It's the patriarchy
October 17, 2021 5:43 PM Subscribe
In this interview in Jacobin, Calvin University's historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez address the conundrum of evangelical support for Donald Trump. She points outs that much of modern liberalism (feminism, acceptance of alternatives to heterosexuality, etc.) threatens White male authority. Trump's morality (or lack thereof) can be handily overlooked given his male dominance displays and his ability stoke the fear that "they" (non-evangelicals) are out to get "us" (real Americans).
In her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, she connects the historical dots and shows the dark underbelly of misogyny and toxic agression has always been present.
Another recent interview with the author in Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study newsletter.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 7:31 PM on October 17, 2021 [14 favorites]
posted by chimpsonfilm at 7:31 PM on October 17, 2021 [14 favorites]
I just finished reading this interview and clicked over to MeFi to find a post about the interview! I’m a big fan of KKDM and I think she’s right on the money. She lays out connections between masculinity, white supremacy, authoritarianism and the evangelical church so clearly. Her assertion that the cultural markers in American Christianity have taken over from the theological ones is particularly astute.
posted by sleeping bear at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by sleeping bear at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [7 favorites]
BIL is an OT literalist patriarchal shit-for-brains (wouldn't suprise me he thinks the world is ~6000 years old) now sucked into the Q-verse. Took my sister with him, which kinda broke my Mom's heart.
For the strategic-thinking conservative, Trump delivered the goods, more than the 12 years of Bush presidencies did . . . his 3 SCOTUS placements are going to kill this country as a going concern not too far down the road.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
For the strategic-thinking conservative, Trump delivered the goods, more than the 12 years of Bush presidencies did . . . his 3 SCOTUS placements are going to kill this country as a going concern not too far down the road.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:29 PM on October 17, 2021 [16 favorites]
related.
Jesus and John Wayne.
posted by clavdivs at 11:52 PM on January 16.
posted by clavdivs at 8:42 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
Jesus and John Wayne.
posted by clavdivs at 11:52 PM on January 16.
posted by clavdivs at 8:42 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was surprised to learn, as a former Grand Rapidian, that Calvin College became Calvin University in 2019. As a godless heathen, I was relieved to learn they are the same place and there wasn’t ANOTHER school named after Calvin.
This historian seems like she’s doing interesting work, I am now off to read the links.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:03 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
This historian seems like she’s doing interesting work, I am now off to read the links.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:03 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
Nice to see it all laid out neatly in one place like that.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:04 PM on October 17, 2021
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:04 PM on October 17, 2021
Her book is effing excellent. The book I always want to pair it with is God's Own Scientists: Creationists in a Secular World, which is very early-90s in that it doesn't see Christian Triumphalism, um, triumphing. But it really clearly explains, for people who are not creationists or from creationist backgrounds, what exactly creationists think they're doing, and why they think it's a coherent belief-set. Toumey is VERY up-front with these groups about his beliefs and motivations and studies -- a bunch of them are groups in the Raleigh-Durham area that I myself came to know when I was doing my MTS, and some of them I'm SUPER-IMPRESSED that he convinced them to cooperate with his research. And he never lied about his research -- he was always totally up-front about it and got participation by being 100% honest.
Also Toumey's later work is also all amazeballs; he has a whole book on how most Americans believe in science as a set of symbols and not as a mode of thinking, and how television has encouraged and entrenched that set of symbolic beliefs, and how it creates space for evangelical Christians to attack science-qua-science. I'm kind-of like, why is this guy not PBS-famous? This guy really ought to be PBS-famous, because nobody else in the American academy is nearly as good at explaining what fundamentalist evangelicals believe, why they believe it, and how they got there! He's brilliant, and he's the only scholar I know who's applying a really thorough knowledge of fundamentalist Christian theology COMBINED WITH a deep anthropological perspective on mass media.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:44 PM on October 17, 2021 [60 favorites]
Also Toumey's later work is also all amazeballs; he has a whole book on how most Americans believe in science as a set of symbols and not as a mode of thinking, and how television has encouraged and entrenched that set of symbolic beliefs, and how it creates space for evangelical Christians to attack science-qua-science. I'm kind-of like, why is this guy not PBS-famous? This guy really ought to be PBS-famous, because nobody else in the American academy is nearly as good at explaining what fundamentalist evangelicals believe, why they believe it, and how they got there! He's brilliant, and he's the only scholar I know who's applying a really thorough knowledge of fundamentalist Christian theology COMBINED WITH a deep anthropological perspective on mass media.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:44 PM on October 17, 2021 [60 favorites]
Eyebrows, those books sound amazing.
I had endless stamina for creationism debates when I was a small monster majoring in Biology at a large state university in the Bible Belt, and I was often shocked at how bad people on my side were at helping me since they had put even less thought into why they believed evolution was real than the creationists had into why they believed it wasn't.
W/r/t the subject of the thread, this issue is the scab I've picked at for the last five years. What shocks me is how quickly everyone excuses the initial instrumentality argument. They did it to pick SCOTUS judges. That doesn't work for me because these are the people who claim that character counts and that the ends don't justify the means. Aren't they?
I've been preparing my thoughts/stocking up on arguments on this subject for a while now because we just had a baby and while my own family is peacefully dead or estranged my wife's family is all church-attending sort-of-evangelical (in the sense that their church is evangelical but they seem to leave their fanaticism in the church lobby on the way out the door and don't pick it up again until next Sunday) and at some point in the near future when he can be vaccinated and meet them they're going to want to take my son to church, and I can't permit it. They're going to dismiss me as too political no matter what, but I'm going to tell them why and they can listen or not.
Either Donald John Trump is the best of them all since they chose to put him on the throne in which case everything they believe is good I know to be evil and I can't have such monsters influencing my child, or they decided they'd be willing to compromise absolutely anything for the sake of judge who they believe would save those unborn babies they're always whining about in which case they believe in absolutely nothing at all and I can't have such nihilists influencing my child.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:30 AM on October 18, 2021 [16 favorites]
I had endless stamina for creationism debates when I was a small monster majoring in Biology at a large state university in the Bible Belt, and I was often shocked at how bad people on my side were at helping me since they had put even less thought into why they believed evolution was real than the creationists had into why they believed it wasn't.
W/r/t the subject of the thread, this issue is the scab I've picked at for the last five years. What shocks me is how quickly everyone excuses the initial instrumentality argument. They did it to pick SCOTUS judges. That doesn't work for me because these are the people who claim that character counts and that the ends don't justify the means. Aren't they?
I've been preparing my thoughts/stocking up on arguments on this subject for a while now because we just had a baby and while my own family is peacefully dead or estranged my wife's family is all church-attending sort-of-evangelical (in the sense that their church is evangelical but they seem to leave their fanaticism in the church lobby on the way out the door and don't pick it up again until next Sunday) and at some point in the near future when he can be vaccinated and meet them they're going to want to take my son to church, and I can't permit it. They're going to dismiss me as too political no matter what, but I'm going to tell them why and they can listen or not.
Either Donald John Trump is the best of them all since they chose to put him on the throne in which case everything they believe is good I know to be evil and I can't have such monsters influencing my child, or they decided they'd be willing to compromise absolutely anything for the sake of judge who they believe would save those unborn babies they're always whining about in which case they believe in absolutely nothing at all and I can't have such nihilists influencing my child.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:30 AM on October 18, 2021 [16 favorites]
In this interview in Jacobin
Here's the audio, so you can hear Kobes Du Mez in her own words.
posted by progosk at 5:17 AM on October 18, 2021
Here's the audio, so you can hear Kobes Du Mez in her own words.
posted by progosk at 5:17 AM on October 18, 2021
Evangelical Christianity has been, essentially, a cis het white male supremacist political movement with some religious decoration/misdirection for some time. And Evangelical leaders were always trying to keep up the pretense that it was a religious movement that just, by sheer coincidence, happened to sometimes align with the Republican Party but that people who disagreed were welcome because they were all fellow Christians who put their faith in Jesus above petty political concerns.
Fred Clark, aka Slactivist, and one of the very few remaining people who tried to identify as a liberal Evangelical had an informative, but a bit rantish, post on the topic in 2011.
It's one of the themes he's frequently returned to.
It's also worth noting how recent one of those supposed "central pillars" of Evangelical Christianity is. Again, and much less rantish, Clark has an excellent history of how Evangelical Christianity was pro-choice in the early 1970's and then decided that retroactively they'd always made opposition to abortion one of their core beliefs. He posits that it was adopted to replace open white supremacy.
I suspect that, really, as far back as it has existed all religion has been a political movement disguised as a faith, at least with some/many of their believers.
Not that the faith part is fake, just that it's always been completely tied to the politics.
I mean, the entire reason there's a **SOUTHERN** Baptist Convention is because the previous all US Baptist Convention wasn't as rabidly pro-slavery as some members wanted, so they split off to form their own branch of the church with belief in white supremacy and slavery as explicit requirements for membership.
posted by sotonohito at 5:52 AM on October 18, 2021 [15 favorites]
Fred Clark, aka Slactivist, and one of the very few remaining people who tried to identify as a liberal Evangelical had an informative, but a bit rantish, post on the topic in 2011.
It's one of the themes he's frequently returned to.
It's also worth noting how recent one of those supposed "central pillars" of Evangelical Christianity is. Again, and much less rantish, Clark has an excellent history of how Evangelical Christianity was pro-choice in the early 1970's and then decided that retroactively they'd always made opposition to abortion one of their core beliefs. He posits that it was adopted to replace open white supremacy.
I suspect that, really, as far back as it has existed all religion has been a political movement disguised as a faith, at least with some/many of their believers.
Not that the faith part is fake, just that it's always been completely tied to the politics.
I mean, the entire reason there's a **SOUTHERN** Baptist Convention is because the previous all US Baptist Convention wasn't as rabidly pro-slavery as some members wanted, so they split off to form their own branch of the church with belief in white supremacy and slavery as explicit requirements for membership.
posted by sotonohito at 5:52 AM on October 18, 2021 [15 favorites]
Related: today's episode of the podcast Straight White American Jesus (not yet on their website, apparently – it's titled "The Real and Present Danger of Male Supremacist Terrorism") is an interview with Alex DiBranco, who researches secular male supremacist groups such as incels and the Proud Boys. Among other things, she talks about how Evangelical Christianity finds common cause with such groups, via their common interest in patriarchy. It's an interesting interview.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:59 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:59 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Honestly the main reason a lot of ppl take their kids to church (hint: I'm a liberal Christian) is because it stops them from shooting someone in the face for no reason. Or at least that's the reasoning. In other words, it keeps kids off the streets. That it indoctrinates you in a lot of other anti-social behaviors shows how little of it 'works' in adult life anyway.
posted by kfholy at 6:01 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by kfholy at 6:01 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
Honestly the main reason a lot of ppl take their kids to church (hint: I'm a liberal Christian) is because it stops them from shooting someone in the face for no reason. Or at least that's the reasoning. In other words, it keeps kids off the streets.
How is this supposed to work? (Not a snarky question, I'm from another culture, and I really don't understand American religion at all).
posted by mumimor at 6:11 AM on October 18, 2021 [6 favorites]
How is this supposed to work? (Not a snarky question, I'm from another culture, and I really don't understand American religion at all).
posted by mumimor at 6:11 AM on October 18, 2021 [6 favorites]
Keeps kids inside, singing all day about the Lamb of God (not the band). You may learn the hard way that keeping yourself busy/off the streets is a good thing for just about er'body.
posted by kfholy at 6:13 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by kfholy at 6:13 AM on October 18, 2021
The bad thing is early 21st Century history may be remembered as the White Evangelical Century rather than, say, the ok wait what's that alternative?
posted by kfholy at 6:16 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by kfholy at 6:16 AM on October 18, 2021
In other words, it keeps kids off the streets...How is this supposed to work?
My take on this is that in the face of atomizing communities and households whose parents have limited, work constrained time to do it themselves, that parents who don't have sincere faith in that religion (and often it's 'don't have that faith...anymore') sort of outsource the instilling of morality and teaching of 'good values' to these institutions.
It doesn't work. And because politics (and especially repression) are so intertwined with many US faiths, it often works to the opposite.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:30 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
My take on this is that in the face of atomizing communities and households whose parents have limited, work constrained time to do it themselves, that parents who don't have sincere faith in that religion (and often it's 'don't have that faith...anymore') sort of outsource the instilling of morality and teaching of 'good values' to these institutions.
It doesn't work. And because politics (and especially repression) are so intertwined with many US faiths, it often works to the opposite.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:30 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Reasonably Everything Happens: It works for a -lot- of ppl, not sure where you are located. It works in that kids later can choose not to believe, but the parents' job here is done in that they don't have to teach like you said morality and 'principle.' Works like a mint. Not saying it's 'good' though.
posted by kfholy at 6:38 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by kfholy at 6:38 AM on October 18, 2021
I heard a thoughtful and interesting interview with her on a recent episode of The Thinking Atheist podcast with Seth Andrews.
posted by HillbillyInBC at 6:43 AM on October 18, 2021
posted by HillbillyInBC at 6:43 AM on October 18, 2021
Wait who's shooting who in the face?
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:49 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 6:49 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
defending the unborn is a lot less difficult than say, uplifting the poor, feeding the hungry, housing the unhoused, advocating for those in prison, for clean water, etc.
remove the heavy lifting and "belief" can become "actionable" from an armchair or a choir.
posted by djseafood at 6:57 AM on October 18, 2021 [14 favorites]
remove the heavy lifting and "belief" can become "actionable" from an armchair or a choir.
posted by djseafood at 6:57 AM on October 18, 2021 [14 favorites]
absolutely critical mistake in thinking "defending the unborn" is actually about either of those words
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:00 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:00 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
... It doesn't work. And because politics (and especially repression) are so intertwined with many US faiths, it often works to the opposite.
But it will continue to be urged because putting more God around is the one and only solution that GOP politicians have for school shootings. Maybe they really believe it will work; maybe they don't. The point for them is that it costs them nothing to say and enough of their voters believe it, or pretend to believe it because otherwise they might have to rethink their relationship with guns.
Evangelical Christianity, like the GOP that it's now largely coterminous with, is, as she says, largely a stalking horse for patriarchy, white supremacy, male supremacy, everything you can see in a Jon McNaughton painting or one of the more lion-based knockoffs that appear in Facebook memes. It is entirely Neolithic.*
You can argue with your friends and family if there's someone there you recognize, that you can possibly reach. But when it comes to public figures or their self-proclaimed internet henchmen, you cannot argue about hypocrisy or logical flaws in their beliefs, you cannot "destroy" them in a debate. Language is a tool to get them to a place where they can subjugate you by force.
----
* Most people say "Neanderthal," but Neanderthal women were probably largely equal and certainly very large.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:02 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
But it will continue to be urged because putting more God around is the one and only solution that GOP politicians have for school shootings. Maybe they really believe it will work; maybe they don't. The point for them is that it costs them nothing to say and enough of their voters believe it, or pretend to believe it because otherwise they might have to rethink their relationship with guns.
Evangelical Christianity, like the GOP that it's now largely coterminous with, is, as she says, largely a stalking horse for patriarchy, white supremacy, male supremacy, everything you can see in a Jon McNaughton painting or one of the more lion-based knockoffs that appear in Facebook memes. It is entirely Neolithic.*
You can argue with your friends and family if there's someone there you recognize, that you can possibly reach. But when it comes to public figures or their self-proclaimed internet henchmen, you cannot argue about hypocrisy or logical flaws in their beliefs, you cannot "destroy" them in a debate. Language is a tool to get them to a place where they can subjugate you by force.
----
* Most people say "Neanderthal," but Neanderthal women were probably largely equal and certainly very large.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:02 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
Clark has an excellent history of how Evangelical Christianity was pro-choice in the early 1970's and then decided that retroactively they'd always made opposition to abortion one of their core beliefs.
I was involved with the evangelical Jesus movement in the 70s, and I don't remember any discussion of abortion at all. I do remember that evangelicals were against the Equal Rights Amendment - I don't remember the reasoning behind that though. We were pretty excited when we found out that Jimmy Carter was a born again Christian, but I don't remember it as being a very political movement at all until Jerry Falwell came along - and I was mostly out of it by then.
posted by FencingGal at 7:44 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was involved with the evangelical Jesus movement in the 70s, and I don't remember any discussion of abortion at all. I do remember that evangelicals were against the Equal Rights Amendment - I don't remember the reasoning behind that though. We were pretty excited when we found out that Jimmy Carter was a born again Christian, but I don't remember it as being a very political movement at all until Jerry Falwell came along - and I was mostly out of it by then.
posted by FencingGal at 7:44 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm kind of fascinated that this was in Jacobin, because I think of it as going against their basic ideological thrust, which is that class is more important than identity. And while I think there are interesting things to say about Evangelicals and class, Du Mez's work makes it really clear that you can't make sense of white Evangelicals without talking about identity.
Anyway, I really need to read Jesus and John Wayne, and I'm super excited about the book that she told Anne Helen Petersen that she's working on about Evangelical womanhood. (It's going to be titled Live, Love, Laugh, which is deeply perfect.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:45 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
Anyway, I really need to read Jesus and John Wayne, and I'm super excited about the book that she told Anne Helen Petersen that she's working on about Evangelical womanhood. (It's going to be titled Live, Love, Laugh, which is deeply perfect.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:45 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
Was trying to work out why Bruce Springsteen has been signing a Warren Zevon song on repeat in my head this morning. I guess it's because I saw this thread last night, and Jesus and John Wayne is a lyric from My Ride's Here.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
We were pretty excited when we found out that Jimmy Carter was a born again Christian
And the political hypocrisy of evangelicals was obvious way back in 1980 when they abandoned Carter -- an actual evangelical christian whose major scandal was confessing to Playboy that he looked at other women with lust sometimes -- in favor of Ronald Reagan.
posted by Gelatin at 8:32 AM on October 18, 2021 [14 favorites]
And the political hypocrisy of evangelicals was obvious way back in 1980 when they abandoned Carter -- an actual evangelical christian whose major scandal was confessing to Playboy that he looked at other women with lust sometimes -- in favor of Ronald Reagan.
posted by Gelatin at 8:32 AM on October 18, 2021 [14 favorites]
A. People like to be in groups
B. People like to feel connected
C. Raising kids is hard and isolating and Sunday school has arts and snacks and songs about God loving you and why you shouldn't lie.
And do you go in and it's great, and you tithe because you are getting something and you generally support the church doing charity or needing a new roof. You make friends, maybe your kids do too. Maybe you start praying at meals or doing Bible study. Feels good.
So far, so typical church.
But in an evangelical church, you also get lots of scary messages about the End Times and going to hell and Those People Who Hate Jesus. And maybe you think it's a bit much, but you're embedded and walking away is hard. Maybe God would be mad if you voted Democratic. You feel vaguely guilty that you can't afford to stay home and live on your husband's salary.
And at some point you either keep letting it push you along or you leave.
posted by emjaybee at 8:41 AM on October 18, 2021 [15 favorites]
B. People like to feel connected
C. Raising kids is hard and isolating and Sunday school has arts and snacks and songs about God loving you and why you shouldn't lie.
And do you go in and it's great, and you tithe because you are getting something and you generally support the church doing charity or needing a new roof. You make friends, maybe your kids do too. Maybe you start praying at meals or doing Bible study. Feels good.
So far, so typical church.
But in an evangelical church, you also get lots of scary messages about the End Times and going to hell and Those People Who Hate Jesus. And maybe you think it's a bit much, but you're embedded and walking away is hard. Maybe God would be mad if you voted Democratic. You feel vaguely guilty that you can't afford to stay home and live on your husband's salary.
And at some point you either keep letting it push you along or you leave.
posted by emjaybee at 8:41 AM on October 18, 2021 [15 favorites]
Thank you. Good read from a great scholar. I appreciate the context-building.
I hope this isn't much of a derail. Let me say, for many, where I live, evangelical christians are an abstraction. I know that some/many of you may live where they are omni-present. If you are like me, I ask that you take some time to see them in practice on tv. Daystar TV is a cable channel that is a rogue's gallery of evangelism. You'll find everything you could want there.
Vaccine denialism? Gotcha covered!
The Rapture? Hal's got you covered.
Weird Jewish Christian intersectionality and Armageddon? You know you want to understand it!
Prosperity preaching? Boom!
Learn about tax avoidance and private jets! You need a supersonic jet next!
Order a prayer cloth to place over your checkbook? One stop shopping!
Predominantly white, uneducated men have a grift called religious tax exempt status. This is a very powerful, very non-regulated tool. Politicians have figured it out. 99.9% untouchable. An IRS third rail.
posted by zerobyproxy at 8:57 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
I hope this isn't much of a derail. Let me say, for many, where I live, evangelical christians are an abstraction. I know that some/many of you may live where they are omni-present. If you are like me, I ask that you take some time to see them in practice on tv. Daystar TV is a cable channel that is a rogue's gallery of evangelism. You'll find everything you could want there.
Vaccine denialism? Gotcha covered!
The Rapture? Hal's got you covered.
Weird Jewish Christian intersectionality and Armageddon? You know you want to understand it!
Prosperity preaching? Boom!
Learn about tax avoidance and private jets! You need a supersonic jet next!
Order a prayer cloth to place over your checkbook? One stop shopping!
Predominantly white, uneducated men have a grift called religious tax exempt status. This is a very powerful, very non-regulated tool. Politicians have figured it out. 99.9% untouchable. An IRS third rail.
posted by zerobyproxy at 8:57 AM on October 18, 2021 [7 favorites]
I too appreciated this article way more than I expected. I had also given up on Jacobin as just making everything about class when I live in a place where White Evangelicals mean most stuff is actually about white supremacy and the patriarchy. It's sometimes hard for me to relate to folks on Metafilter because here in Georgia, for example, White Evangelicals are why my students are not required to get vaccinated or wear masks in class, and I can get fired for asking them to. Meanwhile, I go to church every Sunday, but not that kind of church.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:39 AM on October 18, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 9:39 AM on October 18, 2021 [10 favorites]
FWIW, the Gaither Vocal Band has a song called Jesus and John Wayne:
posted by clawsoon at 10:00 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Daddy was a cowboy, hard as a rockI'm not sure if the song inspired the book title.
Momma, she was quiet as a prayer
Daddy'd always tell me, "Son, you gotta be tough"
Momma'd kiss my cheek and say play fair
I did my best to make 'em proud of me
But it's never been an easy place to be
Somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne
A cowboy and a saint, crossing the open range
I try to be more like You, Lord but most days I know I ain't
I'm somewhere between Jesus and John Wayne
posted by clawsoon at 10:00 AM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have not yet read TFA but in comments see a discussion about the roots of Evangelical anti-abortion activism. Which basically originates in racism, where rightist Catholic political operators recruited Southern Evangelicals to mobilize for anti-abortion activity in exchange for Republican political support for the tax-exempt status of their private "segregation academies." As somebody noted above, the Southern Baptist official response to Roe was "Ok." The effect the Republicans intended was to keep Jimmy Carter from winning a 2nd term, but as often is the case with their initiatives to gain support, it took on a life of its own.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:07 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:07 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
and more items to add to my already unwieldy book list!! I need a clone just for reading.
I have not (yet) read the links, because I am supposed to be getting some work done right now. but I very much look forward to diving in. really appreciating all the additional links people are sharing. I guess I need another clone just to do a deep dive on this post. le sigh...
posted by supermedusa at 10:31 AM on October 18, 2021
I have not (yet) read the links, because I am supposed to be getting some work done right now. but I very much look forward to diving in. really appreciating all the additional links people are sharing. I guess I need another clone just to do a deep dive on this post. le sigh...
posted by supermedusa at 10:31 AM on October 18, 2021
I've posted this quote before; it holds up:
David Barnhart:
David Barnhart:
"'The unborn' are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.posted by nushustu at 10:34 AM on October 18, 2021 [44 favorites]
"Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."
The best part of Jeebus is he says exactly what you're thinking. Kill? Yep. Hate? Sure. Ignore the needy? You betcha. Treat women like property? Of course.
WWJD is carte blanche for the worst aspects of humanity wrapped in the flowing robes of faux righteousness.
posted by tommasz at 10:49 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
WWJD is carte blanche for the worst aspects of humanity wrapped in the flowing robes of faux righteousness.
posted by tommasz at 10:49 AM on October 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
Calvin University's historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez address the conundrum of evangelical support for Donald Trump
LOL @ "conundrum". Evangelicals have supported every conservative piece of shit for the last 40+ years no matter what they did or said, so it's ridiculous to the point of naivete to wonder "Golly gee whiz, but how could they support Trump?". This isn't snark, it's basic factual history. At this point it's more useful to look at what Republican haven't they supported.
There is nothing "there" beyond instrumentality. They want power and will support anyone who they think can provide it. That's it, it's that simple. They are liars and ascribing anything else to them or their motivations is assuming an absolutely unwarranted level of good faith on their part.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:14 AM on October 18, 2021 [12 favorites]
LOL @ "conundrum". Evangelicals have supported every conservative piece of shit for the last 40+ years no matter what they did or said, so it's ridiculous to the point of naivete to wonder "Golly gee whiz, but how could they support Trump?". This isn't snark, it's basic factual history. At this point it's more useful to look at what Republican haven't they supported.
There is nothing "there" beyond instrumentality. They want power and will support anyone who they think can provide it. That's it, it's that simple. They are liars and ascribing anything else to them or their motivations is assuming an absolutely unwarranted level of good faith on their part.
posted by star gentle uterus at 11:14 AM on October 18, 2021 [12 favorites]
There is nothing "there" beyond instrumentality.Ok, then. I will definitely take the word of a random internet stranger over a scholar who has devoted decades to studying this. You definitely know more about "basic factual history" than the actual historian who wrote a book on it.
Could people not do this? Because I know that it's really common for MeFites not to RTFA, but I still kinda think there's some misogyny involved when you do it about an expert who is a woman.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:51 AM on October 18, 2021 [12 favorites]
Another excellent book to pair with this:
Nate Powell's "Save it for Later".
A cultural warrior/historian details the rise of fascist white male groups out of the 'endless wars'.
posted by Mesaverdian at 12:39 PM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Nate Powell's "Save it for Later".
A cultural warrior/historian details the rise of fascist white male groups out of the 'endless wars'.
posted by Mesaverdian at 12:39 PM on October 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the late 1920s and 1930s, you see a lot of these smaller institutions being established. And then, in the early 1940s, they get together and say, “You know what, we’re doing a lot of really good work across the country, but imagine what we could do if we came together.” In 1942, they form the National Association of Evangelicals. It’s their explicit plan to exercise strength in numbers and to assert their influence over American culture and society.The National Association of Evangelicals was established in April of 1942, 3-4 months after Pearl Harbor and the American entry into WW2, and in St. Louis, stronghold of Lindbergh and the not-so-crypto fascist opposition to American involvement in the 'war in Europe'.
I think Kristin Kobes Du Mez neglects the intrinsic fascism bordering on Nazism of the American Evangelical movement, and thereby misses one of the most essential elements of Trump's appeal to evangelicals.
posted by jamjam at 12:40 PM on October 18, 2021 [6 favorites]
Yeah, that makes sense, interesting. I would like to hear her thoughts on the forties, she does kind of skip them.
The other interesting thing about the founding was the centrality of owning and controlling media, I suppose as a revenue source.
posted by eustatic at 1:05 PM on October 18, 2021
The other interesting thing about the founding was the centrality of owning and controlling media, I suppose as a revenue source.
posted by eustatic at 1:05 PM on October 18, 2021
I do remember that evangelicals were against the Equal Rights Amendment
See Phyllis Schlafly
(She was Catholic, but as far as 'family values' campaigns against the ERA)
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:57 PM on October 18, 2021
See Phyllis Schlafly
(She was Catholic, but as far as 'family values' campaigns against the ERA)
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:57 PM on October 18, 2021
It is an interesting read. And even though she says almost the same, I recommend the other interview, with Anne Helen Petersen, because here she talks about the relationship between authoritarian beliefs and fear, saying she came into the research imagining that the fear breeds authoritarianism and then found out it is (roughly) the other way round. Authoritarian demagogues stoke fear in order to gain control over their followers' minds. To me at least, that makes an important difference.
About keeping kids off the streets: I'd forgotten how many social services the churches provide, which they don't really provide here. And I can see how "socialism" is a threat to that type of church. The reason churches here aren't into the business of keeping kids off the street is that there is a whole government system dealing with that here and a strong political and emotional resistance to having the churches take care of any social work except helping the homeless and the very basic pastoral stuff such as comforting the dying or grieving.
posted by mumimor at 2:39 AM on October 19, 2021
About keeping kids off the streets: I'd forgotten how many social services the churches provide, which they don't really provide here. And I can see how "socialism" is a threat to that type of church. The reason churches here aren't into the business of keeping kids off the street is that there is a whole government system dealing with that here and a strong political and emotional resistance to having the churches take care of any social work except helping the homeless and the very basic pastoral stuff such as comforting the dying or grieving.
posted by mumimor at 2:39 AM on October 19, 2021
Also this: MAGA Gun Church That Worships With AR-15s Has Bought a Giant Mountain Property in Tennessee (Vice)
Rod of Iron Ministries has been on a property-buying spree and says it plans to build a training center and spiritual retreat.
posted by mumimor at 2:53 AM on October 19, 2021
Rod of Iron Ministries has been on a property-buying spree and says it plans to build a training center and spiritual retreat.
posted by mumimor at 2:53 AM on October 19, 2021
She was Catholic.
Right wing Catholicism seems to fly under the radar a bit, possibly because it doesn't have the outlandish figures like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, at least to the same degree that the evangelicals do.
But as this article on the right's current love-fest with Viktor Orban shows, it provides a lot of the intellectual base that the populists then adopt or build upon. A similar dynamic exists in the US Supreme Court where 6 of 9 judges are Catholic (only one is a liberal). In the population at large, only 20% are Catholic.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:10 AM on October 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Right wing Catholicism seems to fly under the radar a bit, possibly because it doesn't have the outlandish figures like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, at least to the same degree that the evangelicals do.
But as this article on the right's current love-fest with Viktor Orban shows, it provides a lot of the intellectual base that the populists then adopt or build upon. A similar dynamic exists in the US Supreme Court where 6 of 9 judges are Catholic (only one is a liberal). In the population at large, only 20% are Catholic.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:10 AM on October 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Catholics (and perhaps specifically Jesuits) educate people, so they have solid intellectual underpinnings for their beliefs. Evangelicals homeschool, and send their kids to "Christian" institutions. Before Trump, one would need a real education to be appointed to a federal court.
Similarly, Victor Orban was once a civilized person, though AFAIK with a regular law education at a public university under Communist rule, where I don't expect human rights were a big part of the curriculum.
posted by mumimor at 5:27 AM on October 19, 2021
Similarly, Victor Orban was once a civilized person, though AFAIK with a regular law education at a public university under Communist rule, where I don't expect human rights were a big part of the curriculum.
posted by mumimor at 5:27 AM on October 19, 2021
I've met so many secular parents who say the same exact thing about after-school activities for keeping kids off the streets. After school sports, theatre, academic events = whatever provides a steady group of like-minded friends with set hours and adult supervision to keep them from wandering aimlessly.
It's a real thing people are concerned about.
I think Kristin Kobes Du Mez neglects the intrinsic fascism bordering on Nazism of the American Evangelical movement, and thereby misses one of the most essential elements of Trump's appeal to evangelicals.
I think this is relatively new, in that when I was growing up in an Evangelical church, missionaries were a big deal (converting heathens to Christ). My dinky small town church had multiple sister-churches in Africa and Central America, and guest preachers would sometimes come to preach from those churches, so my opinion is that politics there are invading the church, not that the church is leading the politics.
Also during the 1930s-1940s suburbanization was growing, so churches where becoming more separated from their congregations in that a walking-distance church/neighborhood church was becoming much less common, so they had to get both bigger, advertise more, and become more politically connected to survive. So it makes sense they would join together then to build support for churches.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:07 AM on October 19, 2021
It's a real thing people are concerned about.
I think Kristin Kobes Du Mez neglects the intrinsic fascism bordering on Nazism of the American Evangelical movement, and thereby misses one of the most essential elements of Trump's appeal to evangelicals.
I think this is relatively new, in that when I was growing up in an Evangelical church, missionaries were a big deal (converting heathens to Christ). My dinky small town church had multiple sister-churches in Africa and Central America, and guest preachers would sometimes come to preach from those churches, so my opinion is that politics there are invading the church, not that the church is leading the politics.
Also during the 1930s-1940s suburbanization was growing, so churches where becoming more separated from their congregations in that a walking-distance church/neighborhood church was becoming much less common, so they had to get both bigger, advertise more, and become more politically connected to survive. So it makes sense they would join together then to build support for churches.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:07 AM on October 19, 2021
Catholics (and perhaps specifically Jesuits) educate people, so they have solid intellectual underpinnings for their beliefs. Evangelicals homeschool, and send their kids to "Christian" institutions.
Great comment. Shows what a lot of the hostility toward "evangelicals" is based on.
posted by cinchona at 8:26 AM on October 19, 2021
Great comment. Shows what a lot of the hostility toward "evangelicals" is based on.
posted by cinchona at 8:26 AM on October 19, 2021
I can't figure out if I should call her "Kobes Du Mez" or "Du Mez". She seems to use "Kristin Du Mez" pretty often professionally (like on her Calvin University webpage), so I'm going with Du Mez.
Anyway, I think that in the bit about Phyllis Schlafely, she's saying that part of what allowed Evangelicals to unite with conservative Catholics was a shared commitment to white patriarchy. Evangelicals' previous hostility to Catholics had been theological, and as theology faded and racial and gender identity became more important, conservative white Catholics became possible allies. And there is absolutely a tradition of right-wing Catholic extremists in the US, going right back to Father Coughlin or, more recently, Pat Buchanan. (And Buchanan isn't even a crypto-fascist. He's very open about his admiration for Franco.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:25 AM on October 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Anyway, I think that in the bit about Phyllis Schlafely, she's saying that part of what allowed Evangelicals to unite with conservative Catholics was a shared commitment to white patriarchy. Evangelicals' previous hostility to Catholics had been theological, and as theology faded and racial and gender identity became more important, conservative white Catholics became possible allies. And there is absolutely a tradition of right-wing Catholic extremists in the US, going right back to Father Coughlin or, more recently, Pat Buchanan. (And Buchanan isn't even a crypto-fascist. He's very open about his admiration for Franco.)
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:25 AM on October 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Also, it's really interesting that these days the standard line is that Evangelicals are anti-intellectual and need conservative Catholics to do their intellectual heavy lifting for them, because that's a total 180 from the way people thought about things a hundred or hundred-and-fifty years ago. Then, most Americans took for granted that Protestantism was the more intellectual religion, because it required believers to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, whereas Catholicism was about obedience to theological authority. It's a total testament to the success of Catholic education in the US, as well as (arguably) to some failures of conservative Protestantism, that it seems natural that so many of the most influential conservative political and legal thinkers in the US are Catholic.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:43 AM on October 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:43 AM on October 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I’m not sure I’d buy that argument. The Catholics (especially Jesuits) have a long history of intellectural pursuits, for one, and more importantly, not all Protestants are evangelicals. In fact, I’d be more inclined to think that the type of preaching associated with evangelicals would be the circuit rider and revival meeting type, which don’t fit at all into the Protestant intellectual mold. The latter was primarily German/historico-analytical.
The Protestant intellectuals is where “the Bible is just another text” line of analysis comes from, which is not at all liked by the evangelicals.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:19 AM on October 19, 2021
The Protestant intellectuals is where “the Bible is just another text” line of analysis comes from, which is not at all liked by the evangelicals.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:19 AM on October 19, 2021
Also, it's really interesting that these days the standard line is that Evangelicals are anti-intellectual and need conservative Catholics to do their intellectual heavy lifting for them, because that's a total 180 from the way people thought about things a hundred or hundred-and-fifty years ago. Then, most Americans took for granted that Protestantism was the more intellectual religion, because it required believers to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, whereas Catholicism was about obedience to theological authority.
Yeah, I have a vivid memory of my father talking about JFK taking his orders from the Vatican.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:21 PM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I have a vivid memory of my father talking about JFK taking his orders from the Vatican.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:21 PM on October 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
"Right wing Catholicism seems to fly under the radar a bit, possibly because it doesn't have the outlandish figures like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, at least to the same degree that the evangelicals do."
Oh no, we do, we just own less mass media apparatus. For historically-contingent reasons, Catholics in the US created a whole parallel set of structures apart from the state apparatus that was sometimes-officially and sometimes-unofficially Protestant -- Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools, Catholic media. While Catholic hospitals, in particular, have become a hugely influential part of general American life (largely because the state has refused to adequately fund non-religious hospitals, so in a lot of places it's Catholic healthcare or nothing, and that's a big part of why Catholic religious authorities have way too much ability to set terms on debates about reproductive rights), Catholic media has never caught on in a national way.
"Catholics (and perhaps specifically Jesuits) educate people, so they have solid intellectual underpinnings for their beliefs. Evangelicals homeschool, and send their kids to "Christian" institutions."
I mean, this is true to a point, and I personally deeply agree with it. But the fact is that "dumb Christianity" -- the type of Christianity that can fit on a bumper sticker, that rejects the complexity of the Gospel, that denies the 2,000-year history of scholarship and commentary inherent in the faith -- is now super-popular among American Catholics as well as evangelicals. I meet more and more American Catholic Biblical literalists, which is literally disclaimed as a heresy in the official catechism, but lots of US bishops encourage it because it forwards right-wing causes, and lots of bishops in the US are what a friend of mine calls "Republican-rite Catholics." They don't care about Catholicism; they care about Republicanism, and bend Catholicism to fit those concerns.
"I’m not sure I’d buy that argument. The Catholics (especially Jesuits) have a long history of intellectural pursuits, for one, and more importantly, not all Protestants are evangelicals."
Yeah, except that the WASP intellectual establishment in the United States for a very long time flatly rejected the idea that Jesuits or anyone else Catholic was doing anything brainy. Catholic acceptance into the American power structure is absolutely a post-WWII phenomenon, when Catholics enlisted and died at rates high enough to convince the WASP establishment of their patriotism. Before WWII, they were seen as impoverished, badly-educated ethnic enclaves who were probably more loyal to their countries-of-origin (and/or the Pope) than to the US. WWII made them "Americans" and (according to scholars much smarter than me) rendered them "white." Irish and Italian Americans weren't acceptably "white" as a class definition before WWII, but WWII rendered them white.
One of my grandfathers was the son of an Irish immigrant who started as an NYC cop and became an NYC judge because of the Tammany Hall machine. Judgeship catapulted his family from the lower-middle-class into the upper-middle-class (especially as he took payoffs from rum-runners during Prohibition, and also my great-aunt was forced to date rum-runners because she was a straight hottie and he got better bribes that way AND ALSO free illegal liquor). My great-grandfather was wealthy and connected enough that my grandfather was admitted to Yale during the quota years when the dean ordered the school to admit "five Jews, two Catholics, and no blacks at all." My grandfather eventually became the CEO of a major defense contractor, but he was hampered his entire public/political life by his Catholicism, and was routinely derided as a "bricklayer" by Washington insiders (he was based in D.C., and he was tight with Princess Grace's father, who was a legit bricklayer, in the sense that he became a multimillionaire by starting as a bricklayer and eventually owning massive bricklaying companies that enabled him to bail out the entire country of Monaco). (I legit have some cool Princess Grace's dad memoribilia in my basement.)
And to touch on the Amy Coney Barrett point (which pains me; I have a complicated history with Catholicism but she is absolutely the worst bit), the only reason Notre Dame is a top-25 university in the United States is that a) they beat the shit out of Army at football and mostly invented the forward pass to do so and b) a priest there invented the first form of synthetic rubber, which patent paid faculty salaries well into the 1950s. It's not because Americans respected Catholic education (let alone CSC education -- Notre Dame is not Jesuit! This has been a trap on Jeopardy! It was founded by random-ass French latecomers who were legit concerned that most French priests were completely illiterate, but who also were super fuckin' excited to bushwhack through the American frontier and build log chapels therein). America's preeminent Catholic university, Notre Dame, got there because it was fuckin' good at football and could beat East Coast schools on their own terms, while paying faculty with the synthetic rubber patent. I mean, every Catholic kid in America with two brain cells to rub together during the quota years was like "I'M GOING TO GO TO NOTRE DAME," and that helped! But it only happened because Notre Dame won football games that got national radio broadcasts that convinced Catholic kids to apply, and because Notre Dame could pay great faculty with the synthetic rubber patent.
It's not because anybody thought Catholics (or Jesuits) were good at education. It's because they were good at football, and synthetic rubber made them able to capitalize on that. (This is also why I have extraordinarily complicated feelings about college football, because the not-Tammany-Hall side of my family rose to the middle class through Notre Dame's meritocratic promotion of midwestern Catholic kids, after Notre Dame gained the privilege of designating high academic and social achievers for good careers or graduate school by being good at football. And the poor-ass side of my family met and married the rich-ass side of my family through Notre Dame's Catholic meritocracy, which applied literally not at all to non-Catholics.)
"In fact, I’d be more inclined to think that the type of preaching associated with evangelicals would be the circuit rider and revival meeting type, which don’t fit at all into the Protestant intellectual mold. The latter was primarily German/historico-analytical."
Yeah, kinda! Circuit Riders specifically were Methodists, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was founded by John and Charles Wesley when they broke off from the Church of England, which they did after visiting the colonies (still colonies then) and telling the CoE authorities back home, "Yo, there are NOT ENOUGH PRIESTS HERE" and the CoE was like, "I mean, we know, but also? You cannot force educated men to go LIVE IN THE FUCKING COLONIES." And the Wesleys were like, "Okay, but maybe make some bishops of the guys already here?" and the CoE was like "THE HELL YOU SAY, bishops need soft linen and wealthy sinecures," and the Wesleys were like, "WELL FUCK, I guess we're not Pietist Anglicans who like preaching, I GUESS WE HAVE CREATED A WHOLE-ASS CHURCH AND ARE ORDAINING PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BE ARSED."
Circuit Riders very definitely fit the German intellectual mold! Methodist circuit riders were generally required to read either Hebrew or Greek, and to be pretty encyclopedically familiar with Luther and Calvin. Methodists aren't as strict as Presbyterians about ordination, but they're still pretty strict, and were definitely strict in the colonial and post-colonial era, when circuit-riding pastors had to not only know Protestantism backwards and forwards and be able to read the Bible in the original languages, but had to be able to shoot snakes and talk down highwaymen as they rode from place to place. Circuit riding pastors had to be pretty bad-ass while achieving a pretty high level of academic achievement for the colonies/early US!
Revival-meeting Christianity (where evangelical Christianity in the US develops a lot of its meat) is very different. Preachers there were expected to have a personal experience of Christ, not an ability to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, or a knowledge of Luther in German. (A lot of the preachers in the Second Great Awakening have that anyway! A LOT of the dumbness is a 20th century innovation.) But part of the reason there's so much reading of First and Second Great Awakening literature in US lit courses is that it's SO TOTALLY UNIQUE in the history of Christianity, let alone the history of English-speaking Christianity. It's weird! It's new! Teachers are failing to adequately express to you how weird Jonathan Edwards is in the continuity of English theological literature!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:27 PM on October 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
Oh no, we do, we just own less mass media apparatus. For historically-contingent reasons, Catholics in the US created a whole parallel set of structures apart from the state apparatus that was sometimes-officially and sometimes-unofficially Protestant -- Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools, Catholic media. While Catholic hospitals, in particular, have become a hugely influential part of general American life (largely because the state has refused to adequately fund non-religious hospitals, so in a lot of places it's Catholic healthcare or nothing, and that's a big part of why Catholic religious authorities have way too much ability to set terms on debates about reproductive rights), Catholic media has never caught on in a national way.
"Catholics (and perhaps specifically Jesuits) educate people, so they have solid intellectual underpinnings for their beliefs. Evangelicals homeschool, and send their kids to "Christian" institutions."
I mean, this is true to a point, and I personally deeply agree with it. But the fact is that "dumb Christianity" -- the type of Christianity that can fit on a bumper sticker, that rejects the complexity of the Gospel, that denies the 2,000-year history of scholarship and commentary inherent in the faith -- is now super-popular among American Catholics as well as evangelicals. I meet more and more American Catholic Biblical literalists, which is literally disclaimed as a heresy in the official catechism, but lots of US bishops encourage it because it forwards right-wing causes, and lots of bishops in the US are what a friend of mine calls "Republican-rite Catholics." They don't care about Catholicism; they care about Republicanism, and bend Catholicism to fit those concerns.
"I’m not sure I’d buy that argument. The Catholics (especially Jesuits) have a long history of intellectural pursuits, for one, and more importantly, not all Protestants are evangelicals."
Yeah, except that the WASP intellectual establishment in the United States for a very long time flatly rejected the idea that Jesuits or anyone else Catholic was doing anything brainy. Catholic acceptance into the American power structure is absolutely a post-WWII phenomenon, when Catholics enlisted and died at rates high enough to convince the WASP establishment of their patriotism. Before WWII, they were seen as impoverished, badly-educated ethnic enclaves who were probably more loyal to their countries-of-origin (and/or the Pope) than to the US. WWII made them "Americans" and (according to scholars much smarter than me) rendered them "white." Irish and Italian Americans weren't acceptably "white" as a class definition before WWII, but WWII rendered them white.
One of my grandfathers was the son of an Irish immigrant who started as an NYC cop and became an NYC judge because of the Tammany Hall machine. Judgeship catapulted his family from the lower-middle-class into the upper-middle-class (especially as he took payoffs from rum-runners during Prohibition, and also my great-aunt was forced to date rum-runners because she was a straight hottie and he got better bribes that way AND ALSO free illegal liquor). My great-grandfather was wealthy and connected enough that my grandfather was admitted to Yale during the quota years when the dean ordered the school to admit "five Jews, two Catholics, and no blacks at all." My grandfather eventually became the CEO of a major defense contractor, but he was hampered his entire public/political life by his Catholicism, and was routinely derided as a "bricklayer" by Washington insiders (he was based in D.C., and he was tight with Princess Grace's father, who was a legit bricklayer, in the sense that he became a multimillionaire by starting as a bricklayer and eventually owning massive bricklaying companies that enabled him to bail out the entire country of Monaco). (I legit have some cool Princess Grace's dad memoribilia in my basement.)
And to touch on the Amy Coney Barrett point (which pains me; I have a complicated history with Catholicism but she is absolutely the worst bit), the only reason Notre Dame is a top-25 university in the United States is that a) they beat the shit out of Army at football and mostly invented the forward pass to do so and b) a priest there invented the first form of synthetic rubber, which patent paid faculty salaries well into the 1950s. It's not because Americans respected Catholic education (let alone CSC education -- Notre Dame is not Jesuit! This has been a trap on Jeopardy! It was founded by random-ass French latecomers who were legit concerned that most French priests were completely illiterate, but who also were super fuckin' excited to bushwhack through the American frontier and build log chapels therein). America's preeminent Catholic university, Notre Dame, got there because it was fuckin' good at football and could beat East Coast schools on their own terms, while paying faculty with the synthetic rubber patent. I mean, every Catholic kid in America with two brain cells to rub together during the quota years was like "I'M GOING TO GO TO NOTRE DAME," and that helped! But it only happened because Notre Dame won football games that got national radio broadcasts that convinced Catholic kids to apply, and because Notre Dame could pay great faculty with the synthetic rubber patent.
It's not because anybody thought Catholics (or Jesuits) were good at education. It's because they were good at football, and synthetic rubber made them able to capitalize on that. (This is also why I have extraordinarily complicated feelings about college football, because the not-Tammany-Hall side of my family rose to the middle class through Notre Dame's meritocratic promotion of midwestern Catholic kids, after Notre Dame gained the privilege of designating high academic and social achievers for good careers or graduate school by being good at football. And the poor-ass side of my family met and married the rich-ass side of my family through Notre Dame's Catholic meritocracy, which applied literally not at all to non-Catholics.)
"In fact, I’d be more inclined to think that the type of preaching associated with evangelicals would be the circuit rider and revival meeting type, which don’t fit at all into the Protestant intellectual mold. The latter was primarily German/historico-analytical."
Yeah, kinda! Circuit Riders specifically were Methodists, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was founded by John and Charles Wesley when they broke off from the Church of England, which they did after visiting the colonies (still colonies then) and telling the CoE authorities back home, "Yo, there are NOT ENOUGH PRIESTS HERE" and the CoE was like, "I mean, we know, but also? You cannot force educated men to go LIVE IN THE FUCKING COLONIES." And the Wesleys were like, "Okay, but maybe make some bishops of the guys already here?" and the CoE was like "THE HELL YOU SAY, bishops need soft linen and wealthy sinecures," and the Wesleys were like, "WELL FUCK, I guess we're not Pietist Anglicans who like preaching, I GUESS WE HAVE CREATED A WHOLE-ASS CHURCH AND ARE ORDAINING PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T BE ARSED."
Circuit Riders very definitely fit the German intellectual mold! Methodist circuit riders were generally required to read either Hebrew or Greek, and to be pretty encyclopedically familiar with Luther and Calvin. Methodists aren't as strict as Presbyterians about ordination, but they're still pretty strict, and were definitely strict in the colonial and post-colonial era, when circuit-riding pastors had to not only know Protestantism backwards and forwards and be able to read the Bible in the original languages, but had to be able to shoot snakes and talk down highwaymen as they rode from place to place. Circuit riding pastors had to be pretty bad-ass while achieving a pretty high level of academic achievement for the colonies/early US!
Revival-meeting Christianity (where evangelical Christianity in the US develops a lot of its meat) is very different. Preachers there were expected to have a personal experience of Christ, not an ability to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, or a knowledge of Luther in German. (A lot of the preachers in the Second Great Awakening have that anyway! A LOT of the dumbness is a 20th century innovation.) But part of the reason there's so much reading of First and Second Great Awakening literature in US lit courses is that it's SO TOTALLY UNIQUE in the history of Christianity, let alone the history of English-speaking Christianity. It's weird! It's new! Teachers are failing to adequately express to you how weird Jonathan Edwards is in the continuity of English theological literature!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:27 PM on October 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
My great-grandfather was wealthy and connected enough that my grandfather was admitted to Yale during the quota years when the dean ordered the school to admit "five Jews, two Catholics, and no blacks at all."The actual quote was "Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take no blacks at all.” Emphasis mine. Also, the dean who said that was the dean of the Yale medical school, not the undergraduate college. And while there was discrimination against (non-Italian) Catholics at Yale, I don't think anyone has found evidence of the kind of quotas that persisted against Jews until the 1960s.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:25 AM on October 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
Fair regarding the detail point about Italian Catholics and quotas, but I come from a very similar sort of Catholic background as Eyebrows and can happily co-sign pretty much everything she's saying there, right up to and including some fairly similar family stories. I don't think it's necessarily erasing animus against Jewish people to point out that historical animus against Catholics generally (shaped slightly differently, typically, depending on whether you were talking Irish, Italian, or Polish/Slavic folks) also existed.
I will also note that the whole Creationist Republican-rite modern Catholic tradition--which I am also very very familiar with--is largely something I see as a legacy of the 80s Moral Majority, which erased most of the remaining animus between conservative Protestant and Catholic denominations and created more perceived alignment with their interests. That said, American Catholicism has never been free of populist fascist or regressive elements, either; just look at Father Coughlin. It's more that the alignment of religious conservative Catholic and Protestant forces in the US changed rather astonishingly rapidly from open conflict prior to WWII to synchronized alignment to the extent that both American Protestant and Catholic movements warp to adopt each other's worst traits in the 80s. Just thirty years, with the election of the US's first Catholic president almost squarely in the middle. It's really an interesting story.
posted by sciatrix at 6:27 AM on October 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
I will also note that the whole Creationist Republican-rite modern Catholic tradition--which I am also very very familiar with--is largely something I see as a legacy of the 80s Moral Majority, which erased most of the remaining animus between conservative Protestant and Catholic denominations and created more perceived alignment with their interests. That said, American Catholicism has never been free of populist fascist or regressive elements, either; just look at Father Coughlin. It's more that the alignment of religious conservative Catholic and Protestant forces in the US changed rather astonishingly rapidly from open conflict prior to WWII to synchronized alignment to the extent that both American Protestant and Catholic movements warp to adopt each other's worst traits in the 80s. Just thirty years, with the election of the US's first Catholic president almost squarely in the middle. It's really an interesting story.
posted by sciatrix at 6:27 AM on October 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
I've been trying to recall or to find what I thought was a famous quote from a prominent American Protestant leader of his time (in some kind of revivalist mode), to the effect that separation of church and state was essential for the protection of religious traditionalists. Does that ring any bells?
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:02 AM on October 20, 2021
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:02 AM on October 20, 2021
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fight in its warskeep America safe, the currents in Evangelicalism which want men to dominate their wives, their children, their churches, and the world come to the fore. When American war efforts collapse in confusion (Vietnam) or relief (fall of the Soviet Union), a kinder, gentler patriarchal current flows through the church.She alludes to the fact that American governments consciously played on these currents in their fights against "Godless Communism" and the "War on Terror". If screwing over women is what it takes to produce motivated male soldiers, then so be it.
It would be interesting to read more of the details of those connections between a government that wanted to procure hypermasculine soldiers and a church that wanted to produce them. Perhaps I should pick up the book.
Also, I just want to say that "family values" was a brilliant marketing label for authoritarian patriarchalism. If they had called it what it is, it probably wouldn't have gotten so popular.
posted by clawsoon at 6:35 PM on October 17, 2021 [12 favorites]