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Evangelical Family Life and America's Culture Wars
In recent decades, social researchers of various stripes have investigated the contours of the contemporary battle over the family. Many scholars have argued that this dispute pits feminists and proponents of democratic family relations against antifeminist religious conservatives who are committed to the preservation of patriarchal authority and gender distinctions in the home (Berger and Berger 1983; Conover and Gray 1983; Durham 1985; Eisenstein 1982; Hardacre 1993; Hunter 1991; Klatch 1988; Lakoff 1996; Lienesch 1993). Much of this scholarship asserts that the most outspoken and formidable purveyors of the traditional family are conservative (or evangelical) Protestants.1
Among the most prominent scholars in this now sizable research literature is James Davison Hunter (1991) who contends that social debates over the American family are the most contested front on which the contemporary culture wars are being waged. Following the lead of feminist (Cohen and Katzenstein 1988; Thorne and Yalom 1982) and neoconservative (Berger and Berger 1983) scholars who preceded him, Hunter's book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, demonstrates that debates over spousal relationships not only hinge on the state of the American family; these acrimonious debates are also informed by assumptions about appropriate gender relations and, at a more fundamental level, divergent forms of moral authority-tacit assumptions about what is good and bad, right and wrong.
In Hunter's view, the culture wars over the family are waged between proponents of progressivism and defenders of orthodoxy. Whereas progressivists are said to be committed to subjectivist, rationalist, and historically contingent definitions of moral propriety (for example, personal experience or empirical inquiry), their orthodox counterparts are thought to adhere to fixed and transcendent visions of social morality (namely, tradition and sacred scripture). Moreover, Hunter contends that progressivists are committed to a family model that privileges structural diversity such as the legitimacy of both heterosexual and same-sex domestic partnerships, as well as the liberation of oppressed family members-specifically, women and children -from restrictive role expectations. By contrast, proponents of orthodoxy are purportedly beholden to the exclusive legitimacy of the traditional family, made up of sharp gender distinctions and predicated largely on the principles of hierarchy and authority.
Following up on this insight, Hunter argues that religious values are among the most significant and influential bases of moral authority in cultural warfare over the family. Hunter (1991: 184-185) takes pains to point out that various groups on both sides of this cultural divide invoke religious ideals as justification for their ideological positions. Nevertheless, religious ideologies seem to emanate most unabashedly from the stalwarts of orthodoxy. And among this group of cultural conservatives, evangelical Protestants are portrayed as the most vocal defenders of orthodox convictions (see Hunter 1991: 44, 82, 102-103) and the most strident guardians of traditional family values (181-182).2
Yet to what extent do leading evangelicals share common ground on such hot-button issues as a patriarchal family structure or the participation of wives and mothers in the labor force? And to what degree do the practices of evangelical husbands and wives conform to the traditionalist rhetoric of highly visible evangelical organizations such as Focus on the Family or Concerned Women for America? Research that has explored these questions offers conflicting answers.
The Case for Evangelical Traditionalism
A longstanding body of survey research does suggest that traditionalist gender ideologies are alive and well among many evangelicals. Using a local community sample of Oklahoma City residents, Grasmick and colleagues demonstrated that conservative Protestants are considerably more likely than their non-evangelical counterparts to support a patriarchal family structure in which the husband/father is construed as the ultimate decision-making authority in the family (Grasmick, Wilcox, and Bird 1990). Moreover, a sizable number of national-level studies have revealed that evangelical Protestants are much more likely to favor circumscribing a woman's family role to include only traditional domestic pursuits and household responsibilities (Hertel and Hughes 1987; Peek, Lowe, and Williams 1991). Finally, evangelical organizations such as Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America are among the most highly organized, wellfinanced, and vocal pro-family groups in the United States (see various selections in Green et al. 1996).
It is hardly surprising that these organizations and their evangelical constituents have attracted considerable criticism from feminists, social scientists, and popular commentators who embrace a more egalitarian vision of the family (Brown 1994; Connell 1995: 39, 45, 177, 226-227; Epstein 1988: 42, 75, 239; Faludi 1991; French 1993; Scanzoni 1983. See Bartkowski 1995; McNamara 1985b; Smith 2000 for reviews). Noted anthropologist Karen McCarthy Brown (1994: 175-176), for example, characterizes fundamentalism as a "religion of the stressed and the disoriented" that appeals to those who "reject the modern world"; she charges that religious conservatives are preoccupied with "clarity, certitude, and control," and predicts unapologetically that "fundamentalism will always involve the control of women." Scholars and academics do not have a monopoly on such damning portrayals of religious conservatives. Media commentators frequently offer unflattering depictions of the ostensibly simplistic, authoritarian character of fundamentalism. The Nation, the leading Left periodical in the United States, regularly impugns fundamentalism as a religious and political orientation that is rigid and autocratic.3 From this vantage point, fundamentalists are preoccupied with "a bright-line demarcation of boundaries [that are] not to be transgressed. . . . [F]undamentalisms are at heart authoritarian, and worse, encourage the brainlessness of the obedient foot soldier" (P. Williams 1997).
Progressivist Tendencies within American Evangelicalism
In apparent contrast to the research findings and pejorative portrayals presented above, mounting evidence indicates that gender relations in conservative Protestant families are more nuanced and complex than they might appear at first blush. Carefully crafted survey analyses have recently demonstrated that the gender attitudes of religious conservatives exhibit a considerable degree of heterogeneity (Davis and Robinson 1996; Gay, Ellison, and Powers 1996; Smith 2000; Wilcox 1987, 1989). Religious conservatives, it would seem, are not of one mind concerning the most hotly debated family issues in American society. Other studies have highlighted the emergence of a feminist consciousness among evangelical women, particularly for those who draw distinctions between their orthodox religious sensibilities and their progressive politics (Wilcox 1989). Moreover, longitudinal studies suggest a convergence over time between the gender role attitudes of conservative Protestants and their non-evangelical counterparts (Blanche and Newton 1995), which may be due partly to the liberalization of gender convictions among younger evangelicals (Hunter 1987). Finally, there is some evidence that structural changes in evangelical households, such as increasing numbers of employed wives, might serve as a liberalizing factor in conservative Protestant family life (see Bartkowski and Xu 2000; Wilcox and Jelen 1991; Ellison and Bartkowski 2001).
Apart from these survey-based studies, qualitative inquiries have underscored the complexity of conservative Protestant family life. Textual analyses have hinted that gender and family relations are in fact the subject of some debate among leading conservative Protestants (Bartkowski 1997, 1999, 2000; Bendroth 1984, 1993; Fowler 1986; Quebedeaux 1974; Stacey and Gerard 1990). Even more compelling is the substantial body of ethnographic and interview data that highlight the negotiated character of evangelical gender and family relations (Ammerman 1987; Brasher 1998; Gallagher and Smith 1999; Griffith 1997; Ingersoll 1995; Manning 1999; McNamara 1985a; Pevey, Williams, and Ellison 1996; Rose 1987; Smith 2000; Stacey 1990; Stacey and Gerard 1990). Recent ethnographic inquiries (Brasher 1998; Grif- fith 1997) have fixed their attention on evangelical women in an effort to discern why women would affiliate with a religious subculture that prima facie seems to undermine their collective interests. These studies have revealed that conservative religious women are, in many cases, empowered by their affiliation with evangelical and fundamentalist religious institutions. In contrast to critics who portray evangelical women as simpleminded dupes of patriarchy, these studies have demonstrated that conservative religious women often exercise an unanticipated degree of authority in their homes and play active roles in their religious communities.
Such studies raise two crucial questions about evangelical gender relations that have yet to receive sustained attention. First, what are the contours of the gender and family debates that have emerged among evangelical elites over the past several decades? Although previous studies have hinted at such disputes, the significance, parameters, and sources of these internecine conflicts have escaped detailed analysis. In light of this suggestive research, how serious are the debates over gender and the family that are manifested within contemporary evangelicalism? What are the values that underlie this debate? Have the parameters of these internecine disputes been altered by the emergence of new evangelical social movements such as biblical feminism and the Promise Keepers?