructed between one’s earthly f­ ather and one’s biological f­ ather, the rejection by one’s parents is often felt as a symbol of God’s rejection as well. 6 In her ethnographic study Rebecca Barret-­Fox shows that while the radical tactics of the Westboro Baptist Church (picketing funerals, using inflammatory language such as “God hates fags”) are extreme, the opposition to LGBTQ rights within this fringe religious movement reflects a similar stance within the more mainstream Religious Right. See Rebecca Barret-­Fox, God Hates: Westboro Baptist Church, American Nationalism, and the Religious Right (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016). 7 Quoted in Jonathan Capehart, “Franklin Graham’s Detestable Anti-­gay State­ ashingtonpost​.­com​/­blogs​ ments,” Washington Post, April 21, 2014, https://­w ww​.w /­post​-­partisan​/­wp​/­2014​/­04​/­21​/­franklin​-­grahams​-­detestable​-­anti​-­gay​-­statements​/­​ ?­utm​_­term​=­​.­34eed289fc27.

160  •  Notes to Pages 68–70

8 Christine M. Robinson and Sue E. Spivey, “Putting Lesbians in Their Place: Deconstructing Ex-­Gay Discourses of Female Homo­sexuality in a Global Context,” Social Sciences 4 (2015): 879–908. 9 See, for example, A. Beckstead, “Cures versus Choices: Agendas in Sexual Re­orientation Therapy,” Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy 5, no. 3/4 (2001): 87–115; Tina Fetner, “Ex-­Gay Rhe­toric and the Politics of Sexuality,” Journal of Homo­ sexuality 50, no. 1 (2005): 71–95, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1300​/­J082v50n01​_­04; A. Flentje, N. C. Heck, and B. N. Cochran, “Experiences of Ex-­Ex-­Gay Individuals in Sexual Re­orientation Therapy: Reasons for Seeking Treatment, Perceived Helpfulness and Harmfulness of Treatment, and Post-­Treatment Identification,” Journal of Homo­sexuality 61, no. 9 (2014): 1242–1268; Lynne Gerber, Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Re­orientation in Evangelical Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Kimberly A. Mahaffy, “Cognitive Dissonance and Its Resolution: A Study of Lesbian Christians,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35, no. 4 (1996), https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­2307​ /­1386414; Christy Ponticelli, “Crafting Stories of Sexual Identity Reconstruction,” Social Psy­chol­ogy Quarterly 62, no. 2 (1999): 157–172; Christine M. Robinson and Sue E. Spivey, “The Politics of Masculinity and the Ex-­Gay Movement,” Gender and Society 21, no. 5 (2007): 650–675, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1177​/­0891243207306384; Michelle Wolkomir, “Emotion Work, Commitment, and the Authentication of the Self: The Case of Gay and Ex-­Gay Christian Support Groups,” Journal of Con­temporary Ethnography 30, no. 3 (2001): 305–334, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.1­ 177​ /­089124101030003002. 10 This understanding is made overt in the text Holy Sex: God’s Purpose and Plan for Our Sexuality, co-­written by Terry Wier and Mark Carruth. The authors use explic­itly sexual meta­phors to frame evangelicalism: “God’s Word is like His spiritual sperm. Knowing what we do about ge­ne­tics, we could even say that, like the genes carried in the head of a sperm, God’s Word carries God’s characteristics. So, for you to be ‘born again,’ God’s Word, His sperm, must be implanted in your heart by the Holy Spirit. If your heart chooses to receive His Word, a new spirit ­will be birthed within you” (quoted in DeRogatis, “ ‘Born Again Is a Sexual Term,’ ” 293). 11 Melissa Wilcox, Queer ­Women and Religious Individualism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). 12 Eric M. Rodriguez and Suzanne C. Ouellette, “Gay and Lesbian Christians: Homosexual and Religious Identity Integration in the Members and Participants of a Gay-­Positive Church,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39, no. 3 (2000): 333–347. 13 Troy D. Perry, ­Don’t Be Afraid Anymore: The Story of Reverend Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Churches (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). 14 Sophie Bjork-­James, “White Sexual Politics: The Patriarchal ­Family in White Nationalism and the Religious Right,” in Transforming Anthropology, 28 (1) 2020: 58–73. 15 Patricia Hill Collins, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (New York: Routledge, 2004). See also Patricia Hill Collins, “It’s All in the ­Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation,” in Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial, and Feminist World, ed. Uma

Notes to Pages 70–87 • 161

Narayan and Susan Harding (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 156–176. 16 Julian Car­ter, The Heart of Whiteness: Normal Sexuality and Race in Amer­i­ca, 1880–1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 2. 17 Car­ter, 2, italics in original. 18 Car­ter, 3–4. 19 “In common speech in the interwar years, ‘normality’ described a w ­ hole series of ideals regulating sexual desires and activities and, through them, modes of intimacy and familial structures.” Car­ter, 6. 20 Car­ter, 6. 21 Car­ter, 11. 22 See Christy Ponticelli, “The Spiritual Warfare of Exodus: A Postpositivist Research Adventure,” Qualitative Inquiry 2, no. 2 (June 1, 1996): 198–219, https://­doi​.­org​/­10​.­1177​/­107780049600200204. 23 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Transsexual, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Two-­Spirit. 24 The Side B position on trans identities is also complicated. For more information on the Side B debate, see https://­w ww​.g­ aychristian​.­net​/­rons​_­view​.­php. 25 For more on this shift from naturalized heterosexuality in ex-­gay lit­er­a­ture, see Robinson and Spivey, Putting Lesbians in Their Place. 26 Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 83. 27 Hirschkind, 83. 28 For more on ideas about the modern psyche, see Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul. 29 See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Baltimore: Penguin, 1978). 30 Its name was l­ ater changed to the Q Christian Fellowship. 31 Amber has written about her experience in a memoir. Refocusing My ­Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017). More details are available at http://­ambercantorna​.­com​/­. 32 Moslener, Virgin Nation. 3 3 George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle-­Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Eu­rope (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). 3 4 Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 71. 3 5 Griffith, Moral Combat. 36 Higginbotham, Righ­teous Discontent. 37 Higginbotham, 100. 3 8 Collins, Black Sexual Politics. 39 Estelle B. Freedman, “History of the ­Family and of Sexuality,” In The New ­ emple University Press, American History, ed. Eric Foner, 285–310. (Philadelphia: T 1997), 288. 4 0 Freedman, 297. 41 For a similar focus in Canada, where f­ amily forms ­were historically seen in an evolutionary frame, with aboriginals portrayed as practicing a more primitive form of ­family life than the advanced, and natu­ral, patriarchal bourgeois ­family, see Julia V. Emberley, “The Bourgeois F ­ amily, Aboriginal ­Women, and Colonial

162  •  Notes to Pages 87–105

Governance in Canada: A Study in Feminist Historical and Cultural Materialism,” Signs 27, no. 1 (2001): 59–85. See also Reginald Horsman, Expansion and American Indian Policy, 1783–1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, ­ omen: Gender and Culture Change, 1700–1835 1967), Theda Perdue, Cherokee W (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), and Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).. 42 Mark Rifkin, When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 8. 43 Rifkin, 6. 44 See Wadsworth, “Intersectionality in California’s Same-­Sex Marriage ­Battles.” 45 See Richard Pitt, “ ‘Still Looking for My Jonathan’: Gay Black Men’s Management of Religious and Sexual Identity Conflicts,” Journal of Homo­sexuality 57, no. 1 (2010): 39–53. 46 Monique Moultrie explores sexual politics in Black churches to show that many embrace what she calls “coerced monogamy” through framing heterosexual marriage as the only form of respectable sexuality. Despite this emphasis, her work shows that individual w ­ omen often develop their own sexual ethics that does not fit within coerced monogamy. Monique Moultrie, “Putting a Ring on It: Black ­Women, Black Churches, and Coerced Monogamy,” Black Theology 16, no. 3 (2018): 231–247, https://­doi​.­org ​/­10​.­1080​/­14769948​.­2018​.­1492304. 47 Jeffrey Weeks, “The Sexual Citizen,” Theory, Culture, and Society 15, no. 3 (1998): 35–52. 48 L. Smith, Righ­teous Rhe­toric. 49 Emily S. Johnson, This Is Our Message: ­Women’s Leadership in the New Christian Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). 50 Tim Lahaye and Beverly Lahaye, The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (­Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976). See also DeRogatis, Saving Sex. 51 E. Johnson, This Is Our Message, 35. 52 Weeks, “The Sexual Citizen.” 53 This term refers to p­ eople who attempted to leave homo­sexuality and identified as ex-­gay at some point, but who now have come out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. 54 Gerber, Seeking the Straight and Narrow, 49.

Chapter 5  Paternal Politics 1 For more on lived religion, see Robert Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The Study of Lived Religion,” in Lived Religion in Amer­i­ca: ­Toward a History of Practice, ed. David Hall (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1997), 3–21. 2 George Lakoff, Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals ­Don’t (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 3 Lakoff, 155. 4 See also Bielo, Words upon the Word. 5 White conservative Christians are actually overrepresented in electoral turnout as compared to their share of the population. See Jones, The End of White Christian Amer­i­ca. 6 The “Bathroom Bill” is a name that Focus on the ­Family’s po­l iti­cal arm, Citizenlink, gave to a transgender rights bill that passed in Colorado in 2008

Notes to Pages 107–113 • 163

granting p­ eople of ­either sex access to public institutions, including public bathrooms. 7 Elisha, Moral Ambition. 8 Carmen DeNavas, Walt and Bernadette D. Proctor, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P60-252 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2015). 9 J. M. Horo­witz, K. Parker, and M. Rohal, Parenting in Amer­i­ca: Outlook, Worries, Aspirations Are Strongly Linked to Financial Situation (New York: Pew Research Center, December 17, 2015). http://­w ww​.­pewsocialtrends​.­org​/­2015​/­12​/­17​/­1​-t­ he​ -­american​-­family​-­today​/.­ 10 Krista K. Payne, ­Children’s F ­ amily Structure, 2013 (FP-13-19) (Bowling Green, KY: National Center for ­Family and Marriage Research, 2013). 11 Survey data shows that part of the reason for this disparity is that low-­income individuals prioritize financial stability as a goal of marriage, so they may hold off on getting married ­until they believe it is a financially smart decision. See P. Taylor, The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, November 18, 2010) http://­w ww​.­pewsocialtrends​.­org​/­2010​/­11​/­18​ /­the​-­decline​-­of​-­marriage​-­and​-­rise​-­of​-­new​-­families​/­#. 12 Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Chris­tian­ity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 185. One can also look at Georg Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1820). Hegel outlines a tripartite model of society, with the ­family as the base, representing the feminine, private sphere, and the state and civil society making up the public, masculine spheres. Unlike the rational, contractual organ­i zation of civil society, for Hegel the f­ amily and the marriage relationship are not inherently contractual but based on love and the true ­u nion of the sexes. While a separate sphere, the f­ amily plays a vital role in the po­l iti­cal realm as an autonomous unit, instilled with the obligation to both govern property and raise ­children. Childrearing is meant to “eradicate the merely sensuous and natu­ral” in ­children, who are inherently “entrammelled in nature.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ele­ments of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 13 Bean, The Politics of Evangelical Identity. Bean shows ethnographically how evangelicals in the United States understand their personal faith to be connected to a nationalist proj­ect. 14 Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (New York: Routledge, 1994). 15 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove, 1967), 141. 16 Quoted in Fanon, 143. 17 Instead of the child finding the laws of the nation in conformity with the laws of his f­ ather, the Black child for Fanon “­will become abnormal on the slightest contact with the white world.” Fanon, 143. 18 Linda Kintz, Between Jesus and the Market: The Emotions That M ­ atter in Right-­ Wing Amer­ic­ a (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997); Linda Kintz, “Culture and the Religious Right,” in Media, Culture, and the Religious Right, ed. Linda Kintz and Julia Lesage (Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 3–20. 19 This program has since been canceled, and the streetlights have been turned back on due to increases in tax revenue secured by the city b­ ecause of the economic recovery.

164  •  Notes to Pages 115–139

Chapter 6  Losing (and Remaking) My Religion 1 A. Pond, G. Smith, and S. Clement, Religion among the Millennials (Washington: Pew Research Center, 2010, http://­w ww​.­pewforum​.­org​/­docs​/­​?­DocID​=­510; G. Smith et al., Amer­i­ca’s Changing Religious Landscape (Washington: Pew Research Center, 2015, https://­w ww​.­pewforum​.o­ rg​/­2015​/­05​/1­ 2​/­americas​-­changing​-­religious​ -­landscape​/­. 2 While many younger evangelicals articulate an interest in supporting social justice, this concept can mean significantly dif­fer­ent t­ hings. Some challenge capitalism itself and structural in­equality, while o­ thers interpret social justice as rooted in charity work. Conservative organ­izations recognizing this generational shift have worked to steer this interest in social justice into charity work, and not more radical po­liti­cal critique. See for instance the DVD program created by the conservative Heritage Foundation talking about Chris­tian­ity and social justice, Seek Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need, http://­seeksocialjustice​.­com​/­. 3 See McGirr, Suburban Warriors. 4 Melani McAlister, “What Is Your Heart For? Affect and Internationalism in the Evangelical Public Sphere,” American Literary History 20, no. 4 (2008): 870–895. 5 McAlister, 878. 6 Sociologist Dawne Moon found a similar distain for politics among the Methodists of her study, who saw politics as the opposite of religious practice. Moon, God, Sex, and Politics. 7 For an excellent ethnography on the emerging church movement, see James Bielo, Emerging Evangelicals: Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity (New York: New York University Press, 2011). 8 He was citing Galatians 3:28, “­There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor ­free, nor is ­there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 9 Also known as the ­Battle of Mogadishu, this 1993 b­ attle involved U.S. military forces attempting to capture Somali warlords. It resulted in the death of eigh­teen Americans and up to three thousand Somalis. 10 Stephen Spector, Evangelicals and Israel: The Story of American Christian Zionism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 11 For a discussion of the role of porous subjectivity in lived evangelicalism see Bjork-­James, “Training the Porous Body.” 12 Kevin Feldotto, “A Taste for Granola,” Colorado Springs Indy, September 13, 2006.

Chapter 7  Conclusion 1 Jeffrey Weeks discusses a new form of citizenship emerging from the “new primacy given to sexual subjectivity in the con­temporary world.” Weeks, “The Sexual Citizen 35. 2 Franklin Graham, ­Family Talk (radio program), January 19, 2016, http://­ drjamesdobson​.­org ​/­Broadcasts​/­Broadcast​?­i​=­a3d573e3​-­9c9c​-­498a​-­860b​ -­9c0d6f08ef3a#. 3 Lewin, Filled with the Spirit. 4 Wong, Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change. 5 Jones, The End of White Christian Amer­i­ca.

Notes to Pages 139–140 • 165

6 Andrea Smith argues that many such alliances are pos­si­ble. See Andrea Smith, Native Americans and the Christian Right (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008). 7 See Charles Hale, Pamela Calla, and Leith Mullings, “Race M ­ atters in Dangerous Times,” NACLA Report on the Amer­i­cas 49, no. 1 (2017): 81–89. 8 Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson, “On the Precipice of a ‘Majority-­Minority’ Amer­i­ca: Perceived Status Threat from the Racial Demographic Shift Affects White Americans’ Po­liti­cal Ideology,” Psychological Science 25, no. 6 (2014): 1189–1197; Diana C. Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,” Proceedings of the National Acad­emy of Sciences 115, no. 19 (May 8, 2018): E4330–4339, https://­doi​.o­ rg​/­10​.­1073​/­pnas​.­1718155115. 9 Michael I. Norton and Samuel R. Sommers, “Whites See Racism as a Zero-­Sum Game That They Are Now Losing,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6, no. 3 (2011), 215–218. 10 Emerson, Smith, and Sikkink, “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World.”

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Index

abortion: as defining cause for Religious Right, 1, 25, 93–94, 127–128; oppositional politics against, 8, 9, 38, 93, 127, 147n21, 152n14; po­liti­cal conversions and, 97–98, 100, 123, 132; pro-­choice movement, 29. See also pro-­choice politics; sexual politics abuse, 21, 46, 63, 64, 75, 91. See also trauma, ex-­gay movement narrative on accountability, 14, 58, 77, 107, 131, 150n70 Act of Marriage, The, (Lahaye and Lahaye), 87–88 adoption, 49–50, 66 African American Christians: on evangelical as term, 13; on Exodus narrative, 12, 60, 150n59; on heterosexuality and pro-­family ideals, 2, 55, 86, 87, 138–139, 162n46; on LGBTQ rights, 146n10; on po­liti­cal consciousness, 11; po­liti­cal influence of, 24–25; on racism and racial equality, 113; study on w ­ omen among, 8; voting differences of, 2. See also race and religion; racism and racial segregation Alcoff, Linda Martin, 60 Alcoholics Anonymous, 131 American Association of Evangelicals, 40 American Psychiatric Association, 70–71 “Amer­i­ca the Beautiful” (song by Bates), 41, 42

Ammerman, Nancy, 1 Andersen, Harry, 131–133 animal rights, 9, 57 anti-­abortion action, 8, 147n21, 152n14. See also abortion; sexual politics anti-­LGBTQ movement, 7, 8, 66, 158n36. See also LGBTQI community; sexual citizenship; sexual politics Apache, 40 apocalyptic narrative, 24, 150n63 Arapaho, 40 architectural style of churches, 45–46 Asad, Talal, 111, 146n17 Asian evangelical Christians, 2, 139 assemblage, as term, 9, 148n39 Balmer, Randall, 33 Baptism of Pocahontas, The, (painting), 59 Barret-­Fox, Rebecca, 159n6 Bates, Katherine Lee, 42 “Bathroom Bills,” 67, 105, 162n6 ­Battle of Mogadishu (1993), 122, 164n9 Bean, Lydia, 29 Beautiful City, The, (play), 42–43 Belin, Manuel, 37 beloved identity, 63–64 Benson, Marjorie, 46 Beverely, Tom, 111 Bible study groups, 20–21, 51, 102–106 179

180  •  Index

biblical vs. cultural Chris­tian­ity, 19 biblical vs. cultural femininity, 74. See also femininity Billings, Robert, 31, 34 bisexuality, 138. See also LGBTQI community Black church. See African American Christians Black Congressional Caucus, 24 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 112, 163n17 Blum, Edward, 10 Bob Jones University, 30, 31, 33 Braiden, Jake, 120–122 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 29, 30 Bryant, Anita, 7, 66, 159n1 Burke, Vernon, 61–62 Bush, George W., 21 Canada, 105, 161n41 Cantorna, Amber, 83–84 Car­ter, Jimmy, 2, 30, 31–32 Car­ter, Julian, 70 Catholicism, 37, 39, 42, 151n80 Chain Reaction (Edsall and Edsall), 30 Chambers, Allan, 72 Cheyenne, 40 ­children’s ministries, 18 Christenson, Larry, 35, 155n59, 155n61, 155n63 “Christian ­bubble,” 41–42, 73, 102 Christian ­Family, The, (Christenson), 35, 155n59, 155n61, 155n63 Chris­tian­ity ­Today (publication), 8 Christian media: Dobson–­Mohler conversation on, 22, 38–39; Falwell’s programs on, 32; ­Family Talk, 116, 136–137; influence of, 16, 55; on racial divisions and religious tradition, 6 Christian ­music, 28, 64, 157n6. See also worship practices Christian School Action, 31 church growth movement, 22, 25–28, 45 Citizenlink, 162n6 “city upon a hill,” as phrase, 42, 156n72 Civilians theater com­pany, 42–43 civil rights movement, 1, 10, 29–30

Clemens, Coreen, 79–80, 89–90 climate crisis, 8–9, 138, 148n35. See also environmental movement and climate issues Clinton, Hillary, 105 Coleman, Dania, 122–125 Collins, Patricia Hill, 70 colonialism, 59–60 Colorado (state), 40 Colorado Springs, Colorado, 26, 39–43, 113–114, 151n75, 163n19 Columbus, Christopher, 59–60 Concerned ­Women for Amer­i­ca (CWA), 87 consumerism, 118, 120, 125–129. See also suburbanism Cortez, Danny, 136 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 9 cultural vs. biblical Chris­tian­ity, 19 cultural vs. biblical femininity, 74. See also femininity CURE (organ­ization), 108 Dawes Act (1887), 86–87 Defense of Marriage Acts, 66, 67 degeneracy, 85–88 DeMint, Jim, 106 Demo­cratic Party, 11, 38, 101, 120, 132. See also religion and politics DeRogatis, Amy, 47 Devon, Anna, 43 Dickens, Diana, 74–75, 78 Dillard, Angela, 34 disciplining ­children, 48, 106, 155n63 Divided by Faith (Emerson), 13–14 Divine Order, 35, 63, 65 divine truth, 56–57 Dobson, James: on ­family and nation relationship, 45; F ­ amily Research Council by, 24; ­Family Talk program of, 116, 136–138; as founder of Focus on the ­Family, 36, 116; Mohler and, 22, 38–39, 118; reputation of, 40 dominionism, as term, 153n41 Drake, Jared, 20, 93, 99 Drake, Linda, 98–99 Driscoll, Mark, 47 Du Bois, W.E.B., 11

Index • 181

economic in­equality, 103–104, 107–110, 138, 163n11. See also social justice Edsall, Mary and Thomas, 30 Edwards, Jonathan, 48 Edwards, Tina, 73–74 Eggerichs, Sarah, 51 Elisha, Omri, 107, 150n70 Emerson, Michael, 13–14, 51, 140 End of White Christian Amer­i­ca, The, (Jones), 139 enmeshed, as term, 72 environmental movement and climate issues, 8–9, 120, 127, 128, 138, 148n35 epistemology of ignorance, 60–61 Ethiopia, 122 Evangelical Environmental Network, 9 evangelicalism: church growth movement of, 22, 25–28, 45; consumerism and, 118, 120, 125–129; defined, 150n67; dominionism in, 32, 153n41; early priorities of, 1–2, 145n3; on essential gender identity, 68–69; ex-­gay movement of, 22–23, 61–65, 70–77; f­ uture of, 135–140; Moral Majority, 31–32, 153n43, 154n45, 154n52; on patriarchal gender roles and ­family structure, overview, 2, 4–7, 146n10, 146n15; polarization and righ­teousness within, 129–133, 139–140; po­liti­cal conversions and, 95–102, 123–124, 131–132; religious academies in, 17, 30–33, 36, 153n38; segregation and tradition of, 6–7, 11, 25–29, 37; as term, 13, 157n8; worship practices of, 28, 152n18. See also ex-­gay movement; Focus on the ­Family (organ­ization); Religious Right po­liti­cal movement; white evangelical Christians “Evangelical Vatican,” as term, 26, 116. See also Colorado Springs, Colorado evangelical youth: on consumerism, 118, 120, 125–129; as emerging leaders, 117–119; influences of missionary work on, 119–125; on LGBTQ rights, 119, 123, 124; on social justice, 23, 115–116, 127, 164n2 (chap. 6) Evangelical Youth for Climate Action, 9 Evans, Renee, 101–102 ever-­straight, as term, 63, 71 evolution, 20

ex-­ex-­gay movement, 49, 71, 91, 157n16, 162n53. See also ex-­gay movement; LGBTQI community ex-­gay movement, 10, 22–23, 70–73; current direction of, 88–92; ­father theology of, 61–65; po­liti­cal conversions and, 99–102; reparative therapy, 49, 68, 72–73, 89, 157n16; terminology used in, 63, 68, 71–72, 90, 159n3, 162n53; on trauma and healing through gender identity, 73–82. See also evangelicalism; ex-­ex-­gay movement Exodus International, 62–65, 68, 71–72, 74 Exodus narrative, 11–13, 60, 149n53, 150n59 Falwell, Jerry, Sr., 1, 31, 32–33, 34, 68, 111, 154n45 ­family of origin, 76, 78–79, 81–82. See also ­fathers ­Family Protection Bill (proposed), 34 ­Family Research Council, 24 ­family structure: evangelicalism on, overview, 4–6, 17–18, 35–36; Fanon on nation and, 112; vs. LGBTQ identity, 68–69; Luther on, 154n56; of marriage and male headship, 50–53; North End Church on, 17–18; parenting, 66, 95; Pew statistics on, 109; poverty and, 107–110, 119, 163n11; servant leadership within, 54–55; Young on, 47. See also focus on the ­family theology; male headship; pro-­family movement ­Family Talk (radio program), 116, 136–137 ­family values: defined, 9; ostracism of LGBTQ Christians and, 23, 66, 67, 84–85, 94, 131, 159n5 Fanon, Frantz, 112, 163n17 ­fathers: abuse from, 46, 63, 64, 75, 91; disciplining ­children by, 48, 106, 155n63; Exodus International on, 61–65; rejection of LGBTQ ­children from, 84–85, 159n3; relationship with, 5, 17, 45, 47–49, 91; as servant leaders, 54–55. See also ­family of origin; f­ amily structure; male headship ­father theology, 61–65. See also f­ amily structure; ­fathers; focus on the ­family theology; male headship

182  •  Index

Feldotto, Kevin, 18, 129–130 femininity, 51, 69, 74. See also gender roles; godly femininity; masculinity Fetner, Tina, 16 FitzGerald, Frances, 147n23 Focus on the ­Family (organ­ization): on abortion vs. environmental ethics, 9; decline of, 36, 116–117; Dobson–­Mohler radio discussion, 22, 38–39, 118; on LGBTQ rights, 55–56, 67–68; Love Won Out conference of, 68; as organ­ization, 36–37, 151n75; Truth Proj­ect, 56–61, 65, 158n36; “The Value of Male and Female,” 55–56, 158n32; at Values Voter Summit, 25, 109 focus on the f­ amily theology, 93–95. See also ­family structure; f­ ather theology; pro-­family movement food allergies, 106–107 Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 106 Foot, Tyler, 100–101 forgiveness, 48–49 foster parenting, 66 Foucault, Michel, 82 foundational intersectionality, as term, 9. See also intersectionality Frederick, Marla, 8 Freedman, Estelle, 86 Gallagher, Sally, 52–53 Gay Christian Network (GCN), 71, 72, 82–85, 161n30 gay rights. See LGBTQI community GCN. See Gay Christian Network (GCN) gender pre­sen­ta­tion, 79–81 gender roles: Catholicism on, 151n80; evangelicalism on, overview, 2, 4–6, 146n10, 146n15; Exodus International on, 73–76; Luther on, 154n56; North End Church on, 17–18. See also anti-­LGBTQ movement; femininity; masculinity; pro-­family movement Genesis (biblical story), 65 genocide, 59–60 Gerber, Lynne, 91–92 G.I. Bill, 27 Glaude, Eddie, 60

godly femininity, 4, 35, 47, 79, 81. See also femininity Goldschmidt, Henry, 10 Graham, Billy, 145n3 Graham, Franklin, 68, 136–138 Griffith, R. Marie, 86 Grind, The (church), 125–126 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? (Dillard), 34 gun vio­lence, 116–117 Haggard, Ted, 40 Hallman, Janelle, 75 Harding, Susan, 32, 44, 154n45 Hartman, Douglass, 14 Health, Melanie, 52 Heart of Whiteness, The, (Collins), 70 Hedershot, Heather, 55 Hegel, Georg, 163n12 Henry, Dustin, 99–100 Heritage Foundation, 31, 105 heterosexuality. See ­family structure; sexual citizenship; sexual politics Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, 11, 12, 86 Hirschkind, Charles, 77 Hispaniola, 59–60 Homogenous Unit Princi­ple, 27 homo­sexuality: African American Christians on, 146n10; APA designation of, 70–71; Burke’s pre­sen­ta­tion about, 61–62; Exodus International on, 62–65; Focus on the ­Family on, 55–56, 67–68; reparative therapy for, 49, 89, 157n16. See also ex-­gay movement; LGBTQI community; sexual citizenship; sexual politics Homosexuals Anonymous, 76 Hope for Wholeness Network, 88 How Should We Then Live? (Schaeffer), 29 Hoyt, Dick and Rick, 61–62 identity, 63–64, 68–69 individual framework, 14 in­equality, 103–104 “in lifestyle,” as term, 7171 institutional racism. See racism and racial segregation

Index • 183

interior worship. See personal relationship to God interlocking, as term, 9, 148n38 intersectionality, 9–10, 148nn38–39 Israel, 105, 106, 123 Jacobsen, Andrew, 126 Jesus P ­ eople movement, 28 Jesus rock. See Christian m ­ usic Johnson, Emily Suzanne, 87, 88 Jones, Dylan, 50 Jones, Robert, 139, 145n7 Jordan, Winthrop, 10 Journal Champion (publication), 34 judgement, 18, 50, 63, 93, 124, 130 justice. See social justice King, Anthony, 128 Ku Klux Klan, 154n53 Kurtz, Jerome, 30 Lahaye, Beverly and Tim, 87–88 Lakoff, George, 95 Landing of Columbus, The, (painting), 59 Landing of the Pilgrims, The, (painting), 59 Latinx evangelical Christians, 2, 25, 37, 139 Lewin, Ellen, 2, 138–139 LGBTQI community: African Americans on rights of, 146n10; Dobson on, 138; evangelical Christians within, 2, 22–23, 66–70; evangelical youth on, 119, 123, 124; ex-­gay movement’s terms for, 63, 68, 71–72, 162n53; Franklin Graham on, 136–138; LGBTQQI as acronym, 148n33; LGBTTIQQ2S as acronym, 71, 161n23; marriage rights of, 39, 66, 90, 156n56; movement on rights of, 7, 89; parenting rights of, 66; Protestantism on rights of, 155nn64–65; religious and po­liti­cal conversions within, 99–102; rights for Rus­sians of, 68; SBC on, 135–136; trans rights, 56, 67–68, 72, 84, 105, 162n6. See also anti-­LGBTQ movement; ex-­gay movement; sexual citizenship; sexual politics Liberty Baptist College, 32, 154n45 Liberty University, 68 Lofton, Jolene, 72

Longston, Lyle, 111 Love and Re­spect (Emerson), 51 Love Won Out conference, 68 Low, Setha, 152n8 Luhrmann, Tanya, 157n7 Luther, Martin, 154n56 Lutheran Church, 46 male headship, 35–36, 51–53, 78, 151n81, 154n56. See also ­family structure; ­fathers; focus on the f­ amily theology; patriarchal tradition Mallon, Ted, 63 Manichean order, 56–61 March on Washington (1963), 10 Marcuse, Herbert, 112 marriage. See ­family structure; same-­sex marriage marriage ministries, 17, 18, 51 Mars Hill Church, Seattle, 47 Mary (religious figure), 151n80 masculinity, 4, 51–52, 54–55, 69, 76. See also ­father theology; femininity; gender roles; patriarchal tradition McAlister, Melani, 118 McGavran, Donald, 27 McGirr, Lisa, 26 McLaren, Brian, 121 megachurches, overview, 45–46. See also names of specific churches Methodism, 164n6 Metropolitan Community Church, Los Angeles, 69–70 military institutions, 40, 102, 164n9. See also ­Battle of Mogadishu (1993) Mills, Charles, 60 missionary work: evangelical youth leaders and, 117, 119, 121; f­ amily structure and, 156n66; influences of, on youth, 119–125; with Native Americans, 149n48 Mitchel, Stan, 136 Mohler, Albert, 22, 38–39, 118 Moon, Dawne, 164n6 Moral Combat (Griffith), 7 Moral Majority, 31–32, 153n43, 154n45, 154n52. See also evangelicalism; Religious Right po­liti­cal movement Moreton, Bethany, 37, 54

184  •  Index

Mormonism, 20 Moslener, Sara, 150n63 Mosse, George, 85 Moultrie, Monique, 146n10, 162n46 Murphy, Lynn, 51, 52, 53 Murphy, Paul, 51–52, 53, 54 ­music, 28, 64, 157n6. See also worship practices National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 13 National Christian Action Co­a li­tion, 31, 34 National Coming Out Day, 66 National Coming Out of Homo­sexuality Day, 66 nationalism. See white nationalism Native Americans, 40–41, 149n48; evangelicalism of, 60; painting depictions of, 59–60; patriarchy and land privatization and, 86–87 Nixon, Richard, 153n38 Noll, Mark, 11, 149n47 NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), 40 normality discourse, 70, 161n19 North End Church, Colorado Springs, 17–18, 46, 107 “Now That ­You’re Near” (song), 3 nuclear f­ amily. See ­family structure; patriarchal tradition Obama, Barack, 38 Obergefell v. Hodges, 66 Old Time Gospel Hour, The, (media program), 32 Palestine, 121, 123 Parable of the Prodigal Son, 48–49 parachurch organ­izations, 5, 12, 16, 34, 61, 147n18 parenting, 66, 95, 105–106. See also ­family structure; ­father theology; focus on the ­family theology Parentsrights​.­org, 105 Parker, Star, 108 patriarchal tradition, 2, 54, 86–87, 107, 110–114, 146n10, 146n15. See also ­family

structure; ­fathers; gender roles; male headship; masculinity; sexual politics Pence, Mike, 8 personal relationship to God, 44–47, 157n7, 160n10. See also self-­help; worship practices Phillips, Howard, 32 Planned Parenthood, 116–117 Pocahontas, 59 po­liti­cal conversions, 95–102, 123–124, 131–132. See also evangelical youth; voting polyamory, 138 poverty, 103–104, 107–110, 122, 138, 163n11. See also social justice private and public sphere, 111, 163n12 pro-­choice politics, 29. See also abortion pro-­family movement, 22, 34, 87, 94. See also ex-­gay movement; ­family structure; Focus on the F ­ amily (organ­ization); focus on the ­family theology pro-­life politics. See anti-­abortion action Promise Keepers movement, 52, 54 Protestantism: church features in, 45; on ­family structure and gender roles, 154n56; on LGBTQ rights, 155nn64–65; whiteness and, 10 Puar, Jasbir, 148n39 public and private sphere, 111, 163n12 purity campaigns, 150n63. See also sexual politics Q Christian Fellowship, 161n19. See also Gay Christian Network (GCN) Raboteau, Albert, 12 race and religion: on Exodus narrative, 11–13, 59–61, 149n53; foundations of anti-­LGBTQ action in, 69–70; systems of, 11. See also African American Christians; religion and politics; white evangelical Christians racial justice, 139. See also social justice racism and racial segregation: desegregation of religious academies, 22, 30–33, 36; evangelical tradition of, 6–7, 10–11, 25; growth of American evangelicalism and,

Index • 185

6–7, 11, 26–29, 37, 139; in SBC and Baptist tradition, 15. See also white nationalism radical inclusivity, 138–139 Ray, Tyron, 49–50, 93 Razack, Sherene, 148n38 Reagan, Ronald, 30, 31–32, 33, 153n43 rejection. See judgement relationalism framework, 14 religion and politics: division vs. cohesion of, 6, 147n23; in Exodus narrative, 11–13, 149n53; Falwell on, 32–33; God vs. government narrative, 107–110; patriarchal foundation of home and nation, 110–114, 163n17, 163nn12–13; po­liti­cal conversions, 95–102; of pro-­family movement, 93–95; systems of, 11, 146n17. See also Demo­cratic Party; race and religion; Republican Party religious academies and tax exemption, 17, 30–33, 36, 153n38 Religious Right po­liti­cal movement: emergence of, 1–2, 34, 37–38; Moral Majority, 31–32, 153n43, 154n45, 154n52; on racial interests, 6–7, 25–26; on segregation, 22. See also evangelicalism; Focus on the ­Family (organ­ization); white evangelical Christians reparative therapy, 49, 68, 72–73, 89, 157n16. See also ex-­gay movement; homo­sexuality Republican Party, 10–11, 30, 31–32, 101–102, 132, 153n28. See also religion and politics research, overview, 15–16, 43 Rice, Ann, 19 Rifkin, Mark, 87 righ­teousness, 129–130 Roe v. Wade (1973), 29 Romney, Mitt, 8 “Roots of Lesbianism, The,” workshop (Exodus International), 64–65, 74–75 Rus­sia, 68 same-­sex marriage, 39, 66, 90, 156n56. See also LGBTQI community; sexual citizenship Sand Creek Massacre (1864), 41 Santorum, Rick, 108

Save Our ­Children (organ­ization), 158n36 Schaeffer, Francis, 29 school curriculum, 28 Schultz, Noah, 96–97 secular humanism, 28–29 segregation. See racism and racial segregation self-­help, 11, 36, 55, 78, 88, 95, 117. See also personal relationship to God; reparative therapy; therapeutic movement, overview servant leadership, 54–55 Sessions, Gregory, 96 Sexperiment (Young), 47 sexual citizenship, 87, 90, 135–136, 164n1 (chap. 7). See also LGBTQI community; same-­sex marriage sexual conversion. See ex-­gay movement; reparative therapy sexual politics, 47, 85–88, 150n63. See also anti-­abortion action; ex-­gay movement; LGBTQI community Shoshone, 40 Sidney, Ryan, 127–128 Sikkink, David, 140 Simmonds, ­Virginia, 46 slavery, 15, 60, 150n59 Smith, Christian, 13–14, 52–53, 140 Smith, Dixon, 89–90 social isolation, 41–42 social justice, 23, 35, 115–116, 127, 139, 164n2 (chap. 6). See also poverty Sojourners (publication), 2 Somalia, 122, 164n9 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), 15, 27–28, 29, 135–136 Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 22, 38, 118 Southern Ute, 41 sports, 63–64 SSA, as term, 68, 71 Stafler, Marnie, 97–98 START Treaty, 105 status threat, 139. See also white nationalism Stephens, Walt, 110–111, 119–120, 122 stereotyping, 19–20, 43 Stoler, Ann, 86

186  •  Index

structural vs. individual framework, 14 strugglers, as term, 71–72, 90 suburbanism, 26–27, 118, 122, 152n8. See also consumerism suffrage, 1 suicide, 136 Tackett, Del, 56–61, 65, 158n36 tax-­exemption and religious universities, 17, 30–33, 36, 153n38 Tea Party, 24, 106 Theibold, Denise, 111 Theibold, Rich, 17 therapeutic movement, overview, 77–78. See also ex-gay movement; reparative therapy Thomas Road Baptist Church, 32 Thompson, John, 75–77 Tranby, Eric, 14 trans rights, 56, 67–68, 72, 84, 85, 162n6 trauma, ex-­gay movement narrative on, 68, 72, 78, 81–82. See also abuse Troess, Joseph, 43, 95 Trump, Donald, 7–8, 23, 113 Truth Proj­ect (Focus on the ­Family), 56–61, 65, 158n36 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 105 “undisciplined disciplines,” 77–78 United Methodist Church, 156n65 Ute, 40–41 Ute Mountain Ute, 41 Valentine, Foy, 29 “Value of Male and Female, The,” (Focus on the F ­ amily), 55–56, 158n32 Values Voter Summit, 10, 24, 108 Vatican City, 39

Viguerie, Richard, 31, 32 vio­lence, 116–117, 139 voting, 2, 32, 93–94, 104–105, 162n5. See also po­liti­cal conversions Wadsworth, Nancy, 9 Wallis, Jim, 2 Watt, David, 7 Weeks, Jeffrey. See sexual citizenship welfare state, 108–109, 110 Westboro Baptist Church, 159n6 Weyrich, Paul, 31, 32 When Did Indians Become Straight? (Rifkin), 87 white evangelical Christians: evangelical as po­liti­cal category, 13–14; on Exodus narrative, 11–13, 149n53; population decline of, 139, 145n7; Trump support by, 7–8, 23, 113; voting differences of, 2. See also evangelicalism; race and religion white nationalism, 33–34, 45, 59–61, 85–88, 154n53. See also racism and racial segregation whiteness, 10, 69–70, 139–140. See also racism and racial segregation Williams, Daniel, 29, 153n28 Winant, Howard, 147n25 Winkler, Natalie, 80–81 Winthrop, John, 149n55 ­women’s ministries, 18, 151n81 ­women’s suffrage, 1 Worrell, Alice, 40 worship practices, 28, 45–46, 64, 152n18. See also personal relationship to God Wright, Jeremiah, 39 Young, Ed, 47 young evangelicals. See evangelical youth

About the Author

SOPHIE BJORK-­J AMES is an assistant professor of the Practice in Anthropology

(race and racism, evangelicalism, reproductive politics) at Vanderbilt University. She is the coeditor of Beyond Pop­u­lism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (2020).