How did Teddy Roosevelt help shape American Christianity? What impact did the wars of the 20th century have on the American church?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, Kristin Du Mez shares a new perspective on the history of American Christianity. She traces the evolving concept of masculinity within evangelicalism throughout the last century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep reading to get Du Mez’s take on American Christianity in the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Du Mez writes that the Victorian model of masculinity began to erode during the late 1890s as the evolving US economy changed the nature of men\u2019s jobs. Rather than working hands-on jobs, men migrated to cities and began working corporate jobs in offices. In turn, for many men who had previously identified their masculinity with their work, this sense of masculinity felt threatened as the new office jobs didn\u2019t require the same manly strength as their previous work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, Christianity in the 20th century would look quite different. Du Mez says that, under 26th US President Teddy Roosevelt, a new brand of rugged Christian masculinity<\/a> arose in response to this perceived threat. She notes that Roosevelt\u2019s election in 1901 popularized his conception of masculinity, where men were akin to rough Western cowboys who used violence to protect the innocent. Moreover, she points out that Roosevelt\u2019s rugged conception of masculinity took on a distinctly evangelical flavor through the \u201cmuscular Christianity\u201d movement, in which evangelical men rejected pacifism and instead embraced an aggressive view of masculinity that justified violence against one\u2019s enemies in war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez argues that, while the prospect<\/em> of WWI stoked the flames of militant masculinity, the war\u2019s reality<\/em> had the opposite effect: The horrors of WWI cooled the enthusiasm for militant masculinity, causing a shift toward the paradigm of the Christian businessman.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez explains that, at the end of WWI, Americans recognized the war\u2019s immense cost in bloodshed and carnage with no apparent payoff. Although WWI was billed as the war to end all wars, international conflict and tensions remained high after its conclusion. She points out that, for progressive Protestants in particular\u2014a group that had strongly supported the war before its onset\u2014the destruction wrought by WWI left them disillusioned. Protestant leader Sherwood Eddy, for instance, commented that after WWI, he realized that the alleged goals of the war\u2014to end war for good and make militarism moot\u2014all fell short. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: In American Prometheus<\/em><\/a>, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin report that much like many Protestants believed WWI would end all war, many military officials hoped that dropping nuclear bombs on Japan during WWII would deter any future wars from occurring. In particular, they point out that physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project<\/a> to design the nuclear bomb, supported bombing Japan for this reason<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Du Mez, the war\u2019s aftermath caused evangelicals to exalt successful business<\/a> executives as the paradigm of masculinity. For example, she notes that Bruce Barton\u2019s 1925 bestseller, The Man Nobody Knows<\/em>, portrayed Jesus as the world\u2019s savviest businessman. Further, Barton emphasized Jesus\u2019 strength\u2014understanding strength in a business <\/em>context, rather than a militaristic context. Evangelical men, according to Barton, should therefore strive to exemplify Jesus\u2019 decisiveness and charisma in business contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Experts point out that current critics and historians have nearly unanimously denounced Barton\u2019s work<\/a>, arguing that it reflects the rampant materialism of the early 20th century and provides an inaccurate depiction of Jesus.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although WWI had robbed evangelicals\u2019 hyper-aggressive conception of masculinity of its allure, Du Mez contends that the onset of WWII allowed this conception to rear its head again. She argues that. in the face of Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, evangelical circles once more promoted militant masculinity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Du Mez, Japan\u2019s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941\u2014which prompted the US to join WWII the following day\u2014was the watershed moment that shifted evangelical thought about the war. Whereas previously, the memory of WWI had kept evangelicals uncertain about the merits of joining WWII, Pearl Harbor convinced them that the Axis forces in WWII were unequivocally evil and worthy of destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Evangelicals\u2019 support for US involvement in WWII after Pearl Harbor was reflective of a broader trend among Americans, according to polls. Prior to Pearl Harbor, in 1939, only 16% of Americans<\/a> supported the US joining the war against Germany, but a few days after Pearl Harbor, 97% of Americans<\/a> supported joining the war as an allied force.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consequently, Du Mez says, the militant evangelical conception of masculinity came into vogue again, as this type of masculinity was deemed necessary to win WWII. In part to promote this masculine ideal, fundamentalist Christians\u2014evangelicals who interpret the Bible as literal truth\u2014created the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in 1942. Du Mez relates that the NAE\u2019s cofounder Harold John Ockenga called for evangelical men to go on the offensive, both in the war but also domestically to evangelize the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Since 1942, the NAE\u2019s influence has only grown: As of 2023, it includes 45,000 local churches as members throughout the US<\/a> that span 40 Protestant denominations. In addition, it sponsors a wide array of nonprofits<\/a>, such as World Relief, a resettlement agency that provides humanitarian aid<\/a> to refugees worldwide.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez argues that the NAE wasn\u2019t the most powerful evangelical force promoting a tough, militaristic masculinity. That title belonged to Billy Graham, an evangelist and minister who started leading evangelical revival movements during WWII. Du Mez writes that Graham employed war and sports metaphors in his portrayals of Jesus to mass audiences\u2014Graham likened Jesus to a \u201cstar athlete,\u201d calling him \u201cour great Commander\u201d and emphasizing his immense physical strength. And, by the end of WWII, Graham had established himself as a preeminent defender of \u201cmanly evangelicalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Du Mez, Graham\u2019s emphasis on militaristic masculinity stretched beyond WWII and into the Cold War<\/strong>\u2014the tension between the US and the communist Soviet Union that began in the late 1940s. She notes that, in Graham\u2019s rallies, he portrayed communism as an evil force driven by Satan that threatened to annihilate the world via nuclear weapons. In turn, Graham exhorted evangelical men to protect their nation by fighting the Soviets in battle if necessary but also by maintaining righteous homes to defeat the moral evils of communism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the threat of communism during the Cold War sustained evangelicals\u2019 militant masculinity in the wake of WWII, Du Mez explains that additional international and domestic threats strengthened this conception of masculinity throughout the 1960s and \u201970s<\/strong>. We\u2019ll first examine how the US military\u2019s failure in the Vietnam War<\/a> caused evangelicals to adopt a more hostile view of masculinity, then discuss how the perceived threat of feminism led evangelicals to double down on traditional gender roles<\/a> in the home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Du Mez, US participation in the Vietnam War\u2014in which the US faced guerrilla warfare from the communist Viet Cong, which controlled Northern Vietnam\u2014further entrenched the militant evangelical conception of masculinity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First, Du Mez argues, that during the Vietnam War,<\/strong> evangelicals made excuses for atrocities perpetrated by US soldiers. <\/strong>For example, Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty of murdering 22 innocent Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai <\/em>massacre\u2014an episode in which US soldiers murdered around 500 Vietnamese villagers during the war. However, Du Mez notes that Billy Graham, for example, downplayed these atrocities. Graham commented that the Viet Cong had likely also committed war crimes, and even noted in The New York Times<\/em> that \u201cWe have all had our Mylais in one way or another, perhaps not with guns, but we have hurt others with a thoughtless word, an arrogant act or a selfish deed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Despite the fact that the Charlie Company of the 11th Brigade massacred hundreds of civilians, only Calley was convicted of murder. According to experts, this was because of insufficient photographic evidence<\/a>\u2014photographs clearly showed Calley committing war crimes, but no photographs showed exactly which additional members of the Charlie Company murdered civilians. For this reason, prosecutors couldn\u2019t prove the guilt of any additional soldiers beyond a reasonable doubt.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, Du Mez observes that as the Vietnam War dragged on and the US failed to defeat the Viet Cong, many Americans grew disillusioned with US involvement in the war. Evangelicals, by contrast, drew a different conclusion, arguing that the US\u2019s inability to defeat the Vietnamese stemmed from a dearth of masculinity among US soldiers<\/strong>. Du Mez reports that, to remedy this problem, evangelicals maintained that fathers needed to raise their sons to become rugged defenders of freedom\u2014for instance, fundamentalist pastor Jack Hyles exhorted evangelicals to raise boys who weren\u2019t afraid to use violence to defend their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Contrary to the evangelical view that a masculinity crisis was behind the US\u2019s inability to defeat the Viet Cong, experts maintain that a wide array of factors led to the US\u2019s military struggles. For instance, the Viet Cong relied on guerrilla warfare\u2014a style of fighting that prioritized quick ambushes and hit-and-runs rather than full-fledged battles<\/a>\u2014against which the US struggled to defend because of the unfamiliar jungle terrain. Additionally, the US\u2019s mistreatment of civilians turned the Vietnamese people against its military<\/a>, causing the US to lose cooperation from civilians.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the upheaval caused by the Vietnam War, Du Mez points out that further social unrest<\/a> in the \u201970s stemmed from the feminist movement, which attempted to undermine traditional gender norms that confined women to the domestic sphere. She argues that, as a reaction to this movement, two sets of influential evangelicals<\/strong>\u2014Marabel Morgan and Phyllis Schlafly on one hand, and Bill Gothard and James Dobson on the other\u2014pushed back against feminism by defending traditional gender norms in marriage and in the nuclear family<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez writes that, in the \u201970s, Morgan and Schlafly published influential anti-feminist books that spurred anti-feminist activism from evangelicals. For her part, Morgan argued that women ought to submit to their husbands to achieve domestic happiness because that was God\u2019s intention for marriage (a belief known as complementarian<\/a> theology<\/em>). Moreover, because women ought to submit, Morgan concluded that men were required to become leaders in the domestic sphere. In a similar vein, Schlafly opposed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the US Constitution that prohibited denial of equal rights on the basis of sex, arguing that the amendment falsely presupposed that women were oppressed and thus needed protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Since the \u201970s, influential evangelical women have arguably taken a more charitable approach toward feminism. For example, prominent evangelical author Beth Moore\u2014though not a feminist per se<\/em>\u2014has publicly disavowed the gender roles of complementarian theology<\/a>, instead opting for an egalitarian approach. In so doing, she\u2019s aligned her views with those of feminists who agree that strict gender-based roles in marriage and work are inherently harmful.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Morgan and Schlafly focused largely on evangelical women, Gothard and Dobson instead geared their advice toward evangelical men, arguing that men should rule the family with an iron fist<\/strong>. Du Mez relates that Gothard hosted seminars with over 200,000 evangelical attendees during the 1970s, teaching that societal problems stemmed from noncompliance with authority\u2014problems that could be solved in the domestic sphere through unflinching obedience to fathers in the home. Likewise, Dobson\u2014who founded Focus on the Family, an evangelical organization that sought to promote traditional family structures of male breadwinners and female housewives\u2014emphasized the father\u2019s responsibility to discipline his children with corporal punishment (that is, spanking).<\/p>\n\n\n\n (Shortform note: Although evangelicals like Gothard and Dobson endorsed corporal punishment as a means to disciplining one\u2019s children, a wealth of research has shown that corporal punishment has detrimental effects later on in children\u2019s lives. For example, one meta-analysis of studies found that corporal punishment of children was associated with significantly higher antisocial behavior<\/a> as an adult, including increased violence, aggression, and various mental health issues.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n While opposition to the feminist movement helped spur on evangelical political engagement in the 1970s, Du Mez maintains that evangelicals became especially involved politically throughout the \u201980s and \u201990s. We\u2019ll first look at the 1980 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, which Du Mez claims was pivotal to the formation of the religious right<\/a>, then examine how the lack of a concrete military opponent in the 1990s temporarily caused evangelicals to embrace a gentler masculinity devoid of its previous aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez contends that a watershed moment for evangelical identity in the US occurred in the 1980 presidential election, which pitted Republican Ronald Reagan against incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. She argues that Reagan\u2019s victory over Carter cemented the marriage between evangelicals and the political right<\/strong>: Even though Carter personally identified as an evangelical Christian\u2014whereas Reagan was an infrequent churchgoer at best\u2014evangelical voters embraced Reagan\u2019s socially conservative policies and ruggedly masculine image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Du Mez explains that Reagan intentionally built social capital with evangelical voters. For instance, while Reagan had previously supported the ERA as governor of California, he walked back his support while campaigning for president. Similarly, he began embracing evangelical policy points, such as supporting prayer in public schools and prohibiting abortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Du Mez suggests that what ultimately sealed the deal for Reagan with evangelical voters was his perceived masculinity. Whereas Jimmy Carter was often deemed a \u201cwimp\u201d by critics, Reagan seemed reminiscent of a cowboy, even owning his own ranch in California. Moreover, Du Mez writes that Reagan reinforced this masculine appearance by becoming the \u201ctough on crime\u201d candidate who wasn\u2019t afraid to ruthlessly punish criminals, even using violence when needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consequently, Du Mez says, when the 1980 election came to pass, Reagan won the white evangelical vote in a landslide: 67% of white evangelicals voted for Reagan<\/strong>, even though 50% had voted for Carter in the previous election. Du Mez relates that, since that 1976 election, no Democrat has even come close to winning the majority of the evangelical vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow WWI Undermined Militant Christian Masculinity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Renewal of Militant Christian Masculinity in WWII<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Rise of Billy Graham Leading Into the Cold War<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Evangelical Masculinity During the 1960s and 1970s<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Impact of the Vietnam War<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The Pushback Against the Feminist Movement<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Evangelical Masculinity During the 1980s and 1990s<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Reagan vs. Carter Election<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The Formation of the Religious Right<\/h5>\n\n\n\n