Magazine: THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY; JANUARY 01, 1998
CHANGING OF THE GODS: THE GENDER AND FAMILY DISCOURSE OF
AMERICAN EVANGELICALISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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ABSTRACT: A growing number of recent studies have called attention to
a series of striking contradictions in contemporary evangelical family
relations. This study draws on insights from Michel Foucault's theory of
discourse in order to investigate the historical forces which underlie
these contemporary contradictions. An in-depth analysis of various
secondary historical sources reveals that contemporary evangelicals are
the heirs to a two-century-old religious heritage that is replete with
gender and family contradictions, including internecine debates over
family relations and normativebehavioral discrepancies in the household
practice of gender. This study concludes by highlighting the connection
between these gender and family contradictions, on the one hand, and the
ambivalence of evangelicalism toward individualism and modern American
culture on the other.
INTRODUCTION
Evangelical Protestants[1] have long been a source of fascination to
scholars of religion, the family, and gender. The last decade, in
particular, has witnessed the growth of a substantial scholarly
literature concerning the dynamics of contemporary evangelical gender
and family relations. An increasingly popular point of departure for
many of these investigations concerns the array of ideological and
behavioral contradictions that seem to characterize contemporary
conservative Protestant family life (Ammerman 1987; Bartkowski 1996,
1997a, 1997b; Bendroth 1984, 1993; Ingersoll 1995; Lienesch 1993;
McNamara 1985; Pevey, Williams, and Ellison 1996; Rose 1987; Stacey
1990; Stacey and Gerard 1990). In bold contrast to long-standing
assumptions about the distinctively "traditional" character of
evangelical gender and family rhetoric, many recent inquiries reveal
that leading evangelicals are ideologically polarized concerning an
array of controversial family issues (see esp. Bartkowski 1996, 1997a,
1997b; Bendroth 1984, 1993; Fowler 1986; Stacey and Gerard 1990). For
example, leading evangelicals are engaged in a rancorous debate
concerning both the allocation of decision-making authority in the home
and the recent entrance of married women into the paid labor force.
Given contemporary evangelicals' distinctive commitment to the Bible as
the actual "Word of God," such debates among evangelical luminaries
hinge largely upon disputes about the precise meaning of key biblical
passages concerning "God's plan" for families (Bartkowski 1997b).
Pervasive assumptions about the "traditional" character of conservative
Protestant family relations have been further challenged by ethnographic
studies which highlight the practical contradictions manifest in actual
evangelical families (Bartkowski 1997b; Ingersoll 1995; Rose 1987;
Stacey 1990; Stacey and Gerard 1990). Such studies call attention to the
remarkable degree of ambivalence and self-contradiction in the spousal
role attitudes of many rank-and-file evangelicals. Moreover, these
investigations demonstrate that the family ideals of many conservative
Protestant spouses (e.g., a husband-as-decision-makerideal) often differ
substantialy from the everyday practices in which these same couples
engage (e.g., egalitarianism and shared decision-making responsibility).
These seemingly counter-intuitive findings about contemporary
evangelical family life raise several intriguing questions. First, are
the contradictory patterns unearthed by these recent studies a
contemporary phenomenon? Do they signify a radical departure from an
evangelical past in which ideological consensus prevailed among
conservative religious luminaries or in which the ideals of rank-and-
file evangelical spouses were closely aligned with these husbands' and
wives' practices? Second, if there is historical precedent for these
evangelical gender and family contradictions (that is, if these patterns
are not simply a contemporary phenomenon), then how have broad-based
historical forces contributed to the ideological and behavioral
contradictions that seem to be endemic to contemporary evangelical
family life? This study represents a preliminary attempt to address
these questions. Drawing on a synthetic analysis of historical studies
from different time periods, I call attention to a series of significant
contradictions which have contributed to shifts in evangelical gender
and family discourse over the past two centuries.
THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS: DISCOURSE AND
CONTRADICTION IN FAMILY HISTORY
Before charting the shifting historical definitions of gender and family
relations within American evangelicalism, the theoretical
presuppositions which guide this study deserve some elaboration. This
inquiry is informed by poststructuralist theories of discourse.
Following Foucault (1972, 1978), poststructuralist scholars call
attention to the constructed, contested, and negotiated character of
discourse (see Macdonell 1986; Terdiman 1985). In poststructuralist
parlance, discourses are culturally constructed forms of knowledge that
are designed to affix specific identities to groups and individuals
within a particular social realm. According to theorists of discourse,
however, this process of imposing one's definition of the situation upon
others is fraught with conflict and contradiction. Because divergent
interpretations of the world often arise within and between cultural
milieu, hegemonic ideals are ineluctably contested by their counter-
hegemonic counterparts. Oppositional or counter-hegemonic discourses may
originate from outside of a specific social group (i.e., the values of
the "dominant culture" in contrast to those of a particular subculture);
or, oppositional discourses may emerge from within a given cultural
milieu (e.g., internecine disputes concerning the rights, duties, and
"proper" roles of a group's various members).
>From this perspective, then, discourses are a product of cultural
negotiation. Discursive meanings are not simply imposed by powerful
groups and individuals upon their powerless counterparts. Rather,
because discursive formations are eminently contradictory cultural
constructs, social actors are capable of accepting, resisting, or
modifying such discourses to varying degrees. Moreover, existing
discourses can never adequately represent the vast diversity of
motivations, interests, and life experiences found within a cultural
milieu; consequently, discursive constructs can be destabilized by the
very same subjective contradictions that they help to produce. In short,
theorists of discourse argue that social change follows no predetermined
historical trajectory; to the contrary, historical processes unfold
(sometimes in a highly unpredictable fashion) from a panoply of
discursive and subjective contradictions that are seen as endemic to
culture. It is with these concepts in mind that I now turn to a
historical analysis of evangelical gender and family discourse.
THE EGALITARIAN IMPULSE IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY
EVANGELICALISM
Although contemporary conservative Protestantism represents an admixture
of various religious traditions (Baptist, Anabaptist, Pentecostal, and
others)(Hunter 1982, ch. 3), many of the most salient theological
commitments of contemporary evangelicals can be traced to New England
Baptist sects of the early eighteenth century. In stark contrast to the
more established Puritan and Anglican communities of New England, these
Baptist sects stressed a more individualistic view of salvation and,
correspondingly, an emotionally intense and personally intimate
relationship with God. Early Baptists also downplayed the importance of
a formal ecclesiastical church structure and, as a result, attracted
large numbers of converts via religious revivals during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.[2] Established Puritan churches, by contrast,
evinced a more rational conceptualization of God and subscribed to the
doctrine of predestination. Consequently, Puritans tended to stress
educational training and intellectual development, and were inclined to
privilege God's absolute sovereignty in human history over individual
volition. These same Puritan churches reinforced distinct social roles
between the sexes, which was the dominant gender discourse in the New
England colonies at this time.
In bold contrast to the dominant discourse of gender inequality posited
by eighteenthcentury Puritanism, early Baptist evangelicalism, with its
focus on the individual believer's direct relationship with God and its
employment of an ecstatic worship style, proffered an oppositional
gender discourse par excellence. Consistent with its countercultural
theology, early Baptist evangelicalism posed a direct challenge to many
secular and non-evangelical mechanisms of social stratification,
including long-standing forms of gender inequality. In Disorderly Women:
Sexual Politics and Evangelicalism in Revolutionary New England,
historian Susan Juster (1994, p. 19) recounts how "in the ragged
congregations gathered by the Baptists in back-country Virginia, no
social distinctions were recognized, in defiance of Anglican gentry
culture. Rich and poor, men and women, black and white all communed
together in the presence of the Lord, often without a minister." Early
evangelicalism was demarcated from other types of religious
collectivities by "its insistence that a church, any church, could not
define the boundaries of the sacred community. Only the immediate
presence of the Spirit of God, however fleeting, signified community"
(Juster 1994, p. 19, italics in original).
In this way, early colonial evangelicalism is perhaps best understood as
a liminal religion of the heart (Juster 1994, pp. 19-21). Liminality,
associated with ecstatic religious fervor in some anthropological
literature, is thought to enable worshipers to free themselves
temporarily from social conventions and to experience genuine community
("communitas") devoid of socially reinforced distinctions. While early
Baptist liminality produced a transitory state of radical egalitarianism,
the effects of these experiences were nevertheless manifested in the
early evangelical "assault on the principle of hierarchy" (Juster 1994,
p. 25). The liminal character of early evangelicalism provided women
with symbolic and tangible benefits when compared with their Puritan and
Anglican counterparts. When evangelical churches coalesced from amidst
the makeshift gatherings described above, female members enjoyed access
to governance positions and often preached at church gatherings. This
"significant widening of women's sphere of authority within the church"
(Juster 1994, p. 44) met with strident criticism from orthodox Anglican
and Puritan ministers, many of whom argued for the "silence" of women at
religious gatherings (see Juster 1994, pp. 30-31).
Nevertheless, theories of discourse construe rival ideologies as
overlapping, intersecting cultural productions instead of self-insulated,
clearly demarcated world views. Therefore, despite such evidence of
gender egalitarianism in early Baptist sects, these religious groups did
not wholly reject the patriarchal discourse of the broader society in
which they were embedded. Most notably, and remarkably consistent with
the broader societal dichotomization of private and public spheres,
revivalists tended to view their religion as feminine and privatistic in
character (e.g., Juster 1994, pp. 21, 44, 51). The feminization of early
revivalism was due, in part, to the preponderance of women in
evangelical communities, but also derived from the prevailing belief
that women, not unlike the orgiastic religion to which they flocked,
were inherently disorderly and sensuous. Thus, despite the subversive
evangelical "assault on hierarchy," the feminization of evangelicalism
reproduced broader societal definitions that linked womanliness with
religiosity.
Simultaneous accommodation to and resistance against the aforementioned
societal discourses of gender produced significant discursive
contradictions within early evangelicalism (Juster 1994, pp. 20-21, 44-
45). First, on a symbolic level, the liminality and "femininity" of
evangelicalism was at once prized and feared. The very same liminality
that liberated believers from social conventions was thought to contain
the potential to produce chaos among these sectarians. Second, on a more
practical level, revivalism reinforced societal constructions of
femininity as a privatized phenomenon, even as its ungendered
organizational structure challenged the taken-for-granted assumption
that women were inherently inept leaders. Ironically, these feminized
Baptist churches provided women with significant positional power and
political status. Juster (1994, p. 45) remarks on this apparent
contradiction: "However awkward such a feminine posture would become in
later years, in the mid-eighteenth century evangelical religion did not
shun the more female aspects of its piety just as it did not bar women
from exercising their full rights as members of the body politic." In
short, cultural discourses of femininity were simultaneously challenged
and affirmed in these early evangelical churches.
FROM THE MARGINS TO THE MAINSTREAM, 1775 TO 1875:
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, VICTORIANISM, AND
THE HEGEMONY OF EVANGELICAL RELIGION
Amidst the emergent discursive contradictions of early and mid
eighteenth-century evangelicalism, a broader sociopolitical revolt was
coalescing. As the colonies began fighting for their independence from
Britain, evangelicals, part of a hitherto marginalized subculture,
confronted an important decision about the nature and future of revival
religion in the colonies:
Faced with the choice of maintaining their otherwordly stance or joining
with their colonial brethren in common cause against Britain, the
evangelical leadership chose rebellion [against England]. In so doing
they compromised the very essence of the evangelical community...[The]
surest way for dissenters to engage the Standing Order on their own
terrain was to reorganize their polity along the model of the
patriarchal household. Where renunciation was required, it was
evangelical women who paid the price, while evangelical men reaped the
civil benefits that came with patriotic service (Juster 1994, p. 109).
In this way, the Revolutionary era witnessed the first step toward the
taming of early evangelicalism's egalitarian character and subversive
potential (Juster 1994, ch. 4). In the scramble for political power and
influence that characterized the Revolutionary period, previously
independent New England Baptist churches formed translocal associations
and founded educational institutions.
To partake more fully in the patriotic fervor of the Revolution, to win
new converts, and to ensure their very existence the face of competing
religious traditions, evangelical gender conceptualizations that held
sway during the early and mid-eighteenth century were radically
restructured and aligned with broader cultural ideals.[3] In short, the
egalitarian impulse within evangelicalism gave way in large part to a
patriarchal family structure. And, although evangelical churches had
previously concerned themselves with winning individual souls, it was
now the family, in all of its post-Revolutionary patriarchal splendor,
that became elevated in status in the eyes of evangelical leadership.
"Family government" in the form of a specific "chain of duties" between
husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, rose to
prominence in evangelical discourse during this time. Moreover, the
commitment to highly ordered family relations on the part of rank-and-
file evangelicals was linked inextricably with the well-being of the
church community at large and the fate of individual believers' souls.
As Juster (1994, p. 114) concludes: "Fifty years earlier, the main
enemies had been Satan and the corruption of one's own heart; now
disorderly domestic relations threatened the welfare of the church."
Following closely from this reconstruction of gender relations in early
evangelical families, post-Revolutionary debates arose about the
legitimacy of women speaking in Baptist gatherings.
This pattern of convergence between evangelical convictions and
patriarchal family discourses in Victorian America continued well into
the nineteenth century (see, e.g., Fishbum 1981; Friedman 1985;
McLoughlin 1968, pp. 17-19; see also McDannell 1986). According to
historian Jean Friedman (1985, pp. 11-18), even in those lay-oriented
nineteenth-century Southern Baptist churches in which women were
permitted to vote, a quorum was determined by the number of male members
in attendance. Moreover, men typically managed matters of church
discipline from the investigative to the trial stages. Not only the
supervision of church discipline, but its actual enforcement, became
highly gendered. Although male members were more often accused of
engaging in offensive acts when compared with their female counterparts,
accusations directed at men typically revolved around activities viewed
as "minor" infractions (e.g., drinking, dancing). Investigations of
female members, though less frequent, generally centered around offenses
deemed far more serious (e.g., adultery, fornication, abortion)(see also
Juster 1994, ch. 5). Friedman (1985, p. 16) contends: "Women who were
accused of sexual offenses were suspended from the church if they were
contrite, excluded if they were not, but they were reconciled with the
church only after they were punished."
These feminized offenses were viewed with such concern because it was
feared by Victorians and evangelicals alike that women's sexuality could
ignite masculine aggression. And clearly, according to many of these
evangelicals, church discipline was crucial because of women's natural
predilection for defiance and irresponsibility, feminine character
traits which often tempted men to sin. After all, were not all women the
direct descendants of a primordial wife, Eve, whose lack of self-control
and undue influence over her husband ushered sin into the world? Indeed,
it was this very reasoning that legitimated the "gendering of sin"
(Juster 1994, p. 148) in evangelical theological discourse at this time:
"Every time a sister was excluded for fornication, or lying, or (most
damning of all) spreading evil reports about a fellow communicant, the
image of woman as seductress (i.e., as Eve) was confirmed in the eyes of
the community" (Juster 1994, p. 170). Thus, defenders of these
patriarchal churches and their disciplinary double standards argued in
true Victorian form that such mechanisms actually provided direct
benefits to their female membership, namely, the protection of
unscrupulous women from masculine aggression.
Despite this general discursive shift from egalitarianism to patriarchy,
male dominance in nineteenth-century evangelical churches and families
was replete with ideological and practical contradictions. At the
congregational level, the restriction of voting rights to men generated
heated controversy within many Baptists churches of the South (Friedman
1985, p. 13). Some Baptists who supported women's voting rights within
the church appealed to principles of equality for men and women alike
(an ungendered argument), while others contended that member-women armed
with the vote would be better positioned to ensure the purity of the
church (a distinctly gendered appeal for women's suffrage within the
Baptist church).
And, even while these patriarchal churches placed very real constraints
upon female members, individual women in many instances did not simply
acquiesce to the congregational enforcement of these disciplinary double
standards. As noted above, discourses are negotiable cultural
constructs; to varying degrees, social actors are capable of resisting,
modifying, or subverting the dominant ideals at play within a cultural
milieu. Thus, although the sex-specific enforcement of church discipline
did sustain a highly gendered social order in the rural evangelical
South, this order was challenged to a significant degree by many of the
women who resisted such regulation in word or in deed. Friedman (1985,
p. 15) recounts the "remarkable audacity" exhibited by many Southern
women in the face of punitive religious sanctions: some of these
evangelical women simply "refused to submit to [church] discipline,"
while others, even if they ultimately reconciled with their church,
"first had their say and did so in no uncertain terms."
Similar discursive-subjective contradictions manifested themselves
within the households of many nineteenth-century Southern Baptists,
though significant change in gender relations within these homes
typically proved to be more elusive than it was in the congregational
setting. Definitions of wifely domesticity inspired by the convergence
between evangelicalism and Victorian gender norms were particularly
expansive and rigorous in the rural South. Because the family had
remained an economically productive unit in the rural South for some
time, the domestic responsibilities of Southern evangelical women were
defined far more broadly than those to which Northern urban women were
expected to attend (Friedman 1985, ch. 2). Women's domestic chores in
the South were not restricted to the household proper, but also included
working in the field, attending to dairy chores, spinning, managing a
household industry and selling the goods produced by it, as well as
acting as "deputy husbands" when situations demanded it. Given the
lengthy list of daily chores facing rural Southern wives, several
historians have noted that these women were probably quite a bit more
industrious, or, more accurately, "double burdened," when compared to
their husbands (Friedman 1985, pp. 22-23, 128-129). Even as women's
domestic chores were broadly defined to include work in the fields, the
boundaries demarcating men's domestic responsibilities were more stolid
and narrowly construed: evangelical husbands typically did not perform
household chores or participate in child-care responsibilities.
Consistent with the notion that discourses are rent with internal
contradictions, this radically unequal and deeply gendered household
division of labor among Southern evangelical couples stood in stark
contrast to some of the more egalitarian theological principles upon
which these marriages continued to be founded. Many of the same
evangelical wives who comported themselves to the rigorous version of
Victorian domesticity described above nevertheless held to an ideal of
marital equality. This ideal was sustained, in thought if not in
practice, by artifacts of egalitarianism which continued to define
evangelical marital unions in Victorian America. Friedman summarizes
this paradox nicely:
Theoretically, marriage united two individuals who were to perform
gender-related roles, but mutual support was to lead to the true
spiritual union. Although the marriage ceremony enjoined obedience on
the wife but not on the husband, ministers still stressed mutuality of
responsibility. The couple vowed to keep "a high esteem and mutual love
for one another; beating with each other's infirmities and
weaknesses...to encourage each other...to comfort one another... in
honesty and industry to provide for each other's temporal support; to
pray for and encourage one another in the things that pertain to God,
and to their immortal souls" (Friedman 1985, p. 34).
This egalitarian vision of evangelical marriage, which likened the ideal
husband-wife relationship to the spiritual union between Christ and his
church, often remained just that, a vision and an ideal. Women generally
took this spiritual call to marital partnership quite seriously; "but
husbands resisted their wives' efforts. The marital union then was a
straggle to reconcile these perspectives" (Friedman 1985, p. 35). Given
the exigencies of daily existence in the Victorian South, and the
concentration of economic resources and decision-making authority in the
hands of the evangelical family's husband, this struggle was quite
frequently resolved in his favor.
Yet, even such a seemingly intractable social relationship as that
between the Southern evangelical husband and wife in Victorian American
necessitated the negotiation of such discursive contradictions, if only
on an intrapsychic level. As evidenced by Friedman's intriguing study of
Southern evangelical wives' diaries and recorded dreams, the
contradictions manifested in these women's marriages produced for them a
profound sense of cognitive dissonance. Many women were confronted with
the task of counterbalancing such egalitarian ideals with gross
practical inequities; and attempted to reconcile their own personal
desires for equality and autonomy with the highly gendered expectations
and obligations of the religious community with which they identified.
Evangelical women adopted various strategies to deal with these cross-
pressures, including either an outright rejection or acceptance of
evangelical ideals, as well as the forging of a creative negotiation of
these normative-behavioral disparities:
In an inner dialectic southern women weighed and shifted the balance
between personal autonomy and the demands of community. Within the
limits of the evangelical community those who recognized the potential
for freedom in divine unity and detachment experienced a sense of worth
and purpose that was personal and unique. However, the barriers to an
individual woman's autonomy in southern evangelical culture are clearly
evident in [other] cases...[E]vangelical control often obscured the
liberating potential of this religious culture...[T]he nature of this
community produced enormous struggles in a woman's interior being.
Unconscious forces resisted, accepted, and adapted cultural forms that
then guided the conscious choice of southern women to determine their
lives (Friedman 1985, p. 52).
Consequently, Friedman (1985, p. 129) concludes that in these
evangelical communities of the nineteenth century, individual "women's
struggle toward self-definition and social integration followed no set
course. Each woman chose to accept, reject, or modify evangelical
precepts according to her own individual need."
In short, the cultural accommodation of evangelicalism in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries led to the gradual convergence
of evangelical and Victorian gender ideals. In fact, the cultural
dominance of Victorian gender norms was accompanied by the rise to
prominence of evangelical religion in America: the "upstart" evangelical
sects of the eighteenth century had effectively moved, during the course
of the nineteenth century, from the cultural periphery to the religious
mainstream. In the wake of these historical shifts, Susan Juster
concludes, "the androgynous essence of evangelical religion was eroded
by repeated encounters with the profane world...No longer positioned
outside (and against) the world, the evangelical church was now fully of
the world (Juster 1994, pp. 107, 113, emphasis in the original).
THE DEMISE OF VICTORIAN GENDER IDEALS AND THE RISE OF
FUNDAMENTALIST FAMILY DISCOURSE, 1875 TO 1930
For various reasons, Victorian discourses of gender and family began to
erode by the close of the nineteenth century (DeBerg 1990, pp. 24-41).
First, Victorian notions of public sphere masculinity were becoming
progressively undermined by dramatic economic transformations, including
the shift from small-scale cottage industries to a more corporate,
bureaucratic form of capitalism. According to historian Betty DeBerg
(1990, p. 25): "'Manly' work in one's own shop, office, vehicle, or
factory gave way to employment in bureaucratized, sterile corporate
offices...When American business became big business, men's ability to
play the 'economic warrior' was reduced since many small businesses
failed or were bought out and men became mere bureaucratic cogs in large
business organizations'" such as U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, and American
Telephone and Telegraph, to name but a few.
Second, and closely related to such broader economic changes, the
patriarchal Victorian family became less feasible and, in some
circumstances, largely impractical within the domestic realm itself.
With the increased labor requirements and commuting times that
characterized this corporate wave of American industrialization,
husbands and fathers were spending progressively less time in the
household. The absentee Victorian husband/ father was fast becoming a
patriarch in name only: "As male participation in childrearing decreased,
so did the chances that men could find reinforcement for their masculine
identity in family situations, since the patriarchal family depended on
the ability of the father to control the actions of his household"
(DeBerg 1990, p. 35). And, just as the family shifted from an
economically productive to a primarily consumptive social institution,
the late Victorian husband's move out of the home and into the work
force placed this "patriarch" in a precarious position, particularly
where parental authority was concerned: "As often as not, women had more
say in the decisions made about their children than did men. And with
the responsibility for the training and guidance of the young came much
real and symbolic power" (DeBerg 1990, p. 35).
Finally, the demise of Victorian gender and family discourses was
fostered by the influx of women into the previously male-dominated
"public sphere" during the late nineteenth century (DeBerg 1990, pp. 25-
35). The post-Victorian New Woman, aided by first-wave feminism and
women's rights activists, made significant inroads into educational
institutions, the paid labor force, and politically active
organizations. The political involvement of these women directly
conflicted with Victorian gender ideals, providing social activists as
well as new female entrants into the labor force with the choice of
either clinging to outmoded beliefs which did not speak to their
personal experience or redefining prevailing definitions of womanhood in
light of their burgeoning public sphere commitments. Many women chose
the latter course of action: "There were simply too many cases, even in
respectable middle-class society, in which the highly differentiated
gender definitions and roles [of Victorian America] had little
congruence with the way people actually lived their lives" (DeBerg 1990,
p. 38). As women became more actively involved in the public sphere,
they became less dependent on men, marriage, and motherhood to provide
for themselves a base of financial support or a sense of personal
identity. Women's entrance into the public sphere at this time coincided
with a revolt against marriage, a loosening of sexual mores, a growing
recognition of the legitimacy of voluntary motherhood, and an increasing
frequency of divorce, now considered a viable solution to an
unsatisfying marital relationship.
Located squarely within American culture, evangelical churches were not
exempted from the cross-cutting tensions produced by the gradual demise
of Victorian discourses of gender and family relations (Friedman 1985,
ch. 6). Many late nineteenth and early twentieth-century evangelicals
who were beholden to the religion's perfectionist roots and reformist
impulses championed women's entrance into the public sphere.[4]
Prominent women of this era, such as leaders of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU, founded by Frances Willard in 1874), drew upon
the reformist zeal of evangelicalism to argue for women's suffrage,
child labor laws, and the formation of a juvenile justice system. In
light of these facts, historian Nancy Hardesty (1984, pp. 9-10) and
others have argued that nineteenth-century perfectionist evangelicalism
actually gave birth to early feminist social reform efforts and in fact
subverted the Victorian Cult of True Womanhood.
Of course, the evangelical-inspired social activism of the WCTU and
other turn-of-the-century women's reform organizations could be viewed
as a more conservative force, i.e., merely as "civic housekeeping" that
simply reproduced the Victorian era separate spheres ideology. Yet, this
interpretation seems less than compelling in light of the actual impact
that such reform efforts exerted on the personal lives of many women who
participated in these organizations. In a very practical fashion,
women's political activism during this time served to subvert discourses
of domesticized femininity and called into question the narrow
definitions of womanhood upon which this Victorian construct was
founded. Moreover, women gained practical political experience and
developed leadership expertise through their affiliations with such
organizations as the WCTU: "Through such [social reform] organizations,
women across the country, but particularly urban middle-class women,
burst into the public sphere with a reforming zeal rooted in evangelical
religion and the cult of domesticity. These wives and mothers may not
have been employed, but leave the house they did, and men no longer
could claim the political world as their own" (DeBerg 1990, p. 32).
Evangelical women's participation in denominational missionary efforts
also gained momentum at this time. Methodist churches were among the
first to promote women's missionary efforts, followed by their Baptist
and Presbyterian counterparts. Paralleling the societal erosion of the
separate spheres ideology and the growing political activism of
parachurch groups like the WCTU, denominational missionary outreach
fostered evangelical women's participation in public sphere activities.
Despite these evangelical-inspired challenges to Victorian gender norms,
it would be erroneous to conclude that evangelical Protestants as a
whole championed these sociopolitical changes. Once again, historical
evidence points to a series of discursive rifts and contradictions
internal to evangelicalism overlaid upon the broader societal tensions
in gender relations outline above. The rise of women's missionary
societies illustrates the significance of the gender tensions
surrounding the "proper place" of member-women within evangelical
churches. Baptist women's outstandingly successful fundraising efforts
for conducting missionary activities, in particular, produced
considerable ambivalence among the members of the Baptist Convention.
After experiencing initial resistance to their missionary activities,
Baptist women eventually elicited public praise from the Convention for
their efforts. Still, these energetic women had to be careful not to
appear that they were usurping the authority of the male-dominated
missionary boards. In a committee report crafted in 1885, these women
"asked [the Convention] that they be allowed to continue working 'in a
quiet and unostentatious way"' (Friedman 1985, p. 116). In the end,
women's entrance into the public sphere produced within evangelicalism a
profound cultural paradox. By the end of the nineteenth century,
"[t]raditional attitudes concerning women's domestic role existed
simultaneously with acceptance of women's religious and social
leadership" (Friedman 1985, p. 127).
These broad historical changes within American society at large,
combined with such contradictory trends within evangelicalism itself,
posed a serious challenge to Victorian beliefs about the dichotomous
distribution of masculine and feminine traits among men and women
respectively. Moreover, these momentous changes raised questions about
the gendered familial and social roles that these essentialist[5]
conceptualizations supported. Given the vexing questions it raised about
men, women, family life, and even the fate of the nation as a whole, it
is not surprising that the growing reaction against Victorian gender and
family relations produced a significant degree of ideological ferment in
American society at large and within evangelical Protestant churches, as
well. DeBerg (1990, p. 25) concludes that by the turn of the century
"women's nature and sphere of activity became the battleground on which
men fought for their own identity as men. Could men be true men if women
were no longer true women?" It was in response to this social and
political ferment, particularly, the rapid transformation of gender
relations in family and society, that Protestant fundamentalism was
born.
Fundamentalism, so named because of its association with the perceived
"fundamentals" of Protestant Christianity, initially coalesced as a
reaction against modernism (DeBerg 1990, ch. 6). Whereas modernism stood
for the "progress" of human reason and encouraged the application of
higher criticism to scriptural study, fundamentalism was founded upon
two key theological tenets: dispensational premillenialism and the
inerrancy of the Bible. Dispensational premillenialism broke with
earlier, more perfectionist versions of evangelical theology (often
referred to as postmillenialism) by arguing that the establishment of
the kingdom of God was not founded upon the moral progress of humanity.
Rather, the second coming of Christ was now thought to be preceded by a
historical period of rampant immorality, widespread apostasy, and mass
infidelity. In light of the demise of Victorian discourses of gender and
family relations, many religious conservatives were swayed by the
pessimism of fundamentalist theology. A radical about-face in the
theological stance of Dwight L. Moody (the most prominent evangelical-
turned-fundamentalist) reveals the power of the Protestant
fundamentalist message for many turn-of-the-century religious
conservatives. With the rise of fundamentalism, Moody abandoned his
earlier, most optimistic postmillenial evangelical convictions and
exchanged them for a more pessimistic premillenialist view (McLoughlin
1968, p. 24).
Biblical inerrancy, the belief that the Bible is the "literal," actual,
and infallible Word of God, also achieved a privileged status in first-
wave fundamentalist Protestantism. Early fundamentalists understood the
Bible to be not only historically accurate, but construed scripture as
the source of all moral truth for individual believers. First-wave
fundamentalists therefore rejected other sources of revelatory
inspiration (e.g., speaking in tongues). Instead, they strived for a
more codified and stable theological base, the "timeless truths" of the
Bible, in the face of rapid social changes. This shift was a strategic
move on the part of first~wave fundamentalist leaders, who were, not
coincidentally, men. By raising the Bible to be the ultimate standard by
which God's will could be deciphered and by portraying their own
scriptural readings as the authoritative interpretation of biblical
mandates, these leading spokesmen were able to legitimate their pastoral
authority in a religion which had initially called into question such
social hierarchies.
The sweeping social changes which began to take hold in post-Victorian
America, comprised in no small part by the transformation of gender
relations in American families, politics, the economic realm, and
religious organizations, seemed to provide clear evidence of
premillenial moral decay to many first-wave fundamentalists. In the face
of these upheavals, many leading fundamentalists argued for the
restoration of Victorian notions of active masculinity and passive
femininity, a patriarchal household structure, and the ideology of
separate spheres (Bendroth 1993, ch. 5; DeBerg 1990, chs. 2 and 3).
Moreover, the fundamentalist rehashing of these Victorian gender
conceptualizations now infused such pleas with direct appeals to the
"inerrant truths" of the Bible.
First, androgyny was eschewed by leading first-wave fundamentalists as a
violation of God's intent for clarity, harmony, and complementarity in
creation. First-wave fundamentalists sought to reassert the importance
of essential gender difference by sharply contrasting what they
perceived as the masculine predilection for strength and aggression with
the more subdued and naturally deferent feminine character. One leading
fundamentalist contended: "In man, the Scriptures emphasize the active
virtues...In woman, they emphasize the passive virtues...When this
difference is lost and man becomes womanish, or woman becomes mannish,
then the proper balance is lost, and harmony gives way to discord" (as
quoted in DeBerg 1990, p. 45).
Second, in addition to their concern about maintaining notions of gender
difference, the discourse of first-wave fundamentalism also invoked a
patriarchal family model. In contrast to more egalitarian gender
discourses that were becoming so prominent within nonevangelical circles
(e.g., the liberated New Woman of the early twentieth century),
evangelical wives were alternately encouraged to emulate the
selflessness and long-suffering of Jesus Christ; to reenact the
subordination of the Eve to Adam (God was thought to have instructed the
fallen first wife to submit herself to her husband's authority); and to
mirror the submission of the Church to Christ's leadership, the latter
in bold distinction to more egalitarian idealizations of the Christ-
Church union that pervaded nineteenth-century evangelicalism (detailed
above). In any case, these apologists for the patriarchal family
envisioned a divine hierarchy which featured, in a descending order of
authority: God, Christ, man/husband, woman/wife.
Finally, a woman' s "natural callings" in life, woman qua wife and
mother, were a favorite topic of many leading fundamentalists during the
early twentieth century. Because they viewed the post-Victorian New
Woman, rising divorce rates, and women's "invasion" of the public sphere
as signs of the "end times," many early fundamentalists urged women to
return to their "proper" God-ordained (read, Victorian) role as
supportive wife and self-sacrificing mother. In a word, women were
encouraged not to "dirty themselves" by participating in the affairs of
the public sphere (politics, business); and not to jeopardize their
family and, indeed, the fate of the nation by abdicating their divinely
prescribed domestic role. As guardians (but not rulers) of the private
sphere, they would have their hands full overseeing the moral
development of the "divinized home" (DeBerg 1990). After all, early
fundamentalists contended, it was the home more so than even the church
itself that was the bastion of true religion and the cornerstone of a
strong Christian nation.
Over and against the revolt against marriage waged by the New Woman and
first-wave feminists, fundamentalist Protestants sought to reinstitute
the Victorian Cult of True Womanhood now buttressed by "literal"
references to "God's Word" (i.e., carefully chosen biblical passages).
Therefore, women's call to motherhood was legitimated not only by
appeals to their once-removed civic power ("the hand that rocks the
cradle...") but by ever more strident religious rhetoric and scriptural
appeals. One leading fundamentalist offered the following appraisal: "If
there be any difference in degree touching the importance of the spheres
assigned the two sexes, surely the palm goes to the woman, since
according to God's own decree and word, she is in a position to mold the
character and determine the destiny of the race" (as quoted in DeBerg
1990, p. 46).
Recall that theories of discourse call attention not only to the
socially contested character of discursive regimes (e.g., fundamentalism
vs. modernism), but also highlight the internal contradictions endemic
to any particular discourse. Following from this latter insight, several
ideological contradictions can be detected within the gender and family
discourse of first-wave fundamentalism. First, early fundamentalists
were not a monolithic group of like-minded religious conservatives.
Given the firm, though by no means identical, convictions of these
religious conservatives, various historians have called attention to the
infighting that often plagued this religious movement despite its common
distaste for modernism (see, e.g., DeBerg 1990, p. 97). Thus, although
many fundamentalists sought to delimit women's influence in their
churches (including the right to address assemblies), the move to do so
sparked heated debate among religious conservatives (DeBerg 1990, pp. 76-
79; Hassey 1986). One historian has commented on the evangelical
suspicion of fundamentalist calls for "loyalty to creed" over and
against "loyalty to denomination"; because many evangelicals placed
great importance on denominational membership, "the most caustic
Fundamentalists spent more time attacking other southern Evangelicals
than anyone else and quickly lost influence in their own denominations"
(Flynt 1981, p. 29). Internal divisions within turn-of-the-century
conservative Protestantism were also quite evident in fundamentalist
appraisals of the evangelical-inspired Women's Christian Temperance
Union (WCTU). Fundamentalists who wished to silence women in church
gatherings could hardly support the evangelical inspired WCTU, whose
female members frequently used the pulpit to articulate their messages
(DeBerg 1990, p. 77).
Second, apart from these internecine disputes, practical exigencies
forced many fundamentalist churches, particularly those in rural areas,
to rely quite heavily on women's labor power, time investments, and
financial donations even as they sought to advance a hypermasculine
version of Protestant Christianity. Yet, despite the literal shortage of
manpower in many of these congregations (or more likely because of it),
fundamentalist preachers became ever more diligent about infusing themes
of virility, militarism, and Christian heroism into their religious
rhetoric (DeBerg 1990, pp. 86-97). All of those forces perceived to be
opposed to fundamentalism, such as modernism, liberalism, and even non-
fundamental forms of Christianity, were denigrated as "feminine" or
"womanish." In a clear break with their evangelical forebears,
fundamentalist preachers, whose own gender identities were at stake in
light of their ministerial calling, "rejected the feminized Jesus of
Victorian evangelical piety and identified Jesus with traditional
notions of masculinity...Fundamentalist ministers asserted their
masculinity by presenting Christianity as a faith for real men and the
prime Christian example, Jesus, as a manly man" (DeBerg 1990, pp. 92-93)
. Military metaphors were not in short supply among early fundamentalist
preachers, as men were called to be "warriors in God's army" and
"soldier[s] of Christ" (DeBerg 1990, pp. 93, 95).
Still, preachers in many of these congregations could not afford to turn
their attention from their predominantly female membership. Women's
labor was indeed needed for the movement to flourish. As such, women
were urged to consider "careers," of a sort, in mission work or
Christian education (DeBerg 1990, p. 80). The contradiction between the
discourse of first-wave fundamentalism (i.e., patriarchal headship in
the divinized home combined with an uncompromising separate spheres
ideology), and these churches' practical reliance upon the labor power
of their predominantly female membership facilitated the development of
a most anti-Protestant notion: the "priesthood of all believers" and the
populist impulse of early evangelicalism was quickly becoming replaced
by hierarchical distinctions which placed ordained clergy (typically men)
over and above church laity (predominantly women). Thus, because women's
labor power was sorely needed in these churches, though generally not to
fill leadership positions reserved for men, the separate spheres
ideology of first-wave fundamentalism was reapplied, in a microcosmic
fashion, to the church just as it had been previously conceived for
Victorian society at large. One fundamentalist leader, for example,
'made the distinction between public preaching, which was "inimical" to
women's sphere, and women's legitimate sphere within the church, which
he called "ministration"' (DeBerg 1990, p. 81, italics added). Women's
ministries within many early fundamentalist churches, therefore, were
"auxiliaries" in the truest sense of the term (DeBerg 1990, pp. 82-83).
In light of these nuances and complexities, DeBerg argues that
"contradictory claims" and a "double-sided message" characterized
fundamentalist gender discourse and practice.
At the same time that their leaders championed the home as the bastion
of true religion and expressed reservations regarding the efficacy of
the church, they also waged a passionate battle for control of the
church against both modernists and women and promoted a manly
Christianity to replace the perspective and practices of femininized
evangelical Protestantism (DeBerg 1990, p. 97).
How successful were first-wave fundamentalists in achieving their
various goals? Although they could hardly be construed as victors in
their war against modernism, the unique and lasting imprint of first-
wave fundamentalism on evangelical gender and family discourse is
unmistakable. On the surface, it would seem that early fundamentalists
simply reasserted Victorian notions of ruthless, aggressive masculinity
and virtuous, deferent femininity. But on a deeper level, early
fundamentalists also provided their own distinctive contribution to
early twentieth-century gender and family discourse in seeking to
resurrect these Victorian conceptualizations. Most notably, these
fundamentalists successfully masculinized evangelical religion. The
fundamentalist husband, no longer the "economic warrior" for his family
due to the rise of corporate capitalism, was now creatively branded a
"soldier of Christ." And in effectively overthrowing earlier definitions
of feminized evangelicalism (a "heart religion" par excellence), male
fundamentalist clergy codified conservative Protestant theology by
raising the Bible as the ultimate standard, an inherently rational
standard, that could be used to adjudicate with logical clarity an array
of moral, familial, and social issues.
FAMILY DISCOURSE IN EVANGELICAL AND FUNDAMENTALIST
PROTESTANTISM: FROM THE POST-WAR YEARS TO THE PRESENT
The rise to prominence of first-wave fundamentalism marked an important
turning point for American evangelicalism. As noted above, many
fundamentalists sought to reassert their own brand of Victorian gender
roles in the face of loosening sexual mores that characterized the first
several decades of the twentieth century. However, rapid changes in
twentieth-century American society (especially those following World War
II) exacerbated rather than allayed the anxiety of leading
fundamentalists and many evangelicals. As aptly catalogued by Margaret
Lamberts Bendroth (1984, 1993), prominent fundamentalist commentators,
from the post-War years to the rise of the New Christian Right in the
late 1970s and early 1980s, were alarmed by what they perceived to be a
increasing "formlessness" and rampant individualism that seemed to be
taking over American society.
Despite the ushering of women back into the domestic sphere soon after
World War II, broader societal discourses of marriage and family life
were once again being redefined in ways that made many religious
conservatives uneasy (Bendroth 1984, pp. 130-131). As a result of post-
War suburbanization, economic expansion, and increasing geographic and
social mobility, the personal and individualistic dimensions of family
life were fast becoming privileged over the more "traditional" functions
of marriage--long-term relational commitment and societal stability. In
short, "personal fulfillment had replaced social utility as the primary
purpose of marriage" (Bendroth 1984, p. 131).
It was on the heels of these social changes and redefinitions of family
life that feminist criticism of "traditional" women's roles began to
emerge during the 1960s. Feminist critiques of women's circumscribed
family roles drew force from these cultural shifts toward individualism
and personal fulfillment, called into question the unequal treatment and
subordinate status of American women, and continued to gain considerable
momentum well into the 1970s. According to Bendroth (1984, p. 131),
early second-wave feminist manifestos such as Betty Friedan's The
Feminine Mystique were "in many ways a product of this confusion [over
gender and family roles] rather than a simple call for justice. Women's
restlessness and discontent mounted as their role in the home appeared
to lose much of its moral and social significance."
Despite the largely negative reaction of fundamentalists to these
socioeconomic shifts and the burgeoning women's movement, evangelicals,
many of whom had experienced upward social mobility after World War II
(Flynt 1981, pp. 26-27), were decidedly polarized on these issues
(Bendroth 1984). On the one hand, many evangelicals sought to shore up
traditional conceptualizations of gender roles in the family and society
at large (Bendroth 1984, pp. 131-132). However, given the scope of mid
to late twentieth-century gender role transformations (most notably, a
dramatic increase in women's labor force participation), a simple appeal
to traditional Victorian gender roles buttressed with some carefully
chosen biblical passages about innate feminine vulnerability, wifely
submission, and women's inborn penchant for domesticity would prove
inadequate. Not unlike their first-wave fundamentalist predecessors,
many leading conservative Protestants once again threw aside the
perfectionist trappings of early evangelical religion and began to place
greater emphasis on an intractable "order of creation" argument to
justify women's circumscribed social roles, church responsibilities, and
subordinate position in the family (Bendroth 1984, pp. 131-132):
The order of creation idea [which stressed that Adam's creation preceded
that of Eve] was clearly an intensification of the traditional notion of
male and female spheres. Instead of basing women's status in the Fall
and the curse of Genesis 3:16, the newer theory rooted female
subordination in creation itself. Thus, because they were created after
men, women ranked below them in a divinely instituted hierarchy. Further,
as a fundamental principle of creation, this order was not affected by
the work of Christ... [T]he notion of a strict hierarchy in marriage was
more than a reaction to the growing influence of secular feminism; it
was also a means of introducing order into the increasingly amorphous
boundaries of parental roles within the family (Bendroth 1984, p. 132).
Thus, according to proponents of this brand of evangelical theology,
women's "secondary" status in the creative order forestalled any
arguments that men and women could become equals in this lifetime. This
theological maneuver was directed not only against the ideals of the
secular women's movement, but also against a growing coterie of
evangelical feminists who had begun to gain a heating within
conservative Protestantism during the early 1970s, and who continue to
enjoy considerable popularity into the 1990s. Evangelical feminism
argues for gender equality and a withdrawal of the familial and
ecclesiastical restrictions often directed at women in conservative
Christian churches (see, e.g., Bartkowski 1997a, 1997b; Bendroth 1984,
1993; Hardesty 1984, pp. 159-161; Ingersoll 1995; Stacey and Gerard 1990)
. Contemporary evangelical feminism (or biblical feminism, as it is
often called) initially drew force from the women's liberation movement
during the early 1970s, when its leading proponents mobilized and issued
a formal statement condemning sexism within conservative Protestantism.
Soon after issuing this declaration, biblical feminists formed the
Evangelical Women's Caucus, endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, and
began producing an "alternative" family advice literature. Directed
primarily at evangelical women, this critical advice literature included
periodicals such as Daughters of Sarah and popular polemical treatises
such as All We're Meant to Be (Scanzoni and Hardesty [1975] 1992), the
latter of which has won publishers' awards and has been revised/
reissued on two different occasions (see Bartkowski 1997a, 1997b for
analyses of these and other biblical feminist primary source materials).
To non-evangelicals, biblical feminism may seem like a contradiction in
terms or, at the very least, an inconsequential force within
contemporary conservative Protestantism. And indeed, biblical feminists
do not attract as much attention from outside of conservative Protestant
circles when compared to their boldly "traditionalist" evangelical
counterparts such as James Dobson, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, and Jerry
Falwell. However, biblical feminism has had a significant impact on
contemporary evangelical gender discourse. The Evangelical Women's
Caucus, founded in 1973, has spawned a second organization, Christians
for Biblical Equality, which is also opposed to much of the reactionary
rhetoric advanced by leading evangelical defenders of a "traditional"
(i.e., late Victorian) family structure. And, perhaps most notably,
evangelical feminists continue to attract sustained criticism from more
"traditionalist" religious conservatives. So great is the perceived
threat of evangelical feminists that their conservative Protestant
critics have recently mobilized to form an explicitly anti-biblical-
feminist organization, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
After convening a conference of their own and producing a point-by-point
denunciation of biblical feminism and egalitarian strands of
evangelicalism, this organization has recently published a critical tome
of nearly six-hundred pages, aptly entitled Recovering Biblical Manhood
and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (Piper and Grudem 1991)
. In light of factors such as these, some historians have concluded that
contemporary conservative Protestant debates about "women's place" in
the family, church, and society have been marked by a considerable
degree of ideological polarization. Bendroth (1984, p. 123) calls
attention to what she perceives as the "forced choice between two
extremes, traditionalism vs. evangelical feminism, within contemporary
conservative Protestantism"; these ideological extremes, she contends,
"have set the limits of creative discussion" within late twentieth-
century evangelicalism. Still, despite the general accuracy of
Bendroth's assessment concerning the ideological polarization of
conservative Protestant gender and family rhetoric, it would be
erroneous to conclude that this state of affairs has effectively
undermined any further transformation of evangelical spousal role
conceptualizations. To the contrary, evangelical gender and family
discourses continue to undergo significant transformations as the
twentieth century comes to a close (Bartkowski 1997b). Most notably,
biblical feminist criticism of the patriarchal family (along with that
advanced by secular feminist critics of conservative Christianity) has
successfully problematized the "husbandheadship" and "wifely submission"
rhetoric which has held sway within contemporary evangelical family
discourse for much of the latter portion of the twentieth century. As a
result, the perceived merits of "husband-headship" and "wifely
submission" can no longer be taken for granted by even the most
traditional of religious conservatives. Most notable among the
discursive innovations produced by this ideological ferment are (1) the
rise of "modified essentialist" commentators who advocate "mutual
submission" (i.e., shared decisionmaking responsibility) even while
clinging to some vestige of essential gender difference; (2) the growing
visibility of new-guard defenders of the patriarchal family who redefine
"headship" with paradoxical neologisms such as "servant-leadership"; and
(3) a reappropriation of the term "mutual submission" by commentators
who nevertheless continue to argue for the legitimacy of masculine
leadership in the home (see Bartkowski 1997b). Of course, only time will
tell how these most recent discursive innovations may impact the broader
state of ideological polarization that characterizes late twentieth-
century evangelical family discourse.
CONCLUSION
This study has traced significant historical shifts in evangelical
gender and family discourse during the course of the last two centuries.
To the extent that a general trend can be distilled from the foregoing
analysis, I have argued that the vibrant egalitarian impulse of early
evangelicalism has been tamed to a significant degree over the course of
the past two centuries. However, a close reading of the history of
conservative Protestant family discourse suggests that this general
routinization of evangelical charisma has been fraught with an array of
contradictions (ideological ferment within evangelicalism; discrepancies
between conservative Protestant gender ideals and gender practices). In
light of these complex historical processes, it is not terribly
surprising that contemporary evangelical gender and family discourse is
marked by a considerable degree of ideological fragmentation, internal
contradiction, and ongoing discursive innovation. Most recently, the
egalitarian impulse of evangelical Protestantism has reemerged in the
form of biblical feminism and has exacted some significant concessions
from more traditionalist brands of evangelical family commentary.
How can these incredibly persistent points of discursive fragmentation
be explained? What is it about evangelical Protestantism that seems to
produce such a wide range of cultural contradictions? Perhaps the
answers to these questions can be found in the paradoxical character of
evangelical Christianity itself, and in the highly ambivalent
relationship between religious conservatives and the "modern" world in
which evangelicalism has matured and is currently situated.
In one sense, the historical persistence of conservative Protestant
debates about gender and family relations seem closely linked to the
internal theological contradictions endemic to evangelicalism.
Evangelicalism is comprised of a set of contradictory impulses and
competing value commitments that, approximately two centuries after its
inception, remains unresolved.[6] On the one hand is a strong commitment
to individualism and egalitarianism. Particularly prominent in its
earliest manifestations, evangelicalism takes very seriously the
Protestant notion of "the priesthood of all believers," and stresses the
equality of all evangelized Christians in the eyes of God. In stark
contrast to Catholicism and other highly bureaucratized religious
expressions, this evangelical commitment to autonomy and self-
determination is most pronounced in the grassroots congregational
structure and local governance found in many conservative Protestant
churches. At this level, evangelicalism argues against the need for a
formal church to serve as a mediator between God and the believer;
rather, the individual's personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and
all believers' direct access to spiritual truth through the divine
revelation of the Bible, have the potential to relativize and subvert
social hierarchies.
On the other hand, however, evangelical beliefs in human sinfulness and
the innate depravity of all persons contribute to a strong suspicion of
individualism within conservative Protestant circles. This seeming
rejection of individualism has contributed to a strict enforcement of
communal discipline within conservative Protestant churches and to the
construction of authority-laden relational hierarchies in an array of
evangelical organizations, including the family. As noted by many
contemporary sociologists of religion, it is this tendency toward
"strictness" that makes affiliation with conservative Protestant
churches a "costly investment" to the individual believer. To the
outsider, the oft-cited evangelical emphasis on the "submission" of
believers to duly appointed authorities, laypersons to pastors,
employees to employers, wives to husbands, children to parents, seems to
stand directly at odds with the "enlightened," "progressive" march of
human history toward individual self-determination and egalitarian
social relations.
In addition to these internal contradictions, this study has highlighted
the markedly ambivalent stance of evangelicals toward the external (i.e.,
non-evangelical) world (see Flynt 1981; Hunter 1982).[7] On the one hand,
American evangelicalism attempts to take a critical stance toward that
which it perceives to be "worldly" (i.e., devoid of "Christian" values).
In this way, evangelicals seek to stand outside of mainstream American
culture which is believed to have been corrupted by secular,
materialistic, and humanistic values. In contrast to such "worldliness,"
many evangelicals aim to preserve a subcultural enclave in which selfish,
sinful impulses can be muted and spiritual salvation can be pursued.
Yet, on the other hand, evangelicals have been and continue to be
located squarely within mainstream American culture. Evangelicals
comprise a large proportion of the contemporary American population
(about twenty-five percent by some estimates), and conservative
Protestant churches continue to enjoy substantial membership growth.
Even more fundamentally, the evangelical impulse to convert unsaved
individuals into "believers" (literally, to "evangelize" non-Christians)
and to provide a socially and politically relevant message to Americans
at large requires a considerable degree of engagement with non-
evangelical culture. Rather than pointing to a resolution of these
cultural and genderrelated contradictions, a careful reading of the
history of evangelical Protestantism suggests that these impulses are
engaged in an ongoing tension which has yet to be (and may never be)
fully resolved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported by a dissertation fellowship from the
Louisville Institute for the Study of Protestantism and American Culture
(1996-97), a Continuing Fellowship from the Graduate School at the
University of Texas at Austin (1995-1996), and a research grant from the
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (1996).
NOTES
1. One premise of this article is that evangelicalism has undergone
important historical transformations not only in its discourse on family
relations, but in its theological points of emphasis as well. Therefore,
it is somewhat difficult to define evangelical Protestantism without
reference to a specific historical period. Nevertheless, most scholars
of this religious subculture would agree that the distinctiveness of
evangelicalism generally hinges upon interrelated theological
commitments to (1) scriptural authority (an extension of the anti-cleric
Protestant notion of sola scriptura, culminating in twentieth-century
fundamentalist appeals to biblical inerrancy); (2) the historicity and
divinity of Jesus Christ (as opposed to understanding Jesus as a
mythical figure, prophet, or model human being); and (3) the centrality
of a personal conversion experience to spiritual salvation (often
referred to as being "born-again"). According to some estimates,
evangelicals comprise approximately one quarter of the American
population, with Southern Baptists representing the largest evangelical
denomination in the United States.
As noted in this article, evangelicalism can be distinguished from
Protestant fundamentalism, though the precise boundary line between
these religious subcultures remains difficult to pinpoint. In general,
fundamentalists are a splinter group located within the broader
evangelical tradition. The distinctiveness of fundamentalism stems from
its relatively recent historical origin, as well as its attempt to
privilege biblical inerrancy over the panoply of evangelical commitments
outlined above and discussed throughout this paper (see Bartkowski 1996
for a more thorough analysis of these issues).
2. Various scholars have called attention to the individualistic
theological convictions, the emotional worship styles, and the populist
base of support for early American evangelicalism (see, e.g., Boles
1972; see Flynt 1981 for a brief review of many of these issues).
3. Hunter (1982, p. 24), for example, has argued that evangelicalism had
become the "unquestionably predominant" form of American Protestantism
by the middle of the nineteenth century. It is also important to note
that the hegemony of mid-nineteenth-century evangelicalism altered not
only this religion's commitment to egalitarian gender relations, but its
view of other social hierarchies as well (including slavery). Wayne
Flynt (1981, pp. 24-25) traces such ideological transformations to the
gentrification and growing affluence of evangelicals by the mid-
nineteenth century.
4. It bears mentioning that not all reform-minded evangelicals supported
women's entrance into the public sphere during the late nineteenth
century and soon after. "Social Gospel" evangelicals were among those
who generally embraced a progressivist political agenda even while they
evinced strong support for the Victorian separate spheres ideology
(Fishbum 1981, pp. 22-28, 95-96, 122-126 ff.).
5. Following other gender scholars, I use the term "essentialist" as a
shorthand reference to describe the convictions of groups or individuals
who subscribe to the belief that gender differences are categorical,
innate, and largely immutable. The term itself is derived from the
conviction held by these persons that there are distinctive masculine
and feminine "essences" which strongly impact men's and women's
ostensibly divergent ways of thinking and acting.
6. Various scholars of evangelicalism have commented on the relationship
between the individualistic and communalist impulses within this
religious subculture (Boles 1972, pp. 11, 124, 125142, 143-147, 148;
Flynt 1981, p. 31; McLoughlin 1968, p. 26; Soper 1994, p. 39).
7. The early prominence of bivocational ministers symbolized the
conservative Protestant ambivalence toward "worldly" affairs, as well as
the evangelical opposition toward pastor-layperson distinctions.
Bivocational ministers, who held a "regular" job in addition to their
preaching commitments "literally lived in two worlds, including a
secular one which subjected them to the same frustrations, exploitations,
and insecurity as their parishioners" (Flynt 1981, p. 35). In this way,
bivocational ministry acted to undermine the development of pastor-
layperson distinctions and congregational hierarchies.
The fact that bivocational ministry is now uncommon in evangelical
churches symbolizes the changes which have taken place within
evangelical religion over the last several centuries. Among these
changes is the upward social mobility of evangelicals during the course
of much of the twentieth century, including the professionalization of
conservative Protestant clergy. Although evangelicals continue to be
somewhat less affluent and less educated than their non-evangelical
counterparts, historical evidence suggests that this group has
experienced a steady upward climb in the American class structure and
has become quite firmly entrenched in the American middle class since
World War II (Flynt 1981, p. 26; Soper 1994, pp. 48-49).
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~~~~~~~~
By JOHN P. BARTKOWSKI
John P. Bartkowski is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Mississippi
State University, P.O. Drawer C, Mississippi State, MS 39762; e-mail:
bartkowski@soc.msstate.edu. His current research examines the
relationship between the cultural discourse and subjective negotiation
of gender relations within evangelical Protestant families.
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Source: History of the Family, 1998, Vol. 3 Issue 1, p95, 21p.
Item Number: 559952
