Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life

Contents

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Evangelical Identity and

Gendered Family Life

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Contents

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Evangelical Identity

and Gendered

Family Life

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SALLY K. GALLAGHER

Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gallagher, Sally K. Evangelical identity and gendered family life / Sally K. Gallagher p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8135-3178-0 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8135-3179-9 (pbk : alk. paper)

1. Evangelicalism—United States. 2. Sex role—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Family—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title BR16423.U5 G35 2002 261.8'35—dc21 2002068384 British Cataloging-in-Publication information is available from the British Library. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. Copyright © 2003 by Sally Gallagher All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Manufactured in the United States of America

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For Ed with thanks

and Andrew with hope

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I can only answer the question “What am I to do?” if I can answer the prior question “Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue The promise of sociology . . . is to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination

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CONTENTS

Preface xi

PART I Evangelical Ideals

1 Evangelical Family Values in Social Discourse

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2 A History of Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

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3 Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

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PART II Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic

Egalitarianism

4 Faith and Family

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5 Spiritual Leadership and Decision Making

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6 Dividing the Labor of Parenting and Housework

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7 Employment and the Needs of Children

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PART III Understanding Evangelical Identity,

Gender, and Family 8 What Would Be Lost If Evangelicals Abandoned the

Notion of Husbands’ Headship?

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9 History, Community, and Identity: Tools and Truths

in the Evangelical Tool Kit

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Appendix A: Research Methods 181

Appendix B: Tables 191

Appendix C: Excursus into Exegesis: Essentialist and Biblical

Feminist Interpretations of Key Biblical Texts 199

Notes 207

Bibliography 221

Index 241

Contents

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PREFACE

This book is about the meanings of gender, work, and family in the lives of Ameri­ can evangelicals. I start with a history of ideas about godly manhood, womanhood, and family within the Puritan and Pietistic traditions that are the roots of this reli­ gious subculture. Beginning with history, I make the case that contemporary evangelicals are neither merely reacting against a “secular” culture nor simply ac­ commodating themselves to it. Rather, evangelicals, like other religious subcul­ tures, draw on and retell the themes of their own multifaceted tradition in coming to understand and give meaning to their contemporary circumstances. Within the larger framework of creation, corruption, and redemption, family has become a central metaphor for evangelical identity. Ideas not only of the church as family but of a gendered order that resonates through all creation run deep within this tradition. For contemporary men and women who identify themselves as evangeli­ cal, these ideas permeate their understanding of partnership, headship, and author­ ity. Not only does it explain why men should be more connected and involved with family and why women should “exercise their gifts” in the labor force, but it also reflects deep beliefs about the nature and person of God, the order of creation, and personal identity. As in any major research endeavor, I owe a debt of gratitude to the many people and institutions who helped make this study possible. I would like to thank, first, Christian Smith for inviting me (what now seems eons ago) to participate in his study of American evangelicals. I am grateful for the grant from The Pew Chari­ table Trusts, which funded the national survey and personal interviews on which most of the book is based. The views expressed, of course, are my own and not necessarily those of The Pew Charitable Trusts. I am also deeply indebted to the creative insight, comments, and critiques of my colleagues who collaborated in the Pew-funded portion of the research: Michael Emerson, Paul Kennedy, and Dave Sikkink. Thanks to Mark Regnerus, Ray Swisher, Kathy Holladay, Bob Woodberry, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Curt Faught for their careful work in conducting personal interviews and constructing surveys and to Yanick Ortigoza for her research assistance during the summer of 2000. My colleagues and I send our thanks to the hundreds of women and men xi

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across the United States who allowed us into their homes, churches, lunchrooms, and coffee shops to talk about what it means to be a Christian in the United States today. In addition to those directly involved in the research, a number of colleagues and friends read and critiqued all or parts of the manuscript while it was being written. Mark Edwards was an invaluable sounding board for numerous ideas (both sound and not so sound), and John Bartkowski provided insightful comments on an early draft. Laura Porter, Hillary Vasey, and Becky Warner did much to clarify elements that I was apt to overlook, overemphasize, or take for granted, in addi­ tion to providing significant personal encouragement along the way. E-mail cor­ respondence with Nancy Hardesty, Sandra Sue Horner, and Sharon Gallagher helped me fill in the history of twentieth-century evangelical feminist movements and organizations and pointed me toward valuable resources. Mike Fleischmann’s and Les Gehrett’s careful commentary improved my understanding of current de­ velopments in the evangelical subculture and my grasp of some of the nuances of evangelical theology. Any distortions, slips, or gaps remain my own. This book has also benefited from my participation in a summer seminar in Christian scholarship titled “Morality, Culture, and the Power of Religion in So­ cial Life,” held at Calvin College in June and July 2001, directed by Christian Smith, and funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. In particular, my thinking about the importance of narrative and tradition was enriched by intensive reading and conversations with fellow seminar participants George Campbell, Terence Cuneo, Chris Eberle, Michael Emerson, Margi Gunnoe, Mike Jindra, Kathy Miller, Mark Regnerus, John Roth, Dave Sikkink, George Thomas, Mike Welch, and David Yamane. Both my son Andrew and I had a terrific time and are grateful for the weeks we spent there together. Thanks also to Susan Felch (director of the sum­ mer seminar series), Anna Mae Bush, and Krista Betts for the administrative sup­ port that made the program run so smoothly. The family I live with has endured, encouraged, and supported me through­ out this project. My mother, Charlotte Zook, carefully proofread and commented on every chapter. Her levelheaded suggestions for improvement are much appre­ ciated. Andrew’s cheerfulness, patience, and willingness to leave his mother alone on Saturdays so that she could write were enormously important. I am also grate­ ful to Ed for his generosity, encouragement, and confidence. Living with this man has taught me more than I can express about partnership, the practice of disciple­ ship, and the richness of the multiple streams of tradition that give depth and mean­ ing to our place in the world. Edward, I am delighted to share my life with you.

Evangelical Family Values

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PART I I

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Evangelical Ideals

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Evangelical Family Values

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CHAPTER 1

Evangelical Family Values

in Social Discourse

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I think the amount of divorces and same sex marriages and all of those things probably were somewhere evident in the past but not as prevalent as today. I think the breakdown of the family is probably the biggest problem in America. It’s a snowballing effect that when parents break up it affects the kids and then their kids. . . . It’s snowballing. 46-year-old mother of three, Ohio

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amily values. Pro-family. Family in crisis. We hear so much and so frequently about a crisis in contemporary Ameri­ can families that worrying about what they can and should do has become part of our collective culture. Politicians, teachers, and religious, community, and busi­ ness leaders have so much to say about the state of families that it would be diffi­ cult to avoid the subject even if we tried. Most of us, however, don’t try. We read the paper, watch the news, get on mailing lists, and occasionally wonder about the condition and future of families in the United States. Yet worrying about fami­ lies is nothing new. Nearly every generation has expressed concern about a per­ ceived abandonment of traditional family values. Countless social and political philosophers and critics have echoed these sentiments. Such persistent and volu­ minous debate suggests that families, and what we think about them, are a ba­ rometer for our worries about larger issues. Because concern about family values is really concern about social values, debating and defending the family becomes a way to both critique and defend our culture as a whole. By arguing about what family should be, we take the temperature of our larger society. This book is about what evangelical Christians have to say about what fam­ ily is and should be. But like the “family values” debate, this book is about much more. It is about how one particular group of Americans focuses on family as a way to make sense of larger social changes and their place in it and how they rec­ oncile the contours of modern economic life with their ideals for personal family life. Debates about families are not just about values but about social and cultural change and the meanings we attach to these. Beginning with family gives us a lens through which to examine some of the core tensions and transitions taking 3

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place in American society. Many of these tensions have to do with transforma­ tions in the relationships and responsibilities of men and women both inside and outside the household as well as the connections between ostensibly “private” fami­ lies and the diverse “public” world of which they are a part (Elshtain 1993; Gerstel, Clawson, and Bussman 2002; Landes 1998). Although a family’s experience may feel private, the organization of employment, education, and government all af­ fect and are affected by what we do and think about in this private sphere. To con­ sider families, then, is also to consider both gender and the connections between public and private life. Evangelicals provide a useful focus for this discussion because their version of conservative Protestantism is one in which connection to and participation in public life is central to their faith. Although the term evangelicalism is often used synonymously with fundamentalism in general references to conservative Protes­ tants, it has historically been a more socially engaged orthodoxy, providing both a strong sense of normative truth as well as an impetus for social and evangelistic mission (Ammerman 1997; Harris 1998; Marsden 1980, 1987; Smith et al. 1998). The family ideals of twentieth-century evangelicals are rooted in their Puritan and Pietist past. From this history of engaged orthodoxy, contemporary evangelicals draw on a diverse set of religiously based tools with which they might articulate their ideals, situate their family choices, and critique, at a more abstract level, the articulation of private ideology and public life. It is this tension between compet­ ing evangelical ideals of family and what evangelicals say they actually do in fami­ lies that is the subject of this volume. Exploring these tensions sheds some light not only on this particular religious subculture but on the broader dynamics be­ tween personal choices and beliefs and the larger social and economic forces that continue to shape American families.

Perspectives on Gender, Religion, and Modernity Given the prominence of evangelical voices in the debates on family, it is not surprising that social scientists have renewed their interest in exploring the in­ fluence of religion on family ideals and the place of religion in public life. Re­ searchers have undertaken numerous fine studies on the relationship among faith, work, and family. Taken together, this work addresses two central questions: first, what does religion do (that is, what is the function or role of religion in contem­ porary families, and how do individuals use it to organize and give meaning to work and family life?); and second, what are the sources of religiously based gen­ der ideals and strategies? Once thought to be atrophying and increasingly irrelevant (Berger 1967, Berger and Luckmann 1966, Cox 1965), religion is now back on the map for seri­ ous sociological analysis. Sociologists describe it as thriving in a world in which divergent groups compete for membership and respond to the needs of special­ ized constituents or markets (Finke and Iannoccone 1993, Finke and Stark 1992, Stark and Finke 2000). Among conservative Christians, evangelicalism’s flexibil­ ity and breadth (in terms of geographic, organizational, and doctrinal traditions)

Evangelical Family Values

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has made it remarkably successful in competitions for new members (Roof and McKinney 1997). Evangelicalism is a personally salient, robust religious faith with high levels of participation and adherence to traditionally orthodox Christian teach­ ings. Yet its ability to thrive in the face of secularism and religious pluralism is not just the result of better marketing to a hipper religious consumer but because it is a religious subculture that requires both cultural engagement and theological orthodoxy (Smith et al. 1998). Evangelicalism thrives, in other words, not just be­ cause it is effective in establishing a market niche but because at the heart of this religious subculture is the mandate to be “in” but not “of ” the world. As a result, evangelicals approach gender, work, and family with an odd as­ sortment of cultural and religious tools. The impetus to participate in and make their presence felt within the broader culture—to transform it for the kingdom of God—places evangelicals both distinctly outside the mainstream and firmly within it. Mostly European Americans, educated, and members of the middle and upper middle classes, evangelicals are fully engaged in their culture in terms of employ­ ment, politics, education, personal consumption, and civic life. Evangelical women are employed at rates similar to the general population, their median household income mirrors that of other Americans’, more than a third of all evangelicals have at least a college education, and three-quarters of evangelical children attend pub­ lic school. Yet they attend church more frequently, give more money and time to religious and volunteer associations, and, as we will see, often talk about gender and family in ways that appear baldly patriarchal in contrast to the normative egali­ tarianism of the broader culture.

The Changing Face of American Protestantism To better understand evangelical ideals and family life, it helps to have a general sense of the history of Protestantism in the United States. Because many excellent histories already exist on the subject and because I explore the histori­ cal continuities and diversity within evangelicalism more fully in the following chapters, only a summary of the story needs to be retold here. Still, those high­ lights are important for understanding the emergence of the neo-evangelical move­ ment in the twentieth century as well as something of the differences among evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Christians. Until the twentieth century, revivalistic or evangelistic Protestantism enjoyed religious and cultural hegemony in the United States. While large segments of the population were only nominally Christian and while some degree of religious plu­ ralism existed from the colonial period, there is a sense in which the cultural vo­ cabulary of the nation was the language and story of evangelical Protestantism. Evangelical Protestants were in control of most major denominations, theological schools, and major universities; Scottish Common Sense Realism provided an epis­ temology in which God’s truth and scientific truth were understood as ultimately compatible; and innumerable evangelical and social reform groups promised to bring the kingdom of God to this world. Optimism reigned about the inevitable victory of Protestant Christendom. In short, through the end of the nineteenth

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century, evangelical Protestantism was an intellectually respectable, culturally rel­ evant, dominant moral and religious voice in the United States. By the mid–1920s, that situation was irrevocably changed. Greater religious and cultural diversity among immigrants led to an increasingly pluralistic and ur­ ban society. Many traditionally orthodox Christian doctrines—particularly the in­ tuitive, self-evident truth of the gospel and the trustworthiness of Scripture—came under fire from nineteenth-century German higher criticism, which had gradually made its way from Europe to American seminaries and pulpits. The horrors of the First World War made the postmillennial expectation of creating God’s kingdom on earth seem hopeless, if not absurd. And perhaps most important, the language of scientific modernism had largely replaced the language of a Protestant world view in both the academy and the popular imagination. The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, is the most widely cited moment in this struggle be­ tween conservative Protestantism and modernity. Yet by then the writing was on the wall; William Jennings Bryan won the case against teaching evolution in the schools but lost the war. By the time of the Scopes trial, the disestablishment of conservative Protestantism was an accomplished fact. Out of this period of tremendous social and demographic change, three dis­ tinct Protestant strands emerged. The first adopted the language and world view of scientific modernism while continuing many of the social reform efforts begun in the nineteenth century. Theologically liberal, mainline denominations gradually began to emphasize a social gospel in which sociological and psychological ex­ planations provided viable solutions to a host of new social and personal prob­ lems. Simultaneously, modern, demythologized interpretations of the Bible left little room for arguments regarding the fallen nature of humankind or the centrality of personal salvation and sanctification to social reform. Across a wide range of Prot­ estant denominations, theological liberalism gradually replaced evangelicalism as the dominant voice in the Protestant United States. The second strand, fundamentalism, repudiated the moral relativism, natu­ ralism, and higher critical methods of biblical interpretation that conservative Chris­ tians saw as undermining both Protestantism and American culture as a whole. Rather than embracing the tension inherent within the evangelical mandate to be in but not of the world, fundamentalists were primarily concerned with preserv­ ing doctrinal purity. These religious conservatives came to be known as “funda­ mentalists,” named after “The Fundamentals,” a series of twelve booklets defending orthodox Christian doctrine published between 1910 and 1915. In terms of cul­ tural engagement, fundamentalism represented the antithesis of the social gospel of mainline, liberal Protestants. Rather than engaging modernity, fundamentalists viewed social science and social activism as forms of compromise and accommo­ dation to the world. This drive to defend doctrinal purity led to an increasing em­ phasis on biblical literalism; the development of a network of mostly independent churches (to avoid denominational entanglements); distinctively fundamentalist Christian schools, universities, camps, and publishing houses; and an easily caricaturized morality that forbade drinking, dancing, and divorce and discouraged other worldly practices such as playing cards and going to the movies.

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Given the disestablishment of conservative Protestantism and the dim view fundamentalists took of the secular drift of American culture, it is not surprising that fundamentalists also exchanged the optimism of postmillennialism for a the­ ology of the last days in which the faithful would endure an increasingly repro­ bate society until Jesus returned to rapture, or rescue, the true church, leaving the earth to undergo a time of tremendous tribulation before the final victory and judg­ ment of God. This vision of the last days represented the core of premillennialist dispensationalism—a relatively new theological development that argued that God dispenses grace differently during different eras (in contrast to covenant theology, which had dominated Reformed theology since the time of Calvin) and that Jesus will return to rapture the church before the kingdom of God is established on earth. (Fifty years later, premillennial dispensationalism would attract a wider audience among conservative Protestants following the publication of Hal Lindsey’s (1970) The Late Great Planet Earth and, at the end of the century, in the best-selling fic­ tional accounts of the rapture, tribulation, rise to power, and eventual defeat of the Antichrist in the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and J. B. Jenkins (1996). Pentecostalism was the third strand of Protestantism to emerge during the early part of the twentieth century (Land 1993; Wacker 1996, 2001). Tracing its roots to Phoebe Palmer and the Wesleyan Holiness tradition, Pentecostalism be­ gan on the eve of the twentieth century, when Agnes Ozman, a student at Bethel Bible School in Los Angeles, began “speaking in the Chinese language” while “a halo seemed to surround her head and face” (LaBerge 1985, Synan 1971). The founder of the school, Charles Parham, became convinced that this speaking in tongues was not, as it had previously been considered, just an experience of spiri­ tual crisis and ecstasy but in fact the only verifiable evidence of having been “bap­ tized with the Holy Ghost.” In adopting this perspective, Parham broke with the Holiness tradition (which had emphasized the experience of sanctification and the gifts of the Holy Spirit but was hostile to the practice of speaking in tongues, calling it “satanic gibberish” and “demon worship”). The Azuza Street revival of 1906 in Los Angeles, the healing ministry of Maria Woodworth-Etter in the midwest, the establishment of new denominations (Florence Crawford’s Apostolic Faith church in Oregon, Aimee Semple McPherson’s Foursquare Gospel church, and the As­ semblies of God) firmly established Pentecostalism as a major voice in twentiethcentury American Protestantism.1 The Emergence of the Neo-Evangelical Movement By the middle of the twentieth century, mainline liberal Protestantism domi­ nated the American religious landscape. Yet the withdrawal of fundamentalist Protestants from the public sphere, the charismatic manifestations within Pentecostalism, and the anti-intellectualism of both left some conservative Prot­ estants uneasy. Moreover, in the wake of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, when the nation rejected isolationism in favor of greater political, military, and economic engagement, isolationism within the church began to seem increasingly problem­ atic. Thus, in 1942, when a group of nearly two hundred disaffected fundamen­ talists met in St. Louis for the National Conference for United Action among

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Evangelicals, their intent was to transform the face of Protestantism in the United States. Attending the conference were future leaders of the movement: Billy Gra­ ham, Charles Fuller, Harold Ockenga, Gleason Archer, Harold Lindsell, Edward Carnell, Everett Harrison, and Carl Henry. These neo-evangelicals, as they called themselves, were dissatisfied with the theological and social isolationism that had come to characterize fundamentalism. Instead, they proposed a renewed emphasis on evangelism, a revitalized engagement with the ideas of contemporary society, and a return to social and political activism. If fundamentalism had abandoned the culture and liberal Protestantism had abandoned historic Christianity, the new evangelicals would do neither. Instead, they argued that a high view of biblical authority and historic Christian doctrine were themselves the necessary ground from which to develop a sustained critique of modernity and exert a Christian in­ fluence in government, science, education, and the arts. Following the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals at the St. Louis meetings in 1942 (which had included, to the fundamentalists’ chagrin, Pentecostal as well as other nonfundamentalist Protestants), a number of leaders, organizations, and alliances among evangelicals began to augment the institutional strength of the neo-evangelical movement. Not the least of these were the national and international crusades of evangelist Billy Graham. By 2000, with its founder now in his eighties, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had reached an es­ timated 210 million people in 185 countries; was hosting numerous radio spots, television programs, and evangelism training conferences; was publishing its own monthly magazine, Decision; and was sponsoring relief work (Samaritan’s Purse, headed by Graham’s son, Franklin).2 But intellectual respectability as well as evan­ gelism was at the heart of the movement. Fuller Theological Seminary, founded in 1947 by Charles Fuller and Harold Ockenga (pastor of Boston’s Park Street Church and later president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary), included among its faculty Gleason Archer, Harold Lindsell, Edward Carnell, Everett Harrison, and Carl Henry—men whose scholarship was intended to rival the work being done at Princeton Theological Seminary. The 1956 inauguration of the maga­ zine Christianity Today under the editorship of Carl Henry was followed by an expanding family of subsidiary evangelical journals, including four periodicals addressing issues of gender, marriage, and parenting (Christian Parenting Today, Marriage Partners, Men of Integrity, and Today’s Christian Woman); Books and Culture (modeled after the New York Review of Books); Campus Life (targeted at university students); and Leadership (a journal for people in Christian ministry).3 Since the election of the country’s first self-proclaimed “born-again” presi­ dent, Jimmy Carter, the influence of religion in national politics has moved in and out of the media spotlight. From the late 1970s until the mid–1980s, fundamen­ talist organizations including the Moral Majority, Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America, and Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum represented the core of an emerging religious right. Yet like fundamentalists earlier in the century, these organizations were often suspicious of both the theology and the politics of their evangelical and Pentecostal counterparts. Not until a period of consolidation and retrenchment in the mid–1980s (in part a result of the erosion of its direct­

Evangelical Family Values

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mail base (Diamond 1989, 1995) did the religious right broaden beyond its fun­ damentalist beginnings to include evangelicals (such as James Dobson’s organi­ zation, Focus on the Family) and charismatics (such as Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition). The alliance of politically conservative fundamentalist, Pentecostal, and evan­ gelical Christians in the late 1980s created the widespread perception that the per­ spectives of the religious right were the perspectives of evangelicalism as a whole and that evangelicals were a politically conservative, well organized, mobilized marching force intent on winning the American culture wars. Yet a growing body of research has both called into question the culture wars thesis (Smith 2000; Smith et al. 1997, 1998; Williams 1997) and demonstrated the internal diversity of po­ litical opinion within evangelicalism (Bartkowski 1997, 2001; Bendroth 1993; Demerath and Yang 1997). Nevertheless, perceptions die hard; and in spite of their unique histories, doctrine, institutions, and internal diversity, evangelical, Pente­ costal, and fundamentalist labels continue to be used interchangeably as equiva­ lent descriptions of conservative Protestants who are uniformly antifeminist, anti-Communist, anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti–big-government reactionaries.

Theorizing Religion, Gender, and Family Life Given the resurgence of conservative Protestantism over the past several de­ cades, it is not surprising that religion is once again the subject of considerable debate. Within the research on gender, family, and religion, a number of theoreti­ cal perspectives have been advanced to explain both the sources of conservative religious gender ideologies and their significance in family life. Religion, this re­ search argues, is able to survive, even thrive, when it adopts one of three stances towards modernity: (1) reacting against and resisting contemporary culture, (2) accommodating feminism and compartmentalizing work and family life, or (3) re­ interpreting traditions in a way that retains the forms but infuses them with mean­ ings that are more amenable to the broader culture. Religion Resisting Modernity The first theoretical perspective argues that conservative religion thrives only to the extent that it is able to create and maintain a cultural space that shelters it from the corrosive forces of modernity. From this viewpoint, revitalizing conser­ vative religion offers an effective escape from the ambiguities of contemporary gender ideals, particularly the undermining of breadwinner-based masculinity and a stereotyped image of strident feminism that envisions women doing and having it all. In private family life, these efforts to resist modernity find expression in traditional ideals regarding wives’ domesticity and husbands’ leadership (Davidman and Stocks 1995, Davis and Robinson 1997, Fields 1991, Griffith 1997, Kaufman 1991). In public life, resistance to modernity is expressed through political activ­ ism, particularly opposition to gay rights, feminism, and abortion (Diamond 1989; Hunter 1983, 1991; Kintz 1997; Klatch 1987, 1994; Luker 1984; Manning 1999). Among both fundamentalist Christians (Ammerman 1987, Armstrong 2000,

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Bendroth 1993, Fields 1991, Peschkin 1986) and Hasidic Jews (Davidman 1990, 1991) the maintenance of an alternative cultural world is interpreted as a way to resist modernity while preserving religious vitality and distinctiveness. Brown (1994) goes further, arguing that fundamentalists reject modernity because their preoccupation with certainty and control leaves them unable to deal with the com­ plexity and relativism of contemporary culture. The emergence of the Christian right in the 1980s has been described as an antifeminist backlash (Conover and Gray 1983). Similarly, the 1990s organization known as the Promise Keepers has been called an antifeminist movement that rescues men from the ambiguities of masculinity and urges them to reclaim their rightful place as benign patriarchs within the family (Messner and Anderson 1998; Messner 1997). While some Prom­ ise Keepers literature has begun to allow for a greater range of acceptable mascu­ linities, men’s expressiveness and nurturing continue to be framed as subsidiary to the ideal of leadership and authority (Bartkowski 2000, 2002; Bloch 2000; Lockhart 2000; Stepnick 1999). Along these same lines, scholars have argued that conservative religion pro­ vides a highly structured subculture and community that insulates adherents from many of the practical and ideological conflicts that have emerged following two decades of change in women’s work and family roles. In an in-depth analysis of women in several New England chapters of a Pentecostal women’s group known as Aglow, Griffith (1997) makes the case that Aglow provides a community that encourages personal transformation and inner healing through the power of prayer. By first submitting to God, women obtain forgiveness, freedom from a sense of victimization, and an increased sense of personal agency and responsibility. Within this framework, women understand the ideal of submission to husbands not so much as compliance with an immutable gender hierarchy but as an extension of their submission to God. Not inconsequentially, the practical outcome of submitting to husbands is a sense of containing men’s sexuality and keeping husbands both happy and involved at home. Brasher (1998) similarly argues that women join Pentecos­ tal and other charismatic churches (which she identifies as fundamentalist) as a way to find meaningful community and personal healing and to reduce the strain of balancing work and family. But while Griffith looks to the particulars of the Aglow subculture as explanations for the functions, sources, and layers of mean­ ing attached to the idea of submission, Brasher adopts a more deterministic ap­ proach that pays little attention to the complexity and range of gender ideals within evangelism or to the agency of women themselves. Instead, she looks to limited resources and crisis in women’s lives as the reason why women turn to fundamen­ talism. The choice, for Brasher, cannot be construed as rational because women are not weighing viable options; but “with scant energy to expend [on] evaluating alternatives, women are likely to favor religious alternatives that offer readily ac­ cessible, easily grasped answers” (174). Those answers, Brasher argues, are rooted in a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and find expression in what she calls the “sacred gender partition” that segregates congregations into male leadership and marginally empowered women’s ministries and small groups.

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Accommodating and Compartmentalizing Religion, Work, and Family A second theoretical perspective has its roots in secularization theories of religion and more recent arguments that conservative religions continue to sur­ vive only when they selectively abandon (or ignore) elements that appear to con­ flict too much with contemporary norms. This perspective explains the rapid growth of, for example, the nondenominational Vineyard Christian Fellowship churches that, like the culture, are liberal and tolerant and serve a largely therapeutic func­ tion (Shibley 1996). Religion does well, in other words, when it accommodates elements of modernity rather than seeks to resist or reform it. To the extent that this thesis can be extended to norms regarding gender, we might expect success­ ful religious movements to accommodate elements of feminist egalitarianism and a greater degree of atrophy among churches that promote a gender-based hierar­ chy and the subordination of women in church and at home. The thesis that evangelicalism has been particularly successful because it has adapted itself to feminist ideals was first posited by Judith Stacey (1990) in her widely cited study of two Pentecostal families in southern California. In Brave New Families, Stacey finds that working-class families are not, as expected, bas­ tions of traditionalism. Instead, she argues, these postmodern, dual-earner, blended families represent the avant-garde of American families in transition—families whose rhetoric of ideal Christian manhood and womanhood have been strongly influenced by the values of liberal feminism. Drawing on Hunter’s (1987) analy­ sis of evangelical seminary and college students, Stacey argues that the “impact of feminism on evangelical discourse has been profound and diffuse” (1990, 141). She reiterates that thesis in an analysis of fundamentalist women, “We Are Not Doormats: The Influence of Feminism on Contemporary Evangelicalism in the United States” (Stacey and Gerard 1990). In that study, evangelical gender strate­ gies represent a synthesis of ideals in which biblical passages regarding husbands’ headship are interpreted within the larger framework of structural economic change and liberal feminist arguments for women’s equal rights. The idea that evangelicals have accommodated feminism has more recently been used as a framework for understanding the changes in gender ideals presented in Promise Keepers literature (Bloch 2000). Its usefulness can also be seen in a number of studies that have refined the concept through analyses of other reli­ gious communities. Davidman (1990, 1991), Kaufman (1991), and Manning (1999) have each argued that orthodox Judaism accommodates modernity by incorporat­ ing elements of rational individualism and feminism into a traditional framework. Orthodox Jews draw on cultural feminist ideas regarding women’s morality and connectedness in a way that reinforces women’s domesticity at home, while ap­ pealing to liberal feminist ideas regarding equal opportunity as justification for women’s employment. By compartmentalizing their lives, these women are able to draw on two different sets of cultural tools, each of which reinforces and gives meaning to the roles they adopt in public and private life. They accommodate femi­ nism but do so selectively, applying different sets of normative rules to different spheres of life.

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Abandoning, Reinterpreting, and Using Tradition A third and closely related perspective on gender strategies within conser­ vative religion begins with the notion that religion, like other cultural systems, is inherently flexible and adaptable. Whereas the accommodation thesis presents in­ dividuals as relatively passive recipients of culture, the reinterpretation-of-tradition thesis places greater emphasis on the agency of individuals, who actively sort, sift, and synthesize religious beliefs in a way that complements contemporary life. Rather than conceptualizing religiously-based gender strategies as gradually adapt­ ing themselves to feminism along a continuum of accommodation, or through com­ partmentalizing life into arenas in which different rules apply, this perspective argues that some traditions are selectively abandoned, while other external forms remain and become infused with new meanings. New wine can be successfully poured into old wineskins. Analyses of transformations in the evangelical concept of headship exem­ plify this approach. In the 1950s, evangelical gender norms mirrored the cultural ideal of husbands’ breadwinning and wives’ domesticity. By the 1970s, the situa­ tion had changed; and middle-class women who had previously enjoyed sufficient class advantage to remain at home now found themselves going to work in order to pay the mortgage (Edwards 2001a). As a result, the concept of headship, cen­ tral to evangelicalism’s ability to define itself as culturally distinctive, was rede­ fined. Within evangelical gender and family advice literature, the language of headship has gradually been replaced by a language of servant leadership and prag­ matic partnership (Bartkowski 1997, 2001; Bartkowski and Xu 2000; Lockhart 2000). Among ordinary evangelicals, as well, notions of men’s headship no longer center on husbands’ breadwinning but are most frequently defined as spiritual ac­ countability and final authority in contested decisions. Yet because spiritual ac­ countability is ambiguous at best and the trump card of final decision-making authority is never played, working definitions of headship are more likely to in­ crease husbands’ participation at home than to undermine the practice of egali­ tarianism in the majority of evangelical households (Gallagher 1996, Gallagher and Smith 1999).

Questions That Remain Together, the findings of previous research on religion, gender, and family suggest that conservative Protestantism provides resources that support a number of viable strategies for ameliorating the strains of contemporary family life. Evan­ gelicalism provides a rhetoric of gender difference that reinforces men’s headship in both the family and the church, thus tempering some of the ambivalence asso­ ciated with the undermining of the masculine breadwinner ideal. Evangelicalism also provides resources for building meaningful relationships and an enhanced sense of community among groups of women and men. For women, these groups provide personal healing and empowerment (albeit within a limited sphere); for men, participation in small groups provides a safe haven for practicing intimate relationships, an increasingly expected element of godly masculinity. Moreover,

Evangelical Family Values

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evangelicalism supports both women’s domesticity and men’s greater participation at home, while allowing a great deal of flexibility with regard to women’s em­ ployment outside the home. For most scholars, the sources of these ideals repre­ sent a synthesis of biblical literalism and the influence of feminism within evangelical subculture. Given this portrait of contemporary evangelical families, one might wonder what else there is to be said. Yet a number of questions remain, not only in terms of the generalizability of these findings but in terms of the adequacy of theories explaining evangelical perspectives on gender, work, and family. Two areas are problematic with regard to the generalizability of previous research: the narrow­ ness of the samples (whether geographic or denominational) and the range of voices presented as representative of evangelicalism. Numerous studies have provided valuable analyses of ideals and attitudes of evangelical elites, taking as their sub­ ject matter evangelical family self-help literature (Bartkowski 1997; Ellison and Sherkat 1993a; Ellison, Bartkowski, and Segal 1996; McNamara 1985a, 1985b; Sherkat 2000), ideals of masculinity presented in Promise Keepers literature and conferences (Bartkowski 2000, Bloch 2000, Lockhart 2000, Messner 1997, Messner and Anderson 1998, Newton 1995), or movement leaders and activists (Conover and Gray 1983, Diamond 1989, Hunter 1987, Johnson 1993, Jorstad 1987, Klatch 1988, Luker 1984, Pohli 1983). While essential for identifying trends in shifting ideals, these analyses are not able to provide a basis for understanding either the degree to or manner in which those ideals are adopted as part of the gender strategies of ordinary evangelicals. Similarly, samples of pastors, members recommended by pastors, or snowball samples of small-group participants may lead to overgeneralizations. Brasher (1998), for example, makes the case that par­ ticipation in gender-segregated small groups is a source of empowerment for con­ servative women. Yet only one-fifth of the women in one congregation and one-third of the women in the second participated in what she describes as the “female enclave the sacred gender partition creates” (13). Case studies of church and para-church members help to fill this gap be­ tween the rhetoric of movement leaders and ordinary believers. Yet these studies also have significant limitations. Some of the most insightful and widely cited analyses describe themselves as studies of fundamentalist (Brasher 1998) or evan­ gelical Christians (Brusco 1986, 1995; Griffith 1997; Manning 1999; Stacey 1990; Stacey and Gerard 1990) but base their analyses on samples of Pentecostal and charismatic church attenders. Putting aside a discussion of the appropriateness of describing Pentecostal Christians as evangelical or of both as fundamentalist, the issue remains that Pentecostal and charismatic Christians make up only slightly more than a quarter of all evangelicals in the United States.4 Given that most of these analyses are also limited to churches in southern California or the American south, serious questions remain as to how adequately their findings can be applied to the range of evangelical experience across a more varied geographic and theo­ logical terrain. The range of gender perspectives presented as representative of evangeli­ calism has also received scant attention. While Stacey (1990) mentions evangelical

14

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

feminism as an example of cultural accommodation, her sample of two households makes it impossible to assess the degree to which either biblical feminism repre­ sents an accommodation to 1970s second-wave feminism or the egalitarianism ad­ vocated by biblical feminists has been incorporated into the gender strategies of ordinary evangelicals. Others (Bartkowski 1997, Bartkowski and Xu 2000, Bendroth 1996, Lockhart 2000) pay greater attention to evangelical feminism but for the most part limit their analyses to books by evangelical feminists who advo­ cate that perspective. The influence of those perspectives among ordinary evangelicals remains largely unexplored. As a result, relatively little is known about the emergence of biblical feminism as a movement within evangelicalism or the extent to which biblical feminist ideas have influenced the attitudes of ordinary believers within the evangelical community. In addition to these methodological and conceptual issues, studies of gen­ der, family, and religion have allowed researchers to address a core substantive concern within sociology—that is, the relationship between, and relative impor­ tance of, individual agency and social structure in shaping everyday life. A num­ ber of the studies previously cited, particularly earlier works, tend to describe religion and religious individuals as largely responding to changing family ideals and practices within the broader culture. Modern, largely secular sets of ideas are viewed as impressing themselves on individuals, who respond by building barri­ ers to secularization through the creation of strict religious subcultures or by com­ promising with secularization and confining religion to compartmentalized private life. While rightly assessing the importance of structural social and economic forces in shaping people’s lives, this perspective tends to minimize the active and cre­ ative abilities of individuals to shape their social world. Both accommodating theo­ ries and secularization theories of religion posit a view of the religious individual as reactive rather than proactive.

Getting Some Theoretical Leverage: Questions of Agency, Identity, and Cultural Change Rather than abandoning the individual (viewing individuals essentially as products of the material culture in which they live), a number of theorists have proposed that it is possible, even necessary, to delineate theoretical perspectives that account for both human agency and the constraints of social structure. Par­ ticularly important are Giddens’s (1984) theory of structuration, Bourdieu’s con­ cept of habitus and field (Bourdieu 1977, 1991; Bourdieu and Waquant 1992), and Habermas’s (1987) life world and system. Each posits a dialectical relationship between human agency and the structures, rules, and systems in which humans act. From slightly different perspectives, each avoids overemphasizing structure at the expense of the individual, while preserving a sense that social life is more than the constant re-creation of meaning that takes place at a microsocial level in the interaction of specific individuals. Less satisfying, however, is the ability of these theories to account for either the processes of change within systems or the gendered nature of both systems and life world, habitus and field.

Evangelical Family Values

15

In an effort to better understand the interplay of social and economic change and the strength of subcultural ideologies among ordinary evangelicals, I draw on Ann Swidler’s (1986) discussion of culture in action and William Sewell’s (1992) theorizing on the duality of structure. Swidler’s concept of cultural tool kits is par­ ticularly useful here because it allows for the possibility of both underused and readily used cultural tools that can be employed to make sense and give meaning to one’s changing circumstances. Particularly during periods of social and economic change, Swidler argues, individuals actively draw on the cultural tools at their dis­ posal in an effort to negotiate an acceptable course of action. Thus, the concept of cultural tools gives us leverage for understanding the complex ways in which evangelicals negotiate gender, work, and family using the tools of their own reli­ gious subculture and tradition. Central to this analysis is the continuity and salience of two sets of genderrelated cultural tools within evangelical discourse and practice. As we will see, the evangelical tool kit includes both egalitarian and gender-essentialist tools. His­ torically and in the writings of contemporary evangelical family commentators and the everyday lives of ordinary believers, evangelicals make use of these two sets of ideas about what men and women are and should be. Choosing which of these sets of tools is used and why each continues to be part of the broader evangelical tool kit is connected not only to differing fundamental assumptions about the na­ ture of reality within evangelicalism but to transformations in the organization of work and family. Sewell’s theorizing on the duality of structure helps to specify the connec­ tions between ideas of gender and family (what he calls rules or schemas), the ability of people to apply those rules in meaningful ways (for example, the exer­ cise of human agency), and the experience of family and work (which are primary sources and contexts for the distribution of what Sewell calls resources). Together, schemas and resources make up the duality of social structure (for example, so­ cial structure is neither a set of ideas nor a set of material conditions but the dy­ namic relationship between the two). Like other theorists, Sewell recognizes that social structures tend to reproduce themselves. Yet in his conceptualization, struc­ tures also embody within themselves the possibility for change. This potential ex­ ists because the ineffective or innovative application of a schema may produce unexpected results. Like advertisements that promise more than they deliver, the application of schemas do not always live up to expectations. The possibility of error—the potential for human beings to inaccurately apply particular schemas or for accurately applied schemas to produce unpredictable results—opens up the pos­ sibility for change within social structure. As results vary, resources are shifted, and schema may be modified. The action of actors, in other words, may bring about change in either schemas or resources. Sewell’s theory allows us to avoid thinking about evangelicals as simply re­ acting against recent social structural change or as accommodating themselves to those changes (whether in terms of access to resources or acceptance of particu­ lar gender schemas). Drawing on his approach, I present a perspective that gives slightly more credit to human agency by locating contemporary evangelical gender

16

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

and family strategies in their own history, tradition, and subculture—within, in other words, the deep and varied tool kit of ideals that evangelicals draw on in making sense of the world and their place in it. Among evangelicals, the relationship between agency and structure has been most effectively explored in the work of Marie Griffith (1997) on the Pentecostal women’s group Aglow. Focusing on women’s devotional life, the experience of be­ ing set free in worship, and Aglow ideals of womanhood, Griffith eloquently ar­ gues that the practice and interpretation of submission emerges out of the intersection of personal, often innovative, action (or agency) within the constraints of organizational boundaries that are both ideological (Aglow ideals of gender and spirituality) and material (a dual-earner economy). Her analysis focuses on women’s personal transformation through fellowship meetings and historic trends within Aglow literature (specifically, the shift away from assuming that women are home­ makers and the increased use of the term mutual submission in place of the idea of wives’ submission and husbands’ headship). Nevertheless, because Griffith’s analysis focuses on women within a particular evangelical subculture, it remains to be seen how the insights of this and other research can be applied to the 20 million or so Americans who identify with this transdenominational movement called evangelicalism.5

The Study This book is based primarily on data collected during my participation in a three-year collaborative research project on American evangelicals funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Methodologically, that research had two goals. First, the researchers wanted to allow evangelical Christians to speak for themselves about their religious identity as well as their ideals and practices regarding work and fam­ ily. Second, recognizing that great regional and denominational differences may exist, the researchers wanted to obtain a nationally representative sample across Protestant denominations, capturing both the geographic diversity and transde­ nominational characteristics of evangelicalism. These objectives led to a three-part research strategy. The study began in 1995 by casting a broad net across Protestant denomi­ nations, sampling churches in six areas of the country. Churches were sampled proportionate to denominational size in order to reflect the distribution of mem­ bership across Protestantism. Individual respondents were randomly selected from a list of active members and participants. This first wave of data collection re­ sulted in 130 personal, semistructured interviews, with a response rate of 94 per­ cent. Each interview lasted for approximately two hours. The objective at this stage of the research was to assess the language, concerns, and contours of religious identity across a wide range of churchgoing Protestants. Our second objective was to build the concerns and language used by the population we wished to study into a national random-sample survey. During two three-day marathon discussion sessions and the innumerable e-mail exchanges that followed, we constructed a survey that was administered to a nationally represen­

Evangelical Family Values

17

tative sample of churchgoing Protestants (n=2,087) and a comparison group (n=504) who did not meet the screening questions for the main survey (for ex­ ample, were not regular attenders or said that their faith was not extremely impor­ tant to them). Using random-digit dialing (RDD), this survey was administered between January and March 1996, with a response rate of 69 percent. The research team returned to the field again in the summer of 1996 with the goal of interviewing evangelicals with a more focused set of questions, based on findings from the 1995 personal interviews as well as the national telephone survey. This third phase of the research yielded 178 semistructured personal in­ terviews, approximately half of which were conducted with evangelicals who had also taken part in the national telephone survey (n=93) and half of which were obtained through a process of local-knowledge sampling at core evangelical churches in thirteen different regions of the country (n=85). Together, personal in­ terviews in 1995 and 1996 yielded in-depth discussions with 265 self-identified evangelicals in a wide range of Protestant denominations, located in twenty-three states across the country. The 1996 national RDD survey yielded data for 2,087 churchgoing Protestants, 429 of whom identified themselves as evangelical. This multilayered, multiple method approach provides a rich, extensive, and unique per­ spective on contemporary lay evangelicals, capturing the perspectives of evan­ gelicals located across denominational traditions on a wide range of social, family, and religious concerns. (See table B.1 in appendix B for sample characteristics and appendix A for additional methodological details.)

Outline of the Book This book extends prior research and theorizing on religion, gender, and fami­ lies in a way that I hope does more than just provide a better description of the range of evangelical voices. My intent is to help situate current discussions of evan­ gelical family values within a broader theoretical perspective that is useful for un­ derstanding not only this particular population but also rapid transformations in gender, work, and family more generally. In doing so, I hope to move beyond the micro–macro, postmodern–traditional dichotomies present in much sociological analysis by using a more integrated, historically specified, and multilayered ap­ proach to understanding social change and the intersections of personal agency and social structures. Toward that end, part 1 examines the traditions out of which contemporary evangelicalism has emerged. In chapter 2, I consider the beginnings of evangeli­ cal Protestantism in the United States, tracing gender and family ideals from their roots in the Puritan and Pietistic traditions of colonial and republican America through the revivalism, social activism, and ideology of spheres in the industrial­ izing nineteenth century. Chapter 3 reviews evangelical gender and family ideals through an analysis of twentieth-century evangelical family commentators, trac­ ing the development of two strands of evangelical thinking on gender from the disestablishment of evangelical Protestantism and the fundamentalist-modernist split in the early twentieth century to the emergence of neo-evangelicalism at

18

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

midcentury and the social and economic transformations of the late twentieth cen­ tury. Chapter 4 shifts the focus from the history of evangelical family ideals to the lives of ordinary evangelicals, beginning here with an exploration of ideas re­ garding marriage and the meaning of husbands’ headship. I compare evangelicals with fundamentalist, mainline, and theologically liberal Protestants and assess vari­ ous explanations for these differences. In part 2, I look more closely at a number of specific areas of evangelical family life. Chapter 5 explores patterns of leadership and decision making. Chap­ ter 6 moves to the division of labor inside the household—both parenting and housework—and assesses recent discussions of evangelical child discipline prac­ tices and the role of gender ideals in shaping the distribution of household labor. Chapter 7 examines issues related to employment, particularly attitudes toward women’s employment and strategies for combining work and family. In part 3, I explore various explanations for the persistence of ideas about husbands’ headship. Chapter 8 argues that the continuing salience of men’s headship emerges out of evangelical ontology itself. For the majority of evangelicals, gen­ der is not just relational; it is reality extending throughout the created order. The alternative perspective, one of partnership and egalitarianism, is doubly embattled from the broader culture for its adherence to core evangelical beliefs and from the majority of evangelicals for abandoning the idea of men’s headship. While drawing on many of the same subcultural religious tools and better reflecting the reality of most evangelical families, biblical feminism remains a suspect and counterhegemonic perspective within evangelicalism. In chapter 9, I take up the implica­ tions of these issues for broader theorizing on structure and agency as well as the sociology of religion and family.

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

19

CHAPTER 2

A History of Mutuality

and Gender Hierarchy

�

I believe the ignorance, wickedness (and consequent judgements) that

have prevailed and still are prevailing among us, are not more plainly

owing to any one thing, than to the neglect of family religion,

instruction and government.

Benjamin Wadsworth, The Well Ordered Family, 1712

I

n the same way that evangelicals con­ cerned about a crisis in the family are apt to point for evidence to a higher rate of divorce now than in the days of Dick and Jane, so, too, it is not unusual to hear contemporary evangelicals’ concern for “family values” described as a reaction to the feminism of the 1970s. Both arguments neglect the longer historic trend in favor of a more dramatic recent comparison. This chapter traces the outlines of evangelical ideals through their colonial roots in Puritan New England into two centuries of economic transformation, religious revival, and the emergence of an industrial (and industrious) middle class. Given that numerous histories have pains­ takingly covered the same social, economic, and religious territory, I only touch on the highlights of that story; but they are an appropriate place to start if we are to gain a longer historic perspective on the range of voices within evangelicalism and provide a context for understanding contemporary evangelical experience.

Protestant Fathers and Mothers Before the nineteenth century, most American families lived and worked to­ gether in small businesses, trades, or family farms. The labor of wives, children, and husbands was essential to the survival and well-being of colonial and early American families. While it would be an overstatement to assert that colonial fami­ lies were egalitarian, the economic interdependence that characterized both house­ hold and community afforded women a respected place as both producers and reproducers of family life. Religious writings of the time reflect a Protestant he­ gemony that celebrated family as the model for citizenship in which both hierar­ chy and equality had their place. 19

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Benevolent Patriarchs and Godly Wives Within the household economy, rationality, morality, industry, and sentiment were presented as the purview of both husbands and wives. Puritan theologian Cot­ ton Mather (1663–1728), in one of the best-known commentaries on marriage, Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion, described the virtuous woman as modest, industrious, discreet, a student of Scripture, and obedient to parents.1 Mather placed a high value on women’s labor, arguing that “the Actions of even the meanest Milk­ maid or Cook-maid, when done in the fear of God, are in the Account of God more noble Things than the Victories of a Caesar!” (Mather 1978, 47). Likewise, Mather argued, the milkmaid and the cookmaid could look for example to the extraordi­ nary achievements of virtuous women in politics, philosophy, mathematics, as­ tronomy, and theology, including “those four MARIES which in the last age sway’d the scepters of so many Kingdoms with the profoundest Policy”; Queen Zenobia; Hippatia, the daughter of Pythagoras; Empress Eudocia; an anonymous French woman who published biblical commentary; and Lady Jane Gray, “who so admi­ rably could read the Word of God in its originals” (Mather 1978, 35–37). Undoubtedly, for most readers, these examples of extraordinary women en­ couraged them to demonstrate the wifely virtues of industry, modesty, and good stewardship. This is the woman who takes a most laudable course for her own tempo­ ral prosperity. She is to be praised as a woman that prolongs her own life. . . . Her Husband’s Gains are so managed by her Housewifery and Providence, that he finds it his Advantage to let her keep the Keys of all; and she will so regulate all the domestic Expenses, that he shall not com­ plain of any Thing Embezzled. Her very Forecast is as useful as much of her husbands business; and the Pennies that she saves do add unto the Heap of the Pounds that are got by him. He has a rich portion with her, merely in her prudence. (43, 93)

As the diaries of Boston judge Samuel Sewall suggest, the practice of this ideal reflected the confidence some placed in the financial and managerial skills of their wives.2 A 1704 entry includes this comment: “I paid Capt. Belchar £ 8– 15–0. Took 24s in my pocket, and gave my Wife the rest of my cash £ 4–3–8, and tell her she shall now keep the Cash; if I want I will borrow of her. She has a better facility than I at managing Affairs: I will assist her; and will endeavour to ile upon my Salary; will see what it will doe. The Lord give his Blessing” (Sewall 1927, 171). The virtuous wife was enjoined to self-sacrificial love and deference and encouraged to make every effort to put aside her will in favor of her husband’s. ’Tis her piety towards the Commandment and Ordinance of God, that in­ spires her Affections; and so they do not grow cold like a Smith’s red hot Bar of Iron, when taken out from a misplaced Lust. When she addresses him, with such a compellation, as, LOVE, her Heart goes with her Lips, and she means what she speaks. . . . and though she does not fear his

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

21

Blows, yet she does fear his Frowns, being loth in any Way to grieve him, or cause an Head-ake in the Family by offending him. . . . In every lawful Thing she submits her Will and Sense to his, where she cannot with calm reasons convince him of Inexpediencies; and instead of grudging or cap­ tious Contradiction, she acts as if there were but one Mind in two Bodies. (Mather 1978, 89)

While it is clear that the “one mind in two bodies” that Mather envisions should be the husband’s, Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion demonstrates some­ thing of the ideal of mutual affection and the interdependency expected between husbands and wives within Puritan households. Variously characterized as two in­ struments making music, two streams in one river, two oars rowing a boat to heaven (in which children and servants ride safely), two oxen yoked together, and the two tablets of stone bearing the Ten Commandments (Ulrich 1979), interdependency dominates Puritan ideals for godly marriage and orderly households.3 Mather’s contemporary and fellow Puritan Benjamin Wadsworth (1670–1737) wrote of similar concerns. Fearful that the neglect of family religion was bringing all manner of ills upon Boston society, he preached and later published a series of sermons collectively titled The Well Ordered Family, in which he argued for a re­ turn to family prayer and the mutual duties of husbands and wives. Six of those duties reflected the mutuality of husbands and wives: living together, helping one another, faithfulness, patience, honor, and love. Only in the duty of husbands to govern and of wives to obey did Wadsworth differentiate between partners in mar­ riage. “The Wife should be a meet help to her Husband; he also should do what he can to help forward her good and comfort. They should do one another all the good they can. . . . They should likewise unite their prudent counsels and endeav­ ors, comfortably to maintain themselves, and the Family under their joint care” (Wadsworth 1712, 28–29). Puritan ideals for marriage promoted not only mutuality of industry and la­ bor but mutual affection as well. Although household and society were clearly hi­ erarchical, husbands were urged to restrain from any abuse of their authority in favor of affection and respect toward their wives. They should have a very great and tender love and affection to one an­ other. This is plainly commanded by God Eph 5 25 “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church.” That is with a great, steady, constant, operative love. . . . This duty of love is mutual, it should be perform’d by each, to each of them. They should endeavour to have their affections really, cordially and closely knit to each other. . . . Though the Husband is to rule his Family and his Wife, yet his Government of his Wife should not be with rigour, haughtiness, harshness, severity; but with the greatest love, gentleness, kindness that may be. Though he governs her, he must not treat her as a Servant, but as his own flesh. . . . he should make his government of her, as easy and gentle as possible; and strive more to be lov’d than fear’d. (24–25, 36)

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Numerous letters reflect both the passion and restraint of marital affection. The longest and best-known correspondence of the era, the letters of John and Margaret Winthrop, is full of measured examples of profound affection: “My sweet spouse, let us delight in the love of eache other as the chiefe of all earthly com­ forts.” Similarly, Edward Taylor, a minister in Westfield, Connecticut, addressed his fiancée as “my dove” and described his passion for her as a “golden ball of pure fire.” Yet Taylor also took care to write that “Conjugall love ought to exceed all other but . . . must be kept within bounds too. For it must be subordinate to God’s Glory” (Morgan 1956, 16). On the practical side, the notion that happiness and bliss should be found only in relation to God encouraged both restraint of un­ warranted passion (which bordered on idolatry) and happiness in marriage by re­ minding couples that they had married a child of Adam, from whom they could never expect to receive perfect love, compassion, or support. Thus, within prop­ erly ordered marital love, of which God was the author, husbands the ministers, and wives the subordinate partner, Puritans could expect to find “the remedy for excess and defect alike” (17). When marriages failed to live up to these ideals of mutual support and af­ fection, wives were urged not to abuse their abusive husbands but to pray for them, confront them with readings from the Scriptures and the law, distract them from their ill temper, and bear with them patiently, knowing “thou shalt have Rewards hereafter for it, as well as Praises here” (Mather 1978, 98). Mather relates the strat­ egy employed by a particularly hot-tempered couple, who found themselves none­ theless able to live in peace: “A Reverend Person seeing once a Couple that were very Cholerick, yet live most lovingly and peaceably together, demanded of them whence it was? And the Man made him this Answer, “Sir, When my Wife is in a Passion I yield unto her; and when I am in a Passion, she yields unto me; so that we never are in our passionate Fits together!” (91–92). In sum, although fallen human beings could expect to err, mutually supportive, peaceful, industrious, af­ fectionate, and orderly households were clearly the Puritan ideal.4 Or were they? As significant as these texts are for demonstrating an ideal of interdependence among husbands and wives, Puritan writings also reveal an un­ easiness with the more egalitarian implications of their teachings. Commenting on the story of the hot-tempered couple, Mather wrote: “the good Woman will make it her endeavour to attend the last Part of this Contrivance; and will give small or no Occasion for the first” (92). Wives, in other words, should yield to husbands and ensure that they are never in “passionate Fits together.” The idea that husbands should also yield to wives was more suspect and clearly not the pri­ mary lesson Mather hoped his young female audience would draw from this story. For Mather and other early Puritan divines, mutual patience and respect should be encouraged in theory: encountered in reality, they were somewhat more discon­ certing. Puritan ideals clearly placed husbands in a position of authority over wives. Wadsworth writes in terms of a husband’s “rule” and “government of his wife.” Parishioners were instructed that wives should “guid the house &c. not guid the Husband” (Morgan 1956, 9). Outside the household, women in New England could not own property, sign binding contracts, or make any major decision without their

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

23

husband’s knowledge and approval. Still, Puritan writers took pains to explain that women’s subordination within marriage reflected a larger order, likened to mili­ tary command (Ulrich 1979), rather than any rational or moral inferiority to men. And numerous sermons appealed to the order of creation as a metaphor for both mutuality and hierarchy within marriage.5 “The husband is also to understand that as God created the woman, not of the head, and so equall in authoritie with her husband: so also he created her not of Adam’s foote that she should be trodden down and despised, but he took her out of the ribbe, that she might walke joyntly with him, under the conduct and government of her head” (Perkins 1618, 691). Thus, while wives were to submit to the authority of their husbands, that authority had limits. Wives were protected by law from physical abuse; were not obliged to obey any command contrary to the laws of God; and were entitled to the provision, protection, and guiding council of their husbands. By law, wives held equal authority with husbands in relation to children and servants. In prac­ tice, they exercised considerable influence in household matters. Pastors empha­ sized the intimacy of the relationship, the mutuality of the choice, and the benefits owed to women in marriage (Colman 1747, 10). Samuel Sewall’s diaries record how his son and daughter-in-law, returning from an evening at his home, were passed on the road by William Ilsly. Being in the middle of a dispute with his wife, Samuel the younger “warn’d him not to lodge at his house.” To which his wife replied that “she had as much to doe with the house as he.” The result? “Ilsly lodged there” (Sewall 1927, 370–71). Thus, in both practice and law, wives were subordi­ nate partners, not servants or slaves. According to historian Edmund Morgan (1956), civil courts took this ideal seriously, fining Daniel Ela forty shillings for calling his wife nothing but a servant in the presence of their neighbors.6 Colonial Families, Women’s Ministry, and Social Order While early Puritans may have entertained some ambivalence regarding the extent of mutuality within marriage and domestic life, they did not equivocate in their opposition towards women’s public ministry. We need only to review the ex­ periences of Puritan Anne Hutchinson (excommunicated and banned from Boston in 1638 for teaching ideas contrary to the Puritan covenant theology), Quaker Mary Dyer (banned from Boston three times and finally hanged in 1660 for acting in a manner not fitting to her sex), and Elizabeth Hooton (a Quaker teacher whose ship from England was refused permission to dock because she was on it) to recall the extraordinary colonial resistance to women’s public ministry and teaching. What is easily ignored in raising examples of women’s exclusion from pub­ lic ministry, however, is that underlying sectarian and theological concerns (par­ ticularly with Quakers), along with a desire to maintain the authority of ordained ministry, ran as deep, if not deeper, than the woman question itself. When Anne Hutchinson was charged in 1637 with acting in a manner not fitting to her sex, the overriding issue at her trial was heresy—criticizing the theology of colonial ministers and teaching the antinomian covenant of grace—not feminism. The Pu­ ritan establishment questioned similar teaching by her contemporary, John Cot­ ton; and before Hutchinson’s own trial, her brother-in-law, John Wheelwright, had

24

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

already been disenfranchised and banished for his antinomian teachings (Tucker and Liefeld 1987). Similarly, opposition to Mary Dyer and Elizabeth Hooton reflected not only Puritan opposition to women’s public teaching but a broader and more fundamen­ tal rejection of Quaker doctrine. In limited cases, Puritan women were successful in locating opportunities for religious teaching and expression. In a number of early Baptist congregations, laywomen preachers held home meetings and occasionally spoke in scheduled public gatherings (Fraser 1984, 245). Still, the influence of Puritan ideals in the early colonies was reflected in the pervasive attitude that while men and women may be equal in the sight of God and mutual partners in manag­ ing a household, women should rely on husbands and clergy for spiritual insight and not seek to play the role of theologian or teacher themselves. In sum, the ideal Puritan family embodied a Calvinistic Protestantism in­ fused with strong notions of stability and order. The little commonwealth of the Puritan household depended on the acceptance of this order: a God-given hierar­ chy characterized by mutual support, industry, and affection between husbands (who represented God’s authority in families) and subordinate-partner wives. Wives were expected to respect and obey husbands as long as what husbands required was not contrary to God’s law. Wives and husbands were jointly responsible for the spiritual nurture of children, the direction of servants, and the management of the household. Outside the household, women’s participation in the governance of church and community was minimal. Yet their social networks provided a signifi­ cant source of information and exchange as well as limited opportunities for reli­ gious teaching and expression. Women were responsible for their own spiritual well-being and, like husbands, were subordinate to the authority of the minister, as ministers, in turn, were subordinate to the authority of the magistrates. In a world infused with a hierarchy of order and responsibility, families were both a micro­ cosm of and foundation for an industrious, orderly society.

The Great Awakening:The Feminization of Religion and Wives A century later, a subtle shift had begun to take place in both the rhetoric and practice of gender, family, and religion. Most notably, the religious revival that swept through New England and the mid-Atlantic states opened new opportuni­ ties for women’s participation in public religious life. At the same time, broad eco­ nomic changes resulted in a decline in the interdependency of men and women within the household. Although affection remained a central ideal within marriage, ideals of mutual industry began to be replaced by notions of gender in which women figured primarily as domestic caregivers rather than productive partners. In New England, increasingly popular Baptist sects challenged Puritan notions of hierarchy in community, church, and family with a more personal, affective reli­ gion and a more oppositional view of the place of men and women in family and church life. Religion, feminized in public, and women, domesticated at home, be­ gan to emerge as the new gendered ideal within an increasingly diverse Protes­ tantism hegemony.

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

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Extraordinary Calling and the Feminization of Religion Central to the reshaping of evangelical notions of gender in eighteenthcentury America was the religious revival known as the Great Awakening (1720– 50). Jonathan Edwards in New England; Gilbert Tennent and Theodorus Frelinghuysen in the mid-Atlantic states; and itinerant English evangelist George Whitefield led revivals that, while emphasizing a Calvinistic view of God’s sover­ eignty in election, also emphasized the experience of conversion, personal piety, and the submission of all believers to God as well as the growing acceptance of laymen and women in personal evangelism, public exhortation, and witness. Preach­ ing to a society of young women, Whitefield urged them to take autonomous action: Those who would be espoused to Christ must harken, consider, and in­ cline to his invitation, and forget even their father’s house. . . . You must consent with your wills. . . . You must forget all relations, so as to be ready to forgo all their favor; when it standeth in competition with that of the Lord Jesus Christ; and do not let your carnal friends and relations hinder you from closing with and espousing the Lord Jesus. . . . Therefore, do not be discouraged at whatever . . . the world may press upon you, but come and join yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and all your sins shall be washed away in his blood; and when once you are espoused to Jesus, you are disjoined from sin, you are born again. (Whitefield 1771–72, n.p.)

For a brief time, the field of religious expression was leveled; both women and men were called to abandon self for salvation and in return received life and agency in mature union with God (Juster 1994). For men, this temporary feminization—the setting aside of personal independence and agency—opened the way to become connected to a community of faith and freedom from the fear of death. For women, participation in religious revivals provided opportunity for greater pub­ lic voice, independence, and autonomous action (Bartkowski 1998, Greven 1977, Juster 1994). During these revivals, tensions flared between churches and ministers that encouraged lay ministry and the experience of conversion and those that did not. While their Puritan grandparents had long held to the necessity of personal con­ version, that experience had largely been understood as the result of a long pro­ cess of study, corporate worship, contemplation, and prayer—preparatory exercises that were not the means of grace but simply the disciplines through which one placed oneself in a position where one might be the recipient of grace. Revival telescoped this process into an unpredictable, often ecstatic encounter with God in which conviction, repentance, regeneration, and salvation took place in a mo­ ment of new birth. Evangelical Calvinists, located in Congregationalist, Presbyte­ rian, and Baptist communities throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic states, preached this revitalized gospel of conversion. Known as the New Lights, they were opposed by many in the religious establishment, who were offended by both the emotionalism of conversion as well as the enthusiasm of a new generation of pastors and evangelists who preached from notes (rather than carefully prepared sermons) and encouraged the participation of laypeople in public ministry.

26

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Charles Chauncy, minister of Boston’s First Church, epitomized the opposi­ tion of the Old Lights to revival, calling it “a kind of religious frenzy” and “the effect of enthusiastic heat” (Heimert 1967, 228, 256). In reply, Jonathan Edwards (America’s most prolific Puritan theologian and pastor of the Northampton, Mas­ sachusetts, church where the Great Awakening first began) published Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New England in which he both defended the surprising work of God in revival and the necessity of con­ version and warned its advocates against the danger of spiritual pride. In it, Edwards also clarified his own position on the role of laywomen and men in public minis­ try and evangelism. ’Tis beautiful in private Christians, though they are women and children, to be bold in professing the faith of Christ, and in the practice of all reli­ gion and in owning God’s hand in the work of his power and grace, with­ out any fear of men, though they should be reproached as fools and madmen, and frowned upon by great men, and cast off by parent and all the world. But for private Christians, women and others, to instruct, re­ buke and exhort, with a like sort of boldness as becomes a minister when preaching, is not beautiful. (Edwards 1972, 427)

Without minimizing the fact that ordained ministry among women was untenable, Edwards’s larger concern was to preserve the notion of call or vocation for the ordained minister, not to delineate the boundaries of women’s public ministry per se. Laywomen ought not preach in public as ministers, but neither should laymen. Both should be free to speak of religion in public conversation, in groups, and even within the church itself, as long as they did not take on the appearance of teaching with authority as though they were professional clergy.7 In practice, however, Edwards encouraged even young, unmarried women to organize religious meetings for their peers as well as speak private words of exhortation to both men and women as long as they were spoken with humility and grace. Writing to eighteen-year-old Deborah Hathaway in June 1741, Edwards encouraged her to take every opportunity to exhort, council, and warn others: I would advise you especially to be much in exhorting children, young women your equals; and when you exhort others that are men, I would advise that you take opportunities for it chiefly when you are alone with them or when young persons are present (see I Tim 2: 9, 11–12). When you council and warn others, do it earnestly, affectionately and thoroughly. And when speaking to your equals, let your warnings be interspersed with expressions of your sense of your own unworthiness and of the sovereign grace that makes you do this; and if you can with a good conscience, say how that you in yourself are more unworthy than they. If you would set up religious meetings of young women by yourself, to be attended over awhile, besides the other meetings that you attend, I should think it would be very proper and profitable. (Edwards 1998, 93–94)

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

27

In spite of Edwards’s care to place fairly narrow limits on the conditions under which laywomen and men might exhort others, the revivalism of the early eighteenth century provided ample opportunity for women to bear witness to their extraordinary religious experience. With the limited support of Edwards, White­ field, and Tennent, women’s participation in evangelistic outreach, public prayer, and teaching began to expand in both New England and the mid-Atlantic. In New Hampshire, Mary Reed had multiple visions and spoke about them in public gath­ erings with the support of her minister (Ulrich 1982). Diana Hardenbergh taught women in the lull between the morning and evening worship services led by her husband every Sunday and later in life was characterized as “a bishop in her con­ cern for the church” and “a pastor to pastors” (Stoeffer 1976, 59). Moved by the preaching of Whitefield and Tennent, Sarah Osborn held regular large assemblies of women, men, slaves, and free blacks in her Rhode Island home, doing the work to which “God Him Self has thus employd me” (Norton 1976, 522). In newly formed and relatively unstructured Baptist meetings in Virginia, social distinctions were unobserved: rich and poor, men and women, black and white worshiped to­ gether without the direction of ordained clergy (Juster 1994, 19). By midcentury, when revivals were waning in the American colonies, women across the Atlantic were finding ample opportunities for teaching and evangelism in the Methodist revivals that swept through England. Initially, Methodist leader John Wesley was firmly against women’s public ministry, writing to Thomas White­ head in 1748 that “the difference between Quakerism and Christianity” was that Quakers allowed women to preach to a church assembly (Wesley 1931, 2:118– 20). By 1754, however, he had added an important caveat to the requirement that women remain silent in the churches: “unless they are under extraordinary im­ pulse of the Spirit” (Wesley 1754, n.p.). The qualification was a turning point. Un­ der the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, individual women were now supported in public teaching, as long as they did not officially preach. Maintaining this subtle distinction was no easy matter. Writing to Sarah Crosby in 1769, Wesley suggested a detailed list of behaviors that would allow her to teach in public without giving the appearance of preaching: “In public you may properly enough intermix short exhortations with prayer; but keep as far from what is called preaching as you can: therefore never take a text; never speak in a continued discourse without some break, about four or five minutes. Tell the people, ‘We shall have another prayermeeting at such a time and place’” (Wesley 1931, 5:130). And women complied, keeping their voices low, taking a text but breaking it up into short sections, speak­ ing from the steps leading to the pulpit rather than the pulpit itself, and appealing to their “extraordinary call” as the basis of their involvement in public ministry.8 While hardly qualifying as egalitarian today, the mutual call to submission, experience of grace, and dependence on God that were hallmarks of the Great Awakening initiated a transformation of gender and religion in America. Particu­ larly among newly emerging Baptist groups but also among established Congre­ gationalists and Presbyterians, both women and men found revitalized religious experience in new communities that were, for a time, less marked by older hierar­ chies of gender, class, and education. A more thoroughly feminized religious

28

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

experience and the possibility of women possessing an extraordinary call to min­ istry combined to create a moment of public teaching and ministry. Nevertheless, the relative egalitarianism women enjoyed during the revivalism of the eighteenth century did not extend beyond the church into the household. The Feminization of Wives The relative egalitarianism enjoyed during eighteenth-century revivalism did not extend beyond the church into the household. Although Great Awakening preachers, writers, and evangelists stressed that men and women were called to equivalent experiences of conversion, submission, and obedience to God, views on women’s domesticity and subordination within marriage were unequivocal. The Puritan emphasis on mutual industry and support, which rested on the recogni­ tion that women made vital economic contributions to household life, began to be replaced by an increasingly narrow vision of women as nurturing caregivers in need of a husband’s protection and provision. Jonathan Edwards wrote: Now it is easy for everyone to know that when marriage is according to nature and God’s designation, when a woman is married to an husband she receives him as a guide, as a protector, a safeguard and defense, a shel­ ter from harms and dangers, a reliever from distresses, a comforter in afflictions, a support in discouragements. God has so designed it, and there­ fore has made man of a more robust [nature], and strong in body and mind, with more wisdom, strength and courage, fit to protect and defend; but he has made woman weaker, more soft and tender, more fearful, and more affectionate, as a fit object of generous protection and defense. Hence it is, that it is natural in women to look most at valor and fortitude, wis­ dom, generosity and greatness of soul: these virtues do (or at least ought, according to nature) move most upon the affections of the woman. Hence, also it is that the man naturally looks most at a soft and tender disposi­ tion of mind, and those virtues and affections which spring from it such as humility, modesty, purity, chastity. (Edwards 1994, 220)

Still, while husbands and wives were increasingly seen as opposites, with unique responsibilities and distinct natures, mutual love and affection remained an important ideal within marriage. Delayed in his return home from a preaching trip to New Hampshire, Edwards wrote to his wife, “I believe that I shall not be at home until the week after next. Give my love to the children. . . . Remember me in your prayers. I am, my dearest companion, your affectionate consort, Jonathan Edwards” (1998, 103). Similar perspectives were voiced on the other side of the Atlantic by the English evangelist John Wesley. Although he supported women’s public preach­ ing and teaching, his views on women’s subordination to men in marriage closely mirrored those of Edwards and Whitefield. While the role of women in revival ministries might be debated, their place as the sentimental center of the home was not.

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

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The Second Great Awakening: Masculine Religion and Domestic Wives The prominence in public ministry that women enjoyed during the Great Awakening was short-lived. In the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War, revival waned; and new religious movements began to be institutionalized and com­ pete with each other for members. Simultaneously, widespread political, economic, and social transformations began to exaggerate emerging ideals of femininity and masculinity. By the time of the revolution, the vision of society that had come to dominate the political and social landscape was not a commonwealth analogous to family but a civil society characterized by Lockean notions of social contract and civic virtues. Distinctions between public and private life (which first became common in the southern colonies) became the model for a new republic in which free, white, male citizens were endowed with the right to pursue life and liberty. As Juster (1994) argues, this shift from a consensual model of republican virtue to a model of democratic self-interest paralleled a growing masculine emphasis within evangelical churches and their mission. Ironically, the struggle for inde­ pendence and winning the “inalienable rights” of (some) men reinforced women’s dependency in the household, marginalized them yet again from public ministry, and laid the foundation for the full-blown expression of the doctrine of separate spheres (Norton 1996). Early Promise Keepers: Muscular Christianity and the Second Great Awakening During the first half of the nineteenth century, new patterns of immigration and a significant downturn in New England’s emerging textile and shoe factories threatened to undermine the economic well-being of an expanding Protestant middle class. Decline in church membership; the growing acceptance of Unitari­ anism; and the growing popularity of the deism of Thomas Paine, Elihu Palmer, and Ethan Allen in the north and religious apathy in the south contributed to a sense of religious crisis among evangelistic Protestants. But soon a second wave of revival would sweep through the eastern and southern United States, a revival that, if not successful in stemming the spread of deism and Unitarianism, rekindled an emphasis on the experience of a personal and evangelistic faith within many Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches. Led by Charles Finney in the north and Francis Asbury, John McGee, and William McGee in the mid-Atlantic and the south, these revivals emphasized ro­ bust masculine metaphors while again opening opportunities for women in public ministry. Women were especially active in Finney’s revivals, both in leadership and conversions. At a time when their ministry was still considered the exception rather than the rule, Finney argued that “the church that silences the women is shorn of half its power” (Hardesty 1999, 10). Women such as Mary Savage, Sally Parsons, Clarissa Danforth, Jerena Lee, and Salome Lincoln served as itinerant preachers, often despite their initial reluctance to follow the notion that God was actually call­ ing them to preach.9 Many of those who responded to their preaching were young,

30

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

single, female factory workers. At the forefront of some of the period’s great so­ cial changes, these young women were especially open to the offer of empower­ ment and salvation. During the Second Great Awakening, the theological backdrop shifted from Calvinism to its theological rival, Arminianism, which emphasized free will and the efforts of the individual in conversion. Simultaneously, the language of con­ version began to change. Rather than describing conversion as a way to join the bride of Christ (that is, the church), preachers described conversion as a way to become a soldier in Christ’s army. Emphases on voluntary subordination of women to men and of both to God were replaced by the language of muscular Christian­ ity, in which new believers were urged to “grow up into the fullness and stature of manhood” (Juster 1994, 135). In her analysis of this era, Juster (1994) makes the case that the rhetoric of the emerging republic was blended with the rhetoric of masculine conversion sto­ ries, producing distinctively different experiences of conversion for women and men. Men’s conversion stories emphasized their place in community, while women’s accounts, as they had a generation earlier, emphasized an individual’s inner expe­ rience of grace. Thus, although evangelicalism continued to teach the equality of men and women at conversion, the paths that men and women took to conversion differed as dramatically as the temperaments ascribed to them. In one version, autonomous, self-interested, competitive (i.e., democratic) men abandoned, at least temporarily, the quest for self-fulfillment in or­ der to reattach themselves to the larger community of saints. In the other version, women already deeply enmeshed in webs of personal dependence cut themselves off from family and friend in order to seek God alone, as autonomous moral agents. . . . At the same time that the evangelical church was being transformed into a patriarchal household in which men ruled and women deferred, echoes of an earlier age of sexual egalitarianism re­ sounded in the literature on religious conversion. (Juster 1994, 207)

Somewhat ironically, at the same time that religious revival again opened oppor­ tunities for women’s public ministry, it simultaneously reinforced notions of a par­ ticular kind of piety among women that differed from the piety of men. Moreover, when revival began to wane, it became clear that muscular Christianity had failed to effect any permanent increase in men’s church attendance, where women still overwhelmingly outnumbered men.10 To explain men’s dwindling church partici­ pation, evangelical preachers began to argue that women were naturally more pi­ ous and spiritually sensitive. This sensitivity was the fruit of women’s great pain in childbirth and served to temper what now appeared to be the natural worldli­ ness of men. Pious Women and Worldly Men With the increasing number of industrialized occupations, men in the ex­ panding middle class found work in finance, business, and bureaucracy—jobs that

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

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hardly fulfilled the ideals of robust masculinity associated with the lives of set­ tlers and pioneers. Women also found their productive labor shrinking as facto­ ries rather than homes manufactured clothing, soap, and candles. Increasingly, their domestic work became focused on child care and housekeeping; and when house­ holds could afford to employ servants, even those tasks became much less timeconsuming and strenuous. What remained for women by the mid–1800s were those elements of sentiment, piety, and tenderness that were coming to be seen as char­ acteristics of true womanhood. These ideals caricatured Puritan notions of men’s and women’s appropriate participation in public and family life, focusing less on mutual support within mar­ riage than on the distinctive spheres of activity that were seen as appropriate for women and men. According to these new ideals, the essence of manhood comple­ mented the essence of womanhood. Women were domestic; men were wage earners and breadwinners. Women were naturally pious; men were essentially unspiritual and worldly. Women were to be sexually pure; men were naturally lusty. And whereas the ideal woman was submissive, her husband was necessarily dominant and directive. Perhaps most important, ideal womanhood involved an exalted no­ tion of motherhood as the moral foundation of society. Women’s primary civic duty was to be “Republican mothers” whose moral child rearing instilled civic virtues in the next generation. As fathers who worked outside the home became less of a daily presence in their children’s lives, the cult of true womanhood exalted the no­ tion of motherhood as the moral foundation of society. Within the home, the seat of all happiness, the power of virtuous motherhood embodied the heart of women’s civic as well as domestic responsibilities.11 Numerous speeches, pamphlets, and sermons encouraged women to be good stewards of the power entrusted to them as keepers of the home. The strength of virtuous motherhood was “altogether irresistible.”12 Ebenezer Rogers, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, argued that Christianity itself was responsible for elevating women to a place of “almost omnipotent influence” within the home. There, wives and mothers could exercise the “particular talents and graces with which God has invested the female character.” In 1849, on the tenth anniversary of the women’s seminary founded by his church, Rogers told assembled students and visitors: Christianity, too, assigns to women her appropriate place in the social circle, and crowns her as the lawful queen of the little world of home. The bosom of the family is her undisputed empire. Her sceptre is the most po­ tent which is wielded on earth—it is the sceptre of Love! . . . The cher­ ished companion and friend of her husband, not a plaything, nor merely one in whose society he may spend his leisure hours, but his other and dearer self. . . . She is the guide and companion of her children, whose in­ fluence shapes their characters and directs their destiny. . . . This is em­ phatically woman’s place, a place fitted for the display of those peculiar talents and graces with which God has invested the female character. (Rogers 1849, 5–7)

32

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Rogers went on to argue that the home was not the only place in need of women’s virtue. The manner in which she instilled Christian virtues in the “group of young immortals” under her care would have profound effects “not only on the welfare of her family, but the best interests of society, the prosperity of the state, the progress of the world.” If that were not enough, women’s influence should not be limited to rearing virtuous children but should be extended by her outside the home. She was not made to be secluded from life and shut up within the narrow limits of a cloister. . . . As well might you wall up the sun-beams and not pour their gladsome rays upon a living creation. No! . . . There is work for her to do here in the actual world. . . . children in want and sorrow, suffering in the cottage of the poor and sorrow laden. Pour out the streams of your benevolence into the abodes of poverty and sickness. Be an orna­ ment and a blessing to your native land . . . one of God’s richest gifts to earth. (13–15)

Women’s purifying influence, in time, would increasingly be called on to elevate the lives of those outside the household. As a result, the ideal of women’s domesticity eventually set in motion its antithesis: a wave of women’s leadership in religious and social reform. Gradually, nineteenth-century women brought their purity and piety to bear on a host of public issues. While these first feminists could never be confused with their twentieth-century counterparts (if only because firstwave feminists never considered their roles as social reformers to be more central to their identity than motherhood and domesticity), these women nonetheless changed the face of volunteerism in the United States, tempering the pain of in­ dustrialization and establishing the possibility of women’s full participation in pub­ lic life. Evangelical Women’s Movements and the Coming Kingdom Numerous histories have documented evangelical women’s leadership in firstwave feminism and social reforms.13 For many of the women who led and served in the innumerable charity, benevolence, and reform societies that flourished dur­ ing the nineteenth century, evangelism, feminism, and social reform were the tools through which evangelical Protestants could usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. In 1797, Scottish Presbyterian widow Isabella Graham founded the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, the first of a host of benevo­ lence and social reform associations that sprang up across the country. While a number of these organizations were explicitly evangelistic, most combined evan­ gelism with specific social and moral reforms.14 The New York Female Moral Re­ form Society (1834) preached a gospel of salvation and sexual purity to New York’s prostitutes and campaigned against the sexual double standard for men and women. Phoebe Palmer, founder of the Holiness Movement and an itinerant revivalist, was a pioneer in housing reform, visited prisons, and distributed tracts in the slums of New York City.15 Beginning with modest antislavery parlor talks, Sarah and Angelina Grimké emerged as leaders within the abolitionist movement, touring

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and speaking publicly to large mixed, or “promiscuous,” assemblies. Frances Willard, who experienced the “second blessing” of sanctification under Palmer’s ministry, co-founded the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, organized on be­ half of women’s suffrage, and supported efforts to expand women’s ministries within the church. Innumerable less well known women fought to enact child la­ bor laws, outlaw dueling, enact prison reform, establish hospitals and orphanages, reform prostitution, found boys’ and girls’ clubs, establish the YMCA, provide health care and housing for the poor and mentally ill, begin Sunday educational programs, and arrange rural foster care for the children of the urban poor (Higginbotham 1997, Washington 1985). Class and ethnic issues were underlying concerns (many reform movements were explicit in their efforts to Americanize urban immigrants as well as convert them to Protestantism). Still, the rhetoric of the campaigns reflected both the ideology of separate spheres and women’s deep sense of religious calling. That sense of calling itself reflected a growing millen­ nialism among American Protestants—the eager expectation that social reform would hasten the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.16 In addition to their work for social reform, evangelical women were at the forefront of efforts to expand women’s rights. Catherine Beecher at Hartford Semi­ nary, Mary Lyon at Mount Holyoke College, and Frances Willard of the Willard School each urged full access for women to higher education and the professions. Quaker minister and abolitionist Lucretia Mott was among the leaders of the 1848 convention for women’s suffrage at Seneca Falls and was largely responsible for drafting the Seneca Falls Declaration that called for “the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit” (Greene 1980, 17). Emma Dryer, director of the Chicago Bible Work at evangelist Dwight L. Moody’s church in Chicago (which eventually became the Moody Bible Institute), convinced Moody that the school should be coeducational and train women for public ministry.17 Willard originally opposed but became a fierce supporter of suffrage; Angelina Grimké argued that women must join as “the acknowledged equal and coworker with man in this glorious work” (Lumpkin 1974, 120). The success of the argument for gender equity rested on being able to present a convincing case that men had selectively interpreted the Scriptures in ways that minimized the language of egalitarianism and maximized the language of patriar­ chy. Thus, within the evangelical community, efforts toward women’s suffrage were more controversial than were women’s social reform activities. Evangelical women who worked for gender reform also had to combat the profound cultural salience of the ideology of separate spheres. Ideas about women’s moral purity and special nature provided fertile ground for benevolence and social reform but not for the argument that they should have access to activities seen as naturally belonging to men. Women’s special nature, in other words, might enable them to do good in the world but not do well in education, politics, or the professions. Along with their work in social and gender reform, nineteenth-century evan­ gelical women were active in reforming the church itself. The logic of the aboli­ tionist movement, which had drawn so effectively on the apostle Paul’s teaching that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek; slave nor free man; male nor female”

34

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(Galatians 3:28), began to be extended to women in the church. The Wesleyan tra­ dition in particular employed the language of “spiritual gifts” to provide limited support for women’s preaching. Among those who benefited was a midwestern widow, Margaret VanCott. Like a growing number of women, VanCott at first re­ sisted the inner call to preach but overcame her reluctance and eventually was li­ censed as a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal church. At the height of her career, VanCott preached more than four hundred sermons in one year and brought more than 1,700 new members into the Methodist church. Her ministry was so successful that it was compared to Moody’s (Tucker and Liefeld 1987, 269). Moody, who himself was a strong advocate of women’s public ministry, in­ vited Frances Willard to join him for three months during his revival campaign in Boston; and although she declined his invitation to preach during those meetings, she later wrote to him through his wife, Revell: All my life I have been devoted to the advancement of women in educa­ tion and opportunity. I firmly believe God has a work for them to do as evangelists, as bearers of Christ’s message to the ungospeled, to the prayermeeting, to the church generally, and the world at large. . . . As in the day of Pentecost, so now, let men and women in perfectly impartial fashion participate in all services conducted in His name in whom there is nei­ ther bond nor free, male nor female, but all are one. (Willard 1978, 360)

During the Second Great Awakening and again toward the end of the nineteenth century, women with extraordinary gifts and in extraordinary circumstances found opportunities for public ministry and preaching. They were the exception, how­ ever, not the norm. Most pastors and laypeople resisted women’s public ministry, arguing that it was against not only the express message of Scripture but nature as well. Nevertheless, the success of the abolitionist movement led increasing num­ bers of women to question the rationale for their limited role within the church. In 1889, Willard published Women in the Pulpit; in 1895, Elizabeth Cady Stanton released The Woman’s Bible.18 In addition, women began moving into positions of leadership in a host of foreign mission societies as well as in biblical studies, trans­ lation, and church governance. Baptist Helen Barrett Montgomery (1861–1934) was an active proponent of women’s missionary societies, urging that women main­ tain separate missionary boards because of the tendency of men to take control of merged organizations. She herself served as the first woman president of the North­ ern Baptist Convention and translated the New Testament into an accessible En­ glish study edition (MacHaffie 1992).

Opponents and Advocates of Evangelical Women’s Social and Religious Reform Women’s social and religious activism fueled heated debates between activ­ ists and the majority of male church leaders as well as among women whose opin­ ions differed as to the appropriate spheres for women’s activities. Catherine Beecher

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35

fully supported women’s benevolent societies but opposed participation in the abo­ litionist movement on the grounds that such public activity would undermine the basis of women’s domestic power—the God-given character that marked her as different from men (Beecher 1837). Others, such as Sarah Grimké, argued that these differences represented the “anti-Christian traditions of men,” not the “com­ mandments of God.” In 1837, defending her abolitionist work against the Con­ gregational Ministerial Association of Massachusetts’s charges of unwomanly behavior, she attacked both the scriptural and logical basis of the association’s claims: I find [the Lord Jesus] giving the same directions to women as to men, never even referring to the distinction now so strenuously insisted upon between masculine and feminine virtues: this is one of the anti-Christian “traditions of men” which are taught instead of the “commandments of God.” Men and women were CREATED EQUAL; they are both moral and accountable beings, and whatever is right for man to do, is right for woman. . . . [I]t might well suit the poet’s fancy, who sings of sparkling eyes and coral lips, and knights in armor clad; but it seems to me utterly inconsistent with the dignity of a Christian body, to endeavor to draw such an anti-scriptural distinction between men and women. Ah! how many of my sex feel in the dominion, thus unrighteously exercised over them, un­ der the gentle appellation of protection, that what they have leaned upon has proved a broken reed at best, and oft a spear. (Grimké 1988, 38, 41)

Both the Scriptures and the intuitive truth of their arguments were used to defend women’s emerging leadership within the church and society. Antoinette Brown published a new exegesis of I Corinthians and I Timothy in the Oberlin Quarterly Review (1849). Also published were Elizabeth Wilson’s A Scriptural View of Women’s Rights and Duties (1849); Hanna Crocker’s Observations on the Real Rights of Women with their Appropriate Duties Agreeable to Scripture, Reason and Common Sense (1818); Sarah Grimké’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838); W. C. Black’s Christian Womanhood (1888); W. C. Godbey’s Woman Preacher (1891); W. A. Sellew’s Why Not? Appeal for the Ordination of those Women Whom God Has Called to Preach the Gospel (1894); and numerous other books, pamphlets, sermons, and addresses that made the case for women’s full participation in every aspect of Christian ministry.19 Their argu­ ments countered traditional interpretations of passages teaching the value of women’s silence and subordination, making the case that Paul forbade women only from usurping the authority of men; he did not prohibit them from being given authority within the church itself. They offered examples of biblical women who were prophets and leaders (Deborah, Miriam, Huldah, Jael, Anna, Priscilla, and Phoebe) and appealed to the prophet Joel’s vision of a day when both sons and daughters would prophesy. They pointed to the tenderheartedness of Jesus and the nurturing role of the Holy Spirit as evidence against an exclusively masculine im­ age of God. Still, the argument that God was both masculine and feminine and beyond masculinity and femininity was exceptionally rare. A. B. Simpson, founder

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of Nyack College in New York and of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, wrote one of the few arguments in defense of this position: The heart of Christ is not only the heart of a man but has in it also the tenderness and gentleness of a woman. Jesus was not a man in the rigid sense of manhood as distinct from womanhood, but, as the Son of Man, the complete head of humanity, He combined in Himself the nature of both man and woman. . . . in the Old Testament we find God revealing Him­ self under the sweet figure of motherhood. . . . And this aspect of His blessed character finds its perfect manifestation in the Holy Ghost, our Mother God. (Simpson 1911, 16)

It would not be until the latter half of the twentieth century that evangelicals would return to this question of the feminine side of God in debates over the use of in­ clusive language in the Bible and in worship (Mollenkott 1983, Smith 1993, Stackhouse 1999, Thompson 2000). These arguments were countered by conservative voices within the church arguing that Paul’s instructions on women’s silence in the churches (I Corinthians 11 and 14, I Timothy 2) were timeless prescriptions rather than culturally specific; that mirroring the relationship of Christ to the church (Ephesians 5) established husbands’ authority and required wifely submission; and that women prophets were exceptions to the rule of women’s silence and examples of the egregious failure of men to take up their God-given roles. Most important, those who argued for the maintenance of separate spheres appealed to the order of creation (Genesis 2) as evidence that women’s subordination and men’s primacy were elements of God’s original, perfect design. Women have the right to do what God has created them to do: nurture children and act as their husbands’ helpmates. Appeals to Scrip­ ture, combined with the “self-evident” observation that women’s biology uniquely suited them to bear and nurture children, held great appeal to the majority of evangelicals. Statements to the contrary, most evangelicals argued, dismissed both the authority of Scripture and the plain truth of women’s biology. In sum, both advocates and opponents of women’s preaching, social activ­ ism, and suffrage appealed to Scripture in support of their causes. They also, per­ haps as frequently, appealed to the intuitive truth of their arguments based on both nature and reason. The cultural tool kits of nineteenth-century evangelicals included diverse materials: high regard for the centrality of the Bible in everyday life; En­ lightenment and revolutionary ideals regarding individual rights, opportunity, and obligation; and the doctrine of separate spheres that both emerged from and helped reproduce a particular division that served the needs of an industrial economy. While some of these ideals might be difficult to reconcile, together they provided a versatile mix that both enlivened the community and strengthened the sense among evangelicals that they were truly the salt and light that would transform the world. By the close of the nineteenth century, women’s participation in the revivals of the Great Awakening, the success of the abolitionist movement, and the wide­ spread activism of ordinary women in a host of reform and benevolence associa­

Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy

37

tions had begun to modify the ideal of the cult of domesticity. Although the resis­ tance of many within the church to women’s broadening sphere led some women to abandon orthodox Christianity for Unitarianism or utopian socialism, it was evan­ gelical Protestantism that had provided the ideals, communities, and energy that fueled many nineteenth-century reforms. As the ideals themselves began to lose their salience (in part a function of the gradual adoption of higher-critical meth­ ods that questioned traditional views regarding biblical inspiration) and hard-fought goals were achieved, ideas about women’s essential domesticity and their subordi­ nation to men began to fade. Replacing them was the emerging ideal of the “new woman,” a modern and generally more secular woman, who was both politically and economically independent of her husband. As with the cult of domesticity, the ideal of the new woman was not experienced consistently across race and class but was most closely approximated by single, employed women or middle-class politically active women who were interested in experimenting with new social roles and able to do so.

Modernism, Fundamentalism, Feminism, and Gender At the end of the nineteenth century, evangelicalism was the dominant form of Protestantism in the United States. It was a populist, anti-authoritarian faith in which a vision of a better society was rooted in a gospel whose truth appeared to be self-evident and in a moral activism that sought to engage and reform society (Noll 1994). Within twenty years, this theologically orthodox, culturally engaged Christian world view would no longer resonate with the broader culture. By the 1920s, evangelicals found themselves struggling to engage an audience that had learned to speak another language: the language of evolutionary science and natu­ ralism. Ironically, at the very time that women began to win entrance into the pub­ lic sphere, the religious values that had motivated their first public activism and the formal organizations that had mobilized that activism were crumbling. No longer able to organize around suffrage, child labor, or access to education, par­ ticipation in women’s organizations of every sort plummeted. A new emphasis on wives as consumers (as well as mothers) and husbands as good providers was on its way to being firmly entrenched. In the end, the lack of any central galvanizing concerns, coupled with the collapse of the world economy in the 1930s and the war that followed, effectively undermined the feminist impulses that had motivated an earlier generation of reformers. Among Protestants, the fundamentalist-modernist split of the early twenti­ eth century left theologically conservative Protestants not only suspicious of so­ cial reform but hostile to the notion of women’s leadership in organizations of any sort. The doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, popularized in the 1920s through the work of fundamentalist theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary, increas­ ingly was used as a defense against the literalism of dispensationalists and the mod­ ernists’ higher-critical methods as well as a way to shore up the slipping prestige of male-only church leadership. Threatened by theological liberalism from without

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and fragmented by doctrinal disputes from within, fundamentalism became increas­ ingly isolated and socially irrelevant. By midcentury, renewed efforts to shore up muscular Christianity again fueled resistance toward women in public ministry, reinforcing the idea that women should be subject to their husbands’ authority at home as well as in the church.

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

39

CHAPTER 3

Twentieth-Century

Evangelical Ideals

�

God created male and female, the male to call forth, to lead, initiate and rule, and the female to respond, follow, adapt, submit. . . . The physical structure of the female . . . tell[s] us that woman was made to receive, to bear, to be acted upon, to complement, to nourish. . . . Equality is not really a Christian ideal. Elisabeth Elliot, Let Me Be a Woman, 1976 Scripture speaks of no separate spheres or different functions. . . . All persons, male and female, are created fully and equally in the image of God. All have rational self-awareness and the capacity for selftranscendence, the ability to know themselves, to know God, and to relate to others. Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty, All We’re Meant to Be, 1974

A

fter World War II, Americans settled into expanding prosperity and narrowing gender ideals. Although women across race and class continued to work outside the home, the normative ideal was a nuclear family governed by a breadwinning husband and nurtured by his home­ making wife. By the time when evangelical and other feminist voices began again to be heard in the 1960s, the gender norms they confronted were presented as both socially functional and God-given. Articulating a nonhierarchical vision of gen­ der relations represented an uphill battle. Yet by the recession of the mid–1970s, the ideal of the husband as provider, wife as homemaker was already in serious trouble. Inflation began to negate any increases in men’s wages, and women’s em­ ployment was increasingly necessary just to make ends meet. For many evangelicals, the 1970s and 1980s were years spent reassessing their ideological positions, building a foundation of support, and increasing social and political activism. The religious right that emerged during that era is often described as a conservative, even reactionary, social movement struggling to fend off a growing sense of cultural and economic loss. Yet before the founding of Fo­ cus on the Family (1977), the Moral Majority (1979–89), the Christian Coalition 39

40

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(1989), and the Promise Keepers (1991), a small group of similarly committed evangelicals were, again, speaking in a different, more progressive, voice.

Biblical Feminists and Gender Essentialists at Midcentury While twentieth-century biblical feminism is most often dated to the 1974 founding of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus, its roots stretch back to the middle of the century, when scattered evangelicals were expressing concerns about gen­ der inequality. Five years before the English-language edition of Simone de Beauvoir’s (1953) The Second Sex, Dorothy Sayers had raised the issue of gender inequality in her essays “Are Women Human? Address given to a Women’s Soci­ ety, 1938” and “The Not-Quite Human, Human.” First published in her collection Unpopular Opinions (1947), the essays were subsequently republished under sepa­ rate cover in 1971. At a time when fundamentalist John Rice’s (1941) Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers captured popular conservative Protestant opin­ ion, Sayers articulated a radically different vision of the nature of the individual and the meaning of masculinity and femininity. In her delightful and pointed es­ says, she argued that a woman is neither “a divine creature” nor “the weaker ves­ sel” nor “as good as a man” but “is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual” (1947, 130). Wondering if the “time for femi­ nism has passed,” she disclaimed the tendency of many men and some feminist women to attribute to an individual the characteristics of some broader classifica­ tion to which they belong (131). Sayers argued that women are human beings and, as such, have the right to choose, like men, useful occupations whether inside the home, outside the home, or both (135). “It is perfectly idiotic to take away women’s traditional [preindustrial] occupations and then complain because she looks for new ones. Every woman is a human being—one cannot repeat that too often—and a human being must have occupation, if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world” (134). Importantly, for later biblical feminists, Sayers argued that responsibility for the persistence of gender stereotypes and the failure to recognize women as “‘or­ dinary human beings” lay with the church, not in the teaching or example of Jesus. Women are not human. They lie when they say that they have human needs: warm and decent clothing; comfort in the bus; interests directed immedi­ ately to God and His universe, not intermediately through any child of man. . . . Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man—there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them!”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

41

and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no par­ able in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perver­ sity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about women’s nature. . . . But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from his prophets before him, and from His Church to this day. Women are not human; nobody shall persuade that they are human; let them say what they like, we will not believe it, though One rose from the dead. (47–49)

While Sayers is most famous for her detective stories and her translation of Dante, her essays on theology, philosophy, and the arts demonstrate a deep-seated belief that emphasizing the differences between women and men undermines the sanctity of the individual. Categorically based stereotypes that subordinate emo­ tional women to rational men (“The Women, God help us!”) or place them on a pedestal (“The ladies, God bless them!”) as well as those that adopt what might now be identified as the perspective of liberal feminism (“women are as good as a man”) or cultural feminism (“women are relationally and morally superior to men”) are of no use. Women are human beings, ordinary ones, whose personhood includes but is not dependent on identification with a particular sex or gender. Sayers’s contemporary and friend, C. S. Lewis (another British Anglican whose ideas have been widely embraced by American evangelicals), expressed a very different vision of gender in his best-selling Chronicles of Narnia and his less well known science fiction space trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength). While Sayers argued in favor of the treatment of women and men as individual human beings who are more alike than different, Lewis’s vision of humanity placed gender difference at the heart of the created order. At the climax of Perelandra (a story in which the temptation and [poten­ tial] fall are reenacted by the new king and queen of the planet Venus), the pro­ tagonist, Ransom, encounters two archangels (eldila) who are stewards of the planets. As these beings of light and power struggle to present themselves to Ran­ som in a form that he can comprehend, they finally appear as Mars and Venus of Greek mythology. Both the bodies were naked, and both were free from any sexual charac­ teristics, either primary or secondary. . . . Yet the difference . . . was im­ possible to ignore. . . . What Ransom saw at that moment was the real meaning of gender. . . . Our ancestors did not make mountains masculine because they projected male characteristics into them. The real process is the reverse. Gender is a reality, and a more fundamental reality than sex. Sex is, in fact, merely the adaptation to organic life of a fundamental po­ larity which divides all created beings. Female sex is simply one of the things that have feminine gender; there are many others, and Masculine and Feminine meet us on planes of reality where male and female would be simply meaningless. Masculine is not attenuated male, nor feminine attenuated female. On the contrary, the male and female organic creatures

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

are rather faint and blurred reflections of masculine and feminine. Their reproductive functions, their differences in strength and size, partly ex­ hibit, but partly also confuse and misrepresent, the real polarity. All this Ransom saw, as it were, with his own eyes. (Lewis 1946, 200)

Gender, not biological sex, is at the center of Lewis’s ontology. He reiter­ ates that centrality in That Hideous Strength. There, Lewis tells the story of Mark (a sociologist, of all things), who yearns to be one of a group of insiders at his university, and his wife Jane, a doctoral student, who yearns to be valued for her mind rather than her femininity. As Mark, seeking inner circles within circles, finds only materialism, banality, and chaos, Jane stumbles upon a fellowship of Chris­ tians directed by Ransom himself. Troubled by dreams and encounters with mythic visions, Jane confronts the truth of Christianity and the inescapable transcendence of gender difference and hierarchy. Now the suspicion dawned upon her that there might be differences and contrasts all the way up, richer, sharper, even fiercer, at every rung of the ascent. How if this invasion of her own being in marriage from which she had recoiled, often in the very teeth of instinct, were not, as she had sup­ posed, merely a relic of animal life or patriarchal barbarism, but rather the lowest, the first, and the easiest form of some shocking contact with reality which would have to be repeated—but in ever larger and more dis­ turbing modes—on the highest levels of all? “Yes,” said the Director. “There is no escape. If there were a vir­ ginal rejection of the male, he would allow [it]. . . . The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so mascu­ line that we are all feminine in relation to it. You had better agree with your adversary quickly.” “You mean I shall have to become a Christian?” said Jane. “It looks like it,” said the Director. (Lewis 1948, 315–16)

In the end, in a moment of clarity and transformation, Jane surrenders to Another in the director’s garden and begins to understand that her femininity is something creative and powerful (and for others). Meanwhile, Mark, rejecting and being rescued from chaos (in part, by remembering Jane’s sensual reality), returns to his wife a more centered and humbler man. These themes run throughout the Narnia tales as well: in the gendered spirits of the trees, the acceptable and ex­ pected behavior of the kings and queens, the mocking of a feminism based on an­ drogyny, and the revelation that the Narnia the characters have known is itself an imperfect copy of the true Narnia that goes on forever. Gender is also an undercurrent in Lewis’s nonfiction. In Miracles, Lewis (1947) writes, “In denying that sexual life, as we now understand it, makes any part of the final beatitude, it is not of course necessary to suppose that the dis­ tinction of sexes will disappear. What is no longer needed for biological purposes may be expected to survive for splendour” (191). Similarly, in The Four Loves (1960), he argues that the essence of the headship “inflicted” on men is “to be

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

43

seen not in the jobs of any man’s marriage but in its sorrows, in the sickness and sufferings of a good wife or the faults of a bad one, in his unwearying (never pa­ raded) care or his inexhaustible forgiveness” (148). In God in the Dock (1970), he makes the case that gender rules apply differently within the church from the way they do in other spheres: The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, ir­ relevant to the spiritual life. . . . But one of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. . . . Only the one wearing the masculine uniform can . . . represent the Lord to the church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. . . . [In the factory and politics] we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. . . . [With the church] we are dealing with male and female, not merely as facts of nature, but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. (236– 37)

While gender is a metaphor for greater realities, the range of qualities at­ tributed to men and women are not narrowly prescribed. The girls in the Narnia stories go to battle (as archers and healers); Ourel in Till We Have Faces (1957) is a warrior queen. In That Hideous Strength (1948), Ransom tells Jane that “obedi­ ence and rule are more of a dance than a drill—specially between man and woman where the roles are always changing” (149) and describes how men and women take turns in domestic work at St. Anne’s. Jane herself exhibits enormous resil­ ience and strength in the face of spiritual opposition en route to the director’s house at St. Anne’s, much as Lewis is described as fighting his way to Ransom’s house in Perelandra (1946). When mourning the death of his own wife, Lewis describes her as having a mind “lithe and quick and muscular as a leopard. . . . it scented the first whiff of cant or slush; then sprang, and knocked you over before you knew what was happening” (1961, 3). Lewis’s gender essentialism exemplifies the widespread gender conservatism that followed World War II. Within the church, women were encouraged to give up the jobs that they had been encouraged to take during the war and return to homemaking and child rearing. Evangelical rhetoric of husbands’ headship and wifely submission was supported by many social scientists, who argued in favor of the functionality of this division of labor and decried the hazards of maternal deprivation among children of employed mothers.1 Still, by the mid–1950s, voices began to urge a reconsideration of the nar­ rowness of women’s sphere (now described as “women’s roles”), claiming that the texts prohibiting women’s leadership in church and society were culturally spe­ cific injunctions intended to minimize accusations of indecency by pagan observ­ ers of the first-century church. As mainline Protestant denominations began to allow the ordination of women, more conservative Protestants also found themselves grappling with the issue.2 In 1957, Russell Prohl, a pastor in the Lutheran church (Missouri Synod), published Woman in the Church: A Restudy of Woman’s Place in Building the Kingdom. Examining New Testament Scriptures and commentaries,

44

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

he argued that women’s ability to bear children testified to only one element of their domain and did not prohibit women from participating in other spheres of life. Posing both the theological argument that “redemption transcends all differ­ ences” and the statistical argument that women made up one-third of the labor force and could be found in occupations across the spectrum, Prohl concluded that qualifications, not sex, should determine who enters the ministry. Yet despite women’s ordination in mainline churches and the broadening of discussion among conservative Protestants, women would remain a tiny minority within church lead­ ership; and there would be no systematic challenge to the gender division of ei­ ther paid or unpaid labor for another fifteen years.

Second-Wave Biblical Feminism Takes Hold:

The 1960s and 1970s

By the 1960s, a small number of progressive evangelicals committed to a biblically centered and publicly engaged faith had begun a number of organiza­ tions devoted to a critique of social inequality, materialism, and militarism within American culture. Several publications promoted social justice, peace, and a more responsible environmental ethic and life-style—a somewhat different perspective from what these evangelicals considered the entrenched conservatism of main­ stream evangelical periodicals such as Christianity Today or Eternity. These new publications included The Other Side (begun in 1965 in the basement of two re­ tired Baptist church workers), Radix (first published in Berkeley in 1969 as Christian World Liberation Front), and Sojourners (a community and a periodical founded by a group of Trinity Divinity School students concerned with social jus­ tice; first published 1971 as Post American: Voice of the People’s Christian Coalition). Yet during these same years, the issue of gender inequality in church, at work, and at home had begun to appear even within the pages of Christianity Today and Eternity. In 1966, Letha Scanzoni, a graduate student in sociology and InterVarsity staff worker at the University of Indiana, published an article in Eternity titled “Women’s Place: Silence or Service?” in which she questioned apparent inconsis­ tencies in evangelical church policy that allowed women access to positions of lead­ ership in evangelistic outreach but prohibited them from teaching mixed-adult Sunday school classes.3 While her argument received numerous hostile and belit­ tling letters in response, in 1968 she published a second article in Eternity extending her case for gender equality by presenting biblical evidence for partnership in mar­ riage. The issue of gender inequality was again raised in 1971, when Nancy Hardesty, an assistant editor at Eternity, published “Women: Second Class Citi­ zens,” and again in 1973, with the publication of Scanzoni’s article “The Femi­ nists and the Bible,” which reviewed the biblical bases of nineteenth-century evangelical feminism. While a handful of articles in seven years is hardly a revo­ lution, Scanzoni’s and Hardesty’s writing had finally brought evangelical feminism to the mainstream.4 Finding themselves in agreement (and in the minority), by 1969 Scanzoni

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

45

and Hardesty had begun work on All We’re Meant to Be: A Biblical Approach to Women’s Liberation. This volume, published in 1974 and going through second and third editions in 1986 and 1992, established them as two of the most promi­ nent voices in second-wave evangelical feminism. It also made them lightning rods for the criticism of conservative evangelicals, who argued that biblical feminism was only possible through a relativistic reading of the New Testament or the aban­ donment of Christianity altogether and therefore threatened to undermine biblical authority within the church.5 The connections among biblical interpretation (herme­ neutics), biblical authority, and gender were further solidified the following year, when Fuller Seminary faculty member Paul Jewett (1995) argued that Paul was simply reflecting his rabbinical heritage (and was therefore wrong) when he wrote that women should be submissive to husbands and under the authority of men in the church. Like nineteenth-century evangelicals concerned with “the woman question,” twentieth-century biblical feminists believed that gender hierarchy was neither an element of God’s original design (as Calvinist evangelicals argued) nor the justi­ fied subordination of women following Eve’s sin (as dispensationalist evangelicals argued).6 Rather, the hierarchy was itself sin. Like other inequalities, it disregarded the image of God present in every person and perverted the ideal of mutuality and partnership modeled by the Trinity. As a result, gender inequality should be opposed, resisted, and transformed. Paralleling the emergence of broader second-wave feminist organizations from the radical student movements of the 1960s, debates on the centrality of gender versus class and racial inequality led to the development of independent feminist organizations within the evangelical community. In 1973, seventy-five evangelicals met in Chicago to discuss common concerns regarding growing po­ litical conservatism within evangelical and fundamentalist churches and to form an association of progressive evangelical activists—Evangelicals for Social Ac­ tion (ESA). Nancy Hardesty, one of only three women at the meeting, made the case that gender inequality needed to be addressed along with issues of milita­ rism, racism, environmental abuse, and greed.7 As a result, a working group on gender was formed. Published after the conference, the ESA’s Chicago Declara­ tion stated: “We acknowledge that we have encouraged men to prideful domina­ tion and women to irresponsible passivity. So we call both men and women to mutual submission and active discipleship” (Sider 1974, 2). The next year, heated debate over whether or not to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and support women’s ordination created a rift in the ESA and resulted in the estab­ lishment of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus International as an independent organization. While tiny in comparison with their secular counterparts, Daughters of Sarah (an evangelical feminist newsletter started by Hardesty and Lucille Sider Day­ ton and published between 1974 and 1995) and the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus began to make their voices heard within the broader evangelical community.8 Like conservative evangelicals, they drew heavily on interpretations of Scripture in their arguments for gender equity. Unlike conservative evangelicals,

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however, they downplayed the role of biology as determinative and emphasized the role of culture in the process of gender socialization. Rejecting the rhetoric of self-evident and natural differences, biblical feminists argued that the Genesis ac­ count of creation was wrongly used to teach that men and women were inherently different and should have different roles. What does it mean to say that male and female are created in the image and likeness of God? Those who stress the differences between the sexes sometimes talk as if God’s attributes of justice and love, righteousness and mercy, wisdom and goodness were divided between the sexes, with each containing only half God’s image. . . . We believe that the image of God is not only rationality but also “relationality.” All persons, male and fe­ male, are created fully and equally in the image of God. All have rational self-awareness and the capacity for self-transcendence, the ability to know themselves, to know God, and to relate to others. (Scanzoni and Hardesty 1974, 22)

Employing a language of rationality, creativity, reciprocity, and relationality as fun­ damental not only to the nature of both women and men but as the essence of a Triune God, Scanzoni and Hardesty went on to present a vision of gender equal­ ity at home and in the church that was the antithesis of the gender difference and hierarchy conservative evangelicals had long argued was God’s original design. These themes would be articulated by a number of other evangelical feminists dur­ ing the remainder of the decade, including Anne Follis (1981), Patricia Gundry (1977, 1980), Virginia Mollenkott (1977), and John Scanzoni (1979). While the publication of All We’re Meant to Be raised a number of impor­ tant questions and broadened the discussion of gender equity among evangelicals, it did little to sway the opinions of the majority, for whom arguments from Scrip­ ture and nature held more weight than did arguments from Scripture and social science. The vision of gender relations that continued to capture both the imagi­ nation and the experience of most evangelicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s remained one of complementary gender differences and roles. California pastor and conference speaker Larry Christenson (1970) captured this viewpoint in his best-selling book The Christian Family, arguing that difference and hierarchy were not social constructions but a reflection of “Divine Order”—wording reminiscent of the Puritans. “There is a firm, unalterable decree of God in the position of men and women. It was established by their creation, and is found in the nature of both. It was not overturned by Christianity: it is confirmed in the New Testament. Upon it rests the harmony of a Christian marriage” (39). With that hierarchy came spe­ cific sets of roles, responsibilities, and trials intended to drive the fallen creature back to the creator: “Upon man is laid the authority to rule. But with it comes heavy care and hard labor upon a cursed earth. . . . The woman is not afraid of the toil, but desires the rule. The continual self-denial of her own will is her heaviest trial. Thus the burden of both man and woman is chosen for them . . . [to] compel them to seek God” (40). Rule and submission were ordained by God; and while both women and men

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

47

may experience aspects of those roles as a curse, the solution is not to attempt to make marriage work in some other way (which Christenson argued would be as disastrous as trying to make a car fly) but to stay within the rules that God has established for husbands and wives.9 Submissiveness is not a matter of mere outward form but of inner atti­ tude. A wife can be a person of strong even outspoken opinions, and still be submissive to her husband’s authority, if deep down she respects him and is quite prepared and content for him to make and carry out the final decision. . . . Submission does not mean that one remains piously silent. . . . When she has made her thoughts fully known, then she may rest the decision with her husband and with God. . . . in a continued atti­ tude of submissiveness the wife has at her command a spiritual power with God-guaranteed results. (42–43, 49)

A wife may have a strong opinion, and may share it, as long as she leaves the final decision to her husband and trusts the results to God. Wives’ submission is actively passive waiting on God to change the minds of husbands who may be wrong, but a wife should never try to “force her own understanding and opinion through at any cost” (43). By offering but not pushing her opinions, a wife finds fulfillment without the “burden” of responsibility. The subordinate role of the wife does not stifle her personality. On the contrary, it provides the best environment for her creativity and individu­ ality to express itself in a wholesome way. It is God’s way of drawing upon her gifts of intelligence, insight, and judgment, without at the same time burdening her with the authority and responsibility of decision. The sub­ ordinate role of the wife is necessary not only for her own well-being, but also because it contributes to maintaining a balance within the family itself and in society at large. (44)

On a more practical level, Christenson addressed the division of labor that he claimed this God-given division of authority supports: specifically, men should not be involved in child rearing or housework because it could lead to gender con­ fusion among children, particularly sons (44, 45). Wives should not attempt to ex­ tend their activities beyond child care and homemaking (on the grounds that they are “not normally equipped by nature to sustain this kind of psychological and emotional pressure and still fulfill [their] God-appointed role as wife and mother” (45). Rather, “a wife’s primary responsibility is to give of herself, her time, and her energy to her husband, children, and home” (47). Christenson’s The Christian Family represented the leading edge of a wave of evangelical family and self-help books that would soon line the shelves of Chris­ tian bookstores and pastors’ libraries.10 In contrast, Scanzoni and Hardesty’s All We’re Meant to Be offered the first systematic effort to integrate social science observations on the influence of changing economy and culture with a fresh read­ ing and interpretation of biblical texts, raising questions that would be hotly de­ bated among theologians and biblical scholars for the next twenty years. Both books

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are important not only because they represent emerging trends in late twentiethcentury evangelical ideas about family and gender but because they demonstrate the continuities and discontinuities within the evangelical community at a time when both culture and the economy had begun to transform the normative Chris­ tian family. Like the little commonwealth of the Puritan family, Christenson argued that twentieth-century wives should be shielded from the “burden of representing the family outward to the community” (35). Like the Puritans, contemporary wives are owed the provision and protection of their husbands (45). Yet while the Puri­ tans emphasized the mutuality of labor and support between husband and wife, twentieth-century husbands and wives found their labor narrowly constrained— one to the market, the other to the household. This is not to suggest that Puritan fathers were likely to be caught changing diapers or washing dishes. It is to point out that whereas the Puritans were enjoined to value each other’s labor as equally important to the well-being of the household, Christenson argued that the value of wives’ domestic work (as well as husbands’ manhood) is undermined when hus­ bands become too active in child care or domestic work. Not that there’s anything wrong with a father occasionally giving baby a bottle if the situation requires it or he enjoys it. What’s wrong is thinking that it adds to his parenthood. When a man tries to be a “better” father by acting like a mother, he is not only less fulfilled as a father, but as a man, too. A father’s relationship with his children can’t be built mainly around child-caring experiences. If it is, he’s a substitute mother—not a father! . . . a wife who shifts her unpleasant household chores to her husband is down­ grading her own activities in her children’s eyes. (44)

Wives’ labor, in other words, is not intrinsically valuable or important to the well­ being of the household or her children but is valuable to the extent that men do not do it. Being a father should specifically not involve the day-to-day mainte­ nance of a small human life or more than occasionally putting himself at their dis­ posal and entering into their activities (123) but his standing as the authority behind the discipline administered in his absence (111), playing, rough-housing, involv­ ing children in something he likes, and occasional cuddling (123). Men who do too much housework or child care not only confuse their sons and undermine their own masculinity but undermine the value of their wives’ labor and promote insta­ bility in both the household and community (37). While the Puritans would have recognized and approved of the notion of men’s authority within the household and their role as public representative of the family, they would have found Christenson’s argument that fathers minimize their day-to-day involvement with their children irresponsible if not absurd. Likewise, while the idea that women need men’s protection would have seemed familiar, the argument that women’s “emotional, psychological, and spiritual” vulnerability is evidence that they need a “husband’s authority and protection” (35) may have seemed exaggerated to the Puritans, who believed that women were responsible

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for their own spiritual life. Similarly, the idea that the stability of both the house­ hold and society rests on women’s subordination to men might have seemed melo­ dramatic (if not heretical), given that the Puritans believed that the stability of the state rested on the godliness of its people and the Holy Spirit’s restraining influ­ ence on sin. Still, there is a common thread of language used to describe men and women, marriage and family: the notion of mutual esteem, the idea that parents are responsible for the spiritual development of their children, and the argument that women’s subordination ensures that they are both provided for and protected. If Christenson’s vision of a gendered family borrowed much from the Puri­ tans’ language of order and hierarchy while minimizing the Puritan emphasis on the role of fathers in the day-to-day life of the household, Scanzoni and Hardesty emphasized the Puritan ideals of mutuality and the productive labor of both women and men while disregarding Puritan notions of hierarchy in the family. Given changes in the political and economic status of women since suffrage, the idea that husbands represented their families in the community hardly seemed defen­ sible. (It would, in fact, soon disappear from the rhetoric of even the most conser­ vative of evangelical family commentators.) Biblical feminists such as Scanzoni and Hardesty drew even more heavily on the language of basic similarities and fundamental human rights used by nineteenth-century feminists. For the remainder of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the debate over women’s roles would fall along the lines of argument put forward in Christenson’s The Christian Family and Scanzoni and Hardesty’s All We’re Meant to Be. Gender essential­ ists would argue that difference and hierarchy were divinely ordained, biologically self-evident, and determinative of adult personality and roles; and biblical femi­ nists would argue that the more fundamental truth of Scripture is the redemption of humankind from the hierarchy imposed after the fall; a restoration of God’s origi­ nal intent for mutuality, interdependence and community; and the creation of a new humanity—the church—in which each should exercise the gifts God has given for the good of the whole body. Economic Stagnation, Shifting Roles, and Biblical Authority The lines of the gender debate that took form among evangelicals in the 1970s reassessed and rearticulated widely held norms regarding gender and fam­ ily that increasingly failed to reflect the experience of evangelical households. By the mid–1970s, inflation, the rising cost of housing, and the stagnation of men’s wages made the employment of middle-class women a requirement for maintain­ ing a familiar standard of living. As Swidler (1986) argues, men and women reach deep into their cultural tool kits during periods of social transition in an effort to make sense and give meaning to the changing world. The 1970s was such a time. It is not surprising, then, that the decade produced a range of feminisms, as women across religious persuasions drew on the cultural tools at their disposal, and tried to give both form and meaning to the contours of postindustrial, dual-income fami­ lies. Within this context, evangelical debates over the meaning and implications of women’s employment represented not so much a reaction either for or against the rhetoric of 1970s’ secular feminism as much as a reassessment of the usefulness

50

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of its own set of cultural tools in explaining and giving meaning to the work and family experience of evangelicals in dual-earner households. One of the central aspects of this internal debate were the efforts made to preserve the distinctive religious subculture of neo-evangelicalism. Given the man­ date to maintain both cultural relevance and theological orthodoxy, both evangeli­ cal gender essentialists and evangelical biblical feminists were concerned that their arguments be grounded in the authority of Scripture and not the vagaries of secu­ lar culture. It is not surprising, then, that debates about gender rapidly spilled over into debates about the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible. The approach to biblical inspiration called inerrancy is a relatively recent emphasis within conservative Protestantism, gaining popularity near the turn of the century through the work of Princeton theologians A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield, and J. Gresham Machen. They and their followers taught that the original docu­ ments (or autographs) of the Bible were without error. While the majority of Prot­ estants since the Reformation believed that the Bible was an infallible guide and without error regarding matters of salvation, life, and faith, the doctrine of iner­ rancy expanded the notion of Scriptural infallibility to matters of science, history, and demography. Thus, when Scanzoni and Hardesty argued that Paul had in­ structed women to “remain silent” in church not in order to establish a male-only church leadership but to maintain order in worship (by preventing women from asking questions of their husbands seated on the other side of a gender-segregated assembly), some evangelicals felt they had pulled the rug out from under the no­ tion of biblical authority itself. By the mid–1970s, a trio of books by Harold Lindsell (1976), Jack Rodgers (1977), and James Boice (1978) presented, refuted, and redefined competing evan­ gelical perspectives on the inspiration and authority of the Bible.11 The debate was intense, with conservative evangelicals arguing that feminism (evangelical or oth­ erwise) was antithetical to orthodox evangelical faith because it relied on cultur­ ally relativistic readings of the texts. At stake here is not the matter of women’s liberation. What is the issue for the evangelical is the fact that some of the most ardent advocates of egalitarianism in marriage over against hierarchy reach their conclusion by directly and deliberately denying that the Bible is the infallible rule of faith and practice. Once they do this, they have ceased to be evangelical: Scripture no longer is normative. And if it is not normative in this matter, why should it be normative for matters having to do with salvation? (Lindsell 1976, 45–46)

For Lindsell and other conservative evangelicals, the issue was not women’s em­ ployment or women’s rights per se (about which “people inside and outside the churches generally agree”) but “marriage as it relates to the subject of hierarchy, or of subordination versus egalitarianism” (45). Biblical feminism represented “not an improvement, but a profound disorientation of God, man and the world, lead­ ing finally to disintegration and chaos” (Elliot 1981, 28). For conservative evangelicals there appeared to be only two options: aban­

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don a high view of Scripture in an effort to defend egalitarianism or uphold a high view of Scripture and defend the anti-egalitarian, countercultural notion that gen­ der hierarchy in marriage and the church are not negotiable. Women’s employment might be open to debate, but gender difference and gender hierarchy were not— not if you wanted to identify yourself as evangelical. Although most of the debate over biblical interpretation and authority took place among seminarians and religious elites, Susan Foh (1979) and James Hurley (1981), both graduates of Westminster Seminary, popularized the discussion by addressing the cultural and historic contexts that feminist evangelicals argued were so important for understanding the meaning of the Bible.12 In her “response to bib­ lical feminism,” Foh concluded that cultural variables did not significantly affect the meaning of the text: wives should submit to husbands on the basis of the or­ der of creation. God created the man first and intended the man to be the head of his wife and men to be rulers of the church; these two facts are coordinated. The distinctions between men and women made in the Bible have been sum­ marized as an equality in being and a difference in function. . . . The dif­ ference in function refers to the husband’s role as head and the wife’s role as helper and to the exclusion of women from the opportunity to become teachers or elders in the church. (We maintain that this functional differ­ ence is the only distinction Scripture makes between men and women.) (Foh 1979, 171–72)

Given these functional but not ontological differences between women and men, Foh likens marriage to the relation of “king and queen or president and executive vice-president” (200). Submission means that “the wife is to put her husband’s interests first and help him achieve his goals,” while a husband should love, cher­ ish, nourish, communicate, sacrifice, protect, and make decisions with his wife’s best interests in mind (199–205). Still, “he is the one who ultimately makes the decisions and sets the goals” (200). Hurley (1981) reached a similar conclusion after reviewing ancient Semitic and Greco-Roman intertestamental literature and the role of women in the first-century church as well as undertaking an extensive analysis of disputed biblical texts. For Hurley, as for Foh and Lindsell, the words of the Bible were clear: gender hierarchy was ordained by God at creation, and the limitations Paul placed on women in the church and at home were not cultur­ ally specific but universal. Establishing the Lines of the Debate: Evangelical Family Literature in the 1970s The exegetical efforts of conservative evangelicals such as Lindsell, Foh, and Hurley were supported by a booming market in evangelical commentaries on gen­ der and family. Best-selling volumes by Darien Cooper (1974), James Dobson (1975), Elisabeth Elliot (1976, 1981), Gene Getz (1974, 1977), Beverly LaHaye (1976), Tim LaHaye (1977), Marable Morgan (1975), and Phyllis Schlafly (1977) spelled out the practical implications of husbands’ headship and wives’ submission.

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Each author based his or her prescriptions on the principle that the meaning of the Bible was both plain and unchanging (and plainly hierarchical) and drew out the implications of that teaching for men’s and women’s relationships in marriage and the church. Among these authors, Elisabeth Elliot emerged as the standard bearer for gender essentialist evangelicals. Beginning with Let Me Be a Woman (1976, revised in 1999), which was written as a series of essays to her daughter Valerie after her engagement, Elliot’s work offers some of the most lucid, care­ fully considered, and beautifully articulated arguments for evangelical gender es­ sentialism. Echoing C. S. Lewis and others before him who were rooted in Scottish Common Sense Realism, Elliot grounds her argument in the self-evident physi­ ological significance of being female. Yours is the body of a woman. What does it signify? Is there invisible meaning in its visible signs—the softness, the smoothness, the lighter bone and muscle structure, the breasts, the womb? Are they utterly unrelated to what you yourself are? Isn’t your identity intimately bound up with these material forms?. . . . How can we bypass matter in our search for under­ standing about the personality? There is a strange unreality in those who would do so, an unwillingness to deal with the most obvious facts of all. . . . Every normal woman is equipped to be a mother. Certainly not every woman in the world is destined to make use of the physical equipment but surely motherhood in a deeper sense, is the essence of womanhood. The body of every normal woman prepares itself repeatedly to receive and to bear. Motherhood requires self-giving, sacrifice, suffering. It is a go­ ing down into death in order to give life, a great human analogy of a great spiritual principle. (Elliot 1976, 61–62)

Biology, for Elliot, is indeed destiny—a physical sign of a spiritual fact. The ob­ servation that some women bear children and that all women are equipped to do so has metaphysical implications. Women are made to mother. Whether they be­ come mothers of their own biological children is irrelevant. They are suited to the task, body and soul, and find fulfillment in the tasks associated with receiving, bearing, nurturing, and serving. The work of womanhood most often involves a specific relationship with a specific man. In that relationship Elliot, like Christenson, sees evidence of divine order. One thing that makes a marriage work is the acceptance of a divine or­ der. Either there is an order or there is not, and if there is one which is violated disorder is the result—disorder on the deepest level of the per­ sonality. I believe there is an order, established in the creation of the world, and I believe that much of the confusion that characterizes our society is the result of the violation of God’s design. The blueprint has been lost. Everybody is guessing at how the building is supposed to look. . . . Lines must be drawn. The universe is run by laws which can be relied on. Not only do college deans and parents draw lines in order to control students

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

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and children. Any business has to be run by certain clearly defined prin­ ciples. A job description is given to an applicant, and if he qualifies for the job and accepts it, he accepts also the boundaries set for him and the responsibilities that go with it. (121, 126)

Order, lines of authority, laws, job descriptions: all figure as metaphors of a hierarchically gendered universe. The notion of equality is relevant only in terms of one’s relationship with God (men and women are equally sinners, equally redeemable, equally responsible to be and make disciples). Equality is relevant in the spiritual realm but not—emphatically not—within marriage. Men and women are equal, we may say, in having been created by God. Both male and female are created in His image. They bear the divine stamp. They are equally called to obedience and responsibility, but there are differences in their responsibilities. Both Adam and Eve sinned and are equally guilty. Therefore both are equally the objects of God’s grace. . . . Marriage is one place where it [equality] doesn’t belong at all. Marriage is not a political arena. It is a union of two opposites. It is a confusion to speak of “separate but equal,” or “opposite but equal” in re­ ferring to this unique union of two people who have become, because they were made different in order that they might thus become, one flesh. (127)

Essentially different, men and women are equally responsible before God to enact those differences in a “one flesh” union in which the specialization of the parts contributes to the good of the whole. Men’s part in this union of unequals is to initiate, take responsibility, sacrifice, suffer, and endure. It is also to forgive, seek, express tenderness, and humbly father their children, a role that Elliot (1981) described in more detail in The Mark of a Man. Like other evangelical conservatives, the cultural tools that Elliot used to describe and defend the godly family drew heavily on both the Puritan and reviv­ alist strands of American Protestantism as well as industrial models of rational, specialized, and hierarchical economic life. Phyllis Schlafly (1977), founder of Eagle Forum, defended “fundamental inherent differences between men and women” (21), arguing that maternal instinct and male intellectual and physical su­ periority “must be recognized as part of the plan of the Divine Architect for the survival of the human race through the centuries” (11). Similar gender-essentialist views informed a series of books by Tim LaHaye (1968, 1977, 1982) and Beverly LaHaye (1976) detailing the ways in which husbands and wives can better under­ stand the unique “temperament” of the “opposite sex.” Rejecting the notion that equality has any relevance within marriage, genderessentialist evangelicals in the 1970s employed a language of gender difference that would have sounded both familiar and correct to many eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury evangelicals: the family is a private institution, the primary locus of a woman’s nurturing and emotional labor, governed by a husband who is respon­ sible to protect, provide and humbly but firmly guide. A subtle shift, however, would begin to take place in evangelical family commentaries during the next two decades as the rhetoric of headship and submission would gradually be modified

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and then largely replaced by the language of complementary interdependence and servant leadership. Early intimations of this shift toward a more pragmatically egali­ tarian tone can be found in the work of James Dobson, a child psychologist and founder of Focus on the Family. While Elliot, Schlafly, and the LaHayes are perhaps best known within the evangelical subculture, Dobson enjoys a wider national reputation both within evan­ gelical subculture and without.13 Author of several best-selling books on parenting (published in multiple editions over the past thirty years), host of a nationally syn­ dicated daily radio talk show, and participant in President Reagan’s council on por­ nography, Dobson has also written widely on the evangelical family, gender, and marriage. Like other evangelical gender conservatives, Dobson begins with the understanding that the Bible’s teaching on male leadership is not open for debate. Unlike Foh or Hurley, however, he is less interested in arguing about the nuances of biblical texts than in providing pragmatic advice that will help husbands and wives better understand their unique needs so that they can function better within marriage. In his work, gender hierarchy is the backdrop on a stage; the real action and attention is focused on the actors. The husband is charged with loving leadership within the family, but he must recognize his wife’s feelings and needs as being one with his own. When she hurts, he hurts, and takes steps to end the pain. What she wants, he wants, and satisfies her needs. And through all this, his wife deeply respects, praises and even obeys her loving husband. If this one prescrip­ tion were applied within the American family, we would have little need for divorce courts, alimony, visiting rights, crushed children, broken hearts, and shattered lives. (Dobson 1975, 70)

Marriage, for Dobson, is something of a crosscultural experience, where sensitiv­ ity and good communication skills are the basis of a mutually enjoyable and pro­ ductive relationship. For the most part, Dobson’s early work (1975, 1980) leaves unchallenged the division of practical labor but, contrary to what one might expect, places re­ sponsibility for the emotional as well as economic well-being of the household squarely on the husband.14 Men’s leadership role includes not only decision mak­ ing but financial responsibility; getting the family to church; gentle direction and guidance; and the character, behavior, and spiritual development of his children (Dobson 1980, 48–56, 65, 69). Thus, “whether women’s activists like it or not, a Christian man is obligated to lead his family to the best of his ability. This assign­ ment does not justify iron-fisted oppression of children or the disregard of a woman’s needs and wishes, of course, but God apparently expects a man to be the ultimate decision maker in his family. Likewise, he bears heavier responsibility for the outcome of those decisions” (64). Using an easily accessible question-and-answer format, appeals to psycho­ biology, and examples from his own marriage, Dobson unambiguously affirmed men’s leadership and authority. Hierarchy is necessary for both the psychological and social well-being of the family: the “fragile nature of the male ego and a man’s

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

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enormous need to be respected” and “a woman’s vulnerability and need to be loved” require it; and the stability of family, community and nation depend upon it (156, 168). At the same time, Dobson challenged men to refuse to become overcom­ mitted to achievement, success, and material gain but to make family their first priority. Men, he argued, have lacked the discipline to limit “entanglements with the world, choosing instead to be dominated by our work, and the materialistic gadgetry it will bring” (139). The result is the ruin of their family relationships. “What happens to a family when the designated leader doesn’t do his job? Simi­ lar consequences can be seen in a corporation whose president only pretends to direct the company. The organization disintegrates very quickly. The parallel to leaderless families is too striking to be missed. In my view, America’s greatest need is for husbands to begin guiding their families, rather than pouring every physical and emotional resource into the mere acquisition of money” (65). Reflecting an evangelical penchant for advocating personal rather than struc­ tural solutions to the time crunch experienced by dual-earner families, Dobson de­ velops not a critique of capitalism but a critique of individual materialism and ego satisfaction that keeps men at work rather than at home. The critical need is nei­ ther the transformation of paid work (nor, for that matter, the shoring up of iner­ rant interpretations of the Bible) but better choices on the part of individual men. While “other combinations of husband-wife teamwork have been successful in in­ dividual families,” sharing leadership (having, as he says, “two captains” or “two cooks”) risks sinking or spoiling the family (168). Marriage may require a lot of teamwork, but it apparently only works well when the husband is the captain. Nevertheless, while Dobson’s work assumes that men’s headship is norma­ tive, the main emphasis of his advice is the everyday business of living together. What is needed is not so much wives’ submission but men making family their first priority. Keenly critical of the women’s movement and gender ambiguity, Dob­ son argues for the gentle leadership of involved fathers and a revaluing of the un­ paid labor of mothers and wives. Like a growing number of evangelical authors, he has focused less on theological fine print and more on pragmatic solutions to a host of strains on middle-class families. In sum, the writing of evangelical gender essentialists like Christenson, Elliot, LaHaye, and Dobson and biblical feminists like Scanzoni, Hardesty, Gundry, and Mollenkott established the lines of debate that would occupy evan­ gelical family commentators and exegetes for the next twenty years. The major­ ity of evangelical gender and family literature in the 1970s reflects a deep internal divide over the essence of gender difference and the degree to which biblical re­ strictions on women’s roles in the family and the church should be read as eter­ nally normative truth or culturally specific instructions. Competing interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts, underscored by competing approaches to bibli­ cal inerrancy, fueled much of the debate. While the theologians, historians, and biblical scholars would continue to refine their arguments over the nuances of the texts, internecine gender debates would eventually be overwhelmed by a wave of easily accessible, anecdotal, and more ideologically muted family self-help manuals that would follow.

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The Pragmatic Turn: Evangelical Family Literature, 1980–2000 By the mid–1980s, gender-essentialist and gender-egalitarian positions would become institutionalized in two ideologically committed evangelical organizations. The first, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), founded in 1987, positioned itself as the defender of biblical orthodoxy against the cul­ tural relativism and gender androgyny it believes implicit in the methods and out­ comes advocated by evangelical feminists.15 In 1987, a second biblical feminist organization was formed as an offshoot of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus fol­ lowing a split over a resolution supporting gay and lesbian rights as consistent with its mission.16 Led by Catherine Clark Kroeger, dissenting members founded Chris­ tians for Biblical Equality (CBE), which since then, along with the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC), has continued to press for a reframing of gender as neither hierarchy nor androgynous sameness but as partnerships of uniquely gifted individuals created as male and female in the image of God.17 Given the care with which the members of these ideologically committed organizations articulated their perspectives, it was not long before the most sig­ nificant arguments and counterarguments had been made.18 (See Appendix C for an overview of the relevant biblical texts and their interpretations.) Once the lines of the debate had been established (and thoroughly picked over and reinforced), it remained for evangelicals on both sides of the issue to outline a practical course of action. Given a general preference or conviction regarding either gender essen­ tialism or biblical feminism, what should one do? As the debate matured in the 1980s, the compelling questions no longer cen­ tered on the meaning of the specific biblical texts but on the implications of mas­ culinity and femininity for everyday life. Like the foundation of a house, evangelical debates on gender were eventually buried and largely forgotten as interest turned to more lived-in areas of family relationships. The foundations of egalitarianism or hierarchy continue to define the parameters of practical advice to husbands and wives. But as much as these doctrinal foundations would give shape to the places where real people lived, like most basements they would be occupied by storage and occasional repairs, not the business of ordinary life. As the nation moved into a period of political conservatism and economic change, evangelical rhetoric on gender and family norms would take a decidedly pragmatic turn. I see at least two influences in this process. First, the emergence of a more ideologically muted and pragmatic gender egalitarianism in the litera­ ture reflected the changing reality of evangelical family experience as many couples discovered that wives’ employment was no longer an option but a necessity. Not surprisingly, evangelical family commentators across the spectrum began to adopt the language of partnership to describe family life. Second, some of the distance between evangelical conservatives and bibli­ cal feminists began to narrow as dichotomous ideas of gender difference began to give way to a wider allowable range of gendered experience, particularly for men. Paralleling developments in feminist theory, evangelicals in the 1980s began to question the usefulness of theorizing gender along a difference-equals-hierarchy and androgyny-equals-equality continuum. A new series of questions began to be

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asked. Does egalitarianism necessarily lead to the negation of gender difference and a bland uniformity between women and men (or worse, rob women of their femininity by turning them into men, as the CBMW argued)? Or is it possible to allow for some—even essential—gender differences but remain egalitarian in prac­ tice, as many biblical feminists maintained? Gradually, biblical feminists would begin to argue that egalitarianism did not imply sameness. Some, such as Kari Torjensen Malcolm (1982), Jack Balswick and Judy Balswick (1991), Douglas Brouwer (2001), and psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (1990), would urge evangelicals to focus less on difference and rights and more on the practical out­ come in terms of stewardship and mutual service. A Christian feminist . . . is a person of either sex who sees women and men as equally saved, equally Spirit-filled and equally sent. . . . this does not imply that there are no differences between men and women. The no­ tion of justice between the sexes does not have to mean that men and women must always do exactly the same things in exactly the same way. . . . It is not God’s intention that men turn dominion into domination, nor that women turn sociability into social enmeshment, but that both im­ age God by being responsible stewards of creation and mutual servants of each other. (Van Leeuwen 1990, 36, 69)

Likewise, a growing number of gender-essentialist evangelicals would ar­ gue that acknowledging men’s authority within families was not incompatible with an experience of family characterized by partnership. Like evangelicals a century before, gender-essentialist evangelicals would begin to employ the language of part­ nership and complementary, “equal but different” roles. As early as 1980, Steven Clark would argue: The term “complementarity” best sums up the relationship between the man and the woman in Genesis. “Complementarity” implies an equality, a correspondence between man and women. It also implies a difference. Woman complements man in a way that makes her a helper to him. Her role is not identical to his. Their complementarity allows them to be a part­ nership in which each needs the other, because each provides something different from what the other provides. The partnership of man and woman is based upon a community of nature and an interdependence due to complementarity of roles. . . . [In Genesis 2] there is no explicit statement that the woman has to obey the man. Nor is there a point at which the man gives the woman a command. But there is an overall sense of her being subordinate to him in God’s creation of the human race. There is a clear sense of partnership in Genesis 2, but within that partnership exists a real subordination. (23–24)

We might expect Clark’s language of partnership, community of nature, and interdependence to be used by a biblical feminist advocating egalitarianism in mar­ riage. But here, in a book that continues to be highly recommended by the CBMW, the language of partnership is combined with the language of hierarchy in a way

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that is intended to defuse concern that subordination devalues women and rein­ forces men’s privilege within marriage. By the 1980s, gender-essentialist evangelicals would increasingly write in ways that avoided, minimized, or muted those aspects of their vision of gender relations that biblical feminists found particularly problematic. Practical coun­ seling books, such as Larry Crabb’s (1982) The Marriage Builder, completely avoided any discussion of gender hierarchy and difference in outlining a biblical model of marriage. While Crabb affirmed both the “inerrancy and transcultural authority” (14) of the Bible’s teaching on gender relations and promised to dis­ cuss the implications of submission and headship in a later book (143), he put gender difference squarely on the back burner, while developing the theme of one­ ness of spirit (commitment), soul (communication), and body (mutually satisfy­ ing sex) as God’s ideal for marriage. When Crabb returned to the issue almost ten years later, his commitment to gender essentialism remained clear. Yet again the overall emphasis of his best-selling Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference (1991) was less on what wives can and cannot do and more on the benefits of an orderly and enjoyable family based on the partnership of a husband and wife who recognize their essential differences and needs.19 Evangelical marriage therapists such as Ed Wheat (1980) and Gary Chapman (1992, 1998, 2000) would also ac­ knowledge gender difference as obvious but abandon any attempt to describe how those differences might affect behavior. Instead they outlined practical guidelines for increasing couples’ ability to “love each other with an absorbing spiritual, emo­ tional, and physical attraction that continues to grow throughout their lifetime to­ gether” (Wheat 1980, 16).20 In addition to muting gender hierarchy in favor of practical advice, evan­ gelical family commentators increasingly recognized a wider range of behavior as appropriate for both women and men. In contrast to his earlier work, Dobson (2000a) no longer speaks as emphatically against the employment of women with small children, nor does he advise husbands that their primary family task is to give emotional support to isolated and socially stigmatized homemaking wives. The theme of essential gender differences remains, but the hierarchy associated with those differences is muted beneath the practical concern to help husbands and wives better care for each other’s emotional needs and resist a materialistic culture by prioritizing family over career. The sexes are designed with highly specific—but quite different—psychological needs. Each is vulnerable to the other in unique ways. When re­ duced to the basics, women need men to be romantic, caring, and loving. Men need women to be respectful, supportive, and loyal. . . . millions of marriages are in trouble today because of an inability of the sexes to get along. Perhaps the fundamental problem is one of selfishness. . . . The in­ stitution of marriage works best when we think less about ourselves and more about the ones we love. . . . That understanding is hardly new. In fact, it is ancient. . . . The apostle Paul described it. . . . Love and respect. It’s an unbeatable combination. (Dobson 2000a, 308)

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

59

Selfishness, not women’s employment, is the basis for failing marriage. Better un­ derstanding, not better child care centers, more flexible employment, or men spend­ ing more time in housework, is Dobson’s proposed solution. In pages and pages of practical advice, the message more clearly given to men is that they should meet the romantic and emotional needs of their wives, not that they should pitch in and do the dishes or that employment itself should be reorganized to better meet fam­ ily needs. Dobson characterizes men’s and women’s essences in ways that nineteenthcentury Victorians would have readily recognized. His work draws heavily on so­ ciobiologist George Gilder’s argument that marriage is essential for the well-being of society because it channels men’s unbridled sexuality into providing and protecting.21 Increasingly, Dobson relies on biosocial research to explain and celebrate God-given gender differences. No doubt, some of the differences in masculine and feminine characteris­ tics are culturally induced. It is foolish, however, to discount the impact of genetic, physiology, and inborn temperaments in understanding the sexes. . . . He likes excitement, change, challenge, uncertainty, and the po­ tential for huge returns on a risky investment. She likes predictability, con­ tinuity, safety, roots, relationships and a smaller return on a more secure investment. These contrasting inclinations work to a couple’s best advantage. . . . We see the wisdom of the Creator in the way the sexes in­ terrelate at this point. (Dobson 2000a, 331)

Still advocating women’s primary responsibility as mothers and homemakers, Dobson’s writing in the late 1990s reveals a greater acceptance of women’s em­ ployment and parents’ shared child care but not much more enthusiasm for men who do housework.22 He explains that men’s reluctance is justified because they work long hours establishing careers, or “just choose not to.” While sympathizing with the complaint that this is not fair, particularly when wives are also employed, he offers no solution other than “I agree, but that’s the way the system often works” (210) . In both its sentimental and privatized notions of family and its shift away from a focus on gender hierarchy to the meeting of emotional needs, Dobson’s recent work typifies the adjustment of evangelical gender essentialists to the chang­ ing lives of their intended audience. It exemplifies the ostensibly neutral gender language being used to bridge the gap between a culture (and a religious subcul­ ture) in which egalitarianism is the normative ideal and a model of marriage based on essential gender differences and gender hierarchy. Within evangelical literature specifically targeting men, these efforts to mute roles and hierarchy and emphasize partnership and flexibility are particularly clear. Bartkowski’s (2000, 2002) analysis of Promise Keepers literature demonstrates the breadth of gender perspectives within the organization—ranging from expressive masculinity in Gary Oliver’s (1993) Real Men Have Feelings Too to the more in­ strumentalist hierarchical approach typified a decade earlier in Edwin Cole’s (1982) Maximized Manhood.23 Stu Weber’s best-selling Tender Warrior (1993), The Four

60

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Pillars of a Man’s Heart (1997), and All the King’s Men (1998) describe four di­ mensions of authentic masculinity (king, warrior, mentor, and friend) and urge the development of intimate friendships among men.24 Weber, in particular, urges men to live out a godly and authentic masculinity, the center of which is the responsi­ bility to provide, protect, teach, and love (1993, 40–43). Like Elliot, Christenson, and other gender-conservative evangelicals of an earlier generation, Weber bases his argument on the idea that authentic masculinity and femininity are mirrors of greater spiritual realities. Masculinity means initiation. Among the ancient Hebrew words for man is one meaning “piercer.” Its feminine counterpart is “pierced one.” While the anatomical or sexual elements are clear, the force of the words is much larger in scope. The physical is a parable of the spiritual. The visible is a metaphor for the invisible. The tangible speaks for the intangible. At his core a man is a initiator—a piercer, one who penetrates, moves forward, advances toward the horizon, leads. At the core of masculinity is initiation—the provision of direction, security, stability and connection. (45).

Weber makes clear that the spiritual reality he sees mirrored in the physical and functional differences between men and women is a reflection of the nature of God. Equal value within an economy of submission and authority are the es­ sence of a triune God—the Son (as a model for wives toward their husbands) is equal to but subordinate in function to the Father. Male leadership is part of the original plan. It is not the result of the Fall, sin, or culture. It is the Creator’s original intention. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. . . . Was it because the man is somehow more valuable to God? Not at all! . . . The Bible makes absolutely clear that our value as human beings, men and women, comes from the fact that we are created in the image of God. Male and female are absolutely equal in value and worth before the living God. Equality, however, does not mean sameness. . . . We have different functions just as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, while absolutely equally God, have different functions. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. For purposes of function or outworking we describe their relationship as one of economic trinity. That is simply a description of “the way it works.” The Son subordinates Him­ self to the Father. He is no less God. He is no less valuable. He is no less worthy. (89–90)

Seeing “equal in worth but different in function” as the very essence of the nature and person of God, Weber and other gender-essentialist evangelicals ar­ gue that gender difference and hierarchy are the basis of healthy personhood, family, and society, even while they advocate for men’s responsibilities in communica­ tion, fatherhood, and long-term provision for their families. The overall effect has been to broaden the range of acceptable masculinity across the life course, en­ courage men to exert greater staying power in their marriages and parenting, and minimize any notion that headship devalues women. Pragmatic and sympathetic

Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals

61

to the concerns of dual-earner couples, the new godly masculinity allows for not only a more diverse range of behavior and affect than its earlier incarnations did but greater flexibility over the life course as well.25 In the end, the refined arguments of both gender-essentialist and egalitarian evangelicals would wear out their intended audiences before they would enlist them to fight the good fight. Lists of best-selling evangelical family literature in 2000 show that none of the books recommended by the Christians for Biblical Equality or the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood enjoy a very wide readership.26 Neither titles that offer to plumb the most recent nuances of the debate (the meaning of kaphale [head or origin], ezer [helper or rescuer], or authenteo [au­ thority, or the one responsible for authoring a deed]) nor titles that offer advice for putting either submission and headship or a egalitarian balancing act into prac­ tice have sold as many copies as more ideologically neutral books.27 In the end, both hierarchy and egalitarianism would give way to evangelical pragmatism.

Rummaging in the Tool Box: Social Change and the Rhetoric of Evangelical Elites Understanding the pragmatic shift in evangelical family literature as the lat­ est twist in a story characterized by enduring tensions among pragmatism, cul­ tural relevance, and doctrinal purity helps us avoid interpreting the muting of difference and hierarchy as simply the co-opting of feminist language in order to make gender essentialism more palatable (the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down) or as the selling out (accommodation) of evangelical gender conservatives to popular culture (such as feminism or the mythopoetic men’s move­ ments). Instead, this muting reflects both the needs of a changing audience as well as the desire to blunt the sharpest edges of a debate that has threatened to divide a religious subculture intent on maintaining both its orthodox core and its broad ap­ peal. Even during its own short history, Promise Keepers has moved from an ex­ plicitly gender-essentialist position to gender ambiguity in an effort to avoid conflict both within and without (Bartkowski 2002, Lockhart 2000). Remember, too, that evangelical publishing is itself a business whose market is dominated by dual-earner and dual-career households. Evangelical pragmatism likely extends not only to commentaries on the practice of evangelical households but to the practice of evan­ gelical publishing as well. Contemporary evangelical family commentators draw on a long history of discourse about family within the Puritan and Pietistic strands that make up Ameri­ can evangelicalism. As we saw in chapter 2, the degree to which the language of partnership or the language of hierarchy is employed shifts in tandem with trans­ formations in the practice of work and family. From the mutual interdependence and patriarchy of early Puritan settlers to the establishment of a republican state, the separation of work and family, the ideology of separate spheres, postwar bread­ winner prosperity, and the privatized homemaker ideal, evangelicals have drawn on the cultural tools, rules, and schemas that have enabled them to give meaning and order to (as well as preserve) their place in American society. As evangelicals

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

negotiate the tension between cultural relevance and subcultural difference, fam­ ily commentators mobilize gender-hierarchical and gender-egalitarianism schemas to outline and defend the practice of “the Christian family.” The question remains: “In what ways and in what forms are the gender ide­ als advocated by evangelical family commentators incorporated into ordinary evan­ gelical descriptions of their work and family lives?” As we will see, the uses that ordinary evangelicals make of the language of gender hierarchy and egalitarian­ ism are sometimes at odds with what we might expect. But that’s what happens when real human beings make free use of the tools in their cultural tool kit.

A Closing Parable: Inheriting My Father’s Tool Box I have inherited my father’s tool box. I use the screwdrivers and hammers and socket wrenches regularly. They sit on the shelf, right on the top. When one breaks, I replace it with something similar. Unlike most people, I am actually in­ terested in how the tools work. Why does a particular job require a torque wrench instead of a socket wrench? What are the physics of vice grips, and weren’t they a great idea?! Who invented Allen wrenches and why? I understand that most people don’t care about these things; and like most people, I’m usually less concerned with how the tools work than the question of how well they work when a particu­ lar job requires them. If a tool fits, the job gets done. This is good because our old house has an unending list of jobs. Once in a while, however, things don’t go smoothly, and I mutter and swear because the tool doesn’t fit. The right tool is there, just not among those I reach for first. So I take the tray off the top of the tool box and rummage around in the bottom—where stuff has gone unused for years—and find the tool I need. Thank you, Daddy. Life is good. Evangelicals, like all of us, have cultural tool kits. Theirs they inherited too. Each kit has a long history and contains a wide variety of tools. The ones at the top of the box are suited to everyday tasks on ordinary days. Moreover, while there are some people whose passion is understanding exactly how they work and why, for the most part evangelicals are content that the tools work. And when they don’t, people may mutter and swear but go back to the tool box to find a piece of their heritage that fits the task at hand. This is the focus of the remainder of the book. Having taken the time to familiarize ourselves with what’s in the box, we now turn to the uses ordinary evangelicals make of the cultural tool kits that they have in­ herited from their fathers.

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PART II

�

Symbolic Traditionalism

and

Pragmatic Egalitarianism

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Faith and Family

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CHAPTER 4

Faith and Family

�

I know in my heart that my faith is true. I know that the Holy Spirit is in me. I know that what the Bible says is true, and I know what’s on the other side. I know how I felt before. You still have questions: what’s it really like, what’s going to happen to you? But I just know in my heart that it’s true. 39-year-old married mother of two, Ohio

E

vangelical leaders and organizations such as James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, Bill McCartney’s Promise Keepers, and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition are among the most vocal participants in ongoing cultural debates about the meaning and health of contemporary Ameri­ can families. It is not unusual for the voices of these and other evangelical leaders to be accepted as representative of evangelicalism overall—reinforcing the per­ ception that evangelicals are gender conservatives intent on preserving and in some cases returning American families to the breadwinner-homemaker model in which husbands lead and wives submit. In this chapter, we explore the extent to which these characterizations re­ flect the attitudes and beliefs of ordinary evangelicals. I begin with two main ques­ tions. First, what do evangelicals believe about essential doctrine and family, and do these beliefs set them apart in meaningful ways from other religiously com­ mitted Protestants? Second, what are the relevant sources of those beliefs? On what are they grounded? And with what religious-cultural tools are they maintained and, when necessary, repaired? Most studies on conservative Protestants argue that biblical literalism or bib­ lical inerrancy is the source of evangelical family and gender ideals. Because bib­ lical literalism is offered so readily as an explanation for evangelical gender ideals, the second part of the chapter takes a closer look at the connections between be­ liefs about the Bible and beliefs about gender—assessing the degree to which gen­ der conservatism and biblical literalism are characteristic of evangelicalism as a whole or are particularly salient to evangelicals in specific locations on the geo­ graphical and theological map.

65

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Religious Identity and Core Beliefs What do evangelicals believe? We asked survey respondents a number of questions about their religious beliefs, including whether or not they had accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, their views on biblical authority, and their most important sources for knowing how God wants them to live. Committed to Jesus At the core, evangelicals (96 percent) believe that Jesus offers the only way of salvation and have taken hold of that salvation in a personal way (see table 4.1). Claiming a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” (97 percent) at rates higher than any other religious group, including fundamentalists (92 percent), they see faith as not just “very important” (22 percent) but “extremely important” (78 per­ cent) in their lives. Committed to the Bible and the Heart While evangelicals value Scripture highly, they are less likely than funda­ mentalists (61 percent) to believe that the Bible is “true in all ways and to be read literally, word for word.” Evangelicals are almost evenly split over whether the Bible is “literally true” (52 percent) or “true, but not always to be read literally” (45 percent). Still, none considered the Bible a merely human document. The Bible is clearly inspired and “true,” but it is interpreted using a range of hermeneutic filters—something we might expect, given the ongoing arguments over the meaning and implications of gender among evangelical family commentators. More than any other religious group, evangelicals (48 percent) consider the Bible to be the most important source for knowing how God expects them to live. Almost the same proportion, however, (44 percent) believe that subjective experi­ ence, or “knowing in your heart through your personal walk with God,” is the pri­ mary source of knowing how to live. Only a tiny proportion of evangelicals (1.7 percent) put their faith in human reason, and only 6 percent put their confidence in the teachings of the church.1 Even among those who believe that the Bible is true and should be read literally word for word, 40 percent say that “knowing in my heart” is their source for understanding how God wants them to live (see table B.2 in appendix B). Neither children of the Enlightenment nor children of the church, most evangelicals put their confidence in sola scriptura and their own sub­ jective experience in determining how God wants them to live. Committed to Community Christocentric, personally relevant, rooted in both the Bible and subjective experience, evangelicals believe that faith should make a difference in what they do as well as what they think and feel. More than any other group of religiously committed Protestants, they believe that faith must lead to action, in terms of both changing society to better reflect God’s will (89 percent) and winning people to Jesus Christ (90 percent).2 The venues for this action are local churches and net­ works of evangelicals (see table 4.2).

Faith and Family

TABLE 4.1.

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Core Beliefs of Religiously Committed Christians (%)a Protestants Evangelical

Salvation Jesus alone 96.0 Other ways 4.0 Jesus is Lord and Savior Yes 97.2 No 2.8 The Bible is Literally true 52.0 True but not always literal 44.6 True but with errors 3.4 A human document not inspired by God 0.0 How do you know how God wants you to live? The Bible 48.3 In my heart through personal walk with God 43.6 Church teaching 6.4 Human reason 1.7 Importance of faith Extremely 77.7 Very 21.8 Somewhat 0.6 Christian mission Change society 89.2 Convert others 90.4 N (430)

Fundaamentalist

Mainline

Liberal

Catholic

92.1 7.9

81.8 18.2

72.0 28.0

56.9 43.1

91.5 8.5

87.3 12.7

76.7 23.3

66.5 33.5

61.1

35.0

38.6

23.2

30.9 6.8

53.5 9.3

39.2 15.1

50.8 21.9

1.2

2.2

7.2

4.1

41.0

27.8

21.2

7.2

48.4 6.8 3.7

57.8 9.9 4.5

61.2 10.0 7.6

70.6 10.4 11.8

71.5 26.7 1.8

60.5 36.1 3.4

58.4 33.4 8.1

43.9 48.1 8.0

85.5 90.8 (389)

82.3 75.7 (576)

72.7 76.6 (431)

— — (114)

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996 chi-square for all figures is significant at .001 or better

aThe

Evangelical religious subculture is institutionalized in the local church; per­ sonal relationships with family and friends; parachurch organizations and univer­ sities; and media-connected communities of believers who share common teaching, worship, and information. Almost half of all evangelicals attend church services at least once a week, and more than 60 percent participate in other church activi­ ties (potlucks, small groups, Bible studies, choir, and so on) once or more a week— more than any other religious identification. For the majority of evangelicals, the churches in which they participate are neither charismatic nor Pentecostal. Only about 16 percent of all evangelicals are located within Pentecostal churches and denominations (such as the Assemblies of God, Full Gospel, Four Square Gospel, or Pentecostal Holiness churches). Another 18 percent identify themselves as “char­ ismatic” but are not in Pentecostal denominations.

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

TABLE 4.2.

Religious Practices and Networks Protestants Evangelical

Church attendancea (%) More than once a week 47.5 Once a week 31.8 2–3 times a month 11.2 Many times to once a year 6.1 Never 3.4 Participates in other religious activitiesa (%) More than 3 times a week 16.5 Twice a week 20.5 Once a week 23.3 2–3 times a month 18.8 Once a month 6.8 A few times a year 7.4 Never 6.8 Pentecostal/charismatic (%) 8.4 Attends Pentecostal churcha Identifies as charismatica 27.9 Mean hours per week 6.9 Listens to Christian radioa Watches Christian TVb 2.6 Important family friends, colleagues are 36.0 Christiansb (%) Almost all Most 29.8 Some 33.1 None 1.1 N (430)

Fundaamentalist

Mainline

Liberal

Catholic

37.6 29.1 18.8 10.3 4.2

19.8 42.7 22.0 12.1 3.4

13.8 32.8 28.2 19.0 6.3

8.5 56.6 24.7 9.4 .7

12.7 13.9 17.6 15.2 11.5 15.2 13.9 5.4

5.6 12.6 19.0 17.3 13.4 19.0 13.0 1.7

4.6 8.6 14.4 18.4 13.8 22.4 17.8 3.4

3.0 — 15.9 11.6 11.1 38.7 19.5 —

17.0

7.3

12.0

—

4.1 2.2

1.9 1.5

3.3 2.0

— —

32.5

41.4

34.9

—

33.1 33.1 1.2 (389)

31.7 26.4 .4 (576)

30.8 32.6 1.7 (431)

— — — (114)

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

chi-square for all figures is significant at .01 or better.

b The chi-square is not significant for hours spent watching Christian television or the

proportion of important family, friends, and colleagues that are Christian.

aThe

In addition to being located primarily within noncharismatic churches, evangelicals find themselves surrounded by networks in which “almost all” of their significant others are also Christians. In this they do not significantly differ from other religiously committed Protestants, who are also embedded in networks in which most significant others share similar beliefs. In terms of media commu­ nity, on the other hand, evangelicals do spend slightly more time than other Prot­ estants listening to Christian radio (approximately seven hours per week compared to approximately four hours for fundamentalists and two and three hours for main­ line and liberal Protestants). The amount of time spent watching Christian televi­

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TABLE 4.3. Ideals about Marriage among Religiously Committed Protestants (%)a Protestants Evangelical Empty / unfulfilling marriages should be ended in divorce 13.3 Marriage should be an equal partnership 87.4 Husband should be the head of the family 90.4 Headship means Spiritual leader 84.5 Final authority 53.2 Primary breadwinner 46.3 N (430)

Fundaamentalist

Mainline

Liberal

Catholic

22.4

29.0

40.9

34.9

82.6

88.3

91.9

92.2

82.8

70.5

59.0

38.1

75.3 51.6 43.0 (389)

57.4 27.8 36.4 (576)

45.5 26.4 27.8 (431)

27.6 13.3 15.8 (114)

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

a The chi-square for all figures is significant at .01 or better except for headship as primary

breadwinner which is not significant.

sion, however, is only about two hours per week across religious identifications, with 40 percent of all evangelicals saying that they watch no Christian television at all.

Religious Identity and Family Ideals Given that the gender language of evangelical family therapists, commenta­ tors, and theologians ranges from hierarchy and essentialism on the one hand to egalitarianism on the other (with a range of ideologically muted and pragmatically egalitarian voices in between) and given the priority of both the Bible and per­ sonal experience in determining how to live, we should expect some variation among ordinary evangelicals who are reading and living (rather than writing about) godly masculinity, femininity, and family. That is, in fact, what we find. Evangeli­ cal subculture exhibits strong internal coherence and agreement on some areas of family life and remarkable internal division on others. We asked survey respondents about three ideals regarding marriage and fam­ ily: (1) marriage as a lifetime commitment regardless of personal happiness or ful­ fillment, (2) marriage as a partnership of equals, and (3) the role of husbands as the head of the family (see table 4.3). Committed to Marriage Most evangelicals believe that marriage is a lifetime commitment, regard­ less of whether or not it fulfills hopes for personal happiness. Compared to other religiously committed Protestants, a much larger proportion of evangelicals (87

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Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

percent) believe that unhappiness is not a legitimate reason for divorce. While sym­ pathetic to the pain involved and supportive of divorce as a last-ditch solution to abusive relationships, evangelicals resist the notion that personal happiness and fulfillment are grounds for divorce. Even among those who are themselves cur­ rently separated or divorced (5 percent), a substantial majority (70 percent) hold that unhappiness is not sufficient reason to end a marriage.3 In their personal interviews, evangelicals described divorce as part of a larger trend in the United States toward irresponsible individualism. In fact, divorce was often cited as one of the most serious problems facing American families today. In their eyes, divorce reflects the “me-ism” of recent generations—a self-centeredness that negatively affects not only the immediate family but the extended family and broader community as well. I see that we’ve become so independent in our western viewpoints that there’s no feeling of being accountable to the family, there’s no feeling of being accountable to the husband or wife in helping them to stay together and there’s a sense in which, well, it’s the “me” generation and I can do whatever I want. There’s no sense of feeling like my whole family, my children are going to be very much affected and my society is going to be affected by my not staying committed, whether I’m happy or not. Middle-aged Congregationalist woman, California

Others described divorce as “a self-centered epidemic,” “selfish,” “irre­ sponsible,” and “symptomatic of a society focused on individual happiness rather than obedience to God.” For some, divorce represents not only a failure of par­ ticular families but a failure of men in families to take responsibility and keep their commitments. In our society it is too easy to cop out on the relationship because it is easy to get the divorce, the separation. It is easy to justify that I don’t need to be accountable to a family and to my God. And so men have copped out all over. They have lost the vision and the responsibility. 35-year-old married Baptist father of two, Pennsylvania

For this man and other respondents who connected rising divorce with a lack of responsibility among men, the accountability and support provided by groups such as Promise Keepers are seen as helping men who are struggling to maintain family commitments and avoid bailing out on wives and children. Some people also suggested better premarital counseling as a way to help couples avoid divorce by giving them a better understanding of the communication, financial, sexuality, family, and parenting issues they are likely to face. Committed to Husband’s Headship Along with supporting the idea that marriage is a lifetime commitment re­ gardless of how personally fulfilling or happy one might be, a large majority of evangelicals also affirm the notion that the husband should be the head of the household. Evangelicals are more likely to support husbands’ headship (90 per­

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cent) than self-identified fundamentalists are (83 percent). Yet most mainline (70 percent) and theologically liberal (59 percent) Protestants also support the ideal of husbands’ headship, suggesting that the notion reflects a cultural value that has wide appeal rather than being a distinctive feature of theological conservatism per se. Still, the idea that the husband should be the head of the household is clearly more widely accepted among conservative Protestants than among those who de­ scribe themselves as theologically liberal. While there is widespread support for the idea of husbands’ headship, the meanings attached to that ideal vary considerably. About half of the evangelicals we interviewed described husbands’ headship as rooted in natural, God-given, un­ changeable differences between women and men. Asked what she thought about the idea of men and women as equal partners, one woman responded: I disagree for the most part because they’re different. Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t women who are excellent CEOs of major corpora­ tions or men who are, like I said, very nurturing with their children, but men and women are different. They think differently, you know; oh, it’s a guy thing or it’s a woman thing, you know. I mean, why would people who are not Christians say that unless they were different? You can’t eradi­ cate the differences. When you get into people who study the brain and how people think and the synapses that are lost between the hemispheres when boys turn five or something like that, you know, they’re not equal in all things. . . . they’re better in certain things. God uses everybody dif­ ferently. But as far as the roles that we play in marriage, God has given man several roles as the spiritual head of the family. 35-year-old mother of four, Evangelical Free, Minnesota

This woman’s comments illustrate the range of cultural tools that evangelicals employ to describe gender. She begins by allowing some degree of flexibility in the expression of masculinity and femininity (men can be nurturing and women can be CEOs) but concludes nonetheless that difference trumps equality in mar­ riage. Like many evangelicals who affirm husbands’ headship, she marshals a range of evidence in support of this conclusion: God’s design, the self-evidence of dif­ ference (“it’s a guy thing or it’s a woman thing”), and the additional proof that even non-Christian scientists are demonstrating innate gender differences in their study of brain physiology. She raises, as well, the issue of how headship trans­ lates into behavior—particularly with regard to parenting and employment (issues I explore more fully in chapters 6 and 7). And she highlights one area on which the majority of headship-affirming evangelicals agree: whatever else it means, headship involves being the spiritual leader of the family. Eighty-four percent of all evangelicals believe that the husband should be the spiritual leader of the family. (Substantially fewer believe that headship means that husbands should have final say in making decisions [53 percent] or being the primary breadwinner [46 percent].) In the personal interviews, husbands’ spiritual leadership was often connected to an overarching sense of men’s ultimate respon­ sibility before God for the well-being of the family.

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I think that the husband should be the spiritual head of the family. . . . That is how I was raised, that is how I would like to raise my family. That is what I believe. God is the head of the man, and the man is the head of the woman. The spiritual lives of the family are his responsibility. . . . there is a lot of burden that is put on him, and his job is to see that his family is brought up in the ways that are right and Christian morals. . . . And also it is the husband’s obligation to represent the family in church. And con­ cerns that the family or the wife has should be addressed to the father or the husband and he should be addressing the church or the pastor or whoever. 20-year-old Christian Missionary Alliance man, Maryland

Men, not women, are supposed to bear ultimate responsibility for the fam­ ily. The emphasis is not on power but on the burden of responsibility that falls to men. While American culture emphasizes the responsibility of the individual, the idea that family members are collectively the responsibility of the husband remains strong within evangelical subculture. The Puritan “little commonwealth” may no longer exist in law or practice, but for a substantial majority of evangelicals it re­ mains a spiritual reality in which men stand before God and the church as repre­ sentative of the household. The practical implications of men’s spiritual responsibility include loving one’s wife and providing guidance and encouragement to the family. I think that what it means is equated in the Scripture, that Christ is the head of the church and we are to look to Him for the things that we need, for guidance, and those kinds of things. . . . The admonishment to husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church and that entails a whole lot. . . . Being a leader in spiritual matters in the home, encouraging wife and children in spiritual matters as well as being provider, those kinds of things. 39-year-old Presbyterian father of five, North Carolina

Just as Christ leads, guides, encourages, and provides for the church, husbands are supposed to lead, guide, encourage, and provide for their wives. Women also frequently linked spiritual leadership to husbands’ responsibility to be protector of the family—financially, spiritually, and emotionally. In addition, spiritual headship involves a range of very specific activities in which men should take the initiative: having daily devotions, going to church, join­ ing in church activities, setting a good example, being more than a pew warmer. He should be the spiritual leader of the family. He should educate the fam­ ily about the need for Bible study, prayer—if the kids never see him pray, then why would they think it is important? If he doesn’t take them to church, then why do they think it is important? If he doesn’t teach them about managing their finances and teach them about tithing, how will they ever know that it is important? 64-year-old Southern Baptist mother of three, Virginia

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This woman went on to explain that husbands’ spiritual leadership reflects “an in­ ner feeling” that men have ultimate authority in the family. If the children “get that, then they get a better picture of God.” Husbands, in other words, both em­ body in miniature the authority of God and model a right relationship with God within the household. Headship among the Unambiguous. While most evangelicals affirm hus­ bands’ headship, only about 2 percent of the people we interviewed personally could be characterized as hard-core gender essentialists (individuals who did not qualify or hedge their belief in gender hierarchy and difference within families). Appeal­ ing to the Bible, nature, and their own experience, these evangelicals argued that difference and hierarchy are God’s design. Men and women are not alike. They are not homogeneous, and people who try to demonstrate that they are will never succeed because men and women are not the same. God made them different. He made them for specific purposes. He expounds on that at great length in the Bible. That men and women have equal rights and are the same people is baloney. I have been married for twenty-three years and am living proof that my wife and I are very, very different people—different sociological make-up, dif­ ferent in very many ways. Absolutely there is no question about it, and that is something that we as Christians need to promote. We need to pro­ mote that men are different from women. 47-year-old Congregationalist father of four, Michigan

Echoing the arguments of gender-essentialist family commentators, the small num­ ber of ordinary evangelicals who are unequivocal in their support of gender hier­ archy draw on both the Bible and personal experience to verify what they consider a self-evident truth: God made us different, the Bible tells us so, and twenty-three years of marriage confirms it. Although representing a small minority overall, the attitudes of genderessentialist evangelicals most closely approximate those attributed to the religious right of culture wars infamy. The responsibility for recent gender confusion, es­ sentialists argue, lies with the hostility of some feminists toward authority or roles of any sort. Reverberating with the theme of different responsibilities, equal value— as well as a hostility toward feminism—the comments of the following man echo the sentiments of those most firmly committed to a gender-essentialist, hierarchi­ cal ideal of marriage. Feminism to me is a radical group that would like to destroy the family because they would like to say there is no such thing as roles and rela­ tionships in a marriage. That this whole idea of headship is a slap in the face to a woman . . . that she should never have to be under or not equal. . . . My boss is a regional vice president, and I’m a manager. She has different decision-making authority than I do. She is no better of a person or no less of a person. Are we equal? Yes, we are equal as people. But she has different levels of accountability than I do. So her role dictates

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different responsibility, but she is no better or no worse than me. Same thing holds true in a family relationship. The wife is no less of an indi­ vidual. And her worth and value is not ascribed to by her position. So the feminists have distorted this whole area to lead women to believe that they have been treated less than equal. And that the notion that there should be one who has role of headship is totally out of balance. And I just have a real problem with it. I think they are hurting our society in a major way. They are a major blight on our society because it is causing women to be discontent, dissatisfied . . . and to want to rebel. 35-year-old Baptist father of two, Pennsylvania

This man went on to say that he depends on his wife to satisfy his emo­ tional and physical needs as she depends on him to do the same. It is clear, how­ ever, that what he means by mutual dependence involves a union of opposites with differing responsibilities and roles. His comments also reveal the struggle of genderessentialist evangelicals to reconcile the inherent equal worth of men and women as persons and the ability of women to hold positions of authority in the work­ place with clear ideas about God-given, gender-based hierarchy within the house­ hold. Like a true cultural warrior, this man expressed a deep hostility toward femi­ nism. Others as deeply committed to gender hierarchy and difference expressed little hostility toward feminism but felt that it was hostile toward Christianity. For them, the issue was not so much feminist opposition to men’s and women’s differ­ ing roles in marriage but the belief that feminists reject the notion of authority altogether. Specifically problematic was a perceived rejection of the authority of the Bible and a general confusion about what the Bible actually has to say on the subject of submission. I think some of the feminist movement is hostile towards Christianity be­ cause most Christians believe that God’s word talks about how women should be submissive. They don’t understand submission, that we are all submissive: [children to parents, wives to husbands,] and husbands are sub­ missive to the church. . . . Five or ten years ago feminists were more pow­ erful. I think now people are realizing how important the family unit is and the role of mother/wife. There is a reason why the more traditional roles of women work—it is because God created it to be that way. 36-year-old, never-married Presbyterian woman, Georgia

Echoing the Dobson of 1980, some gender-essentialist evangelicals, like this woman, believe that feminism has devalued the social importance of home­ making (something an expanding literature on unpaid family labor suggests is not entirely accurate). They also believe that feminists wrongly focus on submission as an issue that has relevance for women but not men. Gender-essentialist evan­ gelicals argue that when the Bible teaches mutual submission, it is referring to the necessity for both women and men to submit to those over them in authority.

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Drawing on metaphors from the military, corporations, and governments, where clear lines of hierarchy are indispensable to the functioning of the institution, these evangelicals argue that hierarchy within marriage and the church are indispens­ able to order and happiness. Men have to submit at work, on teams, in the realm of the law, and at church—just not in marriage. Men are also eligible to occupy positions of authority in any of these spheres and are required to do so in mar­ riage. Similarly, women are required to submit to those in authority over them at work, on teams, in the realm of the law, and in the church. Yet unlike men, they do not legitimately occupy positions of authority in either the family (other than their shared authority over children) or in the church (although in some cases they are allowed to teach but only under the authority of a pastor or church elders— positions reserved for men). Commitment to Equal Partnership. A majority of evangelicals affirm hus­ bands’ headship as well as what might seem to be its antithesis—the idea that mar­ riage is an equal partnership. Eighty-seven percent of all evangelicals believe that marriage is an equal partnership, and a full 78 percent affirm both equal partner­ ship and husbands’ headship (see table B.3 in appendix B). In the personal inter­ views, people spoke about being “equal before God,” “equal in concern for each other,” and “equal in love for each other” and described a need for balance and fairness in marriage. Many resisted calling marriage a fifty-fifty proposition; rather, they believe that each partner gives 100 percent according to his or her ability to “help share the load” or “get the work done.” Good communication was an important element in both establishing and maintaining the ideal of equal partnership in marriage, with plenty of discussion required before making either significant or ordinary decisions. I think overall in general they are a team, they do things together. They go through life together, help each other. I mean, it’s “husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church,” and that’s the mandate for me and that’s what I try to do. So in terms of it being this kind of, you know, upper to lower kind of situation, I don’t see it as that at all. . . . Both of us have veto power. . . . So I think in general equality, you know, submit to one another out of love for Christ. 47-year-old Evangelical Free father of four, California

Many of those who spoke of partnership within marriage used similar metaphors: marriage requires “a lot of give-and-take,” “understanding,” and “teamwork.” For some, like the man just quoted, partnership includes equal “veto power” and (para­ phrasing Paul’s instructions to the church at Ephesus) the responsibility to “sub­ mit to one another out of love for Christ.” Yet while most evangelicals that we surveyed agreed that marriage is a part­ nership of equals, only a fraction could be characterized as thoroughgoing egalitarians.4 Rather than emphasizing wives’ need to submit to their husbands, egalitarian evangelicals gave priority to the language of mutual submission.

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Some believe women should be submissive. Well, in a sense, everybody has to be submissive. We are submissive, my wife is submissive to me, but . . . I have to be just as submissive to her. 76-year-old Pentecostal grandfather, Massachusetts

For this man, a pattern of mutual submission had characterized a long and satis­ fying relationship with his wife. For egalitarian evangelicals, marriage at its best is a partnership of interdependent, individually gifted, and mutually respectful in­ dividuals. My parents’ concept of marriage was kind of like bringing two halves together—woman graduates from high school, goes to junior college for two years, has three kids, becomes a homemaker, and the male focuses on a career. I look at marriage differently. I look at individuals becoming in­ dependent before they develop interdependency. I look at two people complementing each other while being able to exist independently. . . . I don’t want to spend my life with somebody who feels that they are sub­ servient and feels that they have to hide their emotions and hide their true self and not use the gifts that God gave them if they are in the business world. I want to marry somebody who is doing something they are edu­ cated and trained to do. And I want to have my fifty-fifty relationship where you bring two halves together is really 100 percent–100 percent and you have 200 percent. . . . To me it is a matter of respect. The thing I like about feminism is that it has produced a generation of women who are very positive about themselves. If they feel positive about themselves, I can respect that and they can respect me. When the Bible talks about headship, I think it is really about submission to Christ in general. I think that is a much better basis for a long-term relationship. 43-year-old, never-married charismatic man, Georgia

While they use some of the same language as gender-essentialist evangelicals, egalitarian evangelicals, like this man, base their ideas of marriage not on comple­ mentary gender differences but on complementary gifts that two individuals bring to the relationship. Feminism, from this perspective, is not the culprit responsible for undermining the family but a source of empowerment that enables women to actively choose some combination of employment, marriage, and motherhood and be better partners as a result. Evangelicals struggle, however, with how to interpret passages in the Bible that have traditionally been read as supporting husband’s headship and wives’ sub­ ordination. While evangelicals are reticent to label these texts as no longer cultur­ ally relevant, the need to interpret them in the context of their experience requires the development of a new understanding of headship. In some cases, the injunc­ tion for husbands to love their wives and wives to submit and respect their husbands as their head is taken as two ways of saying the same thing: mutual willingness to subordinate one’s desires for the good of the relationship, and one’s partner is the

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foundation of healthy marriage. At other times, husbands’ headship is interpreted as an ethic of service that elicits wives’ willingness to cooperate. There is a verse in the Bible that says wives be submissive to your hus­ bands. Women just go, “Whoa!” It is like, “I am not being subordinate to somebody!” But you need to understand the Scripture. What it really says is that if your husband loves you like Christ loved the church you are go­ ing to want to follow him. He is going to be a wonderful man. You are going to know that he wants the best for you, and you are going to follow him gladly. He might say, if I am in the kitchen, “Would you bring me a pop?” but it is not an order. There is a big, big, difference there. I am re­ ally glad I am not unevenly yoked where my husband expects me to serve him. It hasn’t been a problem for me. It is a neat relationship when your husband really does what the Bible says. 46-year-old Pentecostal mother of two, Oregon

Still, in our personal interviews, only 5 to 10 percent of American evangelicals were unqualifiedly egalitarian in their views on marriage, making it difficult to argue, as Hunter (1987) and Stacey (1990) have done, that feminism has had a widespread and pervasive influence on evangelical subculture.

Using Both Sets of Tools in the Tool Box Rather than consistently espousing either hierarchy or egalitarianism, most evangelicals draw on both the language of partnership and the language of headship in describing their ideals for marriage. They literally mix their own metaphors in an effort to capture the fluidity and complexity of contemporary family life. Much work goes into articulating these ideals as evangelicals draw on the cultural tools favored by both gender-essentialist evangelicals and their biblical feminists coun­ terparts. The following excerpt from an interview with a never-married woman demonstrates something of the difficulty of describing one’s ideals, even when they are still ideals. Question: What are your thoughts about the roles of men and women in fami­ lies? Answer: Haven’t been there, haven’t done that. I mean, some days I go back and forth. . . . I think we live in an age where in most families both have to work in order to keep up. I mean, that’s a given. And what does it look like interpreting that into daily life? I’m not so sure. I haven’t had to be there. I think a couple of things. I think I’m not, I’m a traditionalist but I’m also a woman of the nineties. . . . I don’t think it’s a given that men are breadwinners and women are staying at home. Yet there are advan­ tages to that, and I think there are breakdowns because that’s not happen­ ing so much. . . . There are a lot of kids in day care. So I think there is a time in kids’ lives that I think it is a helpful thing to stay at home and be with them.

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Question: Would you say that it should be the mother as a matter of course? Or would you say just should be a parent?

Answer: I think it should be a parent.

Question: So would you agree with this statement: a marriage should be a

mutual, equal partnership? Answer: I think it’s open communication and partnership. And I think—this whole verse can be so eschewed—but submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. I think there needs to be mutual submission, but I also think at the end of the day that there needs to be a head. And not in a manipulative . . . I mean it needs to be freedom. I think a man needs to free his wife to be who God has called her to be, as well as a woman needs to free him to be who he needs to be. I think women . . . I mean we’re made to be cherished, and men are made to be respected. How does that put together a mutual, equal, partnership if the man is the head? Yeah. And yet I think that it’s a God-given thing that the man is the head of the house. 33-year-old, never-married Presbyterian woman, North Carolina

Paraphrasing the Dobson of 2000, this woman supports the idea that husbands should encourage wives to be who God has called them to be as well as the no­ tion of partnership and mutual submission in marriage. From very different places in life, other evangelicals repeat this struggle to make sense of both sets of cultural ideals. Most affirm the notion of husbands’ headship (saying that, without it, the family would be as dysfunctional as a cor­ poration without a CEO) but qualify the power associated with headship by em­ phasizing men’s need to “love their wives sacrificially, as Christ loved the church.” This process of thinking-it-through-on-the-fly was typical of the majority of evangelicals. Across age, race, gender, income, church affiliation, and geographic location, one clear picture emerged: most evangelicals work very hard to put to­ gether seemingly disparate ideals of partnership and hierarchy within marriage. That this is a struggle should not be surprising. Most people, religious or not, have difficulty articulating their ideals. But for evangelicals, it is not simply a struggle to put into words something that is taken very much for granted. In addition to bringing to the foreground beliefs that generally are just assumed, evangelicals reaching into their ideological tool box find multiple sets of symbols, texts, and rules. Not unlike the struggle to make sense of being both in but not of the world, ordinary evangelicals asked about gender face a tension between two sets of ideas that seem difficult to reconcile. The tension itself underlies the flexible use to which this mixed set of tools can be put and illustrates how the strength of evangelicalism lies not in its strictness but in the resilience and breadth of a religious world view that, at its heart, is about relationships rather than rules.

Gender, Inerrancy, and Common Sense While researchers differ in describing the range of strategies evangelicals use to integrate gender ideals and everyday life, there is a great deal of consensus

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TABLE 4.4. Evangelical Ideas about the Bible, Husbands’ Headship, and Partnership in Marriage (%) Husband is the head of the household. The Bible is true in all ways and to be read literally, word for word. The Bible is true in all ways but not always to be read literally. The Bible is true primarily about religious matters but may contain errors about other things. χ2

Marriage is a partnership of equals.

93.2

90.4

88.9

85.5

71.4 .01

64.3 .01

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

on what evangelicals believe about gender, particularly the notion of husbands’ headship. Clearly, headship plays a central role in this study as well. Although most affirm the notion of partnership within marriage, only a fraction articulate a vi­ sion of gender that approximates the ideals of biblical feminism. The metaphors they chose emphasize cooperation and teamwork in a relationship in which power and authority are unequally distributed: president and vice president, CEO and manager, captain and first mate, pilot and copilot, quarterback and wide receiver. In short, the husband is the head. His wife is a counselor, partner, teammate, and helpmeet; but authority ultimately rests with him. Nearly all researchers agree that the source of this doctrine is the evangeli­ cal penchant for biblical literalism. Nevertheless, while this study also suggests that most evangelicals believe in the truth of Scripture, it shows them nearly di­ vided on the matter of biblical literalism, with the large majority affirming both equality in marriage and husbands’ headship, regardless of their perspective on the Bible (see table 4.4). Moreover, the tendency of both gender essentialists and biblical feminists to read the same texts and arrive at extraordinarily different con­ clusions (see appendix C), and the struggle of most ordinary evangelicals to ar­ ticulate a consistent gender perspective (opting to swap back and forth between both sets of cultural tools rather than abandon one as ineffective) indicates an un­ derlying diversity of opinion about what the Bible means. Yet despite careful ar­ guments delineating a wide range of perspectives as well as internecine debates about biblical authority and interpretation (Ammerman 1982, Bartkowski 1996, George 1995), most researchers continue to argue that the primary explanation for evangelical gender ideals is biblical literalism among evangelicals.5 It is worth, therefore, taking a closer look at the role of the Bible and its interpretation in fram­ ing evangelical discourses on gender and family. Battling for the Bible Tracing their roots to the Protestant Reformation, evangelicals hold as a cen­ tral tenet the doctrine of sola scriptura (Scripture alone) as the source of faith and

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practice.6 The emphasis on inerrancy, however, is relatively recent. In the late nine­ teenth century, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Archibald Alexander Hodge and Benjamin B. Warfield used the concept to combat the teaching of German highercritical methods of biblical interpretation, at that time advocated by Charles Briggs at Union Seminary.7 Hodge, Warfield, and others were concerned that higher criti­ cism would undermine the authority of the Bible as the inspired word of God. Rather than focusing on minor differences across thousands of texts and document fragments, these “inerrantists” argued that the original documents (also known as autographs) were without error in both fact and history. Moreover, some argued that God had preserved the texts without error throughout centuries of hand copy­ ing so that current manuscripts remained correct in physical and historical detail as well as matters of faith and morals. While these debates about the nature of the Bible were largely confined to elite seminaries and theologians until the twentieth century, inerrancy eventually gained popularity as a tool for defending men’s ex­ clusive right to seminary training and as an alternative to both the literalism of dispensationalists and the liberalism of modernists. Although more widely accepted by fundamentalists, inerrancy remains one of the perspectives incorporated under the broad umbrella of biblical author­ ity within evangelicalism.8 In a major meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, evangelical leaders affirmed the centrality of this broad and perhaps intentionally ambiguous doctrine in a document known as the Lausanne Covenant. We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written Word of God, without error in all that it affirms and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God’s Word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. The message of the Bible is addressed to all man­ kind. For God’s revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable. Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illuminates the minds of God’s people in every culture to preserve its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole church evermore of the manycolored wisdom of God. (article 2)

The Lausanne Covenant articulates the official agreement among evangelical lead­ ers that the Bible is the inspired word of God—not as poetry is inspired, nor as the Qur’an is understood to be inspired (that is, dictated) in Islam, but as the to­ tally truthful (“without error in all that it affirms”) and trustworthy (“only infal­ lible rule of faith and practice”) revelation of the story of God’s relationship with creation. Despite this general consensus, however, evangelical leaders continue to have diverse opinions about matters of biblical authority and interpretation. Even among advocates of inerrancy, disagreements exist concerning the degree to which par­ ticular texts should be taken literally. For some, particularly dispensationalists, in­ errancy is synonymous with a literal interpretation of the Bible (for example, God created the world in six twenty-four-hour days; Jesus will return and rule on the earth for one thousand years; before His return, we will undergo seven years of

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tribulation either preceded, interrupted, or followed by the rapture of the church). Others have confidence in the authority of the original texts but do not hold a lit­ eral interpretation of its particulars. As we have seen, more than half of all evangelicals believe that the Bible should not be interpreted literally, even though it is true and the primary source of knowing how to live. I’m still in process, but . . . I would believe that [being] evangelical is based on the Bible, believing that it is inspired by God, that God’s word is au­ thority, it is absolute truth. The key for me is that [being evangelical] is Bible-based. God is final authority, absolute truth. . . . I do not understand the exact meaning of everything in Scripture. I think there are some things in there I probably won’t ever understand. 26-year-old man in an independent mega-church, Colorado

Combining feelings and belief, head knowledge and the heart, evangelicals look to the Bible as their source of authority. Yet clearly, a commonsense approach to hermeneutics guides which aspects of the Bible evangelicals take literally and which they do not. How adequate, then, is a generalized notion of biblical literal­ ism for explaining the centrality of husbands’ headship among most ordinary evangelicals? And if not biblical literalism, what does explain their broad support for this ideal? To answer this question, I explore data from “The Religious Iden­ tity and Influence Survey” (1996) to see what factors help to predict belief in hus­ bands’ headship (see tables B.4 and B.5 in appendix B). Those data confirm that the idea of husbands’ headship enjoys much broader support among evangelicals than among any other group of religiously committed Protestants, including fun­ damentalists. (All things being equal, evangelicals are two times as likely as fun­ damentalists to support the idea of headship.) Variations in sociodemographic characteristics suggest that living in the south as well as race, education, and marital status are also important predictors for support of husbands’ headship. Compared to other race or ethnic identifications, European Americans are somewhat less likely to affirm headship, while married respondents and those with higher education are significantly more likely to affirm it. Geography also matters: living in Cali­ fornia (a location favored by previous researchers) has no significant effects on support for the idea of headship, but Protestants living in the southern United States are more supportive of husbands’ headship than are Protestants in other parts of the country. When we look more closely at where people are located on the theological map of religiously committed Protestants, we find that denominational location and attitudes toward the Bible are also enormously important in predicting sup­ port for the notion of husbands’ headship. By including “Southern Baptist” as a measure of identification in the statistical models, we eliminate the positive asso­ ciation between living in the south and affirming headship. In other words, being Southern Baptist, not some general southern cultural conservatism, increases the likelihood of affirming that the husband should be the head of the household. The same is true for identifications of either Pentecostal or charismatic, although the effects are not as robust as for Southern Baptists.

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In addition, attitudes toward the Bible are important predictors of whether or not religiously committed Protestants affirm the idea of husbands’ headship. Protestants who believe that the Bible is true and should be read literally are much more likely to believe that husbands should be the head of the household than are those who hold less literal views of the Bible. I do believe that the husband should be the head of the household because I know it’s biblical. I know it’s biblical that women are to submit to men, and that men are the head of the family. I think it would be very, very hard for me to do that because I’ve lived on my own for twelve years. . . . But I know it’s biblical and that it would be important to submit to the husband in order to keep the family together. 30-year-old, never-married Pentecostal woman, Texas

Similarly, those who believe that the Bible is the most important source of know­ ing how God wants them to live are much more likely to support headship than are those who look to other sources of knowing God’s will (such as knowing in their “heart” or through their “personal walk,” church teaching, or human reason). Yet when we look more specifically only at evangelicals, we find that atti­ tudes toward the Bible have no significant effect on ideals regarding husbands’ headship (see table B.5 in appendix B). Evangelicals who believe the Bible should be read literally are not any more or less likely to affirm husbands’ headship than are other evangelicals who believe that the Bible is true but not to be read literally or that it is true only on matters of faith but may contain errors in other matters. Nor does considering the Bible to be the most important guide for knowing how to live significantly affect support for husbands’ headship. Evangelicals who look to the Bible first as their source for knowing how to live are no more likely to support the notion of headship than are evangelicals who place more weight on their own “spiritual walk” or “heart knowledge.” Overall, neither biblical literalism nor a sense of biblical authority in life are adequate explanations for evangelical support of husbands’ headship. Despite the stereotyped image of evangelicals as Bible-thumping gender conservatives, it is clear that, while most evangelicals be­ lieve in headship, biblical literalism does not get them there. What, then, does give shape to evangelical attitudes toward headship? Look­ ing again at the national survey data, we find that what seems to matter most is not attitudes toward the Bible, socioeconomic characteristics, or even geographi­ cal location but a cluster of factors associated with location within evangelical sub­ culture. In particular, evangelicals who identify as Pentecostal or charismatic (such as the woman just quoted) are significantly more likely to agree that the husband should be the head of the household.9 In addition, being more thoroughly embed­ ded in evangelical subculture is positively associated with affirming the ideal of husbands’ headship. Those who participate more frequently in church-related ac­ tivities, spend more time listening to Christian radio or watching Christian televi­ sion, or have a large proportion of evangelicals among significant family members and friends are more likely to support the idea of husbands’ headship.10 Across all types of religiously committed Protestants, those who believe that

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marriage is an equal partnership are (as we might expect) less likely to believe that the husband should be the head of the household. Yet as we have seen, most evangelicals affirm both of these ideals. How they do so and the implications for evangelical identity and family life are the subject of the following chapters.

Conclusion Compared to other religiously committed Protestants, the faith of American evangelicals is centered on the authority of Scripture and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Although only about half of all evangelicals can be character­ ized as biblical literalists, nearly all accept the Bible as the word of God and as fundamentally true. Given the importance of the Bible as a source of truth, it is somewhat surprising that only about half of all evangelicals say that the Bible is the most important source for knowing how God wants them to live. The remain­ der, reflecting something more of their roots in American Pietism, look to subjec­ tive and experiential elements of their own “personal walk” as the basis for knowing how to live. This personal, experiential, and more or less biblically oriented faith pro­ vides a range of subcultural tools that evangelicals use to tell the story of their gender and family ideals. Only small minorities can be characterized as consis­ tently holding to either the ideals of gender hierarchy and difference or the ideals of biblical feminism. Most mix and match the language of hierarchy and egali­ tarianism in describing contemporary marriage. They say that a good marriage is based on good communication, sensitivity to the emotional and physical needs of the other person, and some degree of flexibility in the habits of daily living. It is a partnership of equals in which the husband is the head. Clearly, there are diverse opinions about what exactly husbands’ headship means (something we explore more fully in subsequent chapters). But whatever else it means, for most people, headship involves being the spiritual leader in the household. Both abstract and practical, such leadership encompasses an overarching sense of accountability for what happens in the family as well as the everyday tasks of setting a good ex­ ample by getting everyone up for church or off to Bible study. In contrast to what is asserted by most research on conservative Protestants, biblical literalism does not appear to be the primary source of evangelical adher­ ence to the idea of husbands’ headship. Instead, several factors emerge as having greater significance. Two of these—being married or identifying as Pentecostal or charismatic—are characteristic of the populations from which most generali­ zations on evangelical subculture have been drawn. This is particularly important since Pentecostal and charismatic Christians represent only about one-third of evangelicals overall and are more likely than other evangelicals to affirm the idea that the Bible should be taken literally. Also important is the degree to which evangelicals are embedded in their subculture. In contrast, doctrinal issues regarding the authority of the Bible are relatively less important in terms of shaping ideas about husbands’ headship. As we’ve seen, even among those who hold to a high view of the inspiration of Scripture (perhaps most emphatically among those who

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hold a high view of Scripture), the Bible can be and is interpreted in a variety of ways. The Bible is important, but experience is important too. In fact, the per­ sonal interviews suggest that evangelicals are as likely, if not more likely, to refer to personal experience and a subjective sense that men and women are simply dif­ ferent as they are to paraphrase the Bible in explaining their ideals about marriage and family life. Evangelicals have many ordinary ideals about marriage. Evangelicals share many of the same values for marriage and family as do other religiously commit­ ted Protestants as well as Americans of other or no religion at all. This should not be surprising: American evangelicals are an American subculture, not an alien one. Yet to argue on that basis that evangelicals have accommodated feminism tells only part of the story. One could as easily, and as wrongly, argue that twentieth-century secular feminism is simply an accommodation to the values and ideas put forward by evangelical feminists a century before. Rather than posing the issue as a cul­ tural debt that one group owes the other, it is more useful and more historically accurate to recognize that Americans share many of the same cultural tools and that a substantial number of these tools have their roots in the nation’s Protestant past.11 What sets the majority of evangelicals apart is the relatively countercultural idea that men are leaders and women subordinate partners within marriage. It is not just that husbands should be the head of the household. After all, 60 to 80 percent of other religiously committed Protestants believe the same. What is dis­ tinctive is the idea that headship—centered on men’s responsibility for spiritual leadership—reflects a nonnegotiable, God-given spiritual hierarchy established in creation. Although they share the same cultural tools as biblical feminists, evangelicals who affirm husbands’ headship argue that hierarchy and difference are the foundation of the created order. Yet even among those who affirm headship, the idea of men’s leadership and accountability is held in tension with ideals about partnership and equality. Rather than seeing these beliefs as incompatible and con­ tradictory, many evangelicals see them as a delicate balance that, if employed cor­ rectly, allows families to function in a way that is both orderly and fair. The tension itself enhances the vitality of evangelical faith by supporting the claim that evangelicals are “different” while simultaneously affirming their connection with a culture in which egalitarianism is the normative ideal. Headship, maintained in the face of broad cultural acceptance of ideologi­ cal egalitarianism, represents a strategic boundary that is essential to maintaining subcultural religious integrity. In the following chapters, we will see that headship plays a strategically important yet largely symbolic role in the lives of ordinary evangelicals. While husbands retain the status of head of the household, the roles of evangelical men and women in decision making, parenting, and employment demonstrate that, for the most part, evangelical family life reflects the pragmatic egalitarianism of biblical feminists while retaining the symbolic hierarchy of gender-essentialist evangelicals.

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CHAPTER 5

Spiritual Leadership and

Decision Making

�

You can’t be equal and have a decision that is made. Somebody has to make it. . . . The notion of headship says that the man ultimately has to make that. But you know what, he ultimately also has to answer to God for it. So that’s not necessarily a fun position to have. 35-year-old Baptist man, Pennsylvania Sometimes one person takes the lead on some things and another on other things. It depends on their strengths. 51-year-old Southern Baptist woman, Georgia

M

ore than any other Protestants, evangelical Christians affirm the idea that the husband should be the head of the household. But how do those ideals function in specific areas of family life? In this and the next several chapters, I shift the focus from gender ideals to how those ideals function in specific areas of family life. Beginning with the question of who takes responsibility for family spiritual life and issues surrounding decision mak­ ing, the picture of contemporary evangelicals that emerges is one in which hus­ bands’ headship is largely symbolic, while decision making is pragmatically distributed according to interest and expertise. For all but a handful of committed egalitarians, evangelical family life is a synthesis of symbolic traditionalism with pragmatic egalitarianism.

Spiritual Leadership and Religious Identity When evangelicals describe what it means for the husband to be the head of the household, they draw on both the language of partnership and the language of sacrificial leadership. Within the paradigm of gender difference and hierarchy, wives are partners within marriage; but it is a husbands’ responsibility to initiate and lead. Regardless of whether that leadership is described as headship or ser­ vant leadership, ultimate responsibility for their families rests with men. Headship is both an expression of the essence of masculinity and the specific call or com­ mandment of God, who holds husbands responsible for what happens inside the 85

86 TABLE 5.1.

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Who Takes Primary Responsibility for the Family’s Spiritual Life, by Gender and Religious Self-Identification (%)a Protestants

Men say: I have more responsibility. My wife has more responsibility. We have equal responsibility. Women say: My husband has more responsibility. I have more responsibility. We have equal responsibility.

Evangelical

Fundamentalist

63.1 14.4 22.5

60.7 18.8 20.5

34.3*** 26.4 39.3

28.8*** 28.8 42.5

34.4 45.2 20.4

37.8 41.7 20.4

18.9*** 53.9 27.2

17.7** 53.7 28.7

Mainline

Liberal

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a Symbols indicate the significance of the differences between self-identified evangelicals and other religious self-identifications (fundamentalist, mainline, and theologically liberal Protestants), ** ≤.01 and *** ≤.001. For men, n=143 evangelicals, 160 fundamentalist, 176 mainline, and 132 liberal. For women, n=286 evangelical, 227 fundamentalist, 369 mainline, and 278 liberal.

household. Whatever else it might mean—and, as we will see, evangelicals differ widely in the meaning and implications they assign to husbands’ headship—at the center is the notion that men are responsible for initiating action as well as the consequences of that action. The most frequently mentioned expression of husbands’ headship is the sense of spiritual leadership and accountability (see chapter 4). Evangelicals are more likely than other religiously committed Protestants to consider spiritual leadership to be a central function of husbands’ headship. Compared with mainline and theo­ logically liberal Protestants, evangelicals are twice as likely to claim that husbands actually take responsibility in this area of family (see table 5.1). Approximately two-thirds of evangelical husbands and one-third of evangelical wives say that the husband takes primary responsibility for the family’s spiritual life. Only about a third of mainline and liberal Protestant men and less than a fifth of mainline and liberal Protestant women say the same.1

Spiritual Leadership in Everyday Life Being the spiritual leader translates into everyday life in a variety of ways. Not unlike other kinds of household labor, much of the actual work of being a family’s spiritual leader is quite mundane and largely goes unnoticed (until, that is, a visiting sociologist asks to have it pointed out). At the same time, like women’s mothering and homemaking, spiritual leadership is often idealized as an exalted labor of provision and sacrifice.

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The Pragmatics of Spiritual Leadership The work of spiritual leadership involves a range of specific practical tasks. In the personal interviews, evangelicals talked about being responsible for getting the family ready for church on time, leading prayers at mealtimes, and setting good examples for their children in personal devotions and Bible reading. The husband should be the spiritual leader. He should lead the prayer time, Bible reading around the table; he should show that church is important, church activities, working, doing things for the church, stuff like that. Like my husband. He’s the one who gets the Bible out at supper time. He’s the one who does the prayer. We have a daughter, and we’re teaching her a little prayer, too. 41-year-old Wesleyan mother of two, Michigan

Women talked about husbands praying for and with children and wives and thus modeling what family members should also do. Prayer is not just a blessing over food but a way to bring each other’s needs before God, who is a loving fa­ ther. Reading the Bible is not just for Sunday morning but a part of the rhythm of everyday life. Wives talked about how husbands demonstrated the significance of prayer by praying, the importance of the Bible by reading the Bible, and the centrality of fellowship by going to church and participating in church ministries. Husbands talked about spiritual leadership in similar terms, frequently adopting a “take charge of your unit” mentality by describing spiritual leadership as “making sure the job gets done.” We have to be the head of our household, and I think that specifically means “Hey, you get up on Sunday morning and get your family up to go to church. Hey, you get up and you, you pray or you ask somebody to pray, but make sure prayer is given over meals. Make sure you have a daily devotion. Even if you don’t do it yourself, make sure it happens.” Not, “You do it, and I’m going to go in here and watch TV.” No, even if you’re not in charge of the devotion that day, make sure it’s done. Be that type of leader, and I think that’s what God wants. 29-year-old charismatic father of one, Ohio

The responsibility for the work of spiritual leadership rests with men. Wives are clearly involved, but taking the initiative to make sure the job gets done be­ longs to husbands. Finding shoes for Sunday school is not all that different from finding shoes for school on Monday. But the former assumes the weight of a spiri­ tual responsibility because it is explicitly tied to the desire to develop and main­ tain an evangelical world view and because it connects to men’s responsibility for providing spiritual leadership. Although much of the work of spiritual leadership is ordinary or hidden, it is considered a serious job. A number of husbands were careful to define the re­ sponsibility for spiritual leadership in terms of real work. Just because it looks simple doesn’t mean that it is easy.

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I think it is the man’s responsibility to make sure that the husband and wife lead by example—they go to church, they have devotions—that the kids see that the parents live their life the way they are being taught. Chris­ tianity takes work. It takes discipline to have a quiet time. Sometimes it takes a real effort to get ready for church on a really beautiful Sunday night or go to church in the morning. It takes time to study the Bible. It is good, but it still takes effort. If you have nobody willing to take the ini­ tiative and take that responsibility, it is real easy to drift. 45-year-old Christian Reformed father of two, Michigan

Central to the labor of spiritual leadership is the responsibility for making sure specific tasks—prayer, getting the family ready for church, reading the Bible— happen within the household. Several men who were thoroughly egalitarian in their attitudes toward wives’ employment and the division of labor at home neverthe­ less maintained that they were responsible for spiritually leading the family. Like other men who described gender relations using sports metaphors, otherwise egali­ tarian husbands described spiritual leadership as the one area of marriage in which the husband is the captain responsible for pulling the team together. The only special responsibility I think that the man has in the family is [that] in the Bible it clearly states that he’s the spiritual head of the fam­ ily. He is responsible for that. . . . I’m responsible to pull the team together: hey, we’re going to pray. Not saying that my wife can’t do that, but I’m not going to sit back like a couch potato and let her do everything. My children need to see that, hey, you know, Dad, Dad’s the spiritual leader. My wife could be it, there’s many women that are stronger Christians than men, but I do know that it says that I’m responsible to God for this one. And he knows what my limitations are, so I’m going to do the best I can. She still may look like the winner, that’s fine! It’s just that I got to serve the Lord first, then my wife, then my kids, then my job, then my church. That’s the order. 40-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Ohio

Envisioning themselves as the quarterbacks of the home team, many evangelical husbands see themselves as responsible for executing the game plan. They may keep the ball for a run up the middle or hand it off to their wives, but either way they are accountable to the coach for what happens on the field. If the handoff is fumbled, the husband is at fault. Nevertheless, while husbands may be ultimately responsible, that responsi­ bility very often entails delegating some of the work of spiritual leadership to wives. Drawing on the metaphors of another American institution, evangelicals describe delegation as the responsibility of the company CEO: husbands remain ultimately accountable, but someone else can carry out the plan. When wives are seen as “stronger Christians,” they are particularly likely to find themselves doing much of the work of spiritual leadership. Wives, as we will see, are cognizant of that fact.

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Spiritual Leadership As Service and Warfare While many of the tasks involved in spiritually leading a family are quite ordinary, evangelicals often describe the work as a labor of glory, sacrifice, and struggle. Evangelicals see men’s spiritual leadership as both serving and fighting for the family. The following member of a large nondenominational church in Michigan explained how her husband was an effective leader not only by getting the kids to church and in leading family devotions but at a more fundamental level by loving her and modeling submission to Christ. Being the spiritual head means that the man is the leader. It is a responsi­ bility to make sure your family is going to church, that the husband is following Christ’s commands in his life and treating his wife with love and respect as God commands. And he must be submissive to Christ; He’s the model. As Christ loves the Church, the husband is to love the family in the same way. . . . I think that if the husband and father takes the initia­ tive and prays before meals, gives grace and blessings to God, has a Bible study in the home, sings hymns, makes sure the family goes to church, and if there are children that they are involved in Sunday school and reli­ gious upbringing . . . I think also that the husband and wife should be able to pray together, have a quiet time together, that the husband should be seeking God’s answers that arise in the relationship or in the family. . . . We pray together every night before we go to bed out loud, and that has opened up a wonderful line of communication. It’s a time to ask for forgiveness, of total openness and humility, and it allows the power of God to come in. We submit ourselves to God together, and that is unifying. It’s part of God’s plan. 45-year-old nondenominational mother of two, Michigan

While husbands were not as likely to talk explicitly about leading their fami­ lies by submitting to Christ, wives saw it as a salient part of their spiritual leader­ ship, as a way their husbands demonstrate that they, too, are under the authority of one who “came to serve.” Spiritual leadership, then, is based not only on the responsibility to take the initiative in religious practice but a call to sacrificially love and serve one’s family. You know the Scripture says that we’re supposed to be the head of the family, you know, just as Christ was the head of the church and, you know, I see the way He is the head of the church as being a servant. That’s what I need to be with her. 29-year-old married Southern Baptist man, North Carolina

Wives also appealed to the idea of husbands leading the family by serving it. Headship is like Christ. Our model for that is Christ. He’s a servant. The servant leader, the loving, loving, sacrificial love, that’s how I see head­ ship. . . . I really feel that God has basically the right idea about marriage.

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I think that it’s the husband as protector and spiritual leader and wife as encourager, supporter. 50-year-old charismatic divorced mother of two, Pennsylvania

At the heart of spiritual leadership lies this ideal of service. For the major­ ity of evangelicals who believe the husband is responsible to spiritually lead his family, having an attitude of servanthood and love was as important, if not more important, than the actual tasks involved in setting an example in Bible study, church involvement, and prayer. In addition to paraphrasing the apostle Paul’s com­ mand that husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, husbands were described as “servant leaders” or “ministers” within the family. Some, particularly those with charismatic or Pentecostal leanings, said that husbands were “priest” within the household, implying a mediating as well as servant role. I believe that the man should be priest of the home and that the woman should be subject to the husband. . . . In my home, I am the head of my house and the priest of my home. When I say the priest of my home, my whole family looks to me as their spiritual leader in the home. And I sub­ mit myself to my pastor, and we all submit ourselves to the Lord. But my wife will tell you she has no problem submitting to me, as far as being the authority figure in the home. She doesn’t try to get up on the fence and crow, be the rooster. She’s got her place in the home and I’ve got my mine, and that’s no disrespect to her. I don’t rule over my wife with force. I treat my wife kind, and we have a loving relationship. So I believe . . . you line up with the word of God, which says that a man is to be the priest of his home and that a wife is to be subject to her own husband. 36-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Georgia

Priesthood for this man was a way to get at the idea of authority—of being looked up to as an example. Taking the lead in family devotions was a priestly function. So was the authority in prayer to “take authority over situations or things, and cover people or places with the blood of Christ—to purify and bless.” Wives also occasionally described their husbands as the priest in the house­ hold, as did the following nondenominational evangelical woman, whose husband happened to walk through the room while she was describing his role as priest within the family. God made the man the head of the house, the head of the woman, that’s the way it’s going to be. Right there [points to her husband] . . . the high priest. God’s going to hold him accountable; he’s the head of the house. Now that don’t mean he got to do everything. If I’m better with keeping the checkbook, he might say okay—not that I am! [laughs]. He might say you handle the checkbook; you deal with the numbers. 37-year-old mother of three, Georgia

In drawing on the language of father-as-priest, evangelicals appeal to a cen­ tral theme of headship: that men stand before God as intercessor and protector of the household. The priesthood to which they allude is the Old Testament Levitical

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priesthood, which focused on intercession and sacrifice, rather than a Catholic priesthood through which absolution, truth, and the sacraments are administered. Evangelical men do not mediate forgiveness or truth to their families, but some do describe themselves as “standing in the gap” on their behalf, offering sacrifice (prayer) and (for those with charismatic inclinations) engaging in “spiritual war­ fare” for their families. One example of how that works would be the leadership in our church starting to drift. We disagreed with that; and my wife doesn’t see a prob­ lem with that, but I do. This is where spiritual headship comes in. You feel there is a danger here and that it is time for a change. One example would be where the man says, “I disagree with the leadership. I have talked to them, and they are not going to change. Therefore, we are going to stop going to this church, and we are going to go somewhere else.” 45-year-old Christian Reformed father of two, Michigan

The degree to which men described themselves as responsible for the spiri­ tual well-being of their wives or children varied. Some husbands leaned toward saying that they were ultimately responsible for the whole family, at least in terms of outward practices. Others connected spiritual leadership with the responsibility to serve wives and children as well as community and church. I have an obligation to my family to make sure that they’re led in the same direction. There’s no way that I want my son burning in hell, or my daugh­ ter, or my wife. So I have a responsibility for that. And not only that, but then you have a responsibility to your community, you know; you’re here to support your mayors and your trustees and your commissioners, and you’re here to support your president and everything else; but I don’t have to agree with everything that they do. 40-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Ohio

Husbands who are priests within the household, like husbands who are “team lead­ ers” or “CEOs,” said they exercised that priesthood by being responsible for the religious education of their children and by praying for the well-being and spiri­ tual protection of their family and community. Each of these positions—team leader, CEO, and priest—echoes the rhetoric of a number of contemporary evangelical authors. Although the image of father as quarterback would have been incomprehensible to an earlier generation of evangelicals, the image of father as minister or priest within the household has been present since the sixteenth century. Men’s responsibility to provide spiritual leadership has a long history within evangelicalism. It embraces not only an ab­ stract accountability for the family but the concrete expectation that men faith­ fully model religious practices within the family. Wives, as adult human beings, may be ultimately responsible for their own spiritual walk; but responsibility for the family’s collective religious life (for example, getting resistant adolescents out the door on Sunday morning) rests finally with men.

92

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Wives’ Spiritual Leadership: Defaulting to the Second String Although evangelicals are nearly unanimous in describing spiritual leader­ ship as a key component of the ideal of husbands’ headship, it is not unusual for women to say that they, not their husbands, usually take the lead in spiritual mat­ ters. Across religious traditions, a substantial gender gap exists between husbands’ and wives’ perceptions of who is the primary spiritual leader at home (see table 5.1). Husbands are twice as likely as wives to identify themselves as the family’s spiritual leader—not only as an ideal, as we’ve seen, but also in terms of their sense of who actually takes primary responsibility for this area of family life. I think that a lot of times men are very self-sufficient and are used to op­ erating on their own gas engine, so to speak. So they don’t seek God’s will first. Many times in Christian homes you have the wives doing much more of the reading, much more willingness to turn that over to God; and that creates tension in some Christian homes. . . . I can say at various times I feel spiritually a bit ahead of my husband in terms of my desire to read the Bible and to study it, but I have just gone about my way quietly. Now we are about at the same point. He has moved forward and grown at his own pace, and it’s worked out really well. 45-year-old mother of two, Michigan

Many evangelical women agree that husbands should be responsible for spiri­ tual leadership, but by default, responsibility is likely to fall to wives. Forty-five percent of evangelical women say that they are primarily responsible for their family’s spiritual life—two to three times the percentage of men who think their wives usually take the lead in spiritual matters at home (see table 5.1). Several personal characteristics are associated with how evangelicals assess who actually provides spiritual leadership at home (see table B.6 in appendix B). Controlling for key sociodemographic factors, we find that connection to the lo­ cal church and location affiliation with particular subgroups of evangelicals are the most significant predictors of who actually provides most spiritual leadership at home. In other words, where people fall on the theological map affects the di­ vision of spiritual leadership more than education, ethnicity, employment, or par­ ticular geographic residence does. For both women and men, being more involved in the local church increases the sense that men are more involved in providing spiritual leadership at home. Evangelicals who participate in some kind of churchrelated activity more than once a week are more than twice as likely to say that the husband actually takes the lead in spiritual matters compared to those who are less involved. For women, attending as often as their spouse is even more impor­ tant. Wives who go to church activities as often as their husbands are almost five times more likely to see their husbands as the spiritual leader at home compared to wives who attend either more or less often than their spouse. For women, it is not just going often that matters; it is going often with their husband that shapes whether or not they see him as the family’s spiritual leader. In addition to involvement in the local church, two theological distinctives stand out in shaping a sense of who provides most spiritual leadership at home.

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First, taking the Bible seriously as an authoritative guide for life appears to trans­ late into action. Men who believe the Bible is the most important source of know­ ing how to live are two or three times more likely to say that they usually take the lead spiritually compared to men who look to other sources of authority in life. (For women, beliefs about the Bible have no effect on whether or not they see their husbands as being the family’s spiritual leader.) Identifying as charismatic or Pentecostal also matters for men’s sense of who is providing spiritual leader­ ship at home. Yet the effect is not what we might expect. In contrast to their rheto­ ric of priesthood and spiritual warfare, charismatic evangelical men are actually less likely to say they usually take the lead on spiritual matters than are their noncharismatic counterparts. One reason for this lack of fit between charismatic rhetoric of spiritual war­ fare and who is more responsible for spiritual matters at home is that they tap into different dimensions of spiritual leadership. The concept of spiritual warfare and being responsible for “spiritual matters at home” reflect different ways of think­ ing about spiritual labor—one hidden, the other visible. It may be that husbands recognize that their wives are doing more of the practical work of reading the Bible to children at night or driving adolescents to youth group meetings. But husbands, by virtue of being husbands, still feel themselves responsible. Spiritual leadership for them is not primarily a matter of practical tasks but a matter of being. Regard­ less of how much they do, in the end they have no choice about what they are. Regardless of where they lie on the theological map, when evangelical hus­ bands do not take on the job of spiritual leader, wives may quietly go their own way—hoping, like the woman just quoted, that their husbands eventually “catch up.” Others step in to fill the position themselves. Having some kind of spiritual leadership, even from the “second string,” is clearly preferable to none. Yet women described that position as “much more difficult because you’re still in a subordi­ nate role. . . . He’s still head of the house. He’s still responsible.” The man is supposed to be the spiritual head, unless you get a lemon like me! My poor old husband. As set down by the guidelines, if they’re both Christian, then the man should be the spiritual head. But that doesn’t al­ ways work that way. Because sometimes maybe the male is not the stron­ ger one as far as following the Lord and things like that. But, yeah, it helps to have one of each in the family, you know. That’s how its supposed to be. 50-year-old widow in an independent evangelical church, Pennsylvania

Overall, while most evangelicals strongly support the idea that spiritual responsi­ bility rests with men, wives do not necessarily see men as acting on that responsi­ bility. When they do not, wives take on this form of family labor as well—getting kids to church, holding family devotions, or setting an example in prayer.

Authority and Decision Making Second only to spiritual leadership in its centrality to the ideal of husbands’ headship is the notion that husbands bear ultimate responsibility for decision making

94 TABLE 5.2.

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Who Usuallly Gives in on Contested Decisions, by Gender and Religious Self-Identification (%)a Protestants Evangelical

Men say: I am more likely. My wife is more likely. We are equally likely. Women say: My husband is more likely. I am more likely. We are equally likely.

Fundamentalist

Mainline

21.6 42.2 36.3

38.7** 32.4 28.8

30.0** 23.8 46.2

21.7 40.6 37.7

20.8 45.5 33.7

21.6 54.4 24.0

17.90 50.5 31.7

23.7 39.7 36.6

Liberal

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a Symbols indicate the significance of the differences between self-identified evangelicals and other religious self-identifications (fundamentalist, mainline, and theologically liberal Protestants), **≤.01. For men, n=143 evangelicals, 160 fundamentalist, 176 mainline, and 132 liberal. For women, n=286 evangelical, 227 fundamentalist, 369 mainline, and 278 liberal.

in the household. Compared to other religiously committed Protestants, evangeli­ cal men are more likely to say that their wives give in when they have difficulty making a decision.2 Slightly more than 40 percent of evangelical husbands say that their wives usually give in, compared to 32 percent of all fundamentalist and 24 percent of all mainline Protestants (see table 5.2). Although there is gender gap in perceptions of who provides most spiritual leadership, evangelical husbands and wives are similar in their assessments of who takes the lead in making decisions. About 20 percent of evangelical men and women think that the husband usually gives in when the couple have trouble coming to an agreement; twice as many say that the wife usually gives in (table 5.2). For men, the idea of husbands’ headship and decision making are tightly linked: evan­ gelical men who think they should be the head of the household are significantly more likely to say that their wives give in than they are to say that they give in as much or more often (see table B.6 in appendix B). Evangelicals who identify as Southern Baptist are also significantly more likely than men in other denomina­ tions to say that their wives give in more often. Wives’ perceptions of who usually gives in are an entirely different matter. Among wives, neither denomination nor affirming the ideal of husbands’ headship make much difference in how they see contested decisions usually being resolved. Regardless of where they fall on the theological map, 40 to 55 percent of reli­ giously committed Protestant wives believe they give in most of the time on hard decisions (see table 5.2). In other words, giving in on decisions is characteristic of women in general rather than a particular distinction of evangelical wives.

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Rules and Tools for Making Decisions Contemporary evangelicals employ a number of strategies in working out the ideals of husbands’ headship and partnership in marriage. For those who lean toward an ideal of egalitarianism, the issue of who makes decisions is connected to the particular skills or gifts each brings to the partnership. For the majority (for whom husbands’ headship is the ideal), decision making involves a wide range of strategies incorporating metaphors from corporate America and representative de­ mocracy. Yet regardless of whether they begin with an ideological commitment to headship or egalitarianism, nearly all evangelicals end up in the same place in prac­ tice: a pragmatic egalitarianism in which decisions are made according to who has the most knowledge or expertise in a particular area. Egalitarian Partnerships. The small number of evangelical couples who have abandoned (or disowned) the language of headship in favor of a more thorough­ going egalitarianism often draw on the language of gifts (paraphrasing the apostle Paul’s description of the church as a body of uniquely gifted, interdependent parts) to describe how they divide the labor and depend on each other’s specific skills. Joking about this process, one woman whose husband sat in during her interview described how they alternate taking the lead in decision making.3 Wife: I think there needs to be an equal input from partners when you are raising a family or running a household. I think to be married takes in­ corporation of two individual people, and I think to run and maintain a home, a Christian home with children, requires cooperation. Granted, you can’t have two people pulling in different directions. We basically make decisions based on who is strong in that area. Husband: Yeah. I make the big decisions like whether Red China should come into the United Nations. She makes the little decisions. [Both laugh.] Wife: No, basically we’ve got a real good communication, and we just, you know, whoever happens to have the most educated guess [laughs], who­ ever has the most input into the area that we’re in generally will make the decision, but we always discuss everything. 51-year-old Southern Baptist mother of four, Georgia

As with other couples who espouse egalitarian ideals for marriage and struggle to put them into practice, sharing responsibility for decision making is not always easy for evangelicals.4 Men and women talked about the necessity of giving in to the person whose feelings were stronger or whose life was more di­ rectly affected. They spoke of meeting half way and of how multiple decisions were made based on who had the interest or aptitude in a particular area. In a messy and open-ended process (one more conservative counterparts are apt to call “chaos” or even “mayhem”), the foundation of decision making for explicitly egalitarian evangelicals is a commitment to teamwork and a confidence in both the intent and abilities of the other person. We work as a team. We have always worked as a team. My husband has trusted me to be the expert when it came to education and when it came

96

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to disciplining the children because, you know, of my educational back­ ground and because I work with kids all the time. We . . . discuss some­ thing and disagree; he just comes right out and says to me, “Well, you are more experienced in this area, and I will trust you in this.” 46-year-old Pentecostal mother of three, Oregon

As in this woman’s household, most egalitarian partners base decision making on the distribution of specific expertise. When no rule is believed to exist that establishes the husband as having the final say, decision making is an ambiguous process that requires a great deal of negotiation and willingness to trust in the ability (or defer to the interests) of the other person. To be sure, evangelicals committed to husbands’ headship also place high value on trust and partnership in marriage—and in practice exhibit a great deal of both. What is distinctive about egalitarian evangelicals is their explicit re­ jection of any notion that husbands, by virtue of their maleness, carry the final authority and burden of decisions made within the family. Instead, specific deci­ sions are made based on the specific skill and experience each person brings to the relationship. I was just listening to a show that was discussing this issue on a Christian radio station, and I liked what they said. It kind of put my feeling in per­ spective. The Bible doesn’t say that man is supposed to be the decision maker specifically but that he is supposed to be Christ-like. To be Christ­ like is allowing other people to make decisions. . . . I don’t believe that the man makes all the decisions, but I had never been able to make that fit with what other Christians were saying. I felt out of sync because I have a few opinions that don’t quite fit the mold. . . . We kind of make decisions together. We each have our areas. Any medical decisions are mine because I’m the expert in that area, you know. We each have areas where we’re more an expert. But then there are other areas where it’s strictly on how we’re feeling at the time. Right now I tend to let him handle the fi­ nancial side just because I don’t really want to deal with it. It’s not be­ cause he’s said, “I’m gonna do it.” In fact, at one time I did handle it. 48-year-old Presbyterian mother of three, Washington

Egalitarian evangelicals are likely to experience a double dose of cognitive dissonance as their concern for upholding the authority of the Bible places them at odds with what they see as the relativism of the culture. At the same time, their egalitarian, nonhierarchical ideals about marriage place them at odds with the ma­ jority of their own religious subculture. We talk about our marriage being a fifty-fifty situation, so that has worked pretty well in thirty-two years of marriage. I’d respect him as head if a situation would come up that would need him to be the head for whatever [reason] because he would know what my beliefs are. The same thing goes for me if I were somewhere representing us as a family. You don’t always have time to say, “Wait a minute; let’s run to the next room and compare . . .

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ideas.” You’ve got to know that each one supports the other in what’s go­ ing on. . . . There are still some from the old school, as you might want to call it, in our church; but the time and world that we live in now, things have changed. . . . It all depends on the situation and just because the Bible . . . I mean there’s so much that the Bible says. . . . We can’t take every word and every verse literally for every single situation that comes along; we’ve got to have some subjective looking at the situation. Then we can take it from there. 54-year-old Baptist mother of two, North Carolina

Like this woman, egalitarian evangelicals recognize that “things have changed.” These changes open up the possibility for reading the Bible in ways that allow passages that have generally been interpreted as teaching hierarchy within marriage to be understood as culturally specific instructions or as teaching some­ thing quite different from hierarchy when the context is better understood. Rather than taking each passage literally, these evangelicals weigh the uniqueness of each situation in light of the broader biblical injunction to “give preference to one an­ other out of love.” On that basis, decisions within marriage can be made: some­ times he acts as head; sometimes she does. Hierarchy, Headship, and Having the Final Say. Although a small num­ ber of evangelicals reject the notion of husbands’ headship for a model of mar­ riage based on egalitarian partnership, most evangelicals talk about a husband’s responsibility for family leadership as the foundation of evangelical family iden­ tity. The cornerstone in that foundation is his responsibility for decision making. In practice, husbands were described as being responsible for initiating and mod­ erating family discussions, making final decisions, being primary decision mak­ ers, or casting the tie-breaking vote on difficult decisions. I do believe the husband needs to be the leader. Leader contains a whole bunch of things in it. I think the male needs to be a real strong discipli­ narian. He needs to be the financial provider. I think the male needs to be organized as far as the area of making decisions. Now that does not mean that the male makes the decision, period. But I believe the male needs to be the leader in going to his wife and then coming to a joint decision, then the male carrying it out. . . . I know I am the leader of our family. That means that my wife’s thoughts have just as much weight as mine do. We come to agreement; sometimes we agree to disagree on things. But as far as if there was a decision to be made and she could not make a decision about it, I would take the lead and make that decision. 26-year-old nondenominational married man, Colorado

As this man’s comments suggest, leadership involves many things. In the area of decision making, leadership is not at all as straightforward as making the deci­ sions yourself. Leadership means responsibility for initiating discussion when a decision needs to be made (“going to his wife”), coming to a joint decision (even

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if that involves agreeing to disagree), and occasionally making the decision, pre­ sumably when wives are ambiguous or unsure what to do. The idea that husbands take into consideration their wives’ thoughts on the matter or even that they agree at times to disagree does not absolve men of their fundamental responsibility for making sure that a decision is made. Others also described husbands as responsible for carrying out decisions made during family meetings in which the man acts as chair or has the tie-breaking vote. Reacting to her father’s more dictatorial style, the following Presbyterian woman in Michigan explained how she preferred her husband acting as “speaker of the house.” I truly believe in the man being the head of the house, and I don’t mean that as a dictatorship. I think that whenever you have a committee (whether it be at college, business, schools, whatever), you always need a head per­ son to run the meeting and keep everything orderly. I think, and this goes back to my biblical beliefs, I believe that God intended man to be the head of the house, but I truly believe that’s along with working with his wife and his children. . . . I grew up more in a dictatorship environment where my father was the head of the house and my mother basically had no say and us children had no say. Not that my father was mean and nasty to us, but I think it could have been a friendlier atmosphere. . . . It should be like a family meeting, and he should be the speaker of the house, if you will. . . . If they have problems or issues they want to discuss, they should get it out on the table. Everybody should be able to discuss, like a round table; the whole family should be involved. But [the] man of the house needs to see that decisions are made and followed through. He should be in charge. 42-year-old Presbyterian mother of two, Michigan

Husbands’ leadership in decision making is the responsibility to call the meeting, keep it orderly, make sure everyone gets to contribute, bring the discussion to a close, see that a decision is made, and follow through with that decision. Although Robert’s Rules of Order is not a biblical text, the idea of democratic process is very much a part of how evangelicals conceptualize husbands’ responsibility for decision making. Evangelicals also drew on meeting metaphors to explain how headship works itself out in the practice of making decisions. For some, this looked less like a meeting of the round table than of a committee in which the husband’s vote counts more than others’ and he is accountable for the decisions that emerge from open discussion. He has the main vote. We sit down and we discuss it and I give him my opinion; but whatever we decide, it is ultimately his decision. Sometimes we disagree, but we decided that from day one that we would sit down and we would discuss things and he would tell me his ideas and I would give him my ideas and then we would come up with a reasonable solu­

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tion. But ultimately it would be his decision because he is the head of the house. 41-year-old Wesleyan mother of two, Michigan

Although couched in the language of democratic voting behavior, evangeli­ cal men’s responsibility for decision-making resembles more of a “trump card” than a voting ballot. The solution takes into account her input, but in the end the decision is his. Although the democratic process has replaced the “little common­ wealth” model of family governance within Puritan households, the foundation of evangelical household democracy remains men’s authority to have the final say. Discussion and partnership in marriage are important, but they are limited. One South Carolina man, whose wife sat in and contributed during his interview, de­ scribed their marriage as a partnership in which he has “the final voice.” Husband: A man in proper leadership would value his wife’s opinion more highly than any other, realizing that her insight is even greater than his in some way. So he uses her wisdom—but when it comes down to the ulti­ mate decision, he has the final voice. In the end, it was his decision. . . . I view it as a partnership. When we were married, we became one. We have different roles, but we are one in the goal of making our marriage work. Wife: For instance, if we have to make a decision, he always asks me for my input and I feel very included. But there have probably been a few times, if we disagree, I’ll say, “You just do what you think is best because you are head of the home.” He is the husband God gave me, and I believe God wants me to do that. And I’m happy to do that. He’s not a hard person to let be my leader; he’s so tender with me and so compassionate that it’s not any problem to follow him. So it worked out great. I’m not saying we never disagree, but we work it out just fine. Middle-aged Presbyterian couple, South Carolina

Balancing husbands’ authority to have the final say is the understanding that headship also means that men must care and protect. This combination translates into the expectation that husbands must listen to their wives before making a de­ cision. In theory, they may have the authority to make decisions on behalf of the family without their wives’ input. But nearly all evangelical husbands, like the man just quoted, said that they took the wisdom of their wives seriously. Yet when asked if decisions could be made jointly and the responsibility for them shared, most evangelicals said no. The ship would sink, the soup spoil, the pass go incomplete, the company collapse. In short, chaos would reign. Describing either inertia or anarchy as the alternatives, evangelicals opt for dictatorship—albeit a benign one— when democracy fails. In the ideal, at least. But what about in practice? Is the trump card of men’s authority ever played? Pragmatic Egalitarianism: Gender Hierarchy in Practice Although decision making was often cited as “where the rubber meets the road” for husbands’ headship, for most evangelicals the exercise of men’s final

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decision-making authority was rarely problematic because nearly all decisions were jointly made. Numerous respondents argued that while men hold the trump card of final decision-making authority, it should not be played because it undermines ideals of oneness within the family. Decision making should be mutual. If the same Holy Spirit that’s leading me is leading my wife, we’re probably not going to disagree, you know; we’re going to be led in the same direction. I don’t think [the issue of hus­ bands’ having the final say] is going to come up very often. I think it would be a rare thing. If the husband and wife were close to each other . . . and close to the Lord, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of disagreement. If we had a big decision to make and my wife and I disagreed on it, I’d probably try to figure it out, why we disagreed; and we would definitely need to sit down and talk about why. 47-year-old Southern Baptist father of three, North Carolina

Here, a husband’s responsibility for managing and maintaining unity/harmony in the household takes priority over simply casting a “deciding vote.” Only a handful of husbands and wives could describe a time at which hus­ bands actually exercised their authority to make the final decision in the face of strong opposition from their wives. Evangelical men may hold the trump card, but it is a card rarely played. When there’s mutual agreement, it’s not necessary; and when it is necessary, the card isn’t played because it would, presumably, be ig­ nored or create too much conflict. Men may have the authority, but it is largely symbolic. My own family’s fine, piece of cake. Never had a problem. Right now, she’s working as the director of Christian education at the church and do­ ing a fine job; she loves it, and I don’t tell her what to do. [It] wouldn’t work to try. 48-year-old Baptist father of two, Massachusetts

Rather than risking a direct confrontation to his authority, this particular young man would rather not even try. A few men mentioned that they did try, with less than satisfying results. Only once did I try to do something big without my wife’s agreement. I decided that we should put the house up on the market. She came home from work and saw the sign in the front yard and flipped. She was ready to divorce me. We didn’t talk for two weeks. Actually, I spent a couple of weeks out on the river. Things were not too happy around here. Never do that again! 39-year-old charismatic father of two, Oregon

Exercising his authority to have the final say is a strategy for decision making that is sparingly applied. Most of the time, couples engage in a range of strategies that allow them to practice partnership without violating the “rules” associated with husbands’ headship.

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Symbolic Traditionalism: The Strategic Combination of Authority and Partnership Evangelicals who affirm the ideal of men’s authority are careful to explain mutual decision making in a way that does not contradict that ideal. Dipping again into the cultural tool kits available, evangelicals draw on a variety of rules that fit the ideals of headship to the practice of partnership. One of the most commonly used sets of rules are those related to sharing. Well, you talk things over. Sometimes he feels more right, or sometimes she feels more right, but you do talk things over, and then you come to an agreement. That’s the ideal. Sometimes he has to go along with her, and sometimes she has to go along with him . . . but it does work out, if you are Christians; it does work out. 71-year-old, twice-married charismatic woman, California

Even among those who strongly supported the idea of husbands’ headship, making decisions is a process that involves a lot of compromise, taking turns and giving in. Sharing and negotiation, of course, are not a distinctive set of tools spe­ cific to this religious subculture but are widely held as the normative family ideal. These ideals, shared by most Americans, do little to maintain subcultural religious boundaries and identity. The very normativeness of evangelical practice, however, highlights the persistence of the non-normative ideal that gender hierarchy is the foundation of family order and stability. Evangelicals asked to explain how these seemingly incompatible ideas of hierarchy and partnership fit together dig deep in their cultural tool kits to pro­ duce rules that establish the essence of hierarchy within the practice of partner­ ship. Just as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century evangelicals developed a complex set of rules that allowed women to speak in public without taking upon themselves the authority to preach, contemporary evangelicals also employ a complex and nu­ anced set of rules that allow women to both influence and make major decisions without assuming authority that they believe belongs to men. Submitting Ideas to Him. On occasion, evangelicals make creative use of the usual meanings associated with the language of submission and headship. Hus­ bands are responsible for leadership, but wives are responsible for telling husbands what they think. I think that both have to give 100 percent. In terms of decision making, I look to my husband to be the primary decision maker, but I am respon­ sible to expose him to what I’m thinking, what I view, and what I see in terms of the decision that we are going to make. So that he has every­ thing in which to make that decision. Because I used to think if I . . . thought he was going to make a terrible decision, that I wasn’t suppose to tell him that because that was not submitting. So I began to realize I had to submit my thoughts to him so that he can make a decision based on all

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the information. Although sometimes he has said, “You decide; you make the decision.” But he still made the decision. 42-year-old charismatic mother of five, Georgia

Submission to one’s husband by submitting ideas and his making a decision by delegating it to his wife are not just word games. For women and men who adopt this kind of headship-partnership strategy, submission is a responsibility. Refusing to tell her husband what she thinks about a decision would be like with­ holding important information from a CEO who is about to sign a contract. Let­ ting the plan go forward without complete information would be irresponsible. Giving Authority and Getting the Decision. Another rule that allows evangelicals to combine partnership and hierarchy is an extension of the belief that husbands are responsible for everything that happens inside the household. In fact, some evangelicals argued that it is precisely because husbands are respon­ sible that they are able to delegate decision making to their wives. Wives, in turn, find it relatively easy to give responsibility to their husbands because they know that supporting the idea of his authority often means that decision making returns to wives. We don’t argue because we reason together. We listen to one another’s thoughts. Then I ask him to make the final decisions about things. But you know what happens? Very often he will say, you know, “I really think you need to decide about that.” And it becomes fifty-fifty, and not be­ cause I stand my ground and say, “I want my 50 percent!” Nor does he, but because the reciprocity is appropriate and it is necessary and I think that is the thing people miss—that it can be reciprocal and you don’t have to really fight about it. Middle-aged Episcopalian woman, Alabama

For wives like this, support for symbolic male leadership is exchanged for practi­ cal reciprocity: wives acknowledge that their husbands are accountable; and hus­ bands willingly delegate decisions to their wives, knowing that doing so does not undermine their authority. Even when she makes it, the decision is his. She Submits, He Defers. Another strategy that brings together ideals of part­ nership and headship involves the cultural tools of submission and deference. What egalitarian evangelicals would readily identify as “mutual submission,” evangelicals committed to the ideal of husbands’ headship identify as submission and defer­ ence. One woman in a dual-earner household described this process in a way that was typical of many. He is primarily the spiritual head and the final decision maker, although we discuss just about everything. We usually come to the same conclu­ sion. We think a lot alike. He very, very rarely has to say, “This is the final word,” because we discuss it and usually he gives in a little and I

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give in a little and we defer to one another. I submit to him and he defers to me, so it seems to work for us. 42-year-old Christian Missionary Alliance woman, Massachusetts

In contrast to women whose practical definition of submission involved tell­ ing their husbands what was on their minds, most evangelical wives described sub­ mission as a process of yielding to their husbands—and their husbands yielding to them. Leaving the language of “mutual submission” to their egalitarian coun­ terparts, evangelicals who believe in husbands’ headship employ a gender-specific language in which husbands defer and wives submit. The subtlety is enormously important. It allows partnership and headship to exist in symbiotic tension with­ out one superceding the other. You have to sort of meet each other halfway. It doesn’t come down to break­ ing a tie; it’s just a thing to discuss, and then it’s usually a decision that he makes but we both arrived at it. There are things that I’m perhaps better at or that he knows that I’m better at. There are things that he is better at, and he will do those things. So I think it’s really a matter of knowing what works best within a relationship. . . . I’ve come across people that always have to say something like “Oh, I’ll go ask my husband.” Even for something simple. In some households it’s evident that the husband will give his wife directions and she is totally dependent on him for everything. I mean, I’ve come across people that really, you know, they can’t make a decision about anything. . . . Yeah, so in that way I don’t see my life like that. I can hold a conversation; I can do things. Still, God has instituted . . . him as the head. . . . But anyhow, I still have problems with it sometimes. 30-year-old Pentecostal woman, Washington

Combining headship and partnership is not an easy task. Ambiguity and struggle are involved as well as strategic creativity and commitment to a set of religious ideals. For many evangelicals, developing a range of strategies for main­ taining the ideal of husbands’ headship while practicing partnership is not just a matter of resolving the kind of cognitive dissonance nearly everyone faces every day when ideas and behavior seem at odds. These strategies allow gender-essentialist evangelicals to practice partnership while maintaining a salient element of sub­ cultural religious identity. On the surface, decision making in evangelical house­ holds is not significantly different from other American households. But for evangelicals, the invisible reality that sets them apart is a vision of essential hier­ archy expressed in husbands’ responsibility, a symbolic traditionalism in which ultimate accountability rests with men.

Conclusion The ideas of husbands’ headship articulated by ordinary evangelicals echo the rhetoric of movement leaders and family commentators. Yet the everyday prac­ tices of ordinary evangelicals are hardly those of a radically countercultural conservative religious movement. Their traditionalism is largely symbolic. In prac­ tice, most are pragmatically egalitarian.

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When ordinary evangelicals describe everyday family life, they do not sound all that different from other Americans who struggle to make decisions, establish and maintain family traditions, model important values to their children, and in a myriad of other ways cooperate to build a life together. For most evangelicals, how­ ever, these egalitarian practices are framed by a countercultural set of ideals in which gender hierarchy and difference are the organizing principles for family life. In both spiritual leadership and decision making, husbands lead not by dominat­ ing but by initiating, modeling, and bearing final responsibility. Headship is taken literally in the sense that husbands (like the Bible) have authority but is both in­ terpreted and enacted in ways that are primarily symbolic. Even when men del­ egate the labor or the decision to their wives, they remain symbolically responsible. In providing spiritual leadership, husbands see themselves as serving, strug­ gling, and sacrificing on behalf of their wives and children. They model Christian discipline for their children and pray for the safety and well-being of their wives. In many respects, this work of spiritual leadership is akin to other kinds of unpaid family work: it is both invisible and glorified. Getting reluctant children to Sun­ day school is the same kind of household labor as is getting reluctant children out the door to school in the middle of the week. Yet when evangelical fathers assume responsibility for the former, the responsibility itself takes on the character of set­ ting an example of godliness and a strategic (albeit small) victory against forces of spiritual decay. For ordinary evangelicals, the notion of men’s responsibility is itself layered. Most are careful to distinguish between men’s being responsible for their family and men’s taking responsibility in the family. The distinction is subtle but impor­ tant. Both are evident in how evangelicals talk about men’s spiritual leadership. The meaning centers on an overarching sense of responsibility for the family as well as specific responsibilities in the family. An invisible spiritual reality, men’s accountability before God for “everything that happens inside the household” is held up as the foundation of their responsibility for the household. In the everyday world of grumpy Sunday mornings and busy breakfasts before school, evangeli­ cal men describe the ways in which they take responsibility in the household—at times by making sure things happen by making sure their wives make them happen. The distinction between being responsible and taking responsibility may help explain the gender gap in husbands’ and wives’ answers to the question about who usually takes the lead in spiritual matters. Husbands are prone to seeing themselves as responsible for spiritual leadership, even if they are not doing the job. Wives, on the other hand, may think of themselves as providing spiritual leadership when they take on the practical tasks involved. Their husbands are expected to lead, but wives often find themselves getting the job done. In the end, being, not doing, is the essence of male leadership in evangelical homes. The story, however, is not quite that simple. In the next chapter, we turn to other areas of unpaid family la­ bor: housework and parenting. There, at least in terms of child rearing, we’ll find that evangelical men are somewhat more involved in both the doing and being of parenthood.

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CHAPTER 6

Dividing the Labor of Parenting

and Housework

�

I believe men and women have different responsibilities. My husband is the sole breadwinner, but he comes home every day and plays with his son. Around the house, he mows the lawn and takes out the garbage, and that’s it. 25-year-old fundamentalist woman, Michigan As far as cooking and doing dishes? Do what you got to do! If my wife is going through burnout, I need to be there for her. If I’m going through burnout, she needs to be there for me. I just want to make sure I’m not letting her down and dragging my feet. When I am, I may not notice it. So let me know, and I’ll pick up! I feel as a husband, I’m there to serve her, the kids. 40-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Ohio

H

ow do evangelical ideals about men’s responsibility to initiate and lead connect with the practices of parenting and housework? What do ordinary evangelicals say goes on inside their families with regard to parenting and housework? Although a significant gap exists in American society between cultural ideals of involved fatherhood and the actual participation of men as parents, evangelical men stand out as active, involved, par­ ticipating fathers.1 Housework, however, is a somewhat different story.

Godliness, Diaper Changing, and Doing Dishes One of the most dramatic shifts in evangelical rhetoric about family life is the way in which evangelical authors now talk about men’s involvement in house­ work and parenting. A generation ago, best-selling author Larry Christenson wrote that wives degraded the value of housework when they asked husbands to do more and that husbands should avoid housework to prevent gender confusion in their children (especially sons). Parenting encompassed the responsibility to love, dis­ cipline, and teach one’s children, with an emphasis on obedience, hard work, re­ spect, modesty, and honesty.2 Discipline, he argued, was the father’s domain. 105

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Otherwise, Christenson’s model of godly fatherhood focused on the nature of fa­ thers more than the needs of the child. A man should faithfully provide for the material needs of his family, delegate discipline duties to his wife when neces­ sary, and occasionally roughhouse or cuddle with his children or involve them in something he enjoys.3 The foundation for this model of fatherly discipline and au­ thority was established by God at creation. The primary responsibility for administering discipline rests with the fa­ ther. When he is in the house, it is his responsibility to take care of the discipline of the children. The wife here, as elsewhere, is the helpmate. When she disciplines the children it is on his authority, e.g., in his ab­ sence or in minor matters. The child should be raised to recognize this fact, for it is a basic principle of Divine Order. Intuitively, children have greater respect and fear for the authority of the father than that of the mother, and that is as it should be. The father who abdicates this responsibility—or the wife who usurps it—has entered upon a dangerous tink­ ering with Divine Order. (Christenson 1970, 111)

The evidence for the intuitive truth of men’s authority as parents is the greater “natural fear” children have for their fathers. As children honor and respect the strength and authority of God, they should honor and respect the strength and au­ thority of their fathers. Mothers have authority, too, but their authority derives from his and is an expression of her role as “helpmate.” James Dobson would also emphasize the centrality of fathers to family sta­ bility and the value of women’s homemaking in a series of enormously popular books first published in the 1970s. Reacting to what he saw as an anti-homemaker bias within feminism, Dobson wrote extensively in support of the vocation of fulltime motherhood and of the strategic importance of fathers to the survival of the family, arguing that “the western world stands at a great crossroads in its history. . . . our very survival as a people will depend upon the presence or absence of mascu­ line leadership in millions of homes. . . . I believe, with everything in me, that hus­ bands hold the keys to the preservation of the family” (Dobson 1980, 21).4 Appalled at increasing rates of divorce and the marginalization of men from the everyday lives of their children, he urged evangelical men to lay aside exces­ sive career ambition and become more involved in their families. He remained ambivalent, however, regarding exactly what evangelical men should do at home. Most important for Dobson was the idea that men should begin by being there as a symbol of security and authority within the household. He urged evangelical men to take an active interest in their children (providing personal examples of playing with his son and putting him to bed at night) and encouraged men to model Chris­ tian disciplines and practices at home. But he also described time spent caring for his children as babysitting, reinforcing the notion that mothers are primary par­ ents while fathers are only occasional backups. His message to men about house­ work was even less ambivalent: “I dislike seeing a man work all day at his job and then be obligated to confront his wife’s responsibility when he comes home. . . . Personally, I balk when I think my wife is demanding that I go beyond

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the call of duty; I like to help her on a voluntary basis, and often do so” (Dobson 1975, 166). For Dobson and other evangelical family advice commentators in the 1970s and 1980s, encouraging men’s involvement in family life clearly involved greater participation (or at least attentiveness) to the work of parenting but just as clearly did not mandate men’s greater participation in ordinary housework. House­ work was something men might conceivably help with but not something for which they should be responsible, especially when wives were (as they increasingly were not) full-time homemakers. Evangelical family literature in the 1970s and 1980s reinforced the perspec­ tive that the essence of womanhood was to nurture and the essence of manhood to initiate and lead. It did so by describing, when it became specific at all, a divi­ sion of household labor in which husbands should be primary providers and sec­ ondarily responsible for occasional household repairs, automotive maintenance, and outdoor chores. Women should be primarily responsible for routine housework, meal preparation, and child care (Cole 1982; Cooper 1974; Dillow 1986; Beverly LaHaye 1976; Tim LaHaye 1968, 1977). Emphasizing Men’s Involvement at Home Beginning in the early 1990s, a growing number of evangelical authors be­ gan to emphasize greater flexibility and sharing of domestic work as well as greater hands-on involvement of men with their children. Most of these authors retained a non-negotiable belief in gender hierarchy and difference but advocated pragmatic egalitarianism in the division of labor at home. But whereas women’s nurturing and men’s authority had previously been seen as support for men’s employment and women’s domesticity, these differences now began to be used as an explana­ tion for why men should be more involved at home. Thus, popular evangelical au­ thors such as Larry Crabb and Gary Smalley would argue for a more equitable division of household labor, good communication, and the significance of fathers in healthy child development, while maintaining that fundamental gender differ­ ences and men’s authority are the model for marriage and family life (Crabb 1991; Smalley 1994, 2000; Smalley and Trent 1992). Stu Weber, author of multiple popu­ lar books on godly masculinity, would urge men to express tenderness (not soft­ ness) as well as model authority and strength to their children. Weber goes on to argue that the importance of fathers reflects deeper gendered realities at the heart of creation that have their origin in the fatherhood of God. The power of fathering is so intrinsically wrapped up in the nature of God—the ultimate father—that the world of nature sees its influence roll­ ing on and on and on for generations. God the Father has so woven His own nature into the warp and woof of His universe that it is inviolable. There is something so inherently strong, so deep, so profound, and so natu­ ral in fathering, that father power is visibly transgenerational in its po­ tency. You can see it. Good, bad or indifferent, it lives on. (Weber 1993, 146)

Steve Farrar (1990), author of the best-selling Point Man, also makes the case that while couples should have greater flexibility in the division of house­

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hold labor, men’s primary responsibility as providers and women’s primary respon­ sibilities as caregivers are unchangeable elements of God’s design for family life. In the home, the man is to be the primary provider and the wife is to be the primary caregiver. . . . That does not mean that a man is off the hook when it comes to other family responsibilities. Although the primary re­ sponsibility for care in the family falls to the wife, the husband can and must participate. The modern idea of a man leaving his career to stay at home and raise the kids while mom goes off to work is completely anti­ thetical to God’s plan for the family. . . . According to the scriptural plan, the man is chiefly responsible for a family’s physical provision and the woman is chiefly responsible for its caregiving. . . . That was the blueprint, and it’s still the blueprint. Why is this true? It is true because of the basic structure that God built into families. (104–5)

For Farrar, the “basic structure” God built into families precludes men from exchanging paid work for full-time domestic work but does not absolve them from responsibility to do more at home, particularly in terms of providing affection to their children. The message is definitive and clear: flexibility is allowed as long as it does not tamper with men’s basic responsibility to provide and women’s ba­ sic responsibility to nurture. Those primary responsibilities are inextricably tied to what men and women are, not just what they do. Tamper with them and you tamper with the fundamental design that God built into families. Affectionate Fathers and Nurturing Mothers Greater flexibility in housework within an overarching framework of men’s authority and women’s responsiveness and nurturing is one of the central themes of contemporary evangelical family advice literature. A second theme, one that has increasingly been a focus of this literature since the early 1990s, is the impor­ tance of the affectionate father in family life (Bartkowski 1995, Bartkowski and Ellison 1995, Wilcox 1998). In part, renewed evangelical interest in fatherhood has emerged in tandem with the Promise Keepers men’s movement. Even though Promise Keepers no longer draws as many men to its large stadium events, the ideas of the movement—particularly those related to men’s responsibility and au­ thority as fathers—continue to resonate within the evangelical community.5 Build­ ing on the theme of fatherhood as a noble calling, writers such as Weber, Dobson, Farrar, and others call upon men to lay aside career ambitions and invest them­ selves more fully in their children (see Cooper 1996; Cote 1998; Evans 1996; Lewis and Hendricks 1999; McCartney 1992, 1999; Novell 1995). There are various reasons offered for men’s involvement in parenting. Dob­ son urges evangelical fathers to spend time doing things with their sons to pre­ vent rebellion during adolescence. Although women can be effective parents during the teen years, he suggests that men are better suited for the job because “a man’s larger size, deeper voice, and masculine demeanor make it easier for him to deal with defiance in the younger generation” (2000a, 238). Some authors go so far as

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to suggest that men create “knighthood ceremonies” in which stages of masculine development are celebrated with other men. In order to encourage the develop­ ment of personal integrity and character, fathers should take their sons to a Prom­ ise Keepers event; model masculinity through activities with other fathers and sons; and create a family crest that symbolizes the values of responsibility, integrity, cour­ age, commitment, and service to a greater goal (Lewis 1997). Fathers should also set aside time for regular special father-daughter activities to build girls’ selfacceptance and model the kind of gentlemanly behavior that daughters should ex­ pect from the young men they eventually date (240). Fathers should also make time to talk and show affection to their daughters to undermine negative attitudes that might develop in their absence toward men and male leadership (Clark and Clark 1998). Evangelical authors also celebrate the uniqueness of motherhood. Echoing the list of virtues and proficiencies that Cotton Mather ascribed to godly women three centuries ago, Steve Farrar (1990) writes: “A mother is a vessel God uses to pour Himself into children. A mother is a theologian, an educator, a psychologist, a counselor, an encourager, an embracer, a forgiver, a communicator, a listener, an explainer, a disciplinarian, a visionary, and a discipler. . . . They have the abil­ ity to change the world right in their own homes. No wonder the enemy is trying so hard to get them to leave” (122, 123). From this perspective, fathers may be providers, disciplinarians for sons, and self-esteem builders for daughters; but it would appear that mothers are everything else! Equipped with strong relational skills and acute interpersonal sensitivi­ ties, a woman is a developer of life. She builds human beings. Yes, her body is equipped to reproduce biologically. But once again, the visible, physical properties are merely a reflection of the invisible spiritual reali­ ties. Her nature is to nurture. . . . Scripture has always indicated a woman is more suited to nurturing children than a man. How doubly unfortunate that, while secular sources continue to experience something of a conver­ sion in the area of understanding male-female differences, “evangelical feminists” seem to continue to live in denial. (Weber 1993, 112–13)

Women’s nurturing, like men’s authority, is rooted in biology and mirrors a deeper reality. For Weber, Farrar, and other evangelical authors, biological differences are reflections of the spiritual truth that men and women were created differently for different purposes. Because “the physical is merely a parable of the spiritual,” the tasks that mothers and fathers do are understood as naturally emerging from the distinctive physiology and psychology of male and female—differences that them­ selves reflect a deeper gendered order in God’s creation (Weber 1993, 120). Taking a Different Road to (Almost) the Same Destination: Evangelical Feminist Perspectives on Domestic Work and Child Rearing Beginning with a very different vision of godly manhood and womanhood, evangelical feminists have for thirty years been urging men to shoulder greater responsibility for domestic work and child rearing. For evangelical feminists, men’s

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symbolic authority, discipline, and “help” with everyday household labor is insuffi­ cient. Are husbands and wives “joint heirs with Christ”? Let them also be joint dishwashers and diaper changers. Scriptures make it clear that mothers and fathers alike have an obligation under God for the rearing of their children. . . . Children grow up accept­ ing it as completely natural that dad does the laundry, meal-planning, or vacuuming, or that mom stays up late at night studying for the courses she’s taking at the university. . . . All feel they have a responsibility to share in the smooth running of the household. . . . If Jesus could pick up a towel and wash the disciples’ feet, why can’t a Christian husband in imitation of Christ’s love pick up a towel and wipe the dishes? (Scanzoni and Har­ desty 1992, 162–64)

Evangelical feminists have remarked upon the near unanimity with which conservative evangelicals now affirm the importance of affectionate fathering. Yet after summarizing social science research on the benefits of involved fatherhood, evangelical psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (1990) goes on to argue that affectionate fathering is good not only for children but for men and women as well. I do not think it is religious conviction that makes Christian men avoid the challenges and satisfactions of parenting. It is in part the difficulty of overcoming feelings (of insecurity) buried deep in their masculine social­ ization. . . . Parenting arrangements can either inflate or help reverse men’s propensity to misuse dominion and women’s tendency to misuse sociability. . . . Where gender roles are less rigid and men are continually involved in parenting, women become more independent, men become more relational and the sexes are more equally valued. . . . The case for co-parenting is very strong! (149, 154–55, 163)

For Van Leeuwen and other evangelical feminists, sharing housework and child rearing is good for everybody, not just overworked mothers of small chil­ dren. An egalitarian division of housework and child rearing is credited with im­ proving marital quality, increasing men’s career and employment flexibility, lowering rates of depression among women, reducing family violence, and improv­ ing relationships between parents and children (Groothuis 1994; Lester and Lester 1998; Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992; Van Leeuwen 1990, 1993). Although they begin with different approaches to history, Scripture, and cul­ ture, evangelicals who advocate gender difference and hierarchy and those who advocate gender equity are now remarkably similar in their descriptions of what makes family work. The case for shared parenting and flexibility in domestic work no longer sounds as radical as it did even a decade ago. Evangelical feminists may urge a more completely egalitarian version of partnership in parenting and house­ work; but both viewpoints call for cooperation, flexibility, and an attitude of servanthood on the part of both men and women. The question remains: to what extent are ordinary evangelicals putting these ideals of shared parenting and flex­ ible domesticity into practice?

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Who’s Really Doing the Dishes? Ordinary Evangelicals and Housework When it comes to housework, ordinary evangelicals adopt one of three broad strategies for deciding how the hundreds of jobs that go into running a household are done and who does them. On one end of the spectrum, a small number of evan­ gelical men and women describe themselves as committed to gender hierarchy and a gendered division of household labor as God’s original design for family life. On the other end are those who struggle to put the egalitarian ideals of biblical feminism into household practice. In the middle are most evangelicals, who af­ firm husbands’ headship but find it has little or nothing to do with how couples divide domestic work. Executive Privilege and Selective Sharing A relatively small number of evangelicals (often but not always older, longmarried couples) believe that unpaid domestic work is a woman’s responsibility. Even though husbands may occasionally take part, they do so out of noblesse oblige rather than because they are responsible for sharing household tasks. My husband and I lived together over forty years. But he very definitely had some ideas about “that’s a woman’s work.” We didn’t have any chil­ dren of our own, but we kept my sister’s children for a while and he would definitely help me with them. But there were certain things that he wouldn’t do—cooking, washing dishes. [Even] after I had my heart at­ tack, he said, “I don’t know why you can’t wash dishes.” [She laughs.] He’d help when I asked him to, but there were just certain things he didn’t believe in. 69-year-old Southern Baptist woman, South Carolina

Even though this woman suggests that her husband was joking when he complained about her not being able to wash dishes after heart surgery, the joke itself reveals how deeply ingrained the gender division of labor in their household had become. Appealing to women’s nature as well as the Bible, gender-essentialist evangelicals defended women’s responsibility for housework, saying it fulfills both their calling and their physical design. They are “better equipped,” some said, “to do things dad just can’t do, like breast feeding.” Some also spoke of a “special bond” or a “certain tenderness” that only mothers have toward children. A few quoted from the apostle Paul’s letter to Titus: “the Bible says the women are to guide the household, which means to rule it concerning the children and things of the household . . . to be ‘keepers at home.’ A man can never be the mother that a woman can be.” For this small number of evangelicals, a commitment to essential gender dif­ ference reinforces men’s ability to just say no. Husbands may help wives as an expression of “sacrificial love,” but they do not share responsibility for housework. Establishing what Hochschild (1989) calls an “economy of gratitude,” wives are expected to be grateful—and unable to expect more—because housework is not husbands’ responsibility. As a result, when wives are responsible, husbands are able

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to help when they want, in the areas that they want, and feel good about doing so because they are clearly going the extra mile. Servant Leadership, Special Gifts, and Doing What Needs to Be Done Most evangelicals who believe that God designed men and women to re­ flect a fundamentally gendered spiritual reality understand that reality as affect­ ing men’s and women’s gifts and responsibilities in a general sense, not as the basis of specific rules about who does what at home. It is one thing to relate ideas about masculine initiation and feminine responsiveness to the expectation that women follow men’s leadership, acknowledge their authority, and respect their greater bur­ den of responsibility for the household. It is another thing to suggest that God has established a sanctified pattern for who does the laundry. Increasingly, evangelicals (such as the man quoted in the chapter epigraph) define husbands’ headship in terms of “servant leadership” and men’s obligation to love and serve their wives and children. When husbands lead by being servants, they do what servants have always done: take responsibility for menial, ordinary, routine, unnoticed, underappreciated household chores. Men talked about “pick­ ing up” when they “see stuff lying around” (or being willing to do so when their wives see it for them), making the kids’ lunches before school, and unloading the dishwasher. Living within the family with their “eyes open,” these men understand themselves as acting out the part of servant leader when they attend to whatever it is that needs to be done. We . . . work as a team, but it’s my responsibility to be the leader in my home. . . . I don’t think men and women can be equal partners in every­ thing, but each should understand what each other goes through. If my wife did the wash all the time, I would never understand what she went through doing it. If I cut the grass all the time, she would never under­ stand what I went through. So sharing . . . is an eye opener. You know, you learn things. Nothing wrong with a man putting on an apron and cooking a meal. I love to cook. My wife doesn’t like to. So I cook the majority of the meals. I think we should share. 29-year-old nondenominational father, Ohio

When husbands’ headship is understood as “servant leadership” in this area of family life, it obligates husbands to be attentive to the work their wives do and participate in it as a member of the home team. Husbands’ willingness to do a variety of household tasks is understood as enabling men to empathize with their wives. Yet relatively few husbands and wives connected the idea of servant lead­ ership to the expectation that men take on extensive responsibility for routine house­ work. More often, evangelicals talked about the distribution of housework as simply a function of personal gifts or preferences. In doing so, they uncouple housework from essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity or ideas of gendered vo­ cation and linked it instead to personality, ability, and choice. One middle-aged father in North Carolina put it this way:

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I think you need to look at the individual gifts that each person has been given and where each person’s strong point [is]. My wife, for example, is very detail oriented. She keeps all the books. . . . Sometimes I do the laun­ dry; sometimes she does it. I cook; she does dishes. She cooks; I do dishes, you know? Mostly, lately, the ball has fallen into her court; but if she’s too busy or whatever, I’ll say, “Hey, I’ll do this.”

Decoupling domestic work from calling or essence diminishes its significance within evangelical households. No longer the sanctified vocation of the good wife nor a responsibility shared with husbands who are servant leaders, housework is simply something that needs to be done. When housework is a command or a call­ ing, it is not optional; when it is a choice, it is. For the most part, evangelical husbands and wives simply abandoned the lan­ guage of headship—even the language of servant leadership—when talking about housework and described it simply as sharing labor that is necessary to keep a family going. I think they should share. I don’t think that you should set a limit on fiftyfifty. When you come home from work, you need to both look and find out what needs to be done. What do we need to do. What do we as a couple need to do to get things ready for tomorrow. If I am there cooking dinner for an hour, the meal that he wants, I think that maybe he should start the kids with their baths or something like that. Then I can finish up. You know? 39-year-old Pentecostal mother of two, Washington

For this woman and many others, housework is something partners should share because they do it for each other. She hints that taking care of the children is still her primary responsibility but is clear that housework should be shared, not di­ vided fifty-fifty, which could imply he does the “outside” (car, lawn, and auto­ mobile) and she the “inside” (everything else). Because the themes of gender difference, authority, and vocation are so strong in other areas of evangelical family life, a number of men and women were care­ ful to explain that housework is simply a different category where beliefs about husbands’ leadership or wives’ responsiveness are simply not relevant. Importantly, neither are they undermined. I don’t think headship and . . . equal partnership are mutually exclusive. I don’t think that if a husband changes a diaper that he loses his headship [laughs]. . . . You know as far as activity is concerned, that doesn’t have anything to do with the headship. You’ve got a family unit that needs to function. Who does it best, who’s got the time, who’s available, who wants to do it? Let’s just get the job done. 50-year-old Presbyterian woman, Georgia

In downplaying the language of headship, evangelical husbands and wives separate men’s responsibility for family from the responsibility to do everyday

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housework. Husbands’ participation is a function of less time for anyone to do things at home, not a component of his call to lead through serving. It is a prod­ uct of culture and history, not an element of God’s design or call. I think the idea that men and women have different responsibilities in the family is just cultural. Whoever said that the woman cooks the meals and does the laundry? That is just cultural. And the man handles the finances? I think it is cultural. I don’t think you are going to find it in the Bible that the woman is the one that does the laundry or is the one that raises the kids. 47-year-old Christian Reformed father of two, Michigan

More to the point, some husbands and wives were careful to point out that the Bible has little to say about domestic work. The notion of husbands’ headship is rooted in the Bible, but the division of household labor is an accident of history. I never read in the Bible where it says that a good Christian mother should stay home. I do know that it says be a good mother and raise your chil­ dren correctly and raise them with morals and all of that. But I didn’t know that that meant that you had to stay home! Back in the days when they were on the farm, that mother may have been home, but she wasn’t just home. She worked! If she had to go in the field, she went in the field. I don’t think God has decided that you are not a man or you are taking over the man’s job if you work and the man is not a man if he washes dishes. I think God has set terms of head, you know, who should be head, but other than that. . . . These days the roles are just whoever can do it best. 55-year-old Pentecostal mother of four, Washington

The following pastoral counselor, thoroughly committed to the idea that hus­ bands are the spiritual leaders and bear responsibility for final decision making, agreed that the distribution of housework was not a biblical principle but a func­ tion of changing demands of employment. Well, I mean there is no way to get around the fact that that is a scriptural description of the family: that the male is the spiritual head. As far as iden­ tical roles go, you can’t be. But I think the day is gone when the husband just does what he wants to do and the wife does the rest. I think we are a little more egalitarian on that level. When you have your wife working forty or fifty hours a week, and you are working forty or fifty hours a week, there has to be a lot of compromise on who does the chores around the house and stuff. You can farm it out and have somebody else come in and do it all for you, or you pick up the slack where you can because no one person can do all that stuff. 42-year-old Mennonite father of two, Minnesota

In sum, while a handful of contemporary evangelicals consider women’s housework an extension of the nurturing and caregiving roles that God gave them from the beginning, most see housework as a practical necessity that has little rel­ evance to ideas about husbands’ headship or women’s caregiving. Washing dishes

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does not reflect women’s essential domesticity. Nor does washing dishes under­ mine men’s authority or fulfill their servant leadership. Thoroughly pragmatic, the majority of American evangelicals consider housework the responsibility of the one who does it best, the one who is there to do it, or the one who sees that it needs to be done. Negotiating Egalitarian Interchangeability For the most part, egalitarian evangelicals share this pragmatic and flexible approach to housework. The difference is that egalitarians see flexibility and shar­ ing as reflections of men’s and women’s partnership and equality rather than an expression of a husband’s servant leadership or something for which calling and design have no relevance. Evangelical feminists believe that calling and design are highly relevant; but the design is mutuality, not hierarchy. Rather than adopt­ ing a vision of family life in which men and women are separate but equal, egali­ tarian evangelicals see family as a model of community, fellowship, and mutual support. Working out equity in everyday life is not easy. Evangelicals who reject the notion of men’s authority and women’s nurturing may see housework as sancti­ fied labor that should be shared in loving community. But figuring out who is go­ ing to do what, when, and how is still a matter for negotiation. We talked before we got married, and I said, if I stay home and don’t work, which at that time I didn’t want to do, I said I would do all the house­ work. But if I am going to work, then I don’t want to do all the house­ work. I don’t want you to be like my dad. My dad would sit in the chair and call, “Julia, the kids are bothering the TV,” and make my mom stop what she is doing and come in and change the TV. So we talked about all that stuff before we got married. 46-year-old Pentecostal mother of two, Oregon

This woman went on to describe how she and her husband traded responsi­ bilities at home. The flexibility they eventually worked out depended very much on her employment as well as the schedule of when and where they worked. It has been pretty equal all along. I did more carpooling. My husband works Saturdays, so I am the one who drove the kids to soccer practice and did all that. They went to school where I taught, so they were back and forth in the car with me. When he’s home, he is 100 percent a father. He probably does more laundry than I do even to this day. He doesn’t like to just sit. I need time to sit and clear my head because most of my work is with my mind. And most of his work is physical, so he has time during the day while he is working on machines and doing things he can pray for the kids and think about things. So when he gets home, he doesn’t need to just sit. So he will do laundry while I am watching television and then come down here and fold it. 46-year-old Pentecostal mother of two, Oregon

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Attitudes toward employment, not just job schedules, were also important in shaping husbands’ and wives’ involvement at home. Men and women who were less ambitious or less invested in their jobs, as well as those who were selfemployed or worked during nonstandard shifts, were more likely to talk about their effort to divide housework equitably. Although evangelicals who affirm the no­ tion of husbands’ headship occasionally do the same, egalitarian evangelicals are more explicit in their effort to share domestic labor, regardless of whether or not employment facilitates sharing or makes it more difficult. I think the whole idea of gender hierarchy is a leftover from the Fall. The big story of the Bible isn’t about what men and women can and can’t do; it’s about redemption and community. It’s not always easy to live like that’s true, though, with different schedules and stuff always competing for your time and attention. Still, . . . we both try and do what needs to be done around the house. I’m more mechanically inclined than my husband, but he’s the better cook! Basically we both end up doing some of what we like and some of what nobody likes. Overall, it opens up more possibili­ ties for both of us to use our gifts and be who we think God has called us to be. His taking that seriously has sure made a difference for me! 42-year-old Presbyterian woman, Oregon

Beginning from very different ideological perspectives, egalitarian and genderessentialist evangelicals often end up in remarkably similar places with regard to the distribution of domestic work. For egalitarian evangelicals, availability and pref­ erences for particular tasks are understood within the context of a broader com­ mitment and vision of living in community. For most evangelicals, however, domestic work is only tangentially related to God’s design for gendered family life. Not that they see domestic work as irrelevant. Anyone who finds nothing but wilted celery and an old bagel in the refrigerator at suppertime, no clean under­ wear on a Monday morning, no gas in the car the day they leave late for work, or no cash in the checking account to get gas on the way to work knows the value of living in a household in which both partners attend to issues of food, clothing, transportation, and money. Why is it, then, that the majority of evangelicals, for whom ideas regarding women’s responsiveness and men’s action and authority are enormously impor­ tant, make so little of these ideals when it comes to describing the division of or­ dinary household labor? To answer this question, we need to look more closely at the uses of evangelical gender rhetoric as a cultural tool that frames men’s and women’s involvement in a second area of unpaid family work—parenting.

Fatherhood, Motherhood, and Parenthood Given the pragmatic egalitarianism of most evangelical households, it is dif­ ficult to make a case that ordinary evangelicals are buying, reading, or listening very carefully to all that Dobson, Weber, and Crabb have to say about the distinc­ tive and God-given roles of men and women in families. Where ordinary evan­

Dividing Labor of Parenting and Housework

TABLE 6.1.

117

Who Takes Primary Responsibility for Parenting Decisions, by Gender and Religious Self-Identification (%)a Protestants Evangelical

Men say: I have more responsibility. My wife has more responsibility. We have equal responsibility. Women say: My husband has more responsibility. I have more responsibility. We have equal responsibility.

Fundamentalist

Mainline

11.5 27.9 60.6

11.8* 43.1 45.1

8.0** 44.8 47.2

10.4† 38.8 50.7

20.8 14.0 65.2

20.8 21.5 57.7

17.8* 16.9 65.2

16.6 20.9 62.6

Liberal

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a Symbols indicate the significance of the differences between self-identified evangelicals and other religious self-identifications (fundamentalist, mainline, and theologically liberal Protestants), † ≤.10, *≤.05, ** ≤.01. For men, n=143 evangelical, 160 fundamentalist, 176 mainline, and 132 liberal. For women, n=286 evangelical, 227 fundamentalist, 369 mainline, and 278 liberal.

gelicals do appear to be listening is in the area of parenting. Across Protestant re­ ligious traditions, parenting is generally viewed as either primarily the mother’s responsibility or a responsibility that is shared. There are significant differences, however, in the degree to which religiously committed Protestants see sharing as the dominant paradigm for parenting (see table 6.1). Among mainline and theologically liberal Protestants, husbands are evenly divided about whether parenting is shared (45 to 50 percent) or belongs primarily to wives (40 to 45 percent). Evangelical men, on the other hand, are significantly more likely to stake a claim to their own influence in child rearing. Sixty percent say that they share parenting decisions equally with their wives. Eleven percent say that they have more influence in parenting decisions than their wives do (com­ pared to 8 percent of mainline Protestant men). Evangelical wives give their hus­ bands even more credit: 20 percent report that their husbands have more say in parenting (almost twice the percentage of husbands who make this claim), and 65 percent believe the responsibility is shared. Compared to other religiously com­ mitted Protestants, evangelical women are least likely to think they make parenting decisions on their own. In short, they believe, even more than their husbands do, that men are significant players in this area of family life. To be sure, fathers’ role as disciplinarians has not disappeared. Nor have no­ tions about women’s natural inclination to nurture. What has changed is that fathers are now expected to nurture as well. The following comments by a Pentecostal father of three capture the synthesis of these old and new ideals for evangelical parenthood.

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Well, obviously there is a closer relationship usually with children with the mother; I mean that is nature in itself. When you see any animals, for example, the offspring are always attached and cleave to the mother. A mother has her role in being a mother, and I think it is an honorable role. . . . But I don’t think that exempts a father from having a role either. The father is to be a strong figure, to be the disciplinary figure, and he is also to show just as much love as the mother. 36-year-old Pentecostal father of three, Georgia

This man highlights the persistence of both the idea that women’s mother­ ing is natural and the idea that fathers should discipline their children, themes that repeatedly emerged when men and women talked about the importance of parenting. Yet he and others believed that fathers are “just as responsible as moth­ ers”; they are “not different in how much they should be involved in their kids’ lives”; they should “show as much love to their kids as their mother.” While the importance of women’s nurturing is not diminished, the comments of some evangelicals suggest that they are beginning to consider the narrow focus on women as parents to be a historical and cultural phenomenon, not necessarily a biblical one. “It is not babysitting,” one man argued. “It is parenting. He needs to be involved.” The idea that fathers should be actively involved in teaching, showing af­ fection, and caring for their children is not entirely new, of course. Historically and in other cultural contexts, fathers have been significantly involved in the ev­ eryday care and training of their children. But many fathers in the postindustrial United States have been marginalized from children’s lives. Contemporary evan­ gelicals, like other Americans, find themselves struggling to recover from the Vic­ torian ideas of exalted motherhood and distant disciplinary fatherhood that have dominated middle-class child rearing since the nineteenth century. A handful even spoke of their desire to be home with their children and of the humiliation they would experience if they made such a radical choice. While few ever do, regard­ less of their religious commitments, fathers who f ind themselves suddenly downsized and unemployed, fathers who no longer are satisfied with their careers, and fathers who discover to their surprise the delights of caring for small children are turning toward home (Gerson 1993). Involved fatherhood, then, is not just a trend among evangelicals but is part of a larger shift toward reassessing the centrality of careerism in men’s lives. For evangelical men, ideas about husbands’ headship and leadership open up the pos­ sibility of distancing themselves from the demands of employment. The rhetoric of men’s headship provides the cultural leverage with which men can distance them­ selves from their employment on behalf of their children, and women can insist that they do so.

Leveraging Headship Evangelical fathers, once considered important to families because they were employed, are now considered important in spite of the fact that they are employed.

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Men and women talked with concern about the need for men to resist involving themselves in their careers at their children’s expense—just as they cautioned against women placing career above family. As one Michigan father explained: Having a child takes two. You create it, you bake it, and you live with it. You are actively involved. If you are going to have a child, you are there. . . . Change the diapers. A marriage is one hundred-one hundred deal. You do whatever needs to get done to make your family work. If that means you have to do the laundry or change diapers, fine. If it means you have to miss a meeting or stay home from work, you do it.

Rather than parenting being the special purview of mothers, involvement in the nitty-gritty of parenthood is the responsibility of both. It is not enough for evan­ gelical fathers to provide financially, offer their children an appropriate model of masculinity, or discipline them when they disobey. Fathers should be involved in the ordinary care of their children—at least as much as their jobs allow. Jobs, however, do not always allow. The rhetoric of involved fatherhood con­ flicts with both the rhetoric of men’s responsibility as wage earners and the time commitments that most jobs require. Just because of the work required by the husband, time away from home, he’s not going to spend as much time with the children. But he should have as much interaction with the children as possible. 47-year-old Presbyterian father of four, South Carolina

Numerous wives concurred. I don’t think that fathers have a lot of choice, and I think that it’s very important that they’re around and that the time they spend should be quality time with their kids. Some fathers can’t, they travel a lot, they’re gone; but I think moms should be around, you know, during the day or with the kids while they’re small and nurturing and as they come up. The father should be also a part of that but not necessarily quit his job to do that. 46-year-old nondenominational mother of three, Ohio

Against the inflexibility of some men’s jobs, the rhetoric of involved father­ hood may not be all that effective. But against the careerism of some men, high expectations for hands-on participation in parenting often proved an effective in­ ducement for fathers to do more at home. One father broke off his interview in the middle of describing men’s and women’s responsibilities in families because it was his turn to watch the kids. Whether or not he noticed this delightful link between beliefs and behavior, he completed the interview (picking up the conver­ sation with the skill of someone accustomed to being interrupted by small chil­ dren) and finished his comments about the importance of parenting while a toddler and a five-year-old played in the background. Question: Do you think men can nurture children as well as women can? Answer: Not when they’re born and they’re breastfeeding them! There’s that

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bond; it’s like for life! [laughs]. But seriously, I think it’s the relationship you have with your children, you know. You have to have that quality time, and in this day and age it’s so much harder to do that. I really feel sorry for the single-family parents. I’m sure they work it out somehow; they get the time in. But you know, some children are closer to their fathers than they are their mothers. They just relate to things with them differ­ ently. You know, . . . when I go home, my son wants to play basketball with me. When it comes time to eat, . . . he goes to his mother. Who they go to just depends [on] what they want the most at the time! 40-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Ohio

This particular father went on to talk at length about his experience at a Prom­ ise Keepers meeting. Despite “not being a big group kind of guy,” he paid his money and got on the bus and was astounded at how it made him attend to ways in which he needed to improve as a father. I always say to myself, “Do I need to be with all these people to get closer to God?” But you know, the more good things you hear about it: you start hearing the testimonies of people who said how much more their wife and children meant to them after they went there. Well, see, I have a good re­ lationship; but if it could be better, I want it to be better. So what’s it go­ ing to cost you? Sixty dollars and a bus trip? Let’s go! And I came back and I think I treat my wife better than I have. I mean, certain people touch issues that . . . might have gone over my head before. That won’t happen again, you know? Certain issues about Christianity and your relationship with your children. You know, you think you’re doing a good job? You could do a better one! It’s not that you’re a bad parent, but when somebody’s got your attention and it causes you to think, okay? And while you’re thinking, “Yeah, I could be a better husband; I could be a better father!” . . . You know, the one thing I wanted most was for my wife to listen to this. It was awesome. But they said that . . . if it was for women also, they wouldn’t be as open. You got men breaking down and crying and just sobbing because they screwed up, you know? I can appre­ ciate all that. But I tell you what, I will go back next year because every speaker is going to be different; they’re going to be touching on different things; and if it’s going to help my . . . Christianity grow and develop as a father, as a husband, as just a person in the community, I’m going to do it. 40-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Ohio

Although not all fathers connected their intent to “do better” with Promise Keepers, many who had attended Promise Keepers’ events or who had only heard of the movement talked about its influence on their awareness of family and what fathers are supposed to be. Wives whose husbands were involved in Promise Keep­ ers also talked about its positive influence on their husbands. He’s really changed and become stronger since going to Promise Keep­ ers. I think it’s incredible! I’m not one of these women who were there

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going to fight it because I think that’s what God designed. . . . What a great thing to build guys up and bring them together and get them on focus. When I think back to my childhood, my father was so busy just working that I think we didn’t have a lot of the nurturing that it would have been nice to have from him. But I think men are more involved now. . . . the relationship is stronger whether it be by bathing [children] or getting them ready for bed or taking care of them once in a while without the wife. I think it just builds the relationship and makes the family stronger. 41-year-old Conservative Baptist mother of three, Minnesota

Framed within a broader discourse of gender difference and men’s leader­ ship, Promise Keepers stadium events have given evangelical men a safe haven within which to consider their investment of time, energy, and self in family, com­ munity, and careers. Along with Dobson, authors and speakers associated with Promise Keepers were among the most frequently cited authorities for how evan­ gelicals think about responsible fatherhood. Regardless of its organizational strength or lasting effects in men’s lives, for most evangelicals Promise Keepers has been considered a positive influence on men’s commitment to family life. In compari­ son to their own fathers, Promise Keepers men (and many of their wives) see them­ selves as more fully engaged, openly affectionate, and attentive husbands and fathers. The Limits of Involved Fatherhood In spite of growing emphasis on the importance of fathers in the lives of their children, only a handful of evangelicals suggested that fatherhood and moth­ erhood are interchangeable. Reacting to the images of clueless men in TV sitcoms, one man made the case that fathers can be as effective and nurturing parents as mothers, even to the extent of doing it full time. I look at TV shows today; and everything from Rosanne to cartoons, the commercials, men are all characterized as idiots. They know nothing about raising children, or anything. . . . Both should be parents, fathers as well as mothers. . . . I think there can be balance. If you have a husband who isn’t all in his career and can do a lot at home, you can work it out. If the man has more nurturing characteristics, I don’t see anything wrong with it being the other way around. 43-year-old nondenominational man, Georgia

Others made the case that it would be just fine if men stayed home more, provided their wives earned more. Recognizing the separation of paid work from family life that took place during industrialization, some evangelicals were explicit in linking the loss of fathers’ involvement to changes in the economy. They be­ lieved that even full-time fathering would not negatively affect children but could strengthen the development of gender identity in both daughters and sons. I think it’s okay if the man stays home with the kids if his wife earns more. I don’t think the kid’s gonna grow up warped; in fact, they may grow up

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with a better idea of the masculine side. Originally everybody stayed home anyway. They worked on the farm, and they were out with their parents. Men nowadays go out to work instead of out there. It’s not like the kids can sit in the shop and watch dad be a potter or something like that. It doesn’t matter who is home, as long as somebody is home. That’s the best. If both of them have to work, it really needs to be a partnership. The man should definitely be involved spiritually and reading the Bible and stuff like that. The man is very important. He’s the one who brings out the mas­ culine in his sons, and I believe he calls out the feminine in his daughters. 33-year-old Calvary Chapel woman, California

Overall, however, while evangelicals supported the idea that men should do more with their children, few suggested they should quit their jobs or reduce their hours to do so. Those who argued that “it doesn’t matter who, as long as there’s a parent” were a distinct minority. For most evangelicals, care from mothers and fa­ thers is not interchangeable—nature and personal experience are evidence enough of that. I personally have experienced trying to be Mr. Dad and spent eight months at home while my wife worked, trying to raise two children. And I make a lousy mother. And my wife makes a lousy husband. And so for us it did not work. As somebody who counsels marriage all the time, I find that it really does not work for others either. God has ingrained in us certain abili­ ties and innate things that aren’t necessarily forced but they just work best. I don’t have the compassion and the mercy that my wife does towards my children. . . . we are attempting to make gender homogenization that just doesn’t exist. Men and women are not equal in any sense of the physical world. Spiritually we are equal; emotional and mentally we have capacity to be similar, but there are distinctions you just can’t change. 42-year-old father of two, Michigan

Part of the reason for this lack of flexibility relates to the connection that evangelicals maintain between biology and being. Fathers may be essential to the development of their children, but they are not mothers. Men and women, moth­ ers and fathers are “just different,” based on biological differences that stand for the deeper reality of men’s leadership, authority, and protection and women’s nur­ turing and responsiveness. These differences are so “obviously true” that asking about where they come from and why elicited looks of surprise and bafflement during many of the personal interviews: how could any seemingly intelligent per­ son not understand something so straightforward? Not surprisingly, then, the ma­ jority of American evangelicals think of men and women as bringing different sets of skills to the business of rearing children.

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Different Ways of Connecting: The Foundations of Effective Parenting Evangelical ideas about gender difference and hierarchy carry over into parenting in the form of different styles and sets of skills that are considered natural to mothers and fathers. Men’s leadership and women’s responsiveness are seen as producing distinctive styles for loving, caring for, and disciplining children. Wisdom Some evangelicals made the case that God-given gender differences produce different sorts of love. Fathers should love their children “as much as the mother,” but the quality of fathers’ love is somehow different. There’s a wisdom, maybe a different kind of wisdom than what the mother could be able to give. You know, it’s a lot of the same kind of thing; it just comes from a male perspective. I mean, there’s wisdom and there’s nur­ turing and there’s loving and there’s security, but it’s the kind of all of that that a man can give which is different. I mean, we’re different! 50-year-old charismatic woman

According to many evangelicals, if leadership translates into fathers’ loving wisdom, then responsiveness translates into mothers’ loving tenderness. In some cases, that tenderness was connected specifically to the idea that women bear and give birth—bonding in the process to their children in ways that men cannot. I don’t think genetically that men would be better parents. My opinion is that if you carry the child and you bear the child, there is a maternal at­ tachment. I think that’s why the mothers are better caregivers. I just think it’s inborn. . . . I think of baby animals and their mothers. . . . I think it’s just maternal because it came from you: you bore that child. 46-year-old nondenominational mother of three, Ohio

Although this woman went on to say, “I’m sure that’s not the way it is with every­ body,” her emphasis on women’s biological connection as the basis for maternal love was echoed in the statements of many evangelicals. Then what about fathers’ love? Fathers are also physically connected to chil­ dren and have a genetic stake in maintaining their children’s lives. Why, then, is it so easy for evangelicals to default to biological explanations for women’s invest­ ment in mothering but not men’s fathering? To answer that question, it helps to consider an area of parenting—one generally considered the specialty of husbands. Discipline Of course, both mothers and fathers discipline their children, but fathers’ priority refers back to basic ideas about men’s and women’s essential nature. Dif­ ferences in when and how to discipline were frequently cited as areas of conflict within marriage. They were also cited as examples of times when wives submit­ ted to their husbands by “just letting them go their own way.”

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I think that it’s clear the man is to be the head of the household, after Christ. . . . I think it’s very important that they keep the gender roles that they’re supposed to have. Father, husband, wife, and mother. . . . I don’t know. . . . I just think that the father, not necessarily nowadays because you have a lot of times two breadwinners, but I think they have a dual respon­ sibility. Fathers have a dual responsibility to the growth and nurturing of their children. I think that they have a role also in teaching them from the time they’re little right and wrong . . . to discipline them. I think fathers are accountable. 46-year-old Episcopalian mother of three, Ohio

For fathers, discipline and nurturing go hand in hand. Mothers also disci­ pline, but that discipline is often understood as an extension of the fathers’. The parents should have the same respect and authority with their chil­ dren. I don’t think one should have more authority over the children than the other. Because the wife represents the authority of the head, which is the husband, in his absence. Or even in his presence if she so decides there needs to be something said. She should have the same authority in that aspect. By nature, I don’t use a strong hand so to speak, so sometimes I think she might want me to use a stronger hand in some aspects—maybe disciplining the kids and things like that. And I trust her wisdom on things like that. I don’t feel good about making very many decisions without her approval. She knows I value it very greatly. So we are more in harmony with each other. That’s just the way our nature is, so we have a very good marriage in that respect. 47-year-old Presbyterian father of four, South Carolina

In making the case that his wife’s authority derives from his own, this husband stands in the company of a long line of evangelical husbands who have envisioned wives’ authority as an extension of their own. Fun Fathers not only discipline; they are also significant sources of fun. In fact, one of the primary ways in which husbands and wives talked about fathers inter­ acting with their children was in terms of quality time spent playing. We both think fathers should be involved extensively [with their children]. My husband is real good about when he comes home from work playing with the kids or wanting to take them to do this or playing baseball in the backyard; and I think the kids need that, with him being gone all day and them just being with me all day. They really need that change, you know: “Dad’s home!”. . . My husband is real big on family, doing family things on the weekends. . . . He wants to have fun, you know. Dad is fun; Mom is there if I’m hurt, that kind of stuff; more because a man doesn’t understand emo­ tional feelings, I guess, as much as a woman would be able to understand. 39-year-old Christian Missionary Alliance mother, Ohio

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Fathers’ fun is one way in which mothers, whether stay-at-home or employed, get a break from the responsibilities of child care. As in many households in which mothers give primary care to children, fathers’ care is an entertaining diversion from routine. Being fun is also a way for men to balance their responsibility for disciplining their children. As far as specific areas of leadership, it seems that the man traditionally is more of the disciplinarian, and the mommy is the go to, feel better type person. I don’t like that! I don’t want to be the heavy all the time. I will be it when I have to. I don’t want to be the heavy, you know; the heavy’s not good! [laugh]. I like lovey-dovey: “Come here, baby; let Daddy love on you a little bit.” 29-year-old charismatic father of one, Ohio

Discipleship A fourth area in which evangelicals emphasized the different contributions of fathers and mothers was Christian discipleship. Here again, both are consid­ ered important; but greater weight is given to the significance of fathers in mod­ eling what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. As one woman put it, when fathers pray, read the Bible, or go to church, “children learn what is important . . . because they look up to the father as the one who has the most authority. . . . If they get that, they get a better picture of God.” From this perspective, fathers not only demonstrate what it means to be a Christian; they also embody a reflection of the personhood of God as father. Although for many years evangelical femi­ nists have pointed out that God is described with metaphors of carrying, birthing, nursing, and nurturing, God’s feminine attributes have never been the focus of evangelical tradition or teaching. Instead, evangelicals teach that fathers, perhaps uniquely, embody the love and authority of God within the household.

Conclusion Like most Americans, evangelicals struggle to combine ideas about gender with the practical needs of a household in which there are multiple jobs, bills, re­ lationships, and responsibilities. Housework is one area of family life where the practice of ordinary evangelicals most closely fits the pragmatic advice of recent evangelical commentary. For most, the division of household labor is a practical response to a particular set of historical and cultural circumstances in which per­ sonal preferences and availability determine who takes on specific tasks. While ideas about husbands’ headship and authority provide important cultural leverage for defining men’s spiritual responsibility and authority, these same cultural tools have little relevance for either the distribution of household tasks or the meaning attached to the domestic work. Husbands should help, but helping is shaped by the practical demands of employment and the personal preferences of the partners, not by the responsibility to fulfill a God-given call or obligation. Evangelicals could, but for the most part do not, apply a language of gifts, nature, or responsibility to

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the work of maintaining a household. Yet it is conceivable that evangelical men could be challenged to take up the hard work of making a home in the face of challenges from a culture that “threatens to undermine the family.” As an aspect of servant leadership, evangelical men could, within masculine community, call upon each other to “sacrifice” and “bear the burden” of every day domestic work. The same cultural tools they use so effectively to raise the bar on men’s commit­ ment to wage earning, family leadership, and parenting are left in the tool box when it comes to housework. As a result, housework remains largely women’s work. The language of men’s leadership and responsibility reappears, however, in discussions of parenting and child care. While few couples enact the ideal of coparenting advocated by some evangelical feminist authors, most struggle to make child rearing a priority, make fathers more central as both caregivers and models of godly manhood, and resist the broadening claims of paid work in their family lives. Yet in spite of how thoroughly invested evangelicals are in the idea of affec­ tionate fathering, and in spite of the evidence that suggests evangelical fathers are indeed increasingly involved with their children, evangelicals do not consider moth­ erhood and fatherhood to be interchangeable. Only a handful of evangelicals, usu­ ally those whose ideals for family are explicitly egalitarian, describe parenting as something that men and women do equally well. Because biology is interpreted as a metaphor for being, most evangelicals believe that women are naturally bet­ ter nurturers. Women may have a variety of gifts and interests, but their primary responsibility is motherhood. Caring for others is a basic extension of women’s basic nature. Men are linked to children through their biology also, but tangentially so. For this reason, because fatherhood is never as certain as motherhood, evangelical fathers find themselves connected to their children as a fulfillment of their call­ ing and responsibilities as men whose nature reflects the personhood of God. Fa­ thers embody both the love and authority of God within the household: loving by protecting, teaching by disciplining, and discipleship by example. Because God has set men as head over the household, with the responsibility to love and care for their children, evangelical fathers (unlike mothers) care for children as an act of obedience, not biology. In the end, the pragmatic egalitarianism and symbolic traditionalism of con­ temporary evangelicals lend themselves to a division of labor in which both women and men participate in the labor that goes into rearing children and maintaining a household. Men’s participation in this labor—particularly parenting—is strongly supported by ideals of husbands’ headship and authority. As we will see in the next chapter, attitudes toward women’s employment are much more varied.

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CHAPTER 7

Employment and the Needs

of Children

�

I think kids should have priority over career. If you wanted a career, then you shouldn’t have kids. 41-year-old mother of two, Michigan You know, as long as the family is raised in a loving way and their needs are taken care of, I don’t think it makes a difference who works or who stays home. 38-year-old charismatic man, North Carolina In today’s world, it’s a necessity that women work. . . . But they should strongly pray over it and determine who, what, when, and how. Ultimately, all the responsibility is still on the man. And if a woman does help—and that’s what she’s doing, is basically helping—it’s not her responsibility. 40-year-old Pentecostal man, North Carolina

A

merican evangelicals harbor a lin­ gering suspicion that the distinctive natures of men and women predispose them to different types of work. If God has hardwired women to respond to and nurture others, then it seems clear that they should be primarily responsible for creating an environment that meets the emotional and physical needs of others. Similarly, if God has engraved in men’s physiology a metaphor for their souls—a creature divinely designed to initiate, lead, and direct—it seems reasonable, if not obvious, that men should take primary responsibility for the material needs of the house­ hold. During the 1940s and 1950s, as evangelicalism distanced itself from the isolationism of fundamentalism and the theological liberalism of mainline denomi­ nations, the self-evidence of this correspondence among gendered nature, tempera­ ment, and tasks was not particularly problematic. Most of those who identified with neo-evangelical subculture were part of an expanding educated, white, and largely northern middle class, whose lives closely approximated the breadwinnerhomemaker ideal. Thirty years later, both the ideals and the experience of evangelical families 127

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had changed. Women’s employment, particularly the employment of mothers of preschoolers, departed from the gradual upward trend that had begun a century before and took a dramatic turn upward. By the 1990 census, 60 percent of moth­ ers of preschool children were employed, triple the percentage in 1970 (U.S. Bu­ reau of the Census 1994, 2000). The successes of second-wave feminism had removed major legal barriers to women’s employment and promoted ideals of women’s equal rights. Rising expectations related to the feminist movement, in­ creases in higher education and wages, and a continuing decline in fertility pro­ vided the opportunities, skills, and time that drew middle-class women into the paid labor force. A restructuring of the economy, the accompanying stagnation of men’s wages, and significant inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s effectively un­ dermined the viability of the one-earner, middle-class household, replacing the breadwinner-homemaker family ideal with a dual-earner, heavily indebted, middleclass reality.1 Along with other middle-class Americans, evangelicals in the 1970s and 1980s found themselves increasingly dependent on two incomes to maintain a level of consumption that had come to be associated with “the good life.” Dur­ ing these years of economic and social transformation, evangelical leaders articu­ lated a number of critiques, strategies, and responses to the demise of the “good provider” and the rise of the dual-income household. The relevant themes trace broader transformations in America’s culture and economy, drawing on, refining, and adjusting longstanding ideas about godly masculinity, femininity, and family.

Attempting to Stem the Tide: Evangelical Advice about the Women’s Employment Question, 1960–1980 As the issue of women’s rights began to move from the radical fringe into mainstream American consciousness, evangelical authors adopted a stance of gen­ eralized resistance to changes being advocated by liberal feminists, evangelical or otherwise. Their resistance was based on two related arguments. First was the ar­ gument that role changes would undermine the God-given order based on men’s authority at home. Second was the notion that advocating women’s employment inevitably devalued traditional, full-time homemaking and motherhood. Employment As Undermining Headship Husbands’ and Wives’ Subordination For evangelicals who grew up in the 1950s, the height of the breadwinnerhomemaker era, the prospect of women’s employment called into question the taken-for-granted complementarity of men’s and women’s roles within the family. For several decades, discussion of women’s employment among middle-class evangelicals had focused on the conditions under which wives should seek em­ ployment. Yet throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the question remained largely hypothetical among evangelicals. By the mid–1970s, it was a reality. Employment among mothers with preschoolers doubled between 1960 and 1975. Since then, it has nearly doubled again, leveling off at just above 60 percent in the early 1990s (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2001).

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As evangelicals began to work through the implications of these changes, numerous leaders and family commentators became concerned that wives’ employ­ ment would undermine the “complementarity of gender roles” that were the foun­ dation of family stability and happiness. Some like Tim LaHaye, made the case that wives’ employment posed multiple dangers to the stability and happiness of marriage. Most dangerous, LaHaye argued, was the sense of independence God had not intended for women in marriage. If the wife works and keeps her money separate from her husband’s, it breeds a feeling of independence and self-sufficiency which God did not intend a married woman to have. This feeling makes it difficult for her to adjust to her husband during the early stages of marriage. I am convinced that one of the reasons young married couples divorce so readily today is because the wife is not economically dependent upon her husband. . . . The second danger to a working wife is the birth of children is often delayed too long. (LaHaye 1968, 29)

For conservative evangelical writers like LaHaye, wives’ employment might be an acceptable short term means to fulfilling specific financial goals. But it should never be allowed to interfere with either wives’ dependence on husbands or the timing or responsibility of child rearing.2 Others wrote of their concern that women’s employment feminized men, undermining their self-respect by making them dependent on women’s wages.3 Although evangelical writers were not always so explicit in connecting women’s employment to the undermining of men’s au­ thority in marriage, the trend was clearly unsettling. Resisting the Devaluation of Full-Time Motherhood and Homemaking The upsurge in women’s employment in the 1970s not only called into ques­ tion the taken-for-grantedness of men’s authority and women’s dependence but also made problematic the vision of homemaking as women’s primary vocation. At a time when feminists were developing their critique of women’s unpaid labor, con­ servative evangelicals were again rallying to support the vocation of full-time home­ making and motherhood.4 Writers such as Elisabeth Elliot (1976), Tim LaHaye (1977), Edith Schaeffer (1975), and Phyllis Schlafly (1977) argued that feminism was intent on undermining that vocation. In What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew about Women, James Dobson (1975) articulated what became one of his major themes for the next thirty years—feminism’s “attack” on full-time motherhood: “I regret the lack of respect and status given to today’s homemaker. Even that word ‘housewife’ has come to symbolize unfulfillment, inferiority, and insignificance. How unfortunate! . . . While there is nothing wrong with a woman choosing to be a surgeon or a newspaper editor, I resent the underlying message that motherhood and housework are affronts to feminine dignity” (12, 138). He would go on to specify that the responsibility for this unfortunate turn of events was the feminist movement whose “agenda” was to overturn the “traditional” family and replace it with a collection of tenuously connected, self-interested individuals whose children are cared for by state sponsored institutions. “One of the cornerstone philosophies

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of the feminist movement asserts that it is impossible for a woman to be fulfilled while staying home and raising children. . . . Modern women are struggling to con­ vince themselves that state-sponsored child-care centers offer a convenient sub­ stitute for the traditional family concept. It will not work! . . . Anything that substitutes for the arms of a mother in the first three years should be viewed with great suspicion” (160–61). Dobson’s opposition to women’s employment was twofold. First, to the ex­ tent that employment was a response to “secular feminism,” employment deval­ ued women’s vocation as homemakers.5 Second, although Dobson would soon become an advocate of involved fatherhood, he was (and would remain) clear in his conviction that routine child care is primarily a mother’s responsibility. For Dobson, the conceivable alternatives to “a mother’s arms” would not be a father’s arms but “state-sponsored child care centers.”

Redefining the Problem: Not Whether Women Work but Why? As men’s wages stagnated and housing costs increased in the 1980s, more evangelicals found themselves among America’s dual-earner households. Given the implausibility of women’s return to full-time domesticity, they struggled to rede­ fine the appropriate conditions for women’s employment and its implications for family life. A prime example of this shift occurs in the writing of Larry Christenson. Seven years after the publication of The Christian Family, in which Christenson (1970) cautioned men against overinvolvement in housework and child care, he and his wife published The Christian Couple. In it, the they emphasized the need for flexibility in dividing paid and unpaid family labor, while arguing that such flexibility was still compatible with a hierarchical understanding of gender differ­ ences in authority: “Taking biblical principles seriously does not mean a simplis­ tic ‘return to the past.’ Principles that are true have an enduring validity, but the way in which they are applied will vary from one age to another. What is needed is an appreciation of the fundamental validity of what the Bible says about mar­ riage, then a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit as one seeks to apply it in everyday life. Both elements are necessary” (Christenson and Christenson 1977, 22). During the 1980s, the rhetoric of other evangelical authors would similarly shift from a defense of the honor of full-time motherhood to the question of how to apply “enduring truths” about the nature of manhood and womanhood in a postindustrial, dual-earner society. At the heart of this shift was the need to rede­ fine both men’s and women’s responsibilities in a way that preserved men’s head­ ship and authority, while reducing the expectation that a husband must be his family’s sole provider. As headship became increasingly understood as spiritual authority rather than economic provision, the question “why do women work?” began to replace “should women work?” in evangelical discourse on work and family. Nevertheless, women’s motivations for working outside the home remained suspect. The objections of con­ servative evangelicals simply shifted from viewing employment as undermining men’s authority to seeing employment as a sign of accommodation to an increas­

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ingly self-centered consumer culture. Earning an income might be acceptable as a solution to economic need but never as self-fulfillment or personal satisfaction. Women should put aside “happiness and fulfillment” as primary and focus instead on child rearing and serving the needs of others. Among conservative evangelicals, however, there were some interesting twists on this argument. Susan Foh (1979), for example, a long-time supporter of hierarchical ideals within the household and the church, made the case that em­ ployment was not problematic as long as it stemmed from women’s desire to ex­ ercise their gifts rather than selfishness or personal ambition. “It is conceivable that if one’s wife had more marketable job skills (such as those of a lawyer), she could become the primary breadwinner. There is not one pattern . . . [but] the ‘ful­ fillment’ of the wife is not the aim. The goal is the glory of God and furtherance of his kingdom” (202). Biblical feminists had, of course, been making a similar argument for gender equity in employment since the early 1970s. Focusing on the ideas of vocation, calling, and gifts, they urged Christian women to fulfill the model of womanhood presented in Proverbs 31: a praiseworthy woman who was active in textiles, trade, agriculture, and real estate as well as financial management and philanthropy. Most evangelical authors, however, remained closer to Foh’s posi­ tion, convinced of the need to preserve a hierarchical, gender-based division of labor at home and in the church (Clark 1980, Elliot 1976, Schaeffer 1975). The Radical Alternative: Mary Pride’s Homeworking In the extreme, evangelicals were encouraged to reject paid labor in favor of full-time domesticity or “homeworking.” Radical antifeminist Mary Pride (1985, 1989) was the most vocal proponent of homeworking as the Christian alternative to the seductions of consumer capitalism and the false promises of feminist so­ cialism. Arguing that “feminism is a totally self-consistent system aimed at re­ jecting God’s role for women” (1985, xii), she urged Christian women to fulfill their calling to be “workers at home” (Titus 2:5). “Homeworking is the biblical lifestyle for Christian wives. Homeworking is not just staying home either (that was the mistake of the fifties). We are not called by God to stay home, or to sit at home, but to work at home! Homeworking is the exact opposite of the modern careerist/institutional/Socialist movement. . . . Homeworking, like feminism, is a total lifestyle. The difference is that homeworking produces stable homes, grow­ ing churches, and children who are Christian leaders” (Pride 1985, xiii). These strategies provided two sets of effective boundaries for evangelicals. By exaggerating materialism and selfish ambition as unworthy motivations for women’s employment, conservative evangelicals were able to maintain a sense of distinctiveness from the broader culture while increasingly resembling that cul­ ture in their struggle to balance the responsibilities of family and work. Moreover, by defining the choices of evangelical women as either self-sacrifice and family or selfish ambition and personal fulfillment, conservative evangelicals were able to effectively stigmatize biblical feminists such as Gundry, Hardesty, Mollenkott, and Scanzoni as “selling out” to secular feminism and representing the worst of self-indulgent American individualism. In doing so, more conservative evangelicals

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were able to maintain a sense of distance from the broader culture without and the feminist impulse within. Still, during the 1980s the writings of evangelical lead­ ers underwent an important shift toward accepting women’s employment as the reality within most households—a common experience that like all other experi­ ences should be weighed and evaluated in light of a broader commitment to live in and also transform the “world.”

Riding the Wave: Evangelical Advice to Dual-Earner Couples in the 1990s By the 1990s, women’s employment, the growing need for quality child care, and the destabilizing of men’s jobs reflected the experience of the majority of evan­ gelical households. The question was no longer “should women work” or “what are acceptable motivations for women’s employment” but how to support families in which husbands and wives were both employed. In response, concerned evan­ gelical authors raised fewer theological and ethical objections to women’s employ­ ment and focused instead on the pragmatic difficulties and potential pitfalls of managing a two-earner household. Nonetheless, their words of caution and guide­ lines for success drew on a set of interrelated factors related to ideas about men’s and women’s essential natures. First was the concern that women’s employment places an unfair and unrea­ sonable burden on women. Some women are able to maintain a busy career and a bustling family at the same time, and they do it beautifully. I admire them for their disci­ pline and dedication. It has been my observation, however, that this dual responsibility is a formula for exhaustion and frustration for many oth­ ers. . . . Consider what is like to be a mother of young children who must rise early in the morning, get her kids dressed, fed, and situated for the day, then drive to work, labor from nine to five, go by the grocery store and pick up some stuff for dinner, retrieve the kids at the child-care cen­ ter, and then drive home. . . . this beleaguered woman then begins another four to six hours of very demanding “mothering” that will extend into the evening. (Dobson 2000a, 119–20)

Sidestepping the issue of husbands’ involvement in domestic work, Dobson and other conservative evangelicals leaned toward providing pastoral-style advice that cautioned women against the stress of overcommitment. Although he acknowl­ edged that some women may be employed because of economic need, Dobson’s underlying message was that those who choose employment in addition to house­ work and child rearing are asking for trouble. Stress related to balancing work and family is something women mostly bring on themselves. It is a private problem requiring individual solutions—solutions that in most cases involve women reevalu­ ating their commitments to the work side of the equation. A second related focus of recent evangelical commentaries is the concern

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that commitment to a career or profession (rather than just a job) easily overwhelms time and energies that should be devoted to family. Seen as problematic for both women and men, careerism has been described as a manifestation of ungodly in­ dividualism and a concession to the materialism and self-centered egoism of our culture. Blending the idea that work is both responsibility and a personal choice, Dobson would concede: The issue, then, is not whether a woman should choose a career and be a mother, too. Of course she has that right, and it is nobody’s business but hers and her husband’s. I would simply plead that you not allow your family to get sucked into that black hole of exhaustion. However you choose to divide the responsibilities of working and family management, reserve some time and energy for yourselves—and for each other. Your children deserve the best that you can give them, too. (120)

Whether “just a job” or a “career,” women’s employment remained couched in the language of personal family decision—a choice that should be made in the con­ text of existing responsibilities, taking care to preserve time for self, spouse, and children. Is it really beneficial to her family, does it aid her husband in his call­ ing? . . . Can she do it while still being faithful to her primary calling to be wife and mother and to care for her home? . . . The decision in this realm must not be unilateral on the part of the woman but made under the leadership of her husband as the head of the marriage and the fam­ ily. . . . The husband’s work must take precedence (when necessary) over the wife’s , and she must be willing to help her husband fulfill his calling in this realm even if it means that she will give up her position. (Knight 1991, 348, 350).

A third theme to emerge in the 1990s was the notion that women’s employ­ ment contributed to the unbridled growth of big government. Echoing the rallying cry of political conservatives throughout the decade, Dobson, Getz, LaHaye, Robert­ son, and others warned that women’s employment opened up the door to state in­ terference and control of the family. Not only did child care harm children, but placing one’s children in day care contributed to creeping socialism. It was not until the end of the decade that Dobson would write: “Safe, clean, loving childcare facilities are a necessity in today’s culture. They are especially needed by the millions of mothers who are forced to work for financial reasons. They are par­ ticularly vital to the many single parents who are the sole breadwinners in their families. Thus, we need not question the wisdom of providing well-supervised cen­ ters for children whose mothers and fathers require assistance in raising them. That debate is over.” While conceding that the debate about child care may be over, Dobson would nonetheless argue that, “I don’t believe any arrangement for chil­ dren can compete with an intact family where the mother raises her kids and the father is also very involved in their lives” (118).

134 TABLE 7.1.

Evangelical Identity, Gendered Family Life

Employment among Married Women by Religious Tradition (%)a Protestants

Employed Full time Part time Keeping house

Evangelical

Fundamentalist

Mainline

56.5 39.2 17.1 29.5

60.5 45.9 14.3 27.0

59.7 45.4 14.0 20.1

Liberal 53.8 47.4 64* 30.1

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a Symbols indicate the significance of the differences between self-identified evangelicals and other religious self-identifications (fundamentalist, mainline, and theologically liberal Protestants), *≤.05.

By the end of the 1990s, the issue of child care would be thinly accepted as a pragmatic necessity given the realities of a dual-earner economy. About 56 per­ cent of all married evangelical women are now employed, about the same percent­ age as other women in the United States as well as other religiously committed Protestants (see table 7.1). Although the image of evangelicals as pro-family con­ servatives might lead us to expect a significant minority of evangelical women would be homemakers, that is not the case. In fact, across Protestant traditions married women differ very little when it comes to homemaking and employment. Evangelicals are employed full time at about the same rate as women who iden­ tify themselves as fundamentalist, mainline, or theologically liberal Protestants and are employed part time at about the same rate as fundamentalist and mainline Prot­ estants. Less than one-third of all evangelical women are homemakers, about the same proportion as fundamentalist and theologically liberal Protestants. A some­ what smaller percentage of mainline Protestant women (about 20 percent) are fulltime homemakers. If evangelical women are so much like other Protestant women in terms of employment, perhaps they differ in what affects whether or not they are employed. Different religious ideas or practices for example, may help predict or explain why women in different traditions are employed and others homemakers (see table B.8 in appendix B). An analysis of data from religiously committed Protestants across the country suggests that there are indeed tradition-specific characteristics and be­ liefs associated with women’s employment but that most are significant only for fundamentalists. For instance, fundamentalist women in Southern Baptist churches are much less likely to work outside the home than are fundamentalists in other churches. Believing that the Bible is the most important source of knowing how to live is also negatively associated with employment among fundamentalist women. For evangelicals, neither believing that the Bible is literally true, nor other subcultural characteristics (such as being charismatic or not, nor the amount of

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time spent watching religious radio or watching religious television), nor ideas about husbands’ headship or egalitarianism have any significant effects on whether or not evangelical women are employed. Given the similarities among evangelical, mainline, and theologically liberal women, it is not surprising that conservative evangelical authors have largely replaced the headship-equals-breadwinner ideal with notions of complementary domestic roles and men’s servant leadership. Wives’ employment may remain a practical concern, but it is no longer open to serious theological debate.

Exercising Gifts and Answering a Call: The Alternative Vision of Biblical Feminism Through the same years that conservative evangelicals were cautioning couples against the negative effects of wives’ employment, evangelical feminists were developing a vision of family in which paid and unpaid labor were divided by gifts, interests, and availability rather than categorical gender differences or a God-given hierarchy of roles. Rather than being “selfish,” egalitarians argued that employment broadened the range of opportunities for “women, made in God’s im­ age, . . . to be good stewards and exercise the gifts God has given to her—just as a man should” (Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992, 290–91). They encouraged couples to balance work and family, share responsibility for child rearing, and maintain a sense of partnership in all areas of family life (Ashcroft 1996, Barton 1998, Bristow 1994, Cook and Lee 1992, Hull 1991, Lester and Lester 1998, Nystrom 2001, Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992). By the mid–1990s, evangelical feminists (like their conservative counterparts) were reissuing books first published in the 1970s and 1980s with updated refer­ ences to developments in social science and biblical and theological studies.6 Al­ though some of these books augmented previous discussions of gender equity at home and in the church, others offered fresh perspectives. In a move that paral­ leled a growing academic interest in men’s studies, biblical feminists began to problematize the rigid narrowness of conventional masculinity and argued for the need to envision a more flexible, open, and vulnerable masculinity (Balswick 1992, Lester and Lester 1998, Olson 1998). Like gender-essentialist commentators, bib­ lical feminists assumed that women’s employment was a reality in most house­ holds and focused on providing practical advice for creating a more egalitarian division of labor at home. The remainder of this chapter turns to how the work and family strategies advocated by evangelical authors and activists find expression in the lives of or­ dinary evangelicals. How do conservative Protestant men and women make sense of the choices they make regarding employment and family? More important, how do those choices reflect the subcultural mandate to be in but not of the world? In answering these questions, ordinary evangelicals do important cultural work, both reinforcing boundaries with the broader subculture and simultaneously affirming the dominant religious subcultural ideas of gender hierarchy and essentialism.

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Gifts, Nature, and Necessity: Axes of Negotiation and Mothers’ Employment American evangelicals draw together apparently competing perspectives in talking about gender, employment, and family life. The first focuses on an axis of ideals regarding women’s gifts and nature. On the one hand is the notion that women, like men, should use their gifts and talents to participate in and engage with the world. On the other is the idea that natural and essential gender differ­ ences justify women in making child rearing their first priority. The second axis focuses on relative need: the psychosocial needs of children and the economic needs of the household. Across both of these axes, evangelicals balance and negotiate the boundaries between work and family.7 Axis of Ideals: Negotiating Personal Gifts and Idealized Motherhood According to many evangelicals, women’s involvement in paid work and child rearing are shaped by their specific—sometimes extraordinary—gifts. In contrast, men’s involvement is described largely in terms of fulfilling specific responsibili­ ties. Even among evangelicals who affirm the notion of men’s natural leadership and women’s natural responsiveness, the issue of women’s employment shifts the focus from questions of nature toward questions of gifts and calling. Asked whether women’s first priority should be child rearing rather than careers, many talked about motherhood as a gift that some have and others do not. As one Presbyterian father in Georgia said, “I think it depends totally upon the woman. I think that some women know that they wouldn’t be a good parent, they just don’t enjoy children, they don’t have the patience, but maybe they have lots of gifts in other areas. Again it is that whole area of gifts.” For evangelicals like this man, linking caring for children to gifts rather than women’s essential nature conceptually separates motherhood from womanhood. Having the ability to bear children is not always connected to the ability or desire to care for them. In those rather rare cases when women are simply not “good with kids,” investment in a career reflects an appropriate use of gifts that would be unwisely spent on full-time mothering. In principle, this suggests that gifts tri­ umph over nature. Like women preachers in the nineteenth century, contemporary evangelical women may be extraordinarily gifted in ways that run counter to the implications of their biology. There is space, in other words, for women to do and be things other than full-time mothers. In contrast to the gifts perspective, some evangelicals emphasized abilities, ambition, and the desire of women to do other kinds of work. One businessman in Minnesota, for example, contrasted the drive of some of his female co-workers with his wife’s satisfaction with full-time motherhood: “I’ve worked with women who just really weren’t cut out to be homemakers; they really had the drive and wanted a career. Whereas [my wife] is really good with kids, and she enjoyed rais­ ing our little kids at home, and it worked out good.” While careful to allow for the possibility that not all women are “cut out” to be mothers and homemakers, only a handful of men and women argued for shared

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parenting or the normativeness of women’s commitment to a career. The few who made this case were exceptional, like the following older woman whose father told her years ago that it would be a “waste of money” for her to go to college. Up until twenty years ago I would have said that wives should be submis­ sive; that means under the thumb. . . . My father said that children—girls— should work until they get married. College for me would be a waste of money. And I think he was reflecting his generation’s idea. . . . Now I think God gives each one talents and abilities that should be yours, and I think that you should be mature and stable enough so that you’re not threatened if the woman has the ability and the talents to be the breadwinner. 61-year-old Congregational woman, Massachusetts

Saying that “it makes no difference who is at home as long as someone is there” and “a man could do the job, too, just maybe differently,” egalitarian evan­ gelicals emphasized the interchangeability of mothers and fathers as parents. Men may bring different abilities and temperaments to the parenting table than women; but both are welcome, and both can get the job done. Still, relatively few evangelicals were willing to make the case for the inter­ changeability of mothers and fathers as full-time parents. Instead, they gave mea­ sured acceptance to the idea that individual women may be hardwired for some kind of work other than mothering. In most cases, they believed that women are hardwired for child rearing as well. I do not have a problem with a woman working. My wife works now. But I do believe that when children come into the picture, that needs to be a real strong priority of the wife. I think women (I hope I am not wrong by saying women here), but . . . I believe women have been gifted in raising children, and I believe . . . that should be their top, one of their top priori­ ties is being there for their child, along with their husband. When the job becomes more high priority than your kids, I think that is when problems begin. 26-year-old married man without children, Colorado

Yet “not having a problem” with women’s employment only goes so far. Once employment begins to interfere with motherhood, it does become a problem—or at least threatens to do so. In fact, many of those who argued that exceptionally gifted women should be free to invest themselves in careers also made the case that exceptionally gifted women should probably not have children. The Colorado man just quoted, for example, went on to say that he believed a husband’s first priority was earning income, with children a very important second priority. Wives who are not gifted at caring for children might do better to avoid having them at all. Like the full-time homemakers and full-time career women in Kathleen Gerson’s (1985) study of work, careers, and motherhood, evangelicals who focus on women’s giftedness tend to conceptualize commitment to a career as an all-or-

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nothing proposition. Some women may have gifts that lend themselves to invest­ ment in a career, but these imply a lack of giftedness in child rearing. The major­ ity of women are assumed to be naturally gifted (at least marginally so) as nurturers and caregivers, enough to tip the balance toward justifying them in making child care a priority over employment. In contrast, evangelicals talk of fathers as being obligated rather than gifted. They are expected to bear two burdens: provide the lion’s share of a household’s income and take an active role in parenting as well. No one spoke of men’s em­ ployment as contingent upon the degree to which men might be gifted (or not) in caring for small children—as though investment in a career were something men might do if they are not “good with children.” And no one spoke of fatherhood as contingent upon men’s giftedness as parents. If men are not gifted, it hardly seems relevant because mothers are still largely responsible for getting most of the job done. The fulfillment of fatherhood is still largely accomplished by clothing one’s children, not keeping them clean. One of the ways in which evangelicals explain men’s and women’s different connections to parenthood is the physiological differences between the sexes. When pressed on the question why mothers should make child rearing a priority over employment while fathers are expected to give high priority to both, respondents pointed, with remarkable consistency, to biology: the reason why women should be primary parents is their ability to lactate. “They have the equipment, after all.” “Isn’t it obvious? Men don’t have breasts. Women do.” “God designed them to take care of small children; just look at their bodies.” The fact that many women do not breastfeed their infants and that even full-time infant care takes only a frac­ tion of a woman’s adult years was irrelevant. According to these evangelicals, the body itself is a sign that God has designed and intended women for child rearing. Thus, no matter what other gifts a woman may have, her physiology demonstrates an underlying call to respond and nurture. I think that we women are nurturers, that God has given us the capacity to be concerned about little children and to care for them and key in on the needs of the family and keeping the family together. Men are more, you know, they’re not focused into the emotional and interpersonal as much. . . . They’re just “let’s get the job done!” I think it would be best if wives didn’t have to work. I work full time and find it extremely hard to deal with being a mother, wife, and full-time employee. It’s overwhelm­ ing. There’s no way I can do it all. I think mother and wife is a full-time job, so I deal with a lot of guilt. 36-year-old Southern Baptist mother, North Carolina

While many believe they are gifted in their occupations and value the adult companionship and income their jobs provide, the belief that women are primary nurturers exacerbates the guilt evangelical women feel over working outside the home. The money may be important, and the satisfaction and rewards of adult com­ pany are deeply meaningful. But when exhaustion and the feeling of being over­ whelmed by the endless race to keep the refrigerator full, transport children, manage

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meals, and maintain both schedules and relationships are combined with the sus­ picion that their legitimate place is inside the home, it is no wonder women ex­ press a sense of guilt over their inability to “do it all.” Women’s exhaustion and guilt about their inability to rightly balance work and family prompts the question “where are the men?” How does husbands’ head­ ship connect to, even relieve, the burden that wives feel to do it all? As we saw in chapter 6, American evangelicals write and talk a great deal about the need for men to be involved as fathers. As a subcultural norm it is no longer enough for men to provide. They must be there, at home, reading stories, giving baths, play­ ing ball, saying prayers, spending time. Even if it is minimal time, men must make themselves a felt presence within the household. Reflecting this subcultural ideal, evangelical men talked of their own struggles to strike a balance between work and family. I believe as a Christian man that I need to be faithful to my wife and family. That means earn a respectable living but not, you know, serve my job. Not serve the almighty dollar and not serve the next promotion and that sort of thing. I find that no matter where I’ve worked, at least in the profes­ sional arena, they give lip service to that, [but] it’s really not true. People that advance are the people that are really there a lot—and it goes on and on. People are willing to work Saturdays and that sort of thing. And the temptation is to give into that and spend quite a bit more time there and really serve the job. 34-year-old Moravian father of two, North Carolina

A number of men talked about their frustration at trying to balance success at work with feeling successful as fathers. Both the formal demands of their em­ ployers and the informal culture of the workplace feel like obstacles to men being a greater presence at home. A number spoke specifically of how they had made conscious decisions to refuse Saturday overtime, come in early, or work late. And they accepted the consequences of this “limited commitment” in being passed over for bonuses and promotion. I work in a small engineering company, and it is pretty much expected that you be here late and come in sometimes over the weekend, especially when big projects are due. But I can’t do that, you know? I had to just sit down with my wife and decide that I wasn’t going to let work become the only thing I do. I didn’t want to be away so much, especially now when the kids are small. So I just made it clear, and now I figure I’ve pretty much moved up as much as I’m going to. But that’s okay. 45-year-old Presbyterian father of three, Oregon

Like this man, other evangelical men talked about setting boundaries at work in order to spend more time at home. Even though not everyone spoke of forgo­ ing overtime and promotion, numerous men spoke about their efforts to arrange flexible hours so they could drop off or pick up their children after school, even if that only meant delivering them to the babysitter for a few more hours before

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dinner. Others talked about limiting their travel or requesting different shifts in order to “cover the homefront” while wives were at work. A few older men also spoke of regretting how little they had been at home with their children. I think men and women should have an equal role in taking care of the children. Equal role in doing the things that are suppose to be done as Christians as well as physical and social and so on. . . . My wife was a better mother than I was a father. I was too busy being a breadwinner, I guess. Maybe I took the head of the household, or whatever it was, bread­ winner, to the extreme. I spent too much time with my career and not enough time with my daughters when they were growing up. But we didn’t have any major problems. 56-year-old Southern Baptist man, South Carolina

For men as well as women, the structure and organization of employment are often problematic. Long, inflexible hours take a heavy toll on both time and quality of relationships with family. Even respondents without children at home found themselves overwhelmed by the pace of life and the demands of work. We don’t have any kids at home anymore, and we were talking just this week about our jobs, which are not even real high-pressure jobs, . . . but we’re just running back and forth to work and making lunches and doing laundry and stuff; we hardly have time to do anything. Whereas at least if one person is home, you can kind of keep the home fires going; and it’s a hundred times more important if you got kids. 55-year-old Evangelical Free man, Minnesota

While ideals about women’s gifts and nature may be important, the struc­ ture of work and how it competes for time otherwise spent with spouses or children are also significant. This brings us to the second axis around which evangelicals balance notions of work and family—the axis of competing needs. The Axis of Relative Need: Balancing Income and the Needs of Children In addition to keeping ideas about women’s gifts and nature in balance, evangelicals work hard to balance the tension between the household’s legitimate need for additional income and children’s needs for intensive parental care. In bal­ ancing these competing needs, evangelicals show some key differences across age and class. For example, compared with their younger counterparts, older men and women talked more often about wives staying home with small children. Older evangelicals described women going to work for the first time in the 1970s, when couples began to contemplate paying for their children’s college educations and weddings and anticipated their own retirement, all during a time of economic un­ certainty and inflation. Younger men and women were more likely to talk about wives’ employment with a hint of resignation, nostalgic for a simpler time when one income was enough. While most married younger women were employed, many described their employment with a sense of concern that the cost of their absent hours from home might outweigh the personal and economic benefits of working outside the home.

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Tipping the Balance toward Economic Need. Despite their relatively high average income, evangelicals, like other middle- and upper-class Americans, feel a sense of insecurity and loss with regard to their own economic standing. Over and over again men and women bracketed their comments on work and family with qualifiers such as “it takes two incomes to survive now” and “it would be nice to have her stay home, but we can’t afford it.” They talked about the need to pay down debt and the desire to stay out of debt, of the need to buy health insur­ ance and save for retirement, all the while acknowledging the difficulty of bal­ ancing economic needs with the needs of children. Among working-class men and women, the current situation does not seem much different from their parents’ a generation ago: two incomes are still neces­ sary to keep a household financially afloat. For upper-middle-class and profes­ sional couples, on the other hand, the expectation that wives should also need to work feels relatively new, unfortunate, or even unfair. A middle-aged Pentecostal woman in Washington explained that “back in the sixties Dad worked and Mom stayed home with the kids, raised the kids, and everything was wonderful. Nowa­ days it isn’t. Moms have to work. I have to work. Sure, my husband can work and pay the bills just fine; but we can’t do anything else.” This woman’s sense of the ideal reflects the mythological family of the 1950s and early 1960s: suburban, oneearner, and secure. Although others expressed nostalgia for an era in which issues of work and family seemed more easily defined, some recognize that things are now (and were probably then, too) much different. Asked if men and women should have spe­ cific roles in families, a sheetmetal worker in Oregon replied: “Gosh, that’s a good question. I guess, yeah, if you want to look at our world through the eyes of Ozzie and Harriet. . . . But we live in the nineties. That’s not going to happen very much. I can’t take my wife and transport back to a time when she’s going to just dust and cook. That’s stupid on my part, you know.” For the two-thirds of married evangelicals who are in dual-income house­ holds, the desire to make ends meet clearly shapes their thinking about wives’ employment—shifting the balance, in most cases, toward working outside the home, even when children are small. For couples in the upper middle class and higher, it may be possible to live comfortably on one income. But even in households with full-time mothers, there is an appreciation and respect for the sacrifice and struggle of families whose resources are more limited. The following Michigan man em­ ployed in a Fortune 500 company made the case that it is both unreasonable and unfair for evangelicals to be critical of households in which both spouses are employed. I think it is very important for women to raise kids, but I wouldn’t set it as their only priority. I think it just depends. And especially in today’s so­ ciety, it is tough to make it on one income. Man, if you can make it on one income, great. But please don’t judge those who have to work a dual income to make ends meet and then criticize that woman and say, “You don’t love your kids.” 30-year-old Christian Reformed father of one, Michigan

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As another man said, not everyone can afford to have a “domestic goddess” at home. In the end, like so many other issues for evangelicals, the balance of children’s needs and economic need is seen as a private and personal decision. “It’s a hard situation,” one thirty-seven-year-old mother said, “but I’d never say you shouldn’t have a family if you’re going to work. . . . [Couples] have to pray about it and make that decision for themselves.” Tipping the Balance toward the Needs of Children. Evangelicals in twoearner households make numerous pragmatic compromises in order to make ends meet. But many are not so sure that these compromises are a good idea. They ex­ press deep concern about the cost of two working parents in their children’s lives— feeling, as one man explained, “caught between a rock and a hard place; you want to give your children everything they need, but you don’t want to be gone so much either.” Being away is the big issue. Although few try to make the case that women’s employment is bad for marriage, more harbor a lingering suspicion that women’s employment is bad for children. Among potential harms associated with mothers’ employment, three were the focus of most concern: (1) the absence of essential direction and care (particularly when children are young), (2) the introduction in formal day care of competing values and unacceptable practices, and (3) compro­ mising with the materialism of American culture as a whole. Although two-thirds of all evangelical married women with preschool chil­ dren are employed, there remains strong support for the idea that children’s needs should take precedence over employment, at least during the first few years of life. Many echoed the sentiments of the Michigan man, who said: “The first three, four, five years of a kid’s life, it is real important for Mom to be at home. More than having a paid job.” This tipping the balance toward full-time motherhood while children are young reflects the belief that children’s needs are best served by the consistent, intensive care a mother provides best, even when that means shelving potential earnings and cutting financial corners. I have a college education, but I feel it is absolutely crucial that I stay home. I did not even consider working. . . . We have friends who shake their heads and say, “How did you do it?” We just say it is by God’s grace because I needed to be home with Matthew. We cut. We eat a lot of spa­ ghetti. We eat a lot of simple things. We save $600 in child care. Why be out changing the world and have someone else raising my child? That is not what parenting is. . . . They don’t need all the things you can buy them; they need you. 26-year-old Christian Missionary Alliance stay-at-home mother, Georgia

Closely related to the belief that a mother’s care is the best care is the idea that child care outside the home is risky business. The vulnerability of young chil­ dren, not just physically and emotionally, but socially and spiritually, is a deep con­ cern for many evangelical parents. For some, like the following woman, the focus of this concern is the potential negative effects of day care on younger children as well as the effects of low parental supervision at home.

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You have society saying it is okay for women to go out and be supermom and to stick your kids in day care. It can’t be done. They try to conjure up studies that say there is no effects on children being in day care. There really haven’t been any long-term studies done on children who don’t spend that quality time with their parents. . . . I just think kids don’t have as much direction when they don’t have Mom there. 23-year-old unmarried woman, Calvary Chapel, Texas

Clearly, Dobson’s summary of years of social science research indicating that day care may make children more assertive but also better socially adjusted and healthy has not gotten through to most ordinary evangelicals. Yet many are less concerned with the behavioral consequences of day care than with the question of how institutional day care promotes “state interference” in the household and the “secularizing influence of strangers” on children who should be under parental care. Parents of older children also expressed a great deal of concern about the effects of maternal employment on school performance.8 A public school teacher was careful to stress that “this is a tough time with job lay­ offs and companies reducing size” and “most women are employed because of money issues at home and not because they’re buying vacations and cottages.” Yet she went on to describe the difference she saw in the school performance of chil­ dren whose mothers were home compared with those whose mothers were not: “I would rather see a woman at home. I think that means so much for the kids. I think that if you compare kids who come home to a mom and cookies sitting on the counter and kids that have to let themselves in and be home by themselves and sit and watch TV for two hours before mom comes home, there’s a definite difference in their grades.” In addition to worry over the negative consequences of maternal employ­ ment for children, many evangelicals are concerned that women’s employment represents a compromise with the materialism and consumerism of American cul­ ture. Although some empathize with the difficulty of making ends meet on one income, others (particularly those with higher incomes and those in households where only husbands are employed) argue that wives’ employment represents a choice between self-sacrifice and commitment and self-indulgence and individu­ alism. “What is mothers’ employment really buying?” they reasoned. Is it “going down the drain into child care” or “into $200,000 homes and $30,000 cars” or “payments on an average credit load of $100,000”? Posing the question as a choice between extremes, evangelicals like the following woman in Massachusetts argue that women ought to get their priorities straight. It’s unfortunate nowadays that women have to be in the work force, and there has to be a double paycheck. But what is your double paycheck bring­ ing? Are you taking away from being home with your child because you want three cars, a boat, a plane, sending somebody to Harvard? Or is it putting bread or food on the table? Get your priorities straight!

For all but a handful of very conservative evangelicals, women’s employ­ ment is not really the main issue; neglected children are.

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If a woman can do as good a job as a man, there’s no problem with her working. If they have kids, though, that’s another story. If the woman can afford to stay home, if the husband can provide, she should stay home with the kids. I feel bad for the ones that have to work. . . . But the ones who want their money and their careers and the family, and they don’t have to work—that’s selfishness. 37-year-old Christian Missionary Alliance woman, Massachusetts

By resisting in principle (if not always in practice) the rampant consumer­ ism of American culture, evangelicals reinforce an important subcultural boundary that distinguishes them from the broader culture. It is important to note, however, that the world that evangelicals distinguish themselves from is a caricature of happy-go-lucky, self-indulgent consumerism, not specific people in their neigh­ borhood or circle of friends. The wicked are out there, somewhere, but hardly ever next door. Even among those who were most critical of women’s employment—calling it “dressed up materialism,” an “expression of selfishness,” or “the result of living in a self-fulfillment culture”—there was some sympathy for the need for additional income and the lack of choice about how employment affects family life. The comments of one at-home mother capture this combination of disapproval and sympathy. Staunchly defending the need for women to make children a higher priority than their careers, she then went on to talk about how many mothers have to work in order to stay ahead. I think kids should take priority over career. . . . Some people try to juggle both, and it doesn’t work. . . . The kids are running around, and you are not there for your kids, when your career starts being more and your kids trail in behind. . . . But it isn’t possible sometimes. I think that both par­ ents, in this day and age, to even stay ahead, they have to work. If the husband doesn’t make that much, some women don’t have a choice. 41-year-old Wesleyan mother of two, Michigan

Other women, though skeptical of the materialism associated with women’s employment and emphasizing the value of child rearing, talked about employment as a way to introduce balance into their own lives. A hospital worker whose hus­ band worked the swing shift talked about her struggle with full-time homemaking’s lack of boundaries and structure and about how much better she felt once she started working, even though she called employment “just a job.” I like to work because when I am at home I get in this mode of “oh, I’ll do the dishes later.” Then it gets to be eight o’clock at night, and the dishes are still sitting there! I need to keep myself busy and interact with adults. Otherwise, I’m lost in this child mode. With my first one I ended up be­ ing the neighborhood babysitter. I wanted to get out of that. I don’t want that responsibility for other people’s kids. I have my own to worry about! 34-year-old Pentecostal mother of three, Washington

In balancing the competing demands of children and the household, evan­

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gelicals rhetorically reinforce the boundaries between themselves and the broader culture. Echoing the language of authors such as James Dobson and Elisabeth Elliot, they describe caring for children as a woman’s highest priority. Self-indulgence and materialism are simply unacceptable. Yet in resolving the tension around this axis of competing needs, most tip the scales in the direction of an acceptable standard of living rather than pursuing either full-time motherhood or its more radi­ cal alternative, limited employment on the part of married men. Those who choose either of the latter shift the boundaries in work and family in ways that are countercultural, indeed, bending normative ideas about the needs and rights of women and men to invest their lives in paid work outside the household.

Patched and Crumbling Boundaries: Conservative Critiques of Women’s Employment Although the primary concern most evangelicals have with women’s employ­ ment is its implications for the well-being of children, a small number object in principle to the idea that married women should work outside the home. Unless there is a family emergency or husbands are unable to provide, these men and women see women’s employment as threatening the stability of the family. It does this in two ways. First, it upsets the balance of gender, power, and identity by cre­ ating a second head within the household. Because now men and women both work, women feel just as superior as men in the home; and when you have two leaders in a household, you are asking for trouble. But at the same time, I don’t ever tell anybody that you should boss your wife around and push her around and have her as almost a slave to you. That is no way to be for certainly a man should be a man. 50-year-old charismatic father of one, Georgia

Echoing Tim LaHaye’s (1968) argument that wives’ employment makes it diffi­ cult for women to adjust to their husbands after marriage, a small number of evangelicals—nearly always men—made the case that women should not work be­ cause it undermines husbands’ authority at home. A second and more frequently cited argument is the notion that women’s employment is the source of family breakdown and a host of other social problems. The drug problem. The crime problem. . . . I was born in 1960; and when I was seven or eight, you never heard of the stuff you hear today: four-, five-, six-year-old kids being arsonists; eleven-year-old boys gang-raping a sixteen-year-old girl; kids committing suicide; twelve-year-old girls get­ ting pregnant. A lot of this is because of the breakdown in the home. And the breakdown in the home is because you have more women (and they would call me sexist, but my wife works and has a good income, and I don’t have a problem with that, but this next statement is going to sound like I do), you have a lot of women these days that have no pride in being a mother. They are career-oriented and want to compete with the men. As

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a result, they take themselves out of the home, and they leave the school system, day care centers, or neighbors to raise their children. And today you don’t discipline a child like I was. Plus the government is getting in­ volved with regulating what kind of punishment you can administer. Ba­ sically it is all related to the breakdown in the home. Mothers aren’t in the home, the influence of the government is in the home, and the society we live in. 36-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Georgia

While the application of such a litany of evils was rare, conservative evangelicals, in true culture-wars fashion, often complained about changes in women’s roles and the influence of the state in shaping contemporary families. Some laid the blame for family breakdown squarely at the feet of the feminist movement. I think the family structure in this nation has dwindled; and I think it’s basically, nothing against women, but I think it was basically because of the women’s movement in the sixties, when Gloria Steinem got up and said, . . . “You can have it all.” That’s a crock. Basically, you can’t. If you want to have a job and you want to have kids, there’s got to be some kind of compromise there. I know of people who are working just to pay day care, and that doesn’t make sense to me. 35-year-old Orthodox Presbyterian married man, Massachusetts

In addition to the idea that mothers’ employment is a waste of time because it “only pays for child care,” others asserted that because biology predisposes them for motherhood, women should take responsibility for that job and have only a marginal connection to other kinds of productive labor. The following woman’s comments echo Pride’s (1985) call for women to be “workers at home.” Question: Would you say that, for women, raising children is more impor­ tant than working a paid job? Answer: I think that it is a mother’s primary responsibility, . . . raising her chil­ dren, seeing to their needs. I think you are also going to have other ac­ tivities where you can have a business out of your home. You can even work part time depending on your duties as far as your children go. But I personally believe that my role right now is as a mother. And I’m fortu­ nate that my husband can support us without me having to go to work. But we don’t have a lot of things we could have if I worked, materially. So we have given up some of that in order for me to stay at home. Question: Why do you think women have a special responsibility for raising

children?

Answer: Because we are the ones that have them. We are equipped to feed them. And our nature is more suited to, especially their early needs. We’re just more caring, gentle, compassionate by nature. And that’s what they need when they are young. And I think God has created us that way— because we are the ones that bear them and we can nurse them, you know;

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we don’t have to rely on outside sources to feed them, you know, when they are young. It’s just that’s the way we were created, you know, to deal with that. 48-year-old woman in an independent mega-church, Georgia

Men also argued that wives should stay home with children because their physiol­ ogy suits them to the task. A woman obviously has a closer relationship with children. I mean, that is in nature itself; animal offspring are always attached and cleave to the mother. A mother has her role in being a mother, and I think it is an hon­ orable role. . . . But nowadays, the economy as it is, unless you are knock­ ing down a hundred grand or more a year, you really need your wife to work unless you want to humble yourself and live humble. . . . I want my daughter to have a career. I hope she can be a doctor. But I do also teach her that if she were to get married one day and decides to have children, that being a mother should be more priority to her than being a doctor— if she is a doctor. And that if she ever decides to have a family that she needs to remember what her role is, and that is a mother, not a doctor. Feminists would eat my lunch at that. They would think, “Why can’t the husband stay home and let her have her career or something or put them in a day care?” 36-year-old Pentecostal father of three, Georgia

The bottom line for conservative evangelicals is that women’s employment upsets God’s design for the family. They object not only on the basis of children’s loss of essential maternal care and the potentially corrupting influences of formal day care but because women’s employment undermines fundamental ideas about men’s and women’s essential nature and delegitimizes men’s authority within the household. In the balance of competing needs and ideals, conservative evangelicals like these are fairly consistent, opting to meet children’s needs with mothers’ natural predisposition to give care. The majority of evangelicals, as we’ve seen, must en­ gage in a great deal of cultural boundary work in order to reconcile competing ideals about women’s subordination and maternal nature with wives’ active par­ ticipation in jobs where they are not only away from children but may be in posi­ tions of authority over men as well.

Different Rules for Home and Work In drawing together ideas about gendered family life and the relatively gender-neutral arena of paid work, evangelicals engage in significant subcultural boundary work (Nippert-Eng, 1996). Helping to clarify and define these bound­ aries is the belief that there are different rules for home and work. Numerous men spoke positively about working with women, being supervised by women, and valu­ ing the different perspectives that women brought to the job. Others were some­ what less enthusiastic. While affirming antidiscrimination and equal opportunity laws, they bracketed their otherwise positive comments with the qualifier that

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affirmative action has gone too far in giving women access to jobs and promo­ tions and has made it increasingly difficult for men to earn a family wage. I think the feminist groups . . . had to gain their rights because women were walked on and were treated horribly. They’re underpaid, they still in a lot of areas are unpaid; but I think feminist groups try to take the pants off the husband. In the work world, go for it. But I think the feminist move­ ment kind of hurt the home structure a little bit because now they’re trying to take over the household and that’s not how the Bible says it’s supposed to be. Like I said, in the work environment, go for it. The home is a dif­ ferent story. 29-year-old charismatic father of one, Ohio

Although 65 percent of American evangelicals believe that feminism is hos­ tile to their moral and spiritual values, only a handful spoke negatively about the policy changes that feminism has helped to bring about during the past thirty years. Instead, they argued that equal opportunity, equity in pay, and growing awareness of sexual harassment and sexual safety were all positive developments in the work­ place. Adding paid work to what women do is not a problem; subtracting it from what men do is. One Oregon man explained that while he had no problems with wives getting jobs, “when he stays home and becomes Mr. Mom, then that’s wrong because God has called us to be accountable.” Like most men, this husband saw nothing problematic with women working outside the home. Yet like most evan­ gelical husbands he was not willing to stay home himself, not so much because of potential negative consequences at work but because it implied a failure to be re­ sponsible as a husband and father before God. Wives’ employment has little ef­ fect on these men’s sense of identity as the ones who bear ultimate responsibility and authority at home. Even for those men who express a willingness (in theory) to reduce their commitment to paid work in order to stay home, head of the house­ hold remains a central part of their identity. I don’t have a problem with either the husband or the wife staying home. Whichever one is fine. Depending on who is gifted that way. But I still see the husband as the head of the household. That doesn’t mean he has to have a full-time salary. If it is being provided by the wife and they are both in agreement, then he should stay home and that’s fine. 39-year-old Pentecostal man, North Carolina

Headship remains symbolically important even though it is no longer associated with men being sole providers or even primary providers (see table 7.2). Regardless of whether or not women are gifted or called to a particular vo­ cation or working to supplement the household’s income in “just a job,” the idea of husbands’ headship is very much still intact within evangelical households. Even in households where wives are employed, more than 85 percent of all evangelical husbands and wives believe that the husband should be the head of the household (see table 7.2). Where women’s employment does seem to make a difference is in ideas about husbands as primary breadwinners and source of authority. Not sur­

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TABLE 7.2. Evangelical Attitudes toward Husbands’ Headship in One-

and Two-Income Married-Couple Householdsa Husbands OneEarner Household Husbands should be the head of the household. Among those who agree with husbands’ headship, headship means: He is the primary breadwinner. He is the final authority. He is the spiritual leader.

Wives

TwoOneEarner Earner Household Household

TwoEarner Household

85.7

95.0

93.1

92.9

63.6 79.2 99.0

55.4 50.9* 98.2

61.3 72.7 93.2

41.8** 63.3 92.5

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

Symbols indicate the significance of differences between wives in one- and two-earner

household and husbands in one- and two-earner households, *≤.05 and **<.01.

a

prisingly, employed wives are less likely to think of their husbands as the primary breadwinner (whereas wives’ employment makes no difference in whether or not men think of themselves as the primary breadwinner). More important, husbands married to employed women are less likely to think of themselves as being the final authority within the household (79 versus 51 percent), suggesting that wives’ employment does appear to undermine husbands’ authority, as LaHaye and Dob­ son have long argued. Yet this sense of diminished authority is something we find only among men, not women. Wives in single- and dual-income households do not significantly differ in supporting the idea that husbands should be the final authority.

Conclusion While unpaid charity and reform work has a long and honored history among evangelicals, women’s paid labor has been viewed with more suspicion. Never­ theless, as women’s employment has shifted from the exception to the norm, the ways in which evangelicals and other conservative Protestants think about the is­ sue has likewise shifted—from suspicion to qualified support. Evangelical women are employed at about the same rate as other married women in the United States. Even among mothers of preschool children, evangelicals do not significantly dif­ fer from other religiously committed Protestants or from American women over­ all in working outside the home. Given this reality, few evangelicals now make the case that full-time domesticity is God’s norm for women’s lives. Those who do emphasize the significance of women’s biology in shaping their responsibili­ ties as mothers and wives. Others focus on the costs of maternal employment for

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child development and are concerned that wives’ employment subtly undermines men’s authority within the household. Evangelicals who believe that mothers should not work outside the house­ hold lay a host of social problems at the feet of working mothers. Vocal and com­ mitted, they are nonetheless a minority. The majority are much more ambivalent about the costs and benefits, motivations and meanings of maternal employment. Their ambivalence is organized around two axes: one of competing ideals, the other of competing needs. On the one hand is the idea that women have a variety of gifts that should be used for good both inside and outside the household. On the other hand are ideas about how women’s physiology points to an underlying real­ ity that women are made to nurture and give care. Individual women may have gifts that exempt them from the responsibilities of motherhood; but whatever else they are gifted in, women’s physiology is interpreted as a sign of women’s gifted­ ness in caring for others. Although in principle gifts may outweigh “nature,” in the balance of ideals, nature weighs more significantly than gifts. In the end, women’s physiology is taken as unavoidable and unambiguous evidence that women are fundamentally wired for bearing and caring for small children. Along with this axis of ideals, evangelicals also balance an axis of compet­ ing needs: the need for additional household income with children’s need for pa­ rental (that is, maternal) care. Within a small number of households, husbands and wives opt for a lower standard of living so that women may devote themselves to full-time homemaking and child rearing. This is a much easier choice, of course, for families in which husbands earn a high income; yet even among those with more limited means, some opt out of the two-earner model of family and work. The majority, however, juggle child care, transportation, shifts, and limited family time. In deciding the who, what, when, and where of men and women’s involve­ ment in the labor force, evangelicals do significant boundary work—drawing, ad­ justing, and realigning the values, ideals, and needs they consider most important. They actively reinforce boundaries with the broader culture by disassociating them­ selves from what they consider the excessive individualism of liberal feminism and reaffirming the relatively countercultural notion that a gendered hierarchy of authority and roles is God’s design for family life. Evangelicals describe women and men as not only bearing primary responsibility for different areas of family labor but as being differently connected to family as well: women as a result of their biological predisposition to nurture and care, men through God’s call to bear authority and responsibility within the household. Toolkit or Gyroscope? Rather than understanding these various needs and ideas as competing choices—choose one, abandon the alternative—evangelicals move across a range of perspectives and ideas in outlining the contours of work and family life. The whole remains in dynamic balance. Keeping these ideals and needs balanced requires creativity and nimble move­ ment between alternative visions of gender, work, and family. The whole is char­

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acterized by the simultaneous balancing of multiple cultural tools and ideas that are held in tension, so that process appears as culture in action—more analogous to a spinning gyroscope than to the discrete selection of a particular cultural tool for a particular moment or situation. Like a gyroscope, evangelicals appear quite wobbly when asked to slow the process down and describe bits of values and needs. Apparently inconsistent, vague, and uncertain of their direction, they speak of one idea and then wobble on to speak of another. None of this, of course, is unique to evangelicals. Regardless of religious subculture, men and women are often vague and inconsistent about the multitude of beliefs, values, ideals, and needs that mo­ tivate their action. What these pairings of competing needs and ideals within evangelical sub­ culture do suggest is that it is in the tensions between ideals where the action lies. It is from the energy between competing sets of ideals and needs that decisions, behavior, and sense of self flow. Like the evangelical mandate to be simultaneously both in but not of the world, evangelicals give meaning and structure to paid work and family life through navigating and managing ideas about individual gifts, gendered nature, and the competing needs of children and households. On the surface, evangelical husbands and wives would appear more consis­ tent if ideas about women’s essentially gendered nature were combined with a broader commitment to full-time domesticity. They would appear more consistent as well if alternative ideals about women’s individual gifts were combined with a broader pattern of shared employment, parenting, and household authority. But that is not what we find. While writers, pastors, and theologians may consistently teach either complementarity and hierarchy or mutuality and egalitarianism, most ordi­ nary evangelicals find themselves much more ambivalent: women’s physiology seems to so obviously point to a deeper reality of women’s nurturing, yet most women spend the majority of their adult life in the labor force rather than at home. This raises the question again: why do the majority of ordinary evangelicals continue to believe in the idea of husbands’ headship and women’s nurturing re­ sponsiveness when most married evangelicals live in two-earner households and place so much emphasis on the need for men to be involved parents as well as breadwinners? What would be lost to evangelicals if they adopted the biblical femi­ nist ideas of mutuality and individual giftedness that, in many ways, better de­ scribe the pragmatic egalitarianism of most evangelical households? What would be lost if they abandoned gendered notions of men’s and women’s essential being and complementary roles? These questions are the subject of the following chapter.

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What If Headship Were Abandoned?

PART III

�

153

Understanding Evangelical

Identity, Gender, and Family

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What If Headship Were Abandoned?

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CHAPTER 8

What Would Be Lost If

Evangelicals Abandoned the

Notion of Husbands’ Headship?

�

What would be lost? If the man doesn’t have the headship of the family, he loses self-respect. Then the woman has to do it all! Then you lose total function. 34-year-old woman in a Vineyard Fellowship, Colorado It’s not a power struggle. It’s not a ego trip. It’s a “I’m giving myself to you to make life better for us.” 27–year-old Christian Missionary Alliance man, Georgia We all have to submit to something above us, somewhere. . . . God is the head, and the organizational chart flows down from there. 29-year-old charismatic man, Ohio

A

merican evangelicals stand within a broad stream of Protestant tradition in which ideas about men’s leadership and au­ thority are balanced by notions of mutuality and partnership within marriage. The implications of these beliefs for men’s and women’s responsibilities have shifted with the broad adoption of Enlightenment ideas about individual rights and au­ tonomy, and the shifting demands of an industrializing and now postindustrial so­ ciety. Yet while the details have changed, the core of evangelical gender and family beliefs have remained remarkably stable. Husbands bear final authority and re­ sponsibility for what happens inside the household; wives are subordinate part­ ners who, in addition to whatever else they may do, are created to respond, support, and care for others. Theological debates ebb and flow in their intensity about whether or not dif­ ference and authority are fundamental to God’s design for families and the church or a cultural corruption of God’s original plan for men and women to live in part­ nerships of uniquely gifted and interdependent equals. While we hear echoes (often faint) of these debates in the language of ordinary evangelicals, the practice of family is most often a blending of symbolic headship and pragmatic egalitarianism— 155

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the language of husbands’ headship and authority is alive and well, but mutual decision making and a pragmatic division of labor characterize most households. What would be lost, then, if evangelicals abandoned the rhetoric of husbands’ headship and complementarity of roles? Why, when most evangelicals “do” fam­ ily in a way that is fairly egalitarian, does this subculture place so much signifi­ cance on ideas about men’s authority and wives’ cooperative subordination? What does the concept of husbands’ headship do for ordinary American evangelicals? When the researchers associated with this project asked evangelicals to describe what would be lost if evangelicals abandoned the notion of husbands’ headship, men and women talked about losses in a number of different areas. Gendered iden­ tity, families, society, evangelical distinctiveness, Christian orthodoxy itself would all suffer significant loss, if not complete transformation, if the notions of gendered hierarchy and complementarianism were abandoned.

What Would Be Lost to Men? One of the reasons conservative evangelical authors support the idea of hus­ bands’ headship is that, without it, men are seen as socially and psychologically immature—even dangerous. According to these commentators, men naturally lack the motivation to be committed to marriage, the institution that transforms unstable men into responsible citizens. Dobson, for example, draws on sociobiologist George Gilder’s Men and Marriage and writes: When a man marries and commits himself to a wife and children, . . . most of his social liabilities disappear. He has reason to live responsibly, work hard, and save for the future. Instead of pandering to his own sensual de­ sires, he postpones gratification and sacrifices for those who depend on him. This “loose cannon” often becomes the “pillar of the community.” What a woman does for a man, then, is to harness the sexual energy that was unbridled and threatening to society—and focus it on protecting and providing for a family. This transformation is absolutely vital to the well-being of a culture. Gilder believes (and I agree) that society cannot survive the death of marriage. Without it, women lack the security to re­ produce. (Dobson 2000a, 305–6)

Dobson takes Gilder’s sociobiological defense of marriage as “scientific evi­ dence” that a benignly patriarchal family is the context in which males become men. Marriage provides the motivation for men to be responsible, sacrifice, pro­ tect, and provide—each aspects of family leadership that conservative evangelicals argue not only fulfill God’s design for evangelical families but are the template for healthy masculinity. At its heart, healthy masculinity is characterized by “initiation—the provision of direction, security, stability and connection” (Weber 1993, 45). Without these things, men wither, become passive, and are cut off from the expression of their feelings (39). Moreover, because the male ego is fragile and weak, conservative evangelicals also argue that men are only healthy when they

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have the support of wives who defer rather than challenge their judgment.1 From this perspective, abandoning the notion of husbands’ headship would abandon men to psychological immaturity and the dangerous drives of their biology. Ordinary evangelicals echoed some of these ideas, particularly the notion that headship is important because it strengthens men’s connection to their families. As one Pentecostal woman in Texas explained, “it gives that biblical command for men to be really involved with their families. It gives them a responsibility, and they might not take it as seriously, or they might not be a central figure in the family if Christians stopped talking about headship.” Others, like the woman quoted at the beginning of the chapter, expressed their concern that abandoning headship would undermine men’s self-respect: “men need to feel that they’re head of the household. It’s good for their ego!” Perhaps not surprisingly, perhaps, men were less likely to say that headship was important because it preserved their weak egos. Some, however, did talk about how they believed that respect was necessary for family stability and appreciated feeling respected by their wives: “My wife treats me with respect and love and looks at me as a godly man and as the priest of the home, and we have no prob­ lem.” A family may have still have problems; but if the husband is respected as its head, none of those problems are insurmountable.

What Would Be Lost to Women? Although the benefits of headship that accrue to evangelical men seem more apparent, wives also described a number of specific benefits connected to hus­ bands’ symbolic headship. Among them were love, security, and respect. Love Supporting the notion of husbands’ headship enables evangelical women to hold husbands to a higher standard of emotional intimacy and support than might otherwise be the case. Love means not only commitment and willingness to sacri­ fice but emotional intimacy and support. Borrowing rhetoric from the women’s movement, some husbands described themselves as responsible for empowering or lifting up their wives. Others focused on sacrifice, paraphrasing the text of the apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus—saying that God expects husbands to be willing to lay down their lives for their wives: I believe that ultimately the man should be the head of the household. That’s not a dictatorship; we’re talking about leadership. If men really took their role seriously, the Bible says men should love their wives like Christ loved the church. They leave off that part when they’re talking about women. . . . I think that’s pretty cool to have someone who wants to lay their life down and really protect me and considers me to be his best friend. 48-year-old Methodist woman, Massachusetts

Women also talked about valuing husbands’ efforts to improve communication.2 Citing his reading of Gary Smalley as a “wake up call” in their marriage,

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the following comments reflect the increasing importance of communication in recent iterations of the headship ideal. Husband: I wish that I could go back and do these thirty years over because

I would do them so differently. I see my role now is to bless Hillary as

Christ wants to take the church spotless to the Father. That’s my job.

Wife: Before we had the information that we have now, . . . he was more like “I got the paycheck, I go out and work, I come home and provide you with a refrigerator and stove, you take care of the kids and make sure ev­ erything is clean,” you know? Husband: Yeah, but we’ve learned so much about how your wife is so ful­ filled when you follow what Christ did. The other thing that I wish I had known early on was the difference between men and women—how I’m made. I mean, “Thank you, Gary Smalley!” Question: You’ve read him? Husband: Yeah, in fact our church has a requirement now that everybody who gets married has to go through the book. I have learned that being the head, as you say, is really being a servant because you got to swallow hard and put somebody else first. Wife: In the Gary Smalley tapes, he talks about differences in personality and things like that. Like he said we needed to be together, which we weren’t. . . . You need to get strife out of the home and work together in love. Question: Was it that you weren’t as involved because you were working, or was it that you had different views on how to raise children or you were strained in your marriage at the time? Husband: I think our relationship was strained. I didn’t appreciate her, and she didn’t appreciate me; and I think I was sort of, you know, “get with the program!” and I had no understanding of her hurts or whatever. . . . Wife: I was just allowing hurt to build up and to build walls—that’s what hap­ pened.

Question: Did this go on for a period of years?

Wife: Yeah, like eighteen.

Husband: She has a much more vivid idea of what all this was than I do. I

mean, most of that I didn’t know. Well, with a guy most of it rolls off your back, and I would say, “What are you getting so upset about? That’s nothing!” But to her it was a big deal. . . . Women, and I make generali­ zations, but I think they pack those things away in their heart and they stay there. You can tell me things that I said twenty years ago that hurt, and I couldn’t even remember! So I think I was very insensitive and Hillary is oversensitive. We’re very opposite. I mean, when you give us the tests for personality and sensitivity, we are as far apart as you can get. So here I am being very insensitive in the way I act and talk, and here you are . . . being supersensitive, and that just created lots of opportunity for conflict. It wasn’t really fights. It wasn’t that sort of thing so much as it was just being separate. Middle-aged charismatic couple, Illinois

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For a growing number of evangelical couples, the language of mutual sub­ mission and servant leadership popularized in the writing of authors such as Gary Smalley and Stu Weber appears to be making a difference. The notion of husbands’ headship remains strong—he still is the final authority—yet his power to exercise that authority is more explicitly bounded by the idea that he should be sensitive to the emotional needs of his wife. Egalitarian evangelicals make a similar case for the centrality of emotional intimacy in marriage but do so without appealing to the rhetoric of husbands’ headship and authority. Some believe women should be submissive. Well, in a sense, everybody has to be submissive. We are submissive, my wife is submissive to me, but . . . I have to be just as submissive to her. I have to love her as Christ loved the church, willing to die for her, which is perhaps more difficult to do. You don’t hear that much. 76-year-old Pentecostal man, Massachusetts

Like their conservative counterparts, egalitarian evangelicals paraphrase the text of Ephesians to support the idea of mutual submission. Yet, whereas conservatives interpret these texts as teaching a hierarchy of responsibility and authority, egali­ tarians believe they present a single responsibility (sacrificial love) presented as a parallel command to husbands and wives. The responsibility of husbands to “love your wives as Christ loved the church” is the mirror of wives’ responsibility to “respect your husbands.” No hierarchy is established by love and respect. Rather, submission goes both ways—husbands and wives are both challenged to subordi­ nate themselves for the good of their partner. Security Adopting the ideal of husbands’ headship also increases women’s sense of security and stability in an uncertain world. Real men do not leave when prob­ lems come. As Weber (1993) argues, “real men don’t have that option. Real men ‘remain under’ the responsibility, absorb the setbacks, swallow their pride, and keep trying. Real men stay and stay and stay” (119). Despite the relatively high economic standing of many evangelicals, quite a few women spoke about feeling financially vulnerable. For them, acknowledging husbands’ authority seems a small price to pay for increasing men’s sense of re­ sponsibility for family. Headship, after all, is mostly symbolic, while the security that husbands provide is very real. As one Baptist woman from Georgia explained, “I don’t think there is a need for one to be more or less over the other. I just see where our roles would be different. I like looking up to my husband for things. . . . It gives me a sense of security. I love that. I like having a man in the leadership role; that’s my idea.” Other women described their husbands as “someone we can lean on,” “a rock,” or “the one we rely on to solve our problems.” Single mothers, in particu­ lar, talked about wishing their children had the security of a father’s presence. A charismatic single mother in Delaware said: “There’s a sense of security that comes

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through the father. . . . Not security in being loved and nurtured. I can do that. But a security in knowing that your father, like God, is a refuge and strength in times of trouble. I don’t know; there’s just a strength, and also a wisdom that comes from a male perspective.” Whether financial or emotional, many evangelical women see husbands’ headship as a relief from their own vulnerability and insecurity. It is good, as several suggested, to be able to “look up to someone” else as ultimately responsible and in control. Respect Like men, women also talked about the importance of respect. In a kind of rough exchange, women described deferring to husbands as a sacrifice worthy of his respect and husbands’ bearing ultimate responsibility for the family as a sacri­ fice worthy of her respect. Basically, he is to be the pillar of the home. It doesn’t mean that he con­ trols everything. It actually makes his burden even more because he is also supposed to be the kind of man that can hear his wife’s needs, that can be there for his wife, that can respect his wife. That’s a big responsibility . . . so I need to respect his wishes as well as he needs to respect mine. 35-year-old Presbyterian mother, Ohio

By defining both submission and leadership as sacrifice, women were able to lay claim to their husbands’ respect. Yet this woman’s comments, and others like them, suggest an underlying tension between the ideals of husbands’ headship and authority and notions of mutual respect. While support for the idea of hus­ bands’ headship and authority is strong, it is tempered by expectations that hus­ bands, in turn, will respect their wives. One of the ways in which this balance of authority and respect is worked out in practice is in the area of managing conflicts. Here, women talked about how granting authority to husbands diffuses areas of potential conflict. There can only be one head in the family. And he is the head of the house­ hold. It has not worked out perfectly [laughs]. Initially we did have some battles over who’s going to do this or that; but as we’ve both grown spiri­ tually, it has become easier. We have a mechanism for working out dis­ agreements. I joke that he sets policy and I implement. And we’re in agreement on the policy. So sometimes he gives me direction of “this is how I want this done,” but for a lot of things I know how he wants things done and I’m in agreement with that. So I’m not battling him over issues. 48–year-old Episcopalian mother, Georgia

Highlighting basic agreement over “policy,” this woman’s comments illustrate the process through which husbands and wives develop boundaries around areas of responsibility. Learning how he likes things done clearly helps as well. Yet this is not just a matter of women transforming themselves into supportive and agree­ able wives. Husbands also change.

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When my husband is not being the kind of man I want him to be, if I decide to defy him, that does not help the situation. But if I decide to love him anyways, he changes. He changes. You just can’t fight that man, so you listen to what he says. If you don’t agree, you say, “That’s okay, that’s fine. I personally don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I understand what you’re saying.” We’re working on this getting to the point where we can look at each other and say, “Well, let’s just pray on it.”. . . I just find that if I don’t fight him, if I do what he says and just bite my tongue from time to time, then he starts doing the same for me. 38-year-old Evangelical Presbyterian woman, Ohio

“Biting my tongue,” “not being quick,” and “keeping my peace” all are effec­ tive strategies for minimizing conflict. Empathetic listening coupled with respect­ ful disagreement are also effective. To this basic repertoire of conflict management strategies, evangelicals add the notion that losing is winning. When women give in, even against their better judgment, they see husbands change. Submission be­ comes a way to encourage husbands to reciprocate both in monitoring what they say and in adopting their wives’ perspectives. Not surprisingly, many women remain deeply ambivalent about this process. The kind of personal struggle many women described is reflected in the follow­ ing discussion with a woman who was deeply embedded in evangelical subcul­ ture. Her comments are worth considering at length not only because they reveal the multiple layers of interpretation, struggle, and resolve that were characteristic of so many interviews but because she places her own struggle within the context of a broader evangelical community. She names friends and pastors whose views inform and reinforce her own and is one of a relatively few people who mentioned specific evangelical authors and organizations as instrumental in solidifying her resolve to submit to her husband. In addition to listening to Focus on the Family and reading books by James Dobson and Mary Pride, she had written and received a response from Elisabeth Elliot on the question of what submission looks like in practice. Question: What are your thoughts on the roles of men and women today? Answer: I think the man is the spiritual and positional head of the family. In general, the man is better equipped to be the provider, and women in gen­ eral are better equipped to be the nurturers. Sometimes . . . the wife works, and the husband stays home. It might be better off for the kids that way. . . . You know, some men are more nurturing than women! Although we will both stand before Christ and answer for what we did within our family, I think the man will stand before God with a little bit of a heavier hand on his shoulder because it does say that the man is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. You know, in talking about submission, the women who find it very easy to submit are the ones who can just trust God at the drop of a hat. To submit to a decision that you don’t think is the best thing, especially after you say, “This is my opinion,” and “I don’t think it’s right, but you’re the

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head of the family so you decide what’s right”; well, then you have to say, “God I trust you, and that’s what’s got to happen.” Most people, men and women in general, have a hard time trusting God that much. Question: How does this work out in your own family? Answer: I think God’s taking me through some stuff right now. I know He’s saying, “Do you trust me or not?” He’s asked me that several other times, but [then it was] just me and God and my circumstances; I wasn’t really at anybody’s mercy. . . . We’ve been married nine years, and I’m finally at a point where I’m starting to say, you know, I have to do this submis­ sion thing. . . . One friend of mine said, “He’s supposed to lead, but he can’t lead if nobody’s following him!” I was like “Oh, thanks a lot for sharing that!” But if I’m willing [to let him lead], . . . he may turn around and say, “I’ve got to make this decision, and I better make sure I do it right. I re­ ally better go before God and really pray about it and not just do what I think is right.” Hopefully he will feel the weight that is truly resting on him. . . . Question: So in actuality you find that it can be tough? Answer: Oh, it’s extremely hard; it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done! Being single is a cakewalk compared to this. I mean, I had a hard time then, but it was just me and God and my crummy supervisor at work. I had struggles then, but you don’t live with it; you go home. But this? This is my life in my face. They’re my children, you know? . . . It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to be happily married! [laughs] Question: So does it come to a time where a decision needs to be made and you disagree? Or do you always agree with his decision? Answer: Well, in the past we’ve agreed on most things. But we’ve recently had some decisions where I didn’t agree with what he wanted to do, and I tried putting my foot down and saying it’s not going to happen that way, and he went ahead and did it. And it’s true, it causes conflict. One friend asked me, she said, “Do you feel like your relationship has been hindered?” and I said, “No, and I feel really stupid about that because some days I just want to crucify him, but I don’t.” She said, “That’s God healing it all.” I wasn’t really sure, but a couple of my friends have said, “That’s the Lord, only God could do that in a relationship!” So it is God, you know? I wrote to Elisabeth Elliot about our situation. She wrote back and said, “Honey, what do you think you should do? You should say, ‘Honey, this is not what I think is best for our family. Do you think it’s the best way? I will support you in it.’” Question: So what do you think would be lost if churches stopped talking about headship and submission? Answer: I don’t think they talk about it enough. I think our church does, . . . but I don’t remember the pastor preaching on submission in the five, al­ most six years I’ve been there. Our pastor recently did mention that the man is the spiritual head of the family. He said, “Men, if you don’t do it, your wife is going to have to do it for you. The responsibility is there,

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like a coat hanging on your shoulders, whether you feel it or not.” . . . I think you lose some of God’s blessing on your relationships when you get rid of the headship idea. I don’t think it’s preached enough anyway. You know, after reading Mary Pride’s stuff (I’ve just read part of one of her books) I think [the problem is] that women weren’t content being women. . . . But like Paul said, we’re supposed to be content with every circumstance—to be content with staying home with my children and not always wanting to pawn them off on somebody because I need a break. But I want to say, “Lord, I’m staying home because this is what my hus­ band and I think you want us to do, and I want to be obedient to you.” People don’t talk about obedience very much anymore; Elisabeth Elliot was really big on obedience. Question: Have you heard of Promise Keepers? Answer: Yeah. I had Mike go this year. I kind of sent him. . . . I said, “I’m not sending you to get fixed in any area. I just want you to be encouraged because there are other Christian men out there who are your age, who want to be good dads and good husbands. I just want you to be encour­ aged.” One friend whose husband went said it’s very low on content in­ struction and very high on encouragement. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to be breaking down any walls . . . unless there’s an awful lot of convic­ tion from the Holy Spirit for them to go out and take action. But I think it’s a good starting place. And the accountability groups where they are really keeping each other accountable are probably where it’s going to do the most good. 35-year-old home-schooling mother, Minnesota

In addition to underlining many of the themes already encountered, this ex­ tended conversation highlights how submission is not simply a strategy that women use to increase a husband’s commitment, improve communication, or feel more secure. The struggle to submit is first and foremost a matter of obedience, learn­ ing to trust God with the consequences. To be sure, wives are supported in their decisions to submit by networks of other women and the culture and teaching within their local congregation. Yet its deeper significance lies not in solidifying friend­ ships or confirming local religious culture but in women’s sense that by submit­ ting they locate themselves at the center of a tradition in which personal sacrifice is the door to greater good. They follow, after all, in the steps of Jesus, who prayed “not my will, but your will be done.” It is this sense of living out a fundamental principle of one’s faith that fills submission with enormous value. Still, in the model of headship and submission, the broader principle that “the way down is the way up” remains largely one-sided. Women submit. Men lovingly lead. This is the concern evangelical feminists raise with “comple­ mentarian” interpretations of mutual submission (Lester and Lester 1998; Van Leewen 1993). When mutuality means authority for men, even when that author­ ity is couched in the language of sacrificial love, real partnership is not possible. Not only are ideals for intimacy within marriage undermined, but women’s own sense of self is threatened—and, in some cases, their safety as well.

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When Loving Leadership Isn’t Loving How does the division of submission and authority across gender lines af­ fect wives’ identity and sense of agency as adult human beings? It is significant that evangelical women understand submission to husbands primarily as obedi­ ence to God. Some wives were careful to specify that submission is yielding to their husbands, not obeying them. It is not something that husbands are inherently owed; rather, wives freely submit because they believe God requires it of them. “Women can submit and still argue,” some said, “but in the end he has final au­ thority, and I’m accountable to God to respect that.” By substituting the language of yielding for the language of obedience, conservative evangelical wives intro­ duce agency—the free ability to act—into the very process of subordinating them­ selves to their husbands. Wives act with intent and personal responsibility even as they lay these things aside. In response to criticisms that submission puts women in a position of child­ like dependence on men, conservative authors have tried to emphasize the shared nature of responsibility in marriage. Over the past decade, the language of com­ plementarianism has largely replaced earlier emphases on wives’ submission to husbands’ authority. In a move reminiscent of segregationist arguments for sepa­ rate but equal treatment, gender-essentialist evangelicals have begun to argue that men and women each have authority that is exercised in different ways. In an ef­ fort to bridge the gap between hierarchalists and egalitarians, Larry Crabb (1991), for example, writes that husbands have authority to serve by leading and wives have authority to serve by submitting. Husbands and wives both have authority in marriage. Their authority is equal in responsibility . . . to serve one another in wisdom and love. Mar­ ried partners are authorized by God to give themselves to their mates. This is their authority. However, because the sexes are distinct in what they were fundamentally designed to give . . . the expression of their authority should reflect those distinctions. Headship, the expression of a man’s authority to serve, is characterized by rich involvement and by leadership that in­ cludes making decisions to resolve an impasse. Submission, the expres­ sion of a woman’s authority to serve, is characterized by invitation and supportiveness. (174)

Similarly, Steve Farrar (1990) argues that “mutual submission is just another way of describing servant leadership for the husband and loving submission for the wife” (181). While husbands and wives are equal in the sight of God, the “right, power, and responsibility to direct the actions of others” and the responsibility “for the overall pattern of life” is a burden husbands must bear (Piper and Grudem 1991, 40, 70, 196–99). According to this line of reasoning, husbands and wives have equal value and equal authority; they are just differently expressed. Husbands have authority over their own lives and the lives of others, while wives have authority to submit to their husbands. In this complementary vision of “same value, differ­ ent function,” the authority to submit becomes the defining characteristic of women’s equality with men.

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At the very least, this argument places gender-essentialist evangelicals in the position of defining authority and equality in ways that run counter to everyday usage and understanding. Ordinary evangelicals certainly struggle in their effort to reconcile these apparently contradictory ideals. Consider the following woman’s effort to work through how she is both equal and not equal to her husband. You’re equal in the sight of God, but in the relationship of the family he is more equal than I am. You know, he’s the head. So I guess you can’t say we’re equal because I don’t have equal authority as far as the family relationship goes. Although when he’s not there, I deal with things. I don’t know; it’s kind of hard to explain. . . . Well, we’re equals in that I’m not in an inferior position in the family. With the kids, my word goes as well as his word. . . . So my authority is as good as his; it’s just . . . when it comes to push and shove, he has to be [the head]. I have to submit to him as the supreme authority in the family. 48-year-old charismatic mother of three, Georgia

It was not unusual for men and women to run into difficulty explaining how authority and equality work themselves out in practice. As biblical feminist Rebecca Groothuis (1997) has argued, such definitions are hardly value-neutral. When authority of this nature is restricted for men and denied to women, it is meaningless and misleading to talk of it as not being a privilege but a responsibility, and not a position of superiority but of servanthood. . . . Regardless of how hierarchalists try to explain the situation, the idea that women are equal in their being, yet unequal by virtue of their being, is contradictory and ultimately nonsensical. . . . A permanent and compre­ hensive subordination based on a person’s essence is an essential (not merely a functional) subordination. In the final analysis, gender hierar­ chy allows for no meaningful distinction between the person and the position. (54–55)

Wives’ subordination not only removes a sense of ultimate adult responsi­ bility from women; in the extreme it is a justification for emotional and physical control, even abuse. Although only a handful of women talked about living in abu­ sive relationships, those who did described how the idea of husbands’ headship helped justify the abuse and made it difficult for them to leave. My husband was very manipulative, and he used Christianity to manipu­ late. He used this whole idea . . . that you need to be submissive to me, . . . and I make the final decisions, and I will tell you what to do! And then I recognized that real quickly and kept trying and got into the Word and saw that headship, this is just not it. So, oh yeah, I’ve seen how it can not work. 50-year-old divorced Presbyterian woman, Pennsylvania

Over the past decade, increasing awareness of domestic abuse within evan­ gelical households has led to the publication of a number of books for victims,

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counselors, and pastors that speak directly about how the Bible has been used by evangelicals to both harm and heal. A number of authors, including some associated with Christians for Biblical Equality and the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus, have highlighted the connection between husbands’ headship and abuse.3 Although conservative evangelicals such as Piper and Grudem (1991) also argue that the Bible “explicitly forbids even harsh attitudes . . . and therefore certainly condemns any physical violence by husbands against wives” (501, n.13), they do little to address problems of abuse and deny any connection between a theology that places power and authority in men’s hands with men’s violence against women.4

What Would Be Lost to Family and Society? For most ordinary evangelicals, husbands headship is not simply a matter of preserving a personal sense of emotional and spiritual well-being. Nor is it sim­ ply an efficient strategy for ensuring men’s commitment to family life. For many, husbands’ headship is a metaphor for family harmony, order, and stability. With­ out it, “you would lose the family”; there would be no “family bond.” Drawing on a variety of metaphors—anchor, foundation, pillar, chain of command—evangelicals point to the foundational importance of men’s authority to the stability of marriage. The lack of that authority many cite as explanation for in­ creased divorce in America, as one Baptist woman in Michigan explained, “I be­ lieve that the husband has to be head of the household, or the marriage will collapse. I don’t think the marriage would last. God made man more stable than he did woman. A woman is more emotional. He made man more stable, and that’s why the man has to be head of the household. If he wasn’t, it would be in a shambles, I’m ashamed to say.” While not all evangelicals were so explicit in locating the source of marital collapse on the failure of families to let rational stable men take the lead, the sense that families are unstable without a man’s leadership ran through many interviews. Without guidelines or regulations about who should lead, fami­ lies would fall into disorder, even chaos. Remove the notion of husbands’ headship and “the family would be like a chicken with its head cut off, running wild!” “Ev­ erything turns upside down,” and “any kind of family harmony would be lost.” The metaphor of headship itself is a powerful one, particularly when the al­ ternatives are considered. Multiple heads or none are the stuff of nightmares. In waking reality, things that are normal and good only have one head. Hydras and headless horsemen do not. So, too, when evangelicals talk about husbands’ head­ ship, they point to something that seems both natural and obvious: “there can only be one head” in the household. In addition, evangelicals spoke about the order and structure that headship provides in lives that feel increasingly on the verge of chaos. As one Presbyterian woman in Ohio explained, “when you’re all going and coming so many different places and there’s really no role, you just don’t know what’s going on. I mean, human nature has to have structure. We have to have roles; we have to.” Like other American families, most evangelicals feel pressed for time across jobs, family, church, and community. Husbands’ authority and wives’ suitability for child rearing provide a sense of relief from the hurry, business, and endless

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choices associated with contemporary life. Even though it is largely symbolic, the idea of husbands’ headship provides a buffer against some of this endless need to negotiate, plan, and manage multilayered daily life. From this perspective, the claims of biblical feminists that greater intimacy and harmony result from “cre­ ative conflict” and a flexible division of labor sound like an invitation to disaster, not freedom (Scanzoni 1979; Scanzoni and Hardesty 1974, 1992). “If life feels chaotic now,” many evangelicals wonder, “imagine what it would be like if ques­ tions about who does what were constantly up for grabs?” Chaos threatens outside the household as well. Many evangelicals believe that stepping outside of God’s design for a gender division of labor and authority leads to “further deterioration in society.” Without that umbrella of protection, com­ munities as well as families are vulnerable to anarchy as people fall back on “do­ ing whatever they think is right in their own eyes.” In a world where authority “flows from God, through the father, and then the wife,” breaking of this “chain of command” creates a vacuum where there was once stability. Arguing that “mayhem,” “social chaos,” and “moral breakdown” are the inevitable results when husbands’ authority is abandoned, conservative evan­ gelicals envision husbands’ headship as the finger that plugs the hole in the dike. Remove it, and chaos rather than order flows out of family into society. The connection between husbands’ headship and social stability is widely supported by conservative evangelical authors. Dobson, Pride, Elliot, and others have all made the case that, without strong male leadership, both families and so­ ciety suffer. Pride (1985) lays the blame for the loss of husbands’ authority at the feet of feminism, arguing that “feminism is a totally self-consistent system aimed at rejecting God’s role for women” (xii). Those who adopt any part of its lifestyle inevitably pick up its philosophy and buy themselves a one-way ticket to social anarchy. Although many evangelicals support feminist goals of equal opportunity in employment, they remain suspicious of the broader “radical feminist agenda,” which they see as more threatening. Some, like the following charismatic woman in southern California, made the case that Satan is using feminism to undermine husbands’ headship, family stability, and the well-being of the nation. [If evangelicals abandon the notion of husbands’ headship,] we would come into the way of Satan, just exactly what he wants. If God says man is the head, then Satan says I’m going to push the woman to be head, like the [National Organization for Women] and all those who raise up women as leaders and put men down. That’s just what Satan wants. Then there’s no headship over the family, so then the family’s broken up. So if Satan can break up the family, he can break up the nation. If he can break up the nation, then he’s over this nation. That’s just the way it works. 71-year-old charismatic mother of three, California

While most evangelicals were not so explicit in describing feminism as Satan’s plot to undermine American families, many expressed a more measured concern that feminism is gradually undermining husbands’ authority at home.

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Feminism is really about equal rights for women in the workplace. Equal pay, not being mistreated. It has been a good thing in the work world, pro­ viding more opportunities for women. [But] it could be a threat to the fam­ ily because it questions the headship of the man. And if that’s questioned, if women were taking leadership, then that could cause the breakdown of the family. 30-year-old never-married Pentecostal woman, Texas

Like this woman, most evangelicals are careful to maintain a boundary between work and family life and the benefits and dangers of feminism in both. As an­ other woman put it, “In principle, feminism has been a good idea for women in the workplace, but it is probably a bad idea for families.” Not all agree with this assessment, of course. The few who were consistently egalitarian in their beliefs and attempted to put them into practice maintained that authority and submission are important for both families and society but that they are not gendered. The man quoted in the chapter epigraph, for example, said that he knows “lots of women preachers” and works “under the authority” of the woman who directs his church’s Christian education program. “We all need to submit to someone, sometime, because we need accountability. But in the end, we should all be keeping our eyes on God.” For egalitarian evangelicals, seeing women as fully human individuals, en­ dowed with authority according to their gifts rather than their gender, having au­ thority in both the church and the family, has not always been easy. Fundamental ideas about the nature of reality, God, and human beings take some effort to change, especially given evangelical commitment to these ideals. Even though husbands’ headship is largely symbolic, it retains enormous salience and power within evan­ gelical subculture. Yet as a number of recent studies of congregational culture have demonstrated, ideas about gender are often supported (or transformed) by one’s local congregation (Ammerman 1997, 1998; Bartkowski 2001; Becker, forthcom­ ing). They are shaped as well by changes in wives’ employment, regional culture, networks of friends, retirement, and children’s leaving home. One husband whose wife sat in and contributed during his interview summarized these multiple sources of attitude change in the following way. Husband: I don’t know, in the last ten years for me, this whole thing has be­ come really fuzzy and . . . I’m not sure what changed. I know we changed churches when we moved from Houston up to here, and in Houston, in our church, it was regularly taught [that] the elders of the church were the leaders of the church and the leaders of their home, and wives are sub­ missive to their husbands. That was all explained in a positive sort of a way, and it was just kind of a commonly accepted teaching. Whereas around here, at church it’s not accepted. I think a lot of people take of­ fense [at] it; so as far as I’m concerned, it has been lost. I don’t . . . re­ member ever having that conversation with anybody in our circle of personal friends. I wouldn’t want to bring it up because I could be misun­ derstood.

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Wife: I think we’ve gone through that part in Ephesians, but I think that when we were in Houston it was more. We were different people, too, learning [about] the headship of the husband and the submissiveness of the wife and all that. I think what we hear now is more “be submissive to each other” and seeing them both as “submitting in love.” I guess that works better. I still see the man as the head of the home, but I think that we’re mutually submissive. Again, our culture has changed us a little; and so, I mean, Ed does a lot of things that I do, just helping each other out. Husband: It goes back to what we talked about before. We used to say that we believed that was scriptural; it wasn’t just something that was made up in our culture. Wife: I think our lives have changed where I’m working now. . . . Husband: I know, but . . . we never talked about [it]. . . . I have never heard, in the last ten years I would say, heard somebody teach from the pulpit that the husband is the head of the house and the wife is to be submissive. Middle-aged Evangelical Free couple, Minnesota

Crediting a geographic relocation, the accompanying change of churches, shifting cultural norms, and the wife’s entry into the labor force, this couple moved from believing men should have leadership in both family and the church toward a much more egalitarian perspective. Still they remain somewhat ambivalent—saying that while mutual submission “works better,” the man is still the “head of the home,” and expressing some concern that friends might misunderstand their per­ spective. Although evangelicals who are more egalitarian go further to decouple ideas about gender and authority, they are in the minority. For most American evangelicals, husbands’ headship is synonymous with husbands’ authority; and both are closely tied to family stability as well as social and moral order. They are also closely tied to evangelical identity and ideas about the person of God.

What Would Be Lost for Evangelicals? Two facets of evangelical identity help explain the persistence of ideas about husbands’ headship. The first emerges out of evangelicalism as a religious sub­ culture; the second reflects the content of evangelical beliefs about the nature of God and a gendered creation. Evangelical subculture maintains its distinctiveness—thrives, as Christian Smith (1998) argues—because it is embattled. Gender is a key marker of that embattlement. Despite the fact that most evangelicals are pragmatically egalitar­ ian in how they practice family, they retain countercultural ideas about husbands’ headship and authority. These ideas provide a strategic subcultural boundary—distinguishing evangelicals as different from the world. In fact, the pragmatic egali­ tarianism of ordinary evangelicals increases the symbolic import of husbands’ headship as a subcultural boundary. As the preceding chapters demonstrate, evangelicals struggle with many of the same work and family issues as do other Americans. They may be slightly more politically conservative, but so are many

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of their upper-middle-class neighbors. Maintaining the idea that the husband is the head of the family—even if that headship is largely symbolic—provides a dra­ matic contrast to the nominal egalitarianism of the culture. In doing so, it sup­ ports evangelicals’ sense of being faithful to their mandate to be both in but not of the world. Because so much of their subcultural identity is linked to the maintenance of these distinctive gender ideals, evangelicals are suspicious, to say the least, of egalitarianism. On the one hand, egalitarianism as an ideal does no cultural work in helping to identify or maintain religious boundaries and identity. What is the benefit, after all, of arguing that God calls men and women to share responsibil­ ity and authority within the household when the broader culture does the same? If evangelicals were to intentionally adopt the rhetoric of biblical feminism, they would find themselves looking even more like the broader culture than they do now (unless, of course, they were demonstratively more egalitarian than their neigh­ bors in sharing responsibility for, and not just helping each other with, paid and unpaid family labor). Egalitarian evangelicals, on the other hand, think of husbands’ headship as a different kind of boundary, one that prevents people outside the church from com­ ing to Christ. I don’t think that anything would be lost if the church stopped talking about headship and submission. . . . Again, that’s an area that I struggle with, but I don’t think that we necessarily lose anything. . . . It’s one of the things that gets in the way of people, especially women, coming in the door of the church. In today’s society, submission is a very hard word to use. We could get rid of that word, and families would certainly still work. 30-year-old Pentecostal woman, Washington

The identity of egalitarian evangelicals—as a religious subculture within a subculture—is also supported by their opposition to the ideal of husbands’ headship. Arguing that a gendered hierarchy of headship and submission is both bad for evan­ gelism and bad theology sets them well apart from the mainstream of the move­ ment. Gender complementarians such as Wayne Grudem and John Piper and popular writers such as James Dobson and Stu Weber have been remarkably suc­ cessful in defining biblical feminist arguments for egalitarianism as arguments for androgyny. Although evangelical feminists have written extensively on the con­ ceptual difference between egalitarianism and androgyny, their arguments continue to be cast as mandating identical roles and identities for women and men. The ma­ jority of ordinary evangelicals learn from their own pragmatically egalitarian ex­ perience that androgyny and strict equality are impractical and thus implausible. Authors such as Grudem, Dobson, and LaHaye have also been remarkably successfully in associating evangelical feminism with theological liberalism. This connection makes it difficult for evangelical feminists to convincingly make the case that egalitarianism is consistent with a high view of the authority of Scrip­ ture. Instead, their views are characterized as teetering on the edge of biblical relativism’s slippery slope.

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The success of conservative authors in defining evangelical feminism as only marginally evangelical highlights the importance of specific theological ideals in supporting a particular subcultural religious identity. Evangelicals place enormous value on the authority of the Bible as the revelation of new life and community through forgiveness of sins and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Yet while the Bible’s message about Jesus is accepted as non-negotiable, evangelicals often struggle with how to interpret and apply its other messages about the organiza­ tion of the church, the role of the state, and issues of inequality, militarism, the stewardship of natural resources, and gender. When popular evangelical author Stu Weber (1993) outlines the implications of biblical revelation for gender, he writes: “We cannot take our clues from our culture. . . . Christian thought springs directly from the nature of God and its revelation in His Word. Every major tenet of our faith is a matter of revelation, not explanation. Each is a mystery to be learned no way other than by revelation. We know what we know by taking Him at His Word” (88). Believing that the Bible is true and has authority in the believer’s life should not be confused with interpreting it literally in every detail. Evangelicals are more likely to opt for a scheme of interpretation (or hermeneutic) in which the Bible is read as teaching enduring, absolute, and intuitively self-evident truths rather than a hermeneutic of suspicion through which the texts are read as instructive myths abstracted from any real history. They are pulled between, and equally want to avoid, the two poles of biblical interpretation (biblical literalism and the Bible as myth) that characterized Protestantism in the early twentieth century. Thus, when evangelicals debate the meaning of key gender passages in the Bible, they struggle with the same subcultural mandate that characterizes their approach to other ar­ eas of life: how to be faithfully in the world but not of it.5 Putting too much em­ phasis on cultural context appears to relativize authority right out of the text, while reading it too literally smacks of the anti-intellectualism and proof-texting evangelicals like to think fundamentalists are more guilty of than they themselves. In this process of interpretation, questions about gender and authority take on symbolic significance as litmus tests of the acceptance of biblical authority over­ all. If the Bible clearly teaches that God created women and men for different tasks and established a hierarchy of authority within the family, to argue otherwise is to say the Bible is not true. Yet as often as evangelicals point to the Bible for evi­ dence of gender hierarchy and difference, they point just as frequently (if not more) to their own bodies as undeniable proof of intentional difference in both being and design. It’s in the Bible. God made the man to be the strong figure and the leader. A woman has her qualities, too. Let him be a man and her a woman. . . . It’s born in a man to lead and be the head. In all nature studies you’ll find the males are domineering. It’s in the makeup of a man to want to lead. But not in the hateful, strong sense. I hope I’m saying it right. ’Cause I don’t want it to sound like I’m a male-chauvinist pig ’cause I’m not. 32-year-old Pentecostal father of two, Georgia

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As these and other comments suggest, evangelicals who affirm the idea of husbands’ headship readily interpret biological differences as indicative of deeper differences in personality. They echo Dobson’s sociobiological explanations for men’s weak egos and women’s need for romance and self-esteem. Weber (1993) makes this connection between biology, personality, and roles even more explicit, arguing that “the physical is a parable of the spiritual. The visible is a metaphor for the invisible. The tangible speaks for the intangible. At his core a man is an initiator—a piercer, one who penetrates, moves forward, advances toward the ho­ rizon, leads. At the core of masculinity is initiation—the provision of direction, security, stability and connection” (45). Although not always as eloquent, ordinary evangelicals who point to biological differences as evidence for gender differences in authority and responsibility make the same connection between biology, per­ sonality, authority, and roles. At its most basic level, the meaning of biology is tied up with the nature and person of God. What would be lost if evangelicals abandoned the idea of husbands’ headship? They would lose a right understanding of God as father and source of authority. As one Southern Baptist woman in Virginia explained, “I think there is a lack of respect for God because we’ve lost the idea of husband’s authority. They say you usually relate to God through the image your father presents of him. And if there is no father there, then how are you going to see what He is really like, and how are you going to look to God with respect and authority?” For contem­ porary evangelicals, acceding authority to husbands is not just a pragmatic way to resolve the ambiguities of contemporary life. These ideas of a gendered hierarchy of authority are not just relational; they are reality, embodied in physiology and stretching throughout the created order to the person of God. This idea of authority and submission to authority are so important to God that they are part of His very being. The First Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Father; the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Son. Inherent in those titles is a relationship of authority and submission to authority. The Father exercises authority over the Son, and the Son sub­ mits to the Father’s authority and this is the very nature and being of GOD! Statement on Women in Leadership, Calvary Chapel6

A number of conservative evangelicals, many of them associated with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, have advanced the idea that au­ thority and submission are embedded in the nature and person of God. Elisabeth Elliot (1991), for example, writes that the meaning of sexuality as a pattern of authority and submission “is what I see as the arrangement of the universe and the full harmony and tone of scripture. This arrangement is a glorious hierarchi­ cal order of graduated splendor, beginning with the Trinity, descending through seraphim, cherubim, archangels, angels, men, and all lesser creatures, a mighty universal dance, choreographed for the perfection and fulfillment of each partici­ pant” (394). For Elliot, true freedom lies in celebrating gender differences that are “inequalities . . . essential to the image of God” (399). Similarly, Grudem makes it clear that the subordination of women to men is not a consequence of the Fall

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but the essence of what it means to be “created in the image of God.” For Grudem, an eternal hierarchy of authority exists in the Trinity, in which Jesus’ relationship to the Father (like wives’ relationship to husbands) is “equal in essence but subor­ dinate in role” (Piper and Grudem 1991; 457, n. 540; see also Grudem 1994, 1999; Letham 1990). They are equal in value but different in function, just “as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, while absolutely equally God, have dif­ ferent functions. . . . The Son subordinates Himself to the Father. He is no less God. He is no less valuable” (Weber 1993, 89–90). Not all evangelical theologians, however, entirely agree. Some conservatives object to the notion that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father but agree that the division of labor and authority in the Trinity is imprinted into the nature of women and men (Sproul 1975). Evangelical theologians who are more egali­ tarian, on the other hand, argue that the idea of hierarchy in the Trinity is a gross example of reading something into the text (eisegesis rather than exegesis) in or­ der to sanction a hierarchy of authority between women and men (Bilezikian 1997a, 1997b; Grenz and Kjesbo 1995). Instead, they argue that “the camaraderie of lov­ ers and of families . . . reflect[s] the dynamic mutuality and reciprocity of the Trin­ ity, which agreed, ‘let us make humankind in our image’” (Scanzoni and Hardesty 1992, 22). If any lesson should be learned from the Trinity about the meaning of gender, then, it is that human beings were created in the image of a God-in-threedistinct-persons, “united in a relationship of mutual reverence and deference that expresses itself in reciprocal servanthood” (Bilezikian 1997a, 200). For egalitar­ ian evangelicals, reading hierarchy into the Trinity is at least “serious tinkering” (Birkey 2001, 4). At worst, it borders on the heretical. The fine points of these theological debates aside, the underlying issue is that both egalitarian and gender-essentialist evangelicals find a model for gender identity in the doctrine of the Trinity. For gender essentialists, abandoning the no­ tion of husbands’ headship threatens to undermine not only the authority of the Bible but also basic ideas about the nature of God and human beings. When ideas about gender hierarchy and authority are so closely linked to basic ontological un­ derstandings of existence and being, it is no surprise that conservative evangelicals find the prospect of abandoning the notion of husbands’ headship so threatening.

Conclusion Ideas about husbands’ headship are a strategic subcultural religious bound­ ary for contemporary evangelicals. This anti-egalitarian notion of hierarchy as God’s model for family life provides the cultural leverage evangelicals need to distin­ guish themselves from their nonevangelical colleagues, friends, and neighbors. At a time when cultural definitions of masculinity are very much in flux, ideas of husbands’ headship help reinforce men’s identity as men, as fathers, and as hus­ bands. For women, granting symbolic headship to husbands strengthens men’s re­ sponsibility and connection to family, raises the bar on expectations for intimacy in marriage, and provides a general sense of security in an insecure world. While the idea of husbands’ headship is an effective strategy for organizing

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family relationships, it is the content of evangelical theology—core beliefs about the nature of God and the universe—that explains why husbands’ headship per­ sists as a key subcultural boundary rather than some other aspect of evangelical tradition and belief. Ideas of gender hierarchy and difference persist among evan­ gelicals because they are the central metaphor for the ontological world view of this particular religious subculture. Ideas of gender hierarchy and difference are not, as other scholars have argued, primarily an effective gender strategy that draws men into greater participation in family life or a means to ameliorate some of the tensions in work and family. Nor are ideas of a gendered hierarchy within mar­ riage simply a reaction against the ambiguity surrounding gender identity or an effective means to maintain subcultural religious boundaries. Rather, tinkering with gender ideals threatens a principle of hierarchy and difference that lies at the heart of the created order. The stakes, indeed, are very high: tinker with gender, and you unravel the whole.

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CHAPTER 9

History, Community, and

Identity: Tools and Truths in

the Evangelical Tool Kit

�

The full definition of someone’s identity . . . involves not only his stand on moral and spiritual matters but also some reference to a defining community. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self

T

he contours of evangelical work and family life presented here bear little resemblance to the popular image of evan­ gelicals as hierarchical, anti-feminist, conservative cultural warriors. In fact, many of the ideas expressed by ordinary evangelicals are themselves quite ordinary. Most support the idea of women’s employment and live in dual-income households in which husbands are increasingly expected to do more. They share many of the same values for companionate, pragmatically egalitarian marriage as do other re­ ligiously committed Protestants, as well as other Americans as a whole. Because American evangelicalism emerged out of and itself significantly contributed to the American traditions of individualism and personal rights, many of these charac­ teristics and beliefs should not be that surprising: American evangelicals are an American subculture, not an alien one. Yet evangelical emphases on partnership, intimacy, and involved fatherhood are only part of the story. Subcultural rhetoric regarding husbands’ headship and wives’ supportive, nurturing responsiveness are clearly “counter-cultural” elements of contemporary evangelical teaching that run against the normative grain of Ameri­ can egalitarian ideals. While careful to point out that husbands’ headship is not dictatorship, conservative evangelical authors and teachers employ an ostensibly neutral language of economic specialization in describing men’s and women’s complementary roles. Within this paradigm, men are responsible to be servant lead­ ers, and women are responsible to freely submit to husbands’ authority in the family and the church. No longer able to make a credible argument that women’s moral or intellectual 175

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inferiority is the reason for their subordination, conservative evangelical leaders look beyond the mind and heart to the less changeable body for evidence of hier­ archy and difference in design. The body becomes a metaphor for profound and intentional differences in spiritual and psychological being. Violating these differ­ ences not only represents a rejection of God’s design but a rejection of the De­ signer: a triune oneness in which the Son is equal but subordinate to the Father. This “economy of subordination” is the model of the Trinity, baked into humanity at creation and the foundation of strong families and stable society. For conserva­ tive evangelical leaders, the lines of the argument and the costs of losing it are clear: identity, family, society, and the person of God are all at risk. Among ordinary evangelicals, the lines are not always so clear. At best their beliefs and practices are an imperfect and partial synthesis of the ideas presented by movement leaders and expressed within local church culture. Apart from a com­ mitted egalitarian minority, most American evangelicals embrace the idea of hus­ bands’ spiritual headship, authority, and responsibility before God as well as ideals for partnership, mutuality, and shared decision making within marriage. With the broadening of women’s employment outside the household, the interpretation of husbands’ headship as men’s responsibility for breadwinning has largely given way to headship as involving final authority and spiritual accountability. It is not pos­ sible for contemporary evangelicals to turn back the clock in terms of broad scale structural changes in men’s wages, women’s employment, or cultural ideals. Nor do most desire to do so. Rather than attempting to leverage the idea of husbands’ headship into a systematic reconstruction of the good provider ideal, evangelical men and women leverage headship in ways that help them to better manage some of the harsher consequences of economic downsizing and uncertainty. Maintain­ ing a rhetoric of male headship strengthens men’s material and emotional ties to their families, at the same time defusing areas of potential conflict within mar­ riage. It allows women to minimize the significance of their economic contribu­ tion to the household and leaves the door open to full-time domesticity as an alternative to less-than-satisfying occupations. Neither able nor desiring to trans­ form America’s economic culture, evangelicalism provides the ideological tools with which to simultaneously embrace and resist the world, while maintaining a sense of distinctive religious identity and mission. At the same time, ideas about husbands’ headship and authority are not sim­ ply a useful template for resolving conflict and organizing family life. Nor are they primarily a useful subcultural boundary that helps to distinguish evangelicals from the broader, supposedly egalitarian, American culture. Ideas about husbands’ headship get to the very heart of evangelicals’ sense of who God is and how God has ordered the universe. Yet like questions about the mechanics of an adjustable wrench or a voltage meter, theological abstractions are difficult to connect to the pragmatic work of everyday life. It is enough for most evangelicals to say that women and men are equally valuable, equally moral creatures and then point to the body as evidence of gender difference in design. Leaping from women’s ability to bear children to their primary responsibility for rearing them and uncritically adopting ideas about men’s emotional stability and weak egos, evangelicals are

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able to explain both husbands’ headship and variations in domestic work, parenting, and decision making. Studying ordinary evangelicals tells us much not only about a group that has figured prominently in the “family values” debate but something about the broader sociological question of the interplay of personal agency and social struc­ ture. It illustrates how personal agency and interpretation of life experiences con­ tribute to a sense of identity that is thoroughly American in emphasizing rights, privacy, and individualism yet distinctively subcultural in being shaped by the au­ thority of a text and tradition. It points as well to the importance of local subcul­ ture and community for the continual maintenance, transmission, and interpretation of these ideals. Within that subculture, there are a range of ways in which the Bible is understood to speak to the question of manhood, womanhood, and family. As part of a broader stream of conservative Protestantism that sees the Bible as a pri­ mary source of religious authority, evangelicals are careful to maintain that their ideas about gender are true to what the Bible teaches about partnership, headship, and authority. While some might argue that evangelicals interpret the Bible any way they choose in a self-serving effort to justify their life choices, evangelicals see the texts themselves as limiting the range of interpretation by presenting truths in tension. Ideas of partnership and headship act as counterweights, drawing the believer back toward a space between these sets of ideals. As in other communi­ ties, a long history of interpretive tradition informs the ideas and practice of gen­ der among American evangelicals. Saying this is to make the case that when evangelicals go to their cultural tool kit, they cannot pull out anything they wish. As part of a particular interpretive community, they draw on the range of mean­ ings that the community has accepted as fitting with the texts. That is not to say that others may find very different interpretations there. It is to say that an ad­ equate understanding of evangelical subculture and identity must begin within the interpretive community of which individual evangelicals are a part. The persistence of the ideological tools of partnership, headship, and author­ ity in the evangelical tool kit suggests that these ideas matter. More specifically, theology matters. Evangelical notions of gender are explicitly tied to a particular understanding of human nature, the order of the universe, the person of God, and a sense of how these are all related. While these ideas are made most explicit in the writings of evangelical authors who are committed to the definitive truth of either gender egalitarianism or gender hierarchy and difference, the ways in which ordinary evangelicals talk about gendered family life point to the theological sub­ structure of their commitment to a particular vision of the world and how it works. Beginning with the body as often as with the Bible, evangelicals committed to the idea of husbands’ headship and authority point to physiological sex differ­ ences to explain both what is and what should be. Taking the body as a signpost of a deeper reality, evangelicals look forward to experience and backward to the person of God. The body intimates the reality of masculinity as initiation and femi­ ninity as nurturing response. Even if the organization of work and family mini­ mizes gender difference or reorders what men and women do, it does not change the essence of what women and men are. As a result, men are seen as the locus of

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authority and responsibility in relationships within the household and, for some evangelicals, also within the church. Yet men’s authority is not without limits. It is bounded and balanced by a sense that men are ultimately accountable to God for how well they have led and served their families, churches, and communities. Over the past two generations, as men’s ability to be sole financial provider has declined, and expectations for men’s active participation in parenting has increased, the are­ nas in which men’s authority have found expression have shifted. No longer de­ scribed in terms of providing or (to a lesser extent) protecting, evangelical notions of men’s authority find their fullest expression in the idea that men are ultimately responsible for what happens inside the family. Like the forgiveness of sins, hus­ bands’ ultimate accountability is, in this world at least, neither provable nor dis­ provable and therefore difficult to dislodge.

What’s Next? Some cultural tools have remarkable staying power. But they do get rear­ ranged, and more refined ones added for specialized jobs. They stay because they are useful. Basic screwdrivers and hammers simply will not go away; they are used too often, for too many things. To be sure, they may be modified—smaller ver­ sions made to fit a woman’s hand, electric- and battery-powered models to make construction more efficient—but the basic tool is there. Like the hand drill at the bottom of my father’s tool kit, the idea of husbands’ headship may fade through gradual disuse. The projects have changed, and other tools do the job just as well, if not better. Husbands’ headship, as we’ve seen, is not the only evangelical fam­ ily ideal. Ideas about partnership, individual gifts, and mutual respect are also part of evangelical subcultural history and tradition—tools that evangelical feminists argue are more than adequate for the job of resolving conflict, dividing household labor, and organizing both family and broader social relationships. The mutuality emphasized by evangelical feminists fits the experience and expectations of the current and presumably next generation of women and men. From this perspective, increasingly egalitarian attitudes toward gender, work, and family could be expected to catch up to the pragmatic egalitarianism that now char­ acterizes most evangelicals’ family life. Given the gap between normative egali­ tarianism and persistent gender inequality in American society overall, a more thoroughly radical egalitarianism on the part of evangelicals could even, hypotheti­ cally, take the place of husbands’ headship as an effective marker of distinctive subcultural identity. Yet even if evangelical men were more willing to sacrifice privi­ lege and position, the organization of employment and education makes radical partnership a costly alternative to pragmatic egalitarianism as a model for family life. Moreover, to the extent that economic uncertainty continues to shrink the num­ ber of areas in which masculinity can display itself as leadership and authority, notions of husbands’ headship may take on even greater personal relevance for men for whom the church and household become last outposts of identity where they feel able, responsible, and in charge. Within evangelical institutions, there are similar countervailing trends both toward and away from greater egalitarianism. For evangelicals, the impulse to

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broaden the appeal of the gospel might increase the seriousness with which pas­ tors, counselors, and teachers attend to theological arguments in favor of egali­ tarianism, if only to make sure that the church doors are propped open as wide as possible. Yet even though this strategy has been adopted in a growing number of “seeker churches,” it remains marginal within the denominations and institutions that have been the core of the twentieth century’s neo-evangelical movement. For the most part, egalitarian evangelicals remain a marginalized minority within the institutions that generate the subculture’s pastors, theologians, radio programs, con­ ferences, and publications. As the early history of evangelical feminism suggests, the ability to openly question hierarchy and men’s authority in evangelical magazines (like Christianity Today or Eternity) is a strategic resource for framing the discourse on gender and family. To be sure, articles and news stories presenting evangelical feminist perspectives are increasingly represented in books issued by evangelical publish­ ing houses and in evangelical magazines. They remain a minority of stories, how­ ever, and compared to the 1.5-million–subscription base of Christianity Today’s family of magazines, the subscription base of explicitly egalitarian publications issued by Christians for Biblical Equality and the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus is a minuscule several thousand. Moreover, explicitly egalitar­ ian evangelicals report being marginalized within, and in some cases intention­ ally excluded from, influential positions in evangelical colleges, publishing houses, and pulpits, further weakening the ability of egalitarians to mobilize the resources of those institutions in support of mutuality and partnership.1 Conservative evangelicals have the established institutions, networks, and rhetoric. The story of husbands’ headship and authority is articulated in hundreds of books, through thousands of radio broadcasts, and in millions of pulpits and Sunday school classes every week all over the country. For the time being, their institutional strength sustains the language of symbolic traditionalism, even though the practice of most evangelicals is pragmatically egalitarian. Although evangeli­ cal feminists have a story that resonates with the experience of most ordinary be­ lievers, that story is often undermined by their association with “secular feminism” and by the effectiveness of husbands’ symbolic headship as a subcultural religious boundary. To the extent that gender conservatives remain successful in linking an­ drogyny with egalitarianism, evangelical feminism is likely to remain both ideo­ logically suspect and pragmatically unworkable in the minds of most ordinary evangelicals. In sum, evangelicals work hard, often very hard, to put together seemingly disparate ideals of partnership and hierarchy within marriage. That this is a struggle should not be surprising. Many people, religious or not, have difficulty articulat­ ing their ideals. For evangelicals, this is not simply a struggle to put into words something that is most often taken for granted. In addition to bringing to the fore­ ground beliefs that are ordinarily just assumed, evangelicals reaching into their ideological tool kit find a set of seemingly contradictory symbols, texts, and rules. But it is a set, not a grab bag. The tools are part of a whole. Not unlike the struggle to make sense of being both in but not of the world, ordinary evangelicals encounter

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ideas of partnership, headship, and authority not as a choice between “either-or” but as a matter of balancing “both-and.” Not just useful in times of cultural tran­ sition, the discourse, rules, and tools of ordinary evangelicals are put to use on ordinary days as a dynamic framework upon which the habits and patterns of or­ dinary life are hung.

Appendix A

181

APPENDIX A RESEARCH METHODS

The research for this study was conducted in three stages: (1) semistructured per­ sonal interviews with 130 churchgoing Protestants from twelve different regions of the United States, (2) a national random telephone survey of religiously com­ mitted Protestants (n=2,087) and a smaller comparison group of nonchurchgoers and non-Protestants (n=504), and (3) a second round of personal interviews with a sample of self-identified evangelicals (approximately half of whom had partici­ pated in the national telephone survey and half of whom were identified through a process of “local knowledge” sampling; n=173). Phase 1: Personal Interviews with Churchgoing Protestants SAMPLING RELIGIOUSLY COMMITTED PROTESTANTS First, the research team conducted semistructured personal interviews with churchgoing Protestants, sampled across the diversity of Protestantism, with the goal of achieving proportionate representation for those relevant theological and denominational traditions in which evangelicals are likely to be located. Our goal was to hear the voices of evangelical Christians “in the pew”—people who may or may not be political or social activists—and to ask how their religious identity and how faith shape their ideals for gender, work, and family and influence their practices in everyday life. To represent the population’s heterogeneity, we strati­ fied the sample by race, denominational tradition, and, where appropriate, denomi­ national theological orientation (liberal or conservative). This stratification yielded thirteen white categories and three black catego­ ries of churchgoing Protestants. For white Protestants, we created liberal and con­ servative categories for the following denominational traditions: Baptist, Methodist/ Pietist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian/Reformed. In our judgment, the predominantly conservative traditions of Holiness, Pentecostal, and independent/nondenominational did not warrant separate comparative liberal cells. A small number of con­ servative Episcopalians were included in the conservative Presbyterian/Reformed 181

182

Appendix A

group. For black Protestant churches, we viewed Methodist, Baptist, and Pente­ costal as sufficiently internally homogeneous in theological orientation to require only one category for each tradition. We determined the number of Protestants in each category and assigned de­ nominations to categories using the following references as guides: the Encyclopedia of American Religions (Melton 1993); Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1990 (Bradley et al. 1992); the Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Mead and Hill 1990); Religious Bodies in the United States (Melton 1992); the Encyclopedia of African-American Religions (Murphy, Melton, and Ward 1993); and the Directory of African-American Religious Bodies (Payne 1991). We relied primarily on Melton’s (1993) reported membership figures to de­ termine the size of the denomination and determined theological orientation from descriptive summaries of each denomination in Melton (1993); Mead and Hill (1990); Murphy, Melton, and Ward (1993); and Payne (1991). Bradley et al. (1992) offer a very conservative estimate of independent and nondenominational church membership. In our sample, however, independent and nondenominational churches were not likely to have been underrepresented because we established a minimum number of interviews from each category. Thus, the proportion of nondenomina­ tional interviews in our sample far exceeded the numerical proportions in the popu­ lation as estimated by Bradley et al. We conducted the interviews in Minneapolis; Chicago; Birmingham, Ala­ bama; Durham, North Carolina; Essex County, Massachusetts; and Linn and Benton counties, Oregon. The number of interviews conducted in each area ac­ counted for regional strongholds of denominational traditions. Sampling frames for each category at each location were compiled using lists of local churches in telephone directories and checked for relative comprehensiveness with Bradley et al. (1992). We randomly selected individual churches from the lists. We then con­ tacted church pastors to secure cooperation and complete lists of church members and regular attenders. To better diversify at the level of individual churches, we limited the maximum number of respondents to four per church. We then system­ atically selected potential respondents and took a second random sample for al­ ternates. We checked the list of sampled potential respondents with the pastor to eliminate members completely uninvolved in the church. Only a few very old re­ spondents who had moved into nursing homes and were incapable of doing an in­ terview were eliminated in this way. This sampling methodology worked efficiently for white Protestants but not black Protestants. Many pastors of black churches held second jobs, most churches did not have secretarial assistance, and many did not have answering machines. Moreover, many randomly sampled black Protestants proved unwilling to do in­ terviews with a researcher who called without a personal reference. After numer­ ous unsuccessful callbacks and requests, we realized that in some cases the only reasonably effective means of obtaining interviews would be to work through our existing social networks of black Protestants. Thus, in our sample of black Protes­ tants, seven were sampled randomly, and seventeen were not. Nevertheless, we were able to achieve regional diversity (Chicago, Birmingham, Boston, and Durham)

Appendix A

183

and to represent the three major traditions proportionate to their numbers in the population. The sample also attempted to maintain a rough gender stratification com­ parable to the sixty-to-forty ratio consistently reported by other studies. Therefore, if we assigned a researcher an odd number of interviews for a given category, the extra interview was conducted with a randomly selected female. Our response rate for individuals contacted was 94 percent. SEMISTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS WITH CHURCHGOING PROTESTANTS An interview schedule was developed that included questions about the respondent’s religious identity and strategies for influencing American society. We asked all of the interviewees a series of open-ended questions about their sense of religious identity and how that identity relates to other religious and secular groups, their experiences as Christians in American society, and their perceptions of how American society is changing. We also asked a variety of questions about attitudes toward Christian involvement in politics, materialism, the family, morality, public education, and cultural pluralism as well as their own practices. Especially impor­ tant for the purposes of this book, we asked a series of questions regarding gen­ der ideology, with follow-up questions about how faith affects the practice of gender within their own households. Questions included the following: What are your thoughts about the place of men and women in families? Probe: gender-specific roles, housework, authority, child care, and so on What are your thoughts about the place of women in the paid work force? Probe: equal opportunity, gender-appropriate jobs, employment of moth­ ers of young children, and so on In what ways, if at all, do you see similarities or differences between men and women evidenced in the life of your church? Probe: roles, functions, spiritual leadership, and so on How do you see these ideas about men and women being worked out in your own life? Probe: specific examples, evidence, contradictions

We also asked specifically about the meaning of male headship in both the family and the church and followed up with questions about the specifics of deci­ sion making, employment, domestic work, and child care. Through these interviews, we attempted to discern the distinctive elements of evangelical views and practice with regard to gender and family. (See Smith et al. [1998, app. C] for the com­ plete personal interview guide.) Interviews lasted from one to three hours, with the average being about two hours. With the respondent’s permission, we tape-recorded each interview. These interviews were transcribed and given a cover sheet with summary codes for reli­ gious identity, gender, age, marital status, education, employment status, and so

184

Appendix A

on. Excerpts were edited for minor grammatical and syntactical errors, and first names were changed to protect the anonymity of respondents. We used systematic content analysis to develop coding categories for themes that emerged from multiple readings of these transcripts. The main use of these coding schemes was to organize respondents’ comments for qualitative textual analysis. The interviews were also the basis for our construction of a closed-ended survey instrument to be administered in the second phase of the research. Phase 2: National Random Sample and Telephone Interviews SAMPLING In this phase, the research team employed a random-digit dialing (RDD) tech­ nique to obtain a national sample of Protestants who completed our telephone sur­ vey (Religious Identity and Influence Survey). The survey was conducted between January and March 1996. The research design included ten calls for each number and three callbacks to convert refusals. We randomly selected within households by asking to speak with the adult with the next birthday in order to ensure age and gender representation. (All analyses are weighted for household size to ap­ proximate a sample of individuals in households with telephones.) The sample population was religiously committed Protestants over seven­ teen years old. Because we did not want to eliminate Protestants whose faith is important in their lives but are unable to attend church, we used a screen to target churchgoing Protestants, which included three questions regarding respondents’ religion, church attendance, and the importance of religious faith in their lives. Of those who were identified as Protestants, we interviewed only those who said they attended church at least two or three times a month or said their faith was “extremely important” in their lives (not just “important”). For comparison pur­ poses, we also interviewed a smaller set of respondents who did not pass the screen. We completed 2,087 interviews with religiously committed Protestants (each in­ terview lasting approximately twenty-seven minutes) and 504 interviews with re­ spondents who did not pass the screen (whose interviews lasted an average of fourteen minutes). Analyses were weighted to account for the proportion of reli­ giously committed Protestants in the U.S. population (approximately one-third). The response rate for the survey was 69 percent. THE INTERVIEW The interview for religiously committed Protestants measured religious selfidentification with a series of four questions: “Would you identify yourself as fun­ damentalist? Evangelical? Mainline Protestant? Theologically liberal?” If a respondent answered yes to only one of the four religious identifications, we took that to be his or her identity. If the respondent said yes to more than one identity, we followed up with this question: “Which best describes your religious identity? (1) Fundamentalist? (2) Evangelical? (3) Mainline Protestant? (4) Liberal? (5) Other? [Respondent vol­ unteered an answer], (6) Don’t know? (7) [Respondent refused to answer].”

Appendix A

185

If he or she responded no to all four religious identities (fundamentalist, evan­ gelical, mainline, liberal), we asked, “If you had to choose, would any of these describe you at all?” We also asked specific questions regarding denominational affiliation, church attendance, activities, beliefs about human nature, the inspiration of the Bible, sal­ vation, and doubts. (For more details on religious self-identification, see Smith [1998, app. B].) We asked religiously committed Protestants a series of questions about morality in the United States; Christian influence in the United States; ap­ propriate methods for changing society (ranging from converting people to fol­ lowers of Jesus Christ to living a radically different lifestyle); pluralism; racism; the hostility of the broader culture, including feminism and the media (that is, “cul­ ture wars” items); religion and the public schools; volunteerism; abortion; hours per week spent watching religious television or listening to religious radio; gen­ der; and family. The analyses presented in this book specifically focus on items related to gender and family. More specifically, we asked whether or not the husband should be the head of the family. For those who responded yes, we followed up with a series of three items specifying dimensions of husband’s headship. The response categories for each follow-up were (1) yes, (2) no, (3) don’t know, and (4) refuse to answer. Does headship mean that the husband should be responsible to give spiri­ tual direction in the family, or not? Does it mean that the husband should be the final authority in decision making, or not? Does it mean that the husband should be the primary breadwinner, or not?

We also asked if respondents thought women should be allowed to hold the position of head pastor, if marriage should be ended if it is unhappy and unfulfilling, if husbands and wives should be equal partners in everything, and attitudes toward abortion. We included a series of questions about decision making and marital satis­ faction for those who were currently married: How satisfied are you with the way that your [husband or wife] makes decisions in your marriage?

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

very satisfied somewhat satisfied somewhat dissatisfied very dissatisfied don’t know refused

Who usually takes the lead in spiritual matters in your family—you or your [husband/wife]?

186

Appendix A

. . . About important financial matters? (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

me my spouse both equal (they must volunteer) don’t know refused

. . . About child rearing?

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

me my spouse both equal (they must volunteer) don’t know refused

. . . About how to spend leisure time?

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

me my spouse both equal (they must volunteer) don’t know refused

. . . About who should work outside the home?

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

me my spouse both equal (they must volunteer) don’t know refused

When you and your [husband/wife] disagree about important decisions that need to be made, who usually gives in and goes along with what the other thinks, you or your [husband/wife]?

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

respondent gives in spouse gives in both/equal (they must volunteer) don’t know refused

All respondents were asked about a range of standard sociodemographic characteristics, including marital status, age, employment, family background, geo­ graphic mobility, income, race, and education. In addition, we asked non-religiously committed and non-Protestants if they knew anyone who identified as an evan­ gelical; if an evangelical had ever tried to convert them; respondents’ attitudes to­ wards the solutions that evangelicals propose to personal problems, morality, and social problems; if they could identify differences between fundamentalist and evan­ gelical Christians; and how familiar they were with what evangelical Christians

Appendix A

187

stand for. (See Smith et al. [1998, app. D] for the complete Religious Identity and Influence Survey interview instrument.) Interviews with religiously committed Protestants lasted an average of twenty-seven minutes each; interviews with nonreligously committed and non-Protestants lasted an average of fourteen minutes. Phase 3: Local Knowledge and Follow-up Interviews The third phase of the research consisted of a second set of semistructured interviews, this time focusing on self-identified evangelicals. Because we wanted to generalize to evangelicals nationally, our sampling strategy focused on obtain­ ing interviews with a cross-section of evangelicals from diverse areas of the United States. To accomplish this, we employed a two-pronged sampling strategy. First, we conducted interviews with ninety-three people who had identified themselves as evangelical in the RDD survey. These interviewees were selected on the basis of their relative proximity to one of the eleven researchers conducting interviews. Researchers drove hundreds of miles to complete sets of prearranged interviews over a two- or three-day period in more distant locations and arranged to do inter­ views in places where they would be vacationing or even traveling through during the summer. While not random, this sampling procedure allowed us to compare qualitative responses with responses obtained during telephone interviews. Each interview lasted approximately two hours and was tape-recorded and transcribed. The ninety-three follow-up interviewees did not significantly differ from the complete set of randomly sampled, self-identified evangelicals on all relevant socio­ demographic characteristics (gender, race, age, education, income, marital status, regional location, or employment status). The only significant difference between evangelicals interviewed both in person and over the telephone and those inter­ viewed only over the telephone was that the follow-up interviews took place in slightly more urban counties of residence. While it is possible that the tendency toward a slightly more urban sample may introduce some bias into our findings, it is not readily apparent what substantive or relevant effect that might have, espe­ cially given the overwhelming similarity between samples in terms of other sociodemographic characteristics. Aware that the national survey might seem to allow too great a latitude in religious self-identification, we worked hard in this phase to obtain interviews with “card-carrying” evangelicals. We employed a local knowledge sampling procedure, using local evangelical leaders to help us identify the key evangelical churches from which we would then randomly sample respondents. Selecting twelve loca­ tions across the country, we chose churches that were mentioned by multiple lo­ cal evangelical pastors and parachurch organizations as the most clearly evangelical churches in the county. For sampling, we selected the churches that had been named most often. The remarkable overlap in the lists that local evangelical leaders pro­ vided made us confident that this sampling procedure had directed us to the most thoroughly evangelical churches in these twelve areas. We called the pastors of the selected evangelical churches and explained the study to them. With the pastors’ cooperation, we then randomly sampled from

188

Appendix A

church lists of regular attenders and called to request interviews. A maximum of three respondents were interviewed from each of forty-two evangelical churches. We interviewed a total of eighty-five local-knowledge evangelicals. Interviews lasted approximately two hours and were tape-recorded and transcribed. The re­ sponse rate was 99 percent. Both follow-up and local-knowledge respondents were asked the same series of open-ended questions during their interviews. The questions focused on reli­ gious identity, the big issues for American Christians today, the sense of status decline, Christian distinctiveness, Christian influence, pluralism and morality, education, race, belief plausibility, and spiritual context (such as church experi­ ence, small groups, family devotions, and so on). We also asked specific gender questions: What are your thoughts about the role of men and women in families? To what extent do you think women and men have different responsibili­ ties when it comes to raising children and earning a living? Why? What are your thoughts about the extent to which, and how, men should be involved in their families? How should that involvement relate to their jobs in the outside world? Would you say that, for women, raising children is more important than working in a paid job? Or equally important? Why or why not? What about for men? Some Christians believe that husbands are to be the heads of their wives or families or households. Do you agree or disagree? What exactly does it mean to be the head? Can you give me a concrete example of how headship works? Do you think that husbands and wives should be mutual, equal partners in everything? What does that mean? How does being equal partners relate to the idea that the husband is the head? In your mind, what would be lost or go wrong if Christians stopped talk­ ing or thinking about the headship of husbands. Why would that be bad? How do you see these ideals about men and women get worked out in your own life? Where do these things [mentioned meanings of head] seem to work well in your life? Where do they not work well?

Appendix A

189

What does feminism mean to you? What do you think of feminism? Some Christians see feminism as a threat. Do you? Why or why not? Are you familiar with Promise Keepers? [To men] Have you ever attended a Promise Keepers event? What are your thoughts about the Promise Keepers movement?

In order to compare follow-up and local-knowledge interviews, we asked respondents at the end of each local-knowledge interview a subset of questions from the Religious Identity and Influence Survey. These forty-four items focused on sociodemographic characteristics and social and political behaviors. Compared with the follow-up participants, local-knowledge respondents were slightly more likely to be white, either married or single (never married), young, more highly educated, and more frequently male. They also were more likely to have middleor upper-middle-class incomes. These differences (particularly in education) may be reflected in local-knowledge interviewees appearing somewhat more articulate than follow-up interviewees from the national telephone survey. We noted the dif­ ferences between the two groups but made no attempt to analyze their responses separately. In all, during the summer of 1996, we conducted 173 personal inter­ views with evangelicals in twenty-three states from every region of the country. (See Smith et al. [1998, app. C] for the complete interview guide and map 1.1 and table A.2 in that study for the geographic distribution and comparison of followup and local-knowledge respondents.) Congregational Observation A number of the researchers, including myself, also attended religious ser­ vices, revival meetings, prayer meetings, and other gatherings at the churches of those we interviewed during the summer of 1996. Others were immersed in the local congregational life of a diverse set of churches during the course of the study. They attended seminars, collected printed material, and attended small Bible-study groups and regular worship services. While not systematic, these efforts provided another source of insight into evangelical subculture and helped researchers bet­ ter understand both the context and the nuances of the qualitative interviews. Reviews of Best Sellers and Recommended Evangelical Family Literature While this was not part of the study funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, a research assistant and I systematically reviewed the range and content of evan­ gelical family literature between June and December 2000. We employed a fourpart data collection strategy that produced a list of best-selling evangelical books on family, gender, parenting, manhood, and womanhood. First, we focused on re­ gional Christian bookstores, asking staff members and managers (in ten different stores in Oregon’s Willamette Valley (including Portland, Salem, Albany, Corvallis, and Eugene) about current best sellers treating issues of women, men, family,

190

Appendix A

marriage, work, and parenting. Second, we obtained a list of recommended familyrelated books from a Pacific Northwest regional Christian bookstore chain and compared it with the list produced from our interviews with bookstore personnel. Third, we visited numerous web sites, including the Christian Book Distributors (the country’s largest mail-order evangelical book distributor, located in Peabody, Massachusetts); a number of major evangelical publishers (such as Baker, Tyndale, Eerdmans, and Zondervan); and the Christian Booksellers Association (a national association of Christian bookstores that provides data on quarterly book sales). From each of these sites we obtained lists of family, marriage, and gender books that had been listed as best sellers over the past quarter and the past year. Finally, we visited the web sites of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC), and Christians for Biblical Equity (CBE) and obtained lists of recommended or reviewed books. We matched books from the first three sources (local, regional, national, and mail or web-based publishers and book distributors) to generate a list of evangeli­ cal best sellers in the area of gender and family. We then compared that list to the lists of books recommended by CBMW, EEWC, and CBE and found no overlap between the recommendations of evangelical gender essentialists and evangelical biblical feminists and best-selling evangelical books on family. My analysis of themes that appeared most frequently within these best sellers, as well as in rec­ ommended essentialist and egalitarian books, is the basis of my discussion of evan­ gelical family literature (see, in particular, chapter 3).

Appendix B

191

APPENDIX B TABLES

TABLE B.1

Evangelical Respondent Characteristics (%) Religious Identity Survey and Influence Follow-up Survey Interviews

Sex (female) Race White Black Other Marital status Never married Married Separated Divorced Widowed Age 17–24 25–34 35–44 45–54 55–64 65–74 75 and over Education Some high school High school graduate Vocational school graduate Some college College graduate Some graduate school Master’s degree†

LocalKnowledge Interviews

65

67

51

87 9 4

90 9 1

96 — 3

8 78 1 6 8

10 77 — 6 7

12 81 2 3 2

5 15 23 25 14 10 7

2 12 23 28 19 12 4

— 19 44 24 8 4 1

6 23 7 28 22 4 11

1 17 5 39 18 9 11

— 10 3 25 31 11 20 (continued)

191

192

Appendix B

TABLE B.1 Evangelical Respondent Characteristics (%) (continued) Religious Identity Survey and Influence Follow-up Survey Interviews Employment status Full time Part time Keeping house Retired Other Income Less than $9,999 $10,000–19,999 $20,000–29,999 $30,000–39,999 $40,000–49,999 $50,000–59,999 $60,000–79,999 $80,000–99,999 More than $100,000 Denomination or tradition Baptist Nondenominational Lutheran Methodisl Pentecostal Presbyterian and Reformed Holiness and Pietist Evangelical Free Restorationist Congregationalist Episcopalian Location Northeast Southeast North central South central Mountain/Pacific N

LocalKnowledge Interviews

53 10 16 14 5

55 13 12 13 7

59 13 19 2 7

5 10 19 21 13 12 11 3 6

5 10 14 20 15 15 8 3 10

1 10 6 19 15 24 11 13 1

25 19 12 7 17 6 4 8 2 4 1

18 22 12 3 18 8 7 9 1 2 1

13 27 2.4 — 2.4 20 12 7 — 13 2.4

16 25 30 13 15 (429)

12 20 33 9 26 (93)

24 20 33 0 23 (85)

Appendix B

193

TABLE B.2 Evangelical Ideas about the Bible and Knowing God’s Will (%)a I know how God wants me to live through The Bible The Bible is true in all ways and to be read literally, word for word. The Bible is true in all ways but not always to be read literally. The Bible is true primarily about religious matters but may contain errors about other things.

My heart/ Human personal walk reason

Church teaching

52.3

40.3

.9

6.5

45.9

45.9

2.7

5.4

23.1

46.2

7.7

23.1

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. The chi-square is significant at < .05.

a

TABLE B.3

Evangelicals, Headship, and Partnership in Marriage (%)a Husband should be the head.

Marriage is an equal partnership. Yes No Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a The chi-square is significant at ≤ .10.

Yes

No

77.6 12.4

9.5 .5

194

Appendix B

TABLE B.4 Explaining Husbands’ Headship among Protestants

(logistic regression)a

Religious identificationb Evangelical Mainline Liberal Sociodemographic characteristics Gender (male) Race (Caucasian) Age Education (college plus) Marital status (married)c Employedd Geographic location Southern California Subcultural location Southern Baptist Pentecostal/charismatic Bible: true and literale Bible most important source for knowing how to livef Gender ideology Equal partner -2 log likelihood χ2 % predicted

Model 1 Exp (B)

Model 2 Exp (B)

2.16*** .54*** .33***

1.99** .72† .46***

1.08 .60** 1.01† .49*** 2.01*** 1.08

1.18 .74† 1.01† .63*** 1.87*** 1.09

1.34* .96

1.07 .99

.—

.25** 1,692.4 231.7 77.4

2.38*** 1.39† 2.70*** 2.21 26*** 1,530.67 334.4 79.0

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

a Level of significance: † ≤ .10; * p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

b Comparison category = fundamentalist.

c Comparison category = not married (never married, divorced, widowed).

d Comparison category = not employed (retired, unemployed, homemaker, in school, other).

e Comparison category = Bible is not literal word for word (e.g., Bible is true but

not literal; Bible is true in matters of religion; Bible is not inspired).

f Comparison category = Bible is not the most important source of knowing how God

wants me to live (e.g., know how to live from personal walk/in my heart, human reason,

church teaching).

Appendix B

TABLE B.5

195

Explaining Husbands’ Headship among Evangelicals (logistic regression)a Model 1 Exp (B)

Sociodemographic Characteristics Gender (male) Race (Caucasian) Age Education (college or more) Marital status (married)b Employedc Geographic location Southern California Subcultural location Southern Baptist Pentecostal/charismatic Religious radio/TV Evangelical networkd High church attendance (once a week or more) Attitudes toward the Bible Bible true and literale Bible most important source for knowing how to live Gender ideology Equal partnership -2 log likelihood χ2 % predicted

Model 2 Exp (B)

1.28 .39 1.01 .86 2.88** 1.24

1.46 .92 1.01 .92 2.23* 1.13

1.57 1.54

1.55 2.50

.—

2.23 2.75* 1.09* 1.47† 1.19†

.—

1.53 1.80

.21† 251.9 16.6 90.1

.16* 200.5 48.6 90.2

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

a Level of significance: † ≤ .10; * p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001.

b Comparison category = not married (never married, divorced, widowed).

c Comparison category = not employed (retired, unemployed, homemaker, in school, other).

d Evangelicals network = majority of important family and friends are also evangelical.

e Comparison category = Bible is not literal word for word (e.g., Bible is true but not

literal; Bible is true in matters of religion; Bible is not inspired).

f Comparison category = Bible is not the most important source of knowing how God

wants me to live (e.g., know how to live from personal walk/in my heart, human reason,

church teaching).

196 TABLE B.6

Appendix B

Responsibility for Spiritual Leadership and Decision Making among Married Evangelicals (logistic regression, relative risk ratios)a Husband usually takes the lead in spiritual matters in your family.

Subcultural location Southern Baptist Pentecostal/charismatic Religious radio/TV Evangelical networkb High church attendance (more than once a week) Attends same frequency as spouse Attitudes toward the Bible Bible true and literalc Bible most important source of knowing how to lived Gender ideology Husbands’ headship Equal partners -2 log likelihood χ2 % predicted

Wife usually gives in on important decisions.

Husbands agree

Wives agree

Husbands agree

Wives agree

1.10 .29* .88 1.45

1.36 .79 1.14 1.22

5.40* 1.49 1.47 1.26

1.71 1.10 1.20 .97

2.66†

2.36*

1.14

1.74

.58

4.97**

3.93

1.10

2.08

.99

1.34

1.13

2.75†

.85

1.72

1.01

— .44

— .62

7.19† 1.52

1.03 .53

110.5 27.8** 69.0

214.2 34.0** 71.9

106.2 27.9* 74.7

230.9 14.2 61.0

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

a Level of significance: † ≤ .10; * p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001. Each model controls for

age, education, employment status, ethnicity, and living in the south.

b Evangelical network = majority of important family and friends are also evangelical.

c Comparison category = Bible is not literal word for word (e.g., Bible is true but not

literal; Bible is true in matters of religion; Bible is not inspired).

d Comparison category = Bible is not the most important source of knowing how God

wants me to live (e.g., know how to live from personal walk/in my heart, human reason,

church teaching).

Appendix B

TABLE B.7

197

Responsibility for Parenting Decisions among Married Evangelicals (logistic regression, relative risk ratios)a

Subcultural location Southern Baptist Pentecostal/charismatic Religious radio/TV Strong evangelical networkb High church attendance (more than once a week) Attends the same amount as spouse Attitudes toward the Bible Bible: true and literalc Bible most important source of knowing how to lived Gender ideology Equal partners -2 log likelihood χ2 % Predicted

Husbands: I usually have more say-so in child rearing.

Wives: Husband usually has more say-so in child rearing.

2.11 0.15† 1.03 0.56

0.00 5.09* 1.01 0.38

1.77 1.21

3.75* 4.31*

3.19

1.20

1.36

3.68†

0.16†

0.22

61.73 16.72 90.0

72.24 34.32*** 90.3

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996. a All equations are weighted for household size and controlled for age, employment status, rece/ethnicity, education, and living in the south. Husbands’ headship was not included because of a lack of variation across respondents. Symbols for level of significance: * ≤ .05; ** ≤ .01; *** ≤ .001; † ≤ .10. Estimated coefficients are reported as relative risk rations (e.g., exp (b) rather than β). b Evangelical network = majority of important family and friends are also evangelical. c Comparison category = Bible is not literal word for word (e.g., Bible is true but not literal; Bible is true in matters of religion; Bible is not inspired). d Comparison category = Bible is not the most important source of knowing how God wants me to live (e.g., know how to live from personal walk/in my heart, human reason, church teaching).

198

Appendix B

TABLE B.8 Explaining Married Women’s Employment across Religious Tradition

(logistic regression, relative risk ratios)a Protestants Evangelical Personal characteristics Race (Caucasian) Age Education (years) Geographic location Southern Subcultural location Southern Baptist Pentecostal/charismatic Religious radio/TV Evangelical networkb High church attendance (more than once a week) Attitudes toward the Bible Bible: true and literalc Bible most important source of knowing how to lived Gender ideology Husbands’ headship Equal partners -2 log likelihood χ2 % Predicted

.00 -.05*** .14*

Fundamental -2.21 -.05*** .18*

Mainline -.63 -.08*** .08

Liberal -.56 -.06*** .23*

.02

.89*

.33

.09

.39 -.02 .33 .35

-1.35** .09 -.34 .04

-.52 -.09 -.27 -.18

-.16 -.49 .55 .52

.04

.68*

-.35

.30

-.30

-.38

.03

-.91**

-.12

-.23

-.07 -.06 393.9 86.9*** 73.8

-.58 .71 214.6 62.8*** 77.3

.28 -.51† .53 .12 358.3 41.7*** 67.7

.28 .82+ 258.5 67.3*** 72.0

Note: Religious Identity and Influence Survey, 1996.

a Level of significance: † ≤ .10; * p ≤ .05; **p ≤ .01; *** p ≤ .001. All figures are odds

ratios estimating the likelihood of employment among married women.

b Evangelical network = majority of important family and friends are also evangelical.

c Comparison category = Bible is not literal word for word (e.g., Bible is true but not

literal; Bible is true in matters of religion; Bible is not inspired).

d Comparison category = Bible is not the most important source of knowing how God

wants me to live (e.g., know how to live from personal walk/in my heart, human reason,

church teaching).

Appendix C

199

APPENDIX C EXCURSUS INTO EXEGESIS: ESSENTIALIST AND BIBLICAL FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF KEY BIBLICAL TEXTS

Creation and Fall: Original and Broken Design GENESIS 1:26–31 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27So God cre­ ated man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and ev­ ery tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. And it was so. 31God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. GENESIS 2:18–25 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. 19Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living crea­ ture, that was its name. 20So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22The the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman’ for she was taken out of man.” 24For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they 199

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will become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. GENESIS 3:6–7A, 16–19 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleas­ ing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. . . . 16To the woman he [God] said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. 17To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Gender Hierarchy Genesis 1 teaches that men and women are equal before God in terms of moral responsibility, creativity, and stewardship of the earth. Genesis 2 teaches that the man was created first and thus occupies a position of authority over the woman. Woman was created to be the man’s “helper” (ezer) as a complement to his nature. Genesis 3 teaches that the relationship between humankind and their labor will be characterized by pain rather than fruitfulness and that husbands’ loving leadership is easily corrupted into dominating rulership. Men’s primary responsi­ bility is to provide, women’s to nurture children in the domestic sphere. Gender Egalitarianism Genesis 1 teaches that men and women are equally moral and creative stew­ ards of the earth. Their relationships should model the equality and oneness of the Trinity, in whose image they were created. Genesis 2 teaches interdependence of women and men. Man is the source of woman; woman rescues man from aloneness. Because “helper” (ezer ) is also used of God (1 Chronicles 12:18; Psalms 30:10, 54:4, 121:1), it does not communicate the subordination of the woman to the man. Likewise, the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib indicates not subordina­ tion but equality. (God makes it clear that both are made of the very same sub­ stance.) Genesis 3 teaches that gender hierarchy is the result of the curse, not original design. Women and Authority in the Church 1 CORINTHIANS 11:3–12 Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man who prays 3

Appendix C

201

or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. 5And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. 6If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, she should cover her head. 7A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head. 11In the Lord, however, woman is not in­ dependent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:26, 29–35 16 What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. . . . 29 Two or three proph­ ets should speak and the others should weigh carefully what is said. 30And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. 31 For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encour­ aged. 32The spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets. 33For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, 34 women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. 25If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Gender Hierarchy 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 represent Paul’s timeless teaching to the church. Men’s authority over women is established by the order of their creation. Just as Jewish men used to uncover their heads in worship as symbol of their subordina­ tion to God, women’s long hair and covered head during worship symbolizes their subordination to men. If a woman uncovered her head (in the manner of a Jewish male worshiper) she would be usurping the place of the male (and should be sym­ bolically shamed—her head shaved or hair cut off in public disgrace). Everyone should participate in an orderly service of worship. Wives are subordinate to hus­ bands both at worship (being silent and waiting to ask questions until they get home) and at home (the head of woman is man). Gender Egalitarianism 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 represent Paul’s instructions to a church in which worship was on the verge of becoming chaotic. In an effort to establish order, Paul emphasized that each person was gifted for the good of the whole and should be prepared to share that gift in an orderly way in public worship. Since wives were probably seated separately from husbands (as in Jewish synagogues), wives were advised to be silent (not calling across to their husbands during worship), saving

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their questions for later. The fact that women’s questions should be answered is evidence that Paul considered women to be full participants in discipleship (in con­ trast to rabbinic tradition, which held that women could not study Torah). Given Paul’s emphasis on the interdependence of men and women (11:11) and his use of “head” (kaphale) elsewhere (for example, the sons of Jacob are the “heads of the tribes of Israel”), it is reasonable to interpret “head” as origin rather than au­ thority. Thus, God is the origin (creator) of man, man is the origin of woman (Eve was made from Adam’s rib), and God the Father is the origin of Christ (see the Nicene Creed, where there is no hierarchy in the Trinity but Jesus is “begotten of the Father, not made”). 1 TIMOTHY 2:8–14 8 I also want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. 9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. 11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have au­ thority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Gender Hierarchy Paul is writing to his disciple and friend, Timothy, instructing him about the qualifications for church leadership. The message from these passages is timeless— Paul appeals to the order of creation, not a culturally specific setting, in prohibit­ ing women from holding positions of authority over men. Women can and should participate in public worship as learners but not teachers (at least not without be­ ing under the authority of a man). What draws attention to individual women should not be their clothing, makeup, or jewelry but their willing submission, purity, and good deeds. Gender Egalitarianism Paul urges his disciple and friend, Timothy, to oppose false teaching in the Ephesian church (see 1 Timothy 1:1–3). That teaching involved elements of proto­ gnosticism and goddess worship. Paul opposed women’s teaching because they were spreading an inverted version of the creation story in which Eve was created first and superior to Adam. In this story, an inferior deity created the material world and lied to Adam, telling him that the creator was the highest god and that Adam was created first. The serpent and the woman are the heroes, bringing knowledge, or gnosis, by defying god. The prohibition against women’s teaching is intended to stop women from teaching that they are the origin of man. The word Paul uses for “authority” (authenteo) is unique in the New Testament (he uses another word for “authority” in more than fifty other places) and is best translated as “author or origin of a deed” (as it is used elsewhere in ancient texts). This fits the cultural

Appendix C

203

context (countering the specific heresy in Ephesus about women’s superiority) and explains why women in Ephesus should not teach (that they were created first) because man was created before woman (the true Genesis story). Paul breaks with the tradition that says women cannot learn and commands them to learn in silence like any other rabbinical student. 1 TIMOTHY 3:1–5 1 Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer [an elder], he desires a noble task. 2Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Gender Hierarchy Paul is writing to his disciple Timothy, instructing him about the protocol for church leadership. His message is clear: men only can be elders. Women can­ not be “the husband of one wife,” so they cannot be elders. Restricting leadership to men is consistent with Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy 2 that only men can be pastors (“I do not permit a woman to teach”). Women may under some circum­ stances teach, but only if they are under the authority of men (male elders or a male pastor). In addition, Paul argues that women are more easily deceived by false teaching and so should not themselves be teachers. Thus, a woman who teaches “over a man” (as an elder, pastor, or other teacher without the consent of her el­ ders or pastor) usurps the authority given specifically to men. GENDER EGALITARIANISM Paul is not dictating a model for all churches but correcting a problem by clarifying leadership qualifications in one particular church. Otherwise, to be con­ sistent, churches should limit the position of pastor or elder only to married men who are fathers of many obedient children. The restriction on elders being mar­ ried to only one wife does not exclude women from being elders but reflects a cultural situation in which only men could be polygamous and so only men had to be required to have a single wife to be a leader in the church. Saying the same for women leaders was unnecessary. Because women are mentioned elsewhere as leaders of the early church, this passage cannot be interpreted as a prohibition on women in leadership in general. (Recall Priscilla, who taught Apollos; co-led the church in Ephesus with her hus­ band, Aquila; was referred to by Paul as a “fellow worker” (Romans 16:3); and may have been the author of the anonymous book of Hebrews.) Further evidence that this passage cannot be interpreted as a prohibition against women in leader­ ship is the reference to the prophecy “your sons and daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 2:28–29) that was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) and Paul’s refer­ ence to Junias as “outstanding among the apostles” (Romans 16:7).

204

Appendix C

Women, Men, and Household Authority GALATIANS 3:26–29 26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. EPHESIANS 5:21–33 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church sub­ mits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25Hus­ bands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church, 30for we are members of his body. 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33How­ ever, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. 21

COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Gender Hierarchy The theme of Paul’s letter to the Galatian church is that the divide between Jew and Gentile is overcome in Christ. Paul is not teaching that these groups have equal social standing or equivalent roles in church or family, but they have equal spiritual standing before God. Equality before God but differences in roles is con­ firmed in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Authority and subordination are elements of God’s order for human relationships. Paul teaches that everyone has to submit to someone: husbands to God and employers, wives to God and to husbands, chil­ dren to God and parents, slaves to God and to masters. Paul never says that hus­ bands are to submit to wives; submission is only from wife to husband. He does say that husbands’ relationship with wives should be characterized by sacrifice and love (modeled after Christ’s relationship with the church), but not submission. Gender Egalitarianism The whole message of the New Testament is summed up in Galatians: in Christ ancient hierarchies and prejudices are overcome, and a new community of oneness has begun. This was God’s original design, a reflection of the Trinity, and the model for the new creation, the church. Paul does not contradict himself in Ephesians but teaches that mutual sub­ mission should characterize all relationships. Four pairs of relationships are de­

Appendix C

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scribed in chapters 5 and 6, each specifying in parallel form an example of mu­ tual submission in practice. Wives should respect husbands (that this is the mean­ ing of “submit to” in verse 22 is clarified in verse 33); husbands should sacrificially love their wives. Parents should not overtax their children; children should honor their parents. Slaves should do their work thoroughly; masters should treat slaves as human beings, as they are themselves. Each represents a shocking departure from the hierarchical patriarchy of classical civilization.

NOTES

CHAPTER 1 Evangelical Family Values in Social Discourse 1. Pentecostalism took its name from the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Jesus’ dis­ ciples on the day of Pentecost. According to the New Testament Book of Acts, the disciples were overwhelmed by the power of the Spirit and began to speak boldly about Jesus in previously unlearned languages to an international crowd gathered in Jerusa­ lem for the Jewish feast of first fruits, or Pentecost. Pentecostals describe “speaking in tongues” (glossolalia) as a prayer or spiritual language unknown to the speaker, which is often paired with other spiritual gifts such as interpretation of tongues and prophecy in public worship. Pentecostal teaching on prophecy draws on Paul’s instruc­ tions regarding spiritual gifts (charisma) to the church in Corinth (I Corinthians 12– 14). 2. See the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association web page: www.BillyGraham.org/about/ billygraham.asp. 3. Other periodicals soon followed, targeting specific audiences across the breadth of evangelicalism, including charismatic and Pentecostal evangelicals (Charisma and Spirit Led Woman), political progressives (Sojourners, The Other Side, and Radix), and con­ servatives (Eternity and Moody Monthly). Evangelicals also established a number of publishing houses (Zondervan, Eerdmans, Harvest House, Crossroads, Fleming Revell, Multnomah, InterVarsity Press, Baker Book House, Tyndale, and Word), recording com­ panies (among them Myrrh, Sparrow, Dayspring, and Word), alliances among educa­ tional institutions (the Christian College Consortium), and parachurch organizations (including Youth for Christ, Campus Crusade, Young Life, InterVarsity Christian Fel­ lowship, the Navigators, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Focus on the Family, and World Vision International). 4. The imperative within evangelicalism to be in but not of the world disallows both the separatism of fundamentalism as well as the accommodation of more mainline, lib­ eral Christian traditions (Bendroth 2002). This imperative tends to be glossed over by studies that fail to distinguish between fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, yet it may lead evangelicals to adopt a different set of strategies for dealing with moder­ nity. In addition, while Pentecostalism fits comfortably under the broad umbrella of evangelicalism, evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, cannot easily be encompassed within fundamentalism given the distinct doctrinal, subcultural, and historical 207

208

Notes to Pages 13–21

differences between them. Yet in spite of a number of volumes that specify differences among conservative Protestants, evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal continue to be used as interchangeable and equivalent labels for conservative Christians of any stripe. Ignoring the historical context of these churches, Brasher (1998), for example, identifies women as fundamentalist not because they identify themselves as funda­ mentalist but because, in response to her question, “Are you fundamentalist?” they respond, “That’s what other people call me” (24). 5. I use the self-definition approach to religious identity employed by Smith et al. (1998). That is, religious identification is best measured categorically rather than along a con­ tinuum from liberal to conservative. According to this approach, 7 percent of the na­ tional sample used for this analysis identified themselves as Protestant, churchgoing, and evangelical. Twenty million Americans identify themselves with this transdenomi­ national movement, with the majority being located in denominations and traditions that are Baptist (25 percent), nondenominational (19 percent), Pentecostal (17 percent), Lutheran (12 percent), Evangelical Free (8 percent), Methodist (7 percent), Holiness (6 percent), Presbyterian and Reformed (6 percent), and Congregationalist (4 percent).

CHAPTER 2 A History of Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy 1. Cotton Mather’s Ornaments of the Daughters of Zion was so popular that it went through three editions: 1692, 1694, and 1741. Mather’s contemporary, Boston judge Samuel Sewall, gave a copy to his wife, Hannah Hull. After Hannah’s death, he pre­ sented his second wife, Abigail Tilly, with a copy shortly after their engagement. In 1740, fifty years after Ornaments was first published, George Whitefield, a key fig­ ure in the religious revivals of the Great Awakening, recommended it “to all, espe­ cially the Boston ladies” (Whitefield 1978, 477). 2. Samuel Sewall was born in England in 1652 and moved with his parents to Newbury, Massachusetts, at age nine. Educated at Harvard, Sewall worked as a pastor and a print­ ing press manager and for many years served as a superior court judge in Boston. Best remembered for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, Sewall later publicly apolo­ gized for the part he played in them, called for reparations, and thereafter observed an annual day of prayer and fasting as personal repentance. In 1700, he published the first antislavery tract in the colonies, The Selling of Joseph (Sewall 1969). His diaries, spanning more than fifty years, are an extensive account of everyday life during the colonial period (Sewall 1927). 3. This is not to suggest that the Puritan case for interdependency in marriage was a new idea. Circa A.D. 207, theologian and Christian apologist Tertullian of Carthage drew on the writings of the apostle Paul, urging believers to avoid being “unequally yoked” (II Corinthians 6:14). In a treatise titled “To his wife,” Tertullian wrote: What kind of yoke is that of two believers, who share one hope, one desire, one discipline, one service? Both enjoy kinship in spirit and flesh. They are mutual servants with no discrepancy of interests. Truly they are “two in one flesh.” Where the flesh is one, the spirit is one as well. Together they pray, together bow down, together perform their fasts, mutually teaching, mutually entreating, mutually up­ holding. In the Church of God they hold an equal place. They stand equally at the banquet of God, equally in crisis, equally in persecutions, and equally in re­ freshments. Neither hides anything from the other. Neither neglects the other. Nei­ ther is troublesome to the other. (Tertullian 1956, 48) Similarly, circa A.D. 193, Clement of Alexandria emphasized oneness in marriage, ar­

Notes to Pages 21–30

4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10.

209

guing that “the virtue of man and woman is the same. For if the God of both is one, the master of both is also one; one church, one temperance, one modesty; their food is common, marriage an equal yoke; respiration, sight, hearing, knowledge, hope, obe­ dience, love all alike” (Clement of Alexandria 1956, 211). Among Puritans, as in every society, the ideals of marriage and the actual experience of household life were often at odds. For excellent analyses of Puritan ideals and prac­ tice, see Morgan (1956), Degler (1980), Demos (2000), and Norton (1996). See also Cleaver (1598, 201), Griffith (1633, 289), Rodgers (1642, 60–71), and Gouge (1622), all cited in Todd (1980, 29). When Daniel Ela told his wife, Elizabeth, in the presence of neighbors that “shee was none of his wife, shee was but his Servantt,” neighbors reported the incident to the authorities. Despite the abject Elizabeth’s protest “that I have nothinge Agenst my hus­ band to Charge his with,” the Essex County Court fined him forty shillings (Morgan 1956, 10). In Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival of Religion in New-England, Edwards took pains to describe his position on lay ministry, intending to disarm those who opposed revival because of its emotional excess and apparent disregard to reli­ gious establishment: I suppose that all are agreed as to these two things, vis 1. That all exhorting one another of laymen is not unlawful or improper, but on the contrary, that some exhorting is a Christian duty: and 2. I suppose also, all will allow that there is something that is proper only for ministers; that there is some kind or way of exhorting and teaching or other, that belongs only to the office of teachers. . . . The great difficulty is to settle the bounds, and to tell exactly how far laymen may go, and when they exceed their limits. (Edwards 1972, 483) Of women in particular, he wrote: “Indeed, modesty may in ordinary cases, restrain some persons, as women, and those that are young, from so much as speaking when a great number are present; at least, when some of those present are much their superi­ ors, unless they are spoken to: and yet the case may be so extraordinary as fully to warrant it.” Women, like men, should be allowed not only to speak of their religious experience but to exhort and admonish even those of higher station, as long as it is “in a humble manner, rather by way of entreaty, than with authority” (486). See multiple examples in Tucker and Liefeld (1987, 233–44). Mary Savage, Sally Parsons, and Clarissa Danforth were all Freewill Baptist preach­ ers. Savage ministered in the villages around New Durham, New Jersey, in 1791, and Parsons was an itinerant preacher in the same area during the 1790s. Danforth had an active ministry as an itinerant preacher in Vermont and Rhode Island between 1810 and 1820. The ministries of both Parsons and Danforth ended when they married. At about the same time, Jerena Lee, Salome Lincoln, and Amanda Smith worked as lay preachers in the African Methodist Episcopal church. Later in the century, Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911), author of The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (a best-selling devotional that is still popular today); Phoebe Palmer (1807–74); and Catherine Booth (1829–90), co-founder of the Salvation Army, all had enormous influence on evangelicalism on both sides of the Atlantic. Each also subordinated much of her ministry to the work of her husband (Tucker and Liefeld 1987, 258). While the religious revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries temporarily in­ creased men’s church attendance, women had begun to outnumber men in church

210

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

Notes to Pages 30–34

attendance as early as the mid-seventeenth century (Cott 1975, 1977; Handy 1984; Welter 1976). Classic statements of these emerging gender ideals are enumerated in Welter (1966, 1976) and Cott (1977). See also Foner (1982), Kerber (1976), and Ryan (1981, 1985). The cult of domesticity dominated ideals of the time in spite of the fact that most lowerclass women did “home work” (either piece sewing or taking in paying boarders) or worked in textile factories. This exaltation of motherhood had its own ironies: sepa­ rated from the public world by nature and calling, women were nevertheless required to rear sons who would be able to compete and succeed in the harsh world of paid work. See Burnap (1854). For a more detailed review of evangelical women’s leadership in first-wave feminist reform movements, see Beaver (1980), Bendroth (1993), Berg (1978), Boles (1972), Cole (1966), Dayton (1976), DeBerg (1990), Drummond and Drummond (1997), Epstein (1977), Griffin (1960), Hardesty (1999), Hassey (1986), Lesick (1980), MacHaffie (1986, 1992), McLoughlin (1978), and Smith-Rosenberg (1971). A treat­ ment of utopian socialist and nonevangelical social reform movements can be found in Taylor (1983). Among the evangelistic and reform societies formed in the early 1800s were the Ameri­ can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (1810), the American Bible Society (1816), the American Colonization Society (1817), the American Tract Society (1825), the American Education Society (1826), the American Home Mission Society (1826), the American Temperance Society (1826), the American Peace Society (1828), and the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833). For a discussion of the history of these orga­ nizations as well as a critique of the degree to which they functioned as agents of middle-class social control, see Hardesty (1999), Foster (1960), Griffin (1960), and Taylor (1983). Palmer’s ministry began in the 1830s with her Tuesday Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness. Like others in the Wesleyan tradition, Palmer taught that sanctification (or perfectionism) was possible for Christians. But whereas Wesley had taught that com­ plete sanctification, or perfect love, was possible through a life of discipleship, Palmer believed that sanctification took place the moment the Christian presented him or her­ self as a living sacrifice on the altar of Jesus Christ. She also taught that while the blessing could be obtained in a moment of total consecration, it also could be lost if believers failed to testify to their experience. Evangelical associations for social and moral reform were, of course, not the only sig­ nificant social movements of the century. Some, such as the Shakers were communi­ ties formed by people who wished to withdraw from rather than reform society. John Noyes’s perfectionist Oneida Community (which practiced “complex marriage” and Bible communism), the utopian socialism of Robert Owen’s New Harmony, and Jo­ seph Smith’s Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints were other efforts to es­ tablish new societies. A host of other Bible institutes were also open to women: Wheaton College, Nyack College, Gordon College, Northwestern University, and Biola College were founded by men who advocated both abolition and women’s rights. Each of these institutions, to various degrees, eventually abandoned their support for women’s public ministry in the 1920s and would not renew it again until the 1960s. Published in two parts in 1895 and 1898, The Woman’s Bible was not an inclusive lan­ guage translation but a series of commentaries written by a committee of women on

Notes to Pages 34–45

211

the parts of the Bible that have to do with women. It represented an attempt to claim the Scriptures for an explicitly feminist purpose by reinterpreting and reformulating those passages that were used as evidence for women’s subordination. 19. These books, along with approximately thirty others, are listed in Hardesty (1999, 143–45).

CHAPTER 3 Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals 1. See, for example, Parsons and Bales (1955) and the work of Bowlby (1952) and Spitz (1946) on maternal deprivation, whose theory took on enormous cultural power after World War II. 2. Women in the Presbyterian church U.S.A. and the United Methodist church were fully ordained beginning in 1956. The American Lutheran church and the Lutheran Church in America began to ordain women in 1970. The Missouri Synod Lutheran church con­ tinues to forbid women’s ordination to pastoral office. Baptists also continue to be di­ vided over the issue. The American Baptist Convention began ordaining women in the nineteenth century. The first woman was ordained in the more conservative Southern Baptist Convention in 1964. After conservatives’ rise to power in the 1980s (Ammerman 1990), the Southern Baptists adopted an even more conservative position on women. In June 1998, the convention revised its doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith and Mes­ sage, reaffirming wives’ submission and husbands’ headship within marriage. In July 2000, the convention met and revised the Baptist Faith and Message statement again on the matter of women’s ordination. The statement (which had been silent on the is­ sue since 1963) now specifies that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture” (article 18). Because the statement of the convention is not binding, the revisions have no direct effect on the denomination’s 1,600 ordained clergywomen (ap­ proximately one hundred of which are pastors leading congregations). It did, however, result in the withdrawal of financial support from associated Southern Baptist churches in Texas and the loss of its most famous member, former President Jimmy Carter, who withdrew his membership in October 2000. 3. That same year, Krister Stendahl (1966) published a booklet titled The Bible and the Role of Women, which challenged the notion that men and women could be seen as spiritual equals but different in their roles within the church. 4. Among American Baptists in 1971, the challenge for women to expand their roles was also raised. Blankenship (1971) argued that Christian women had allowed themselves to believe the stereotype that women should be passive and domestic. She challenged Baptists to set an example for other women by using their God-given gifts as dea­ cons, trustees, and ordained ministers within the church. 5. The best-known Christian feminist to emerge during the late 1960s was the radical Catholic theologian-philosopher Mary Daly, who initially argued that it was both pos­ sible and desirable to radically transform Christianity from within. Calling de Beauvoir’s argument to abandon Christianity a “philosophy of despair,” she urged a “theology of hope” in which “men and women, using their best talents, forgetful of self and intent upon the work, will with God’s help mount together toward a higher order of conscious­ ness and being, in which the alienated projections will have been defeated and whole­ ness, psychic integrity, achieved” (1968, 223). A few years later, however, Daly (1973) abandoned the belief that Christianity could be reformed of its sexism, arguing that masculine images of God the Father and Son are inseparable from Christian ontology. 6. Writing in the sixteenth century, John Calvin called the idea that women are a neces­ sary evil a “vulgar proverb”:

212

7.

8.

9.

10.

Notes to Pages 45–47

Woman is companion and an associate of the man, to assist him to live well. I confess, indeed, that in this corrupt state of mankind, the blessing of God . . . is neither perceived nor flourishes. . . . [Yet] some residue of divine good remains; as in the fire apparently smothered, some sparks still glitter. On this main point hangs another, that women, being instructed in their duty of helping their hus­ bands, should study to keep this divinely appointed order. It is also the part of men to consider what they owe in return to the other half of their kind, for the obligation of both sexes is mutual, and on this condition is the woman assigned as a help to the man, that he may fill the place of her head and leader. (1948, 128–30) For Calvin, gender hierarchy was exaggerated by the Fall, before which Eve “had, in­ deed, previously been subject to her husband, but that was a liberal and gentle subjec­ tion; now, however, she is cast into servitude” (172). At the ESA’s Chicago meeting, Nancy Hardesty (then a student at Chicago Divinity School), Sharon Gallagher (editor of the evangelical progressive magazine Right On [now Radix]), and Sharon Schatz (founder of the Urban Life Center in Chicago, a train­ ing program for evangelical college students) were the only three women invited to the meeting of more than seventy young evangelical leaders (Hardesty 1992, 138–39). In 1990, the Evangelical Women’s Caucus International was renamed the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus to better represent its broadening focus on minority and justice issues. The organization’s 1986 split and the subsequent formation of Chris­ tians for Biblical Equality are described in Spring (1986) and Neff (1988). Like other liberal feminist organizations since the mid–1960s, the Daughters of Sarah, the Evan­ gelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus, and Christians for Biblical Equality share concerns about occupational segregation, comparative worth, and gender equity within families and the church. While there are clear differences between broader women’s movements and evangelical feminists over issues such as abortion and the norma­ tiveness of gay and lesbian partnerships, evangelical feminists are on the whole more accommodating on these issues than are their more conservative counterparts. On the possibility of flexibility within gender roles, Christenson (1970) wrote: “A per­ son who would drive a car off a cliff, expecting it to fly, would present a ridiculous, if not a tragic, spectacle; flying is altogether contrary to a car’s nature. God has assigned a certain role in marriage to each partner. These respective roles are a part of the ba­ sic nature of marriage. To ignore them, or devise our own substitutes, is to invite a marital crack-up” (40–41). The argument for a hierarchically based order within the family was further popular­ ized in the 1970s through Bill Gothard’s widely attended seminars and writings on basic youth conflicts. He argued for a basic chain of command in marriage in which the husband acts as the hammer and the wife as the chisel in God’s work to shape teenagers. He demonstrated the principle of hierarchically ordered creation in Character Sketches (Institute in Basic Life Principles 1976), an illustrated volume in which God’s design for monogamous marriage is shown in the mating patterns of Canada geese, for sacrificial motherhood by mother penguins feeding their young from their own flesh, and for protective motherhood by the mother grizzly bear defending her cubs. Gothard abstracts from nature those lessons that fit his vision of God’s design but not those that might suggest a different morality at the heart of the animal king­ dom (for example, the apparent laziness of male lions and their habit of leaving most of the hunting to the females, the indiscriminate mating of the bull elk, or certain fe­ male arachnids’ and insects’ practice of cannibalizing their partners after mating).

Notes to Pages 50–56

213

11. Lindsell (1976) argued that biblical inerrancy was essential to maintaining biblical or­ thodoxy. Without it, evangelicals’ high view of Scripture would slowly erode, leading to an eventual abandonment of the essentials of faith. In Rogers’s (1977) edited vol­ ume Biblical Authority, contributing scholars argued that the Reformation understanding of sola scriptura supported the authority of Scripture (its infallibility) with regard to salvation, faith, and life and that inerrancy was historically a relatively new development. In The Foundation of Biblical Authority, Boice (1978) reminded readers that because inerrancy had to do with the original and long-lost autographs, a great deal of com­ mon sense was needed in discerning the limitations of inerrancy as an exegetical tool. 12. Westminster Seminary was founded in 1929 by four former Princeton Seminary fac­ ulty members (Robert Wilson, J. Gresham Machen, Oswald T. Allis, and Cornelius Van Til), who left Princeton after it was reorganized along more modernist lines. 13. Dobson’s popularity is partly due to the expanding network of radio stations carrying Focus on the Family programming, a widely circulated monthly newsletter for par­ ents, and family-related church bulletin inserts. His book Dare to Discipline (1970, 1992), sold more than 3.5 million copies; a second book on parenting, Hide and Seek (1974, 1999), sold more than 1 million copies. My own review of local and national evangelical bookstores and Christian best-seller lists reaffirms his popularity. His books are best sellers both locally and nationally and are recommended by bookstore staff members. When I ask, “What are people buying in the area of family?” they invari­ ably respond, “Well, there’s Dobson!” 14. Dobson introduced What Wives Wished Their Husbands Knew about Women (1975) with a story about baby-sitting his three-year-old son. Based on his “brief forays into the responsibilities of motherhood and from the experience gained in counseling women” (10), he urged husbands to recognize and care for the emotional needs of their wives. “What I have been attempting to say is that a woman’s need for emotional ful­ fillment is just as pressing and urgent as the physiological requirement of sexual re­ lease in the male. Both can be stymied, but at an enormous cost! . . . nothing builds her esteem more effectively than for you to let her (and others) know that you respect and value her as a person. And nothing destroys her self-confidence more quickly than your ridicule or rejection” (101). 15. CBMW was established in 1987 following a meeting of conservative evangelicals work­ ing to preserve and articulate a gender-essentialist view of manhood and womanhood. The organization promotes this perspective through occasional conferences and an online journal (http://www.cbmw.org/html/cbmw_journal.html) and acts as a clearing­ house for authors, speakers, and pastors of similar persuasion. Their web site offers relevant links, recommended readings, and a statement of faith that encapsulates its position on gender. Council members include a number of well-known evangelical au­ thors, including Steve Farrar, Wayne Grudem, Mary Kassian, Dorothy Patterson, John Piper, and Stu Weber. Its board of reference includes evangelical and fundamentalist leaders such as Gleason Archer, Hudson Armerding, Harold O. J. Brown, Edmund Clowney, Jerry Falwell, Carl F. H. Henry, R. Kent Hughes, James B. Hurley, D. James Kennedy, Beverly LaHaye, John MacArthur, Jr., Raymond C. Ortlund, Jr., J. I. Packer, Paige Patterson, Pat Robertson, Thomas Schreiner, R. C. Sproul, and John F. Walvoord. 16. The resolution was one of three submitted at a business meeting attended by a frac­ tion of the membership (which had only voted on one other measure in its twelveyear history). The measure and the timing of its presentation were interpreted by dissenters as a way to move the organization toward condoning homosexuality (Neff 1988, Spring 1986).

214

Notes to Pages 56–58

17. CBE is the largest organization promoting an evangelical egalitarian perspective on gender. It has two thousand members (and a mailing list of several thousand more) and includes individuals and churches from more than one hundred denominations in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Both the EEWC web site (http:// www.eewc.com/index.htm) and the CBE site (http://www.cbeinternational.org) encour­ age communication among biblical feminists, list information about conferences, and offer online access to their journals (EEWC’s Update and CBE’s Mutuality and Priscilla Papers). The CBE web site also includes a bookstore and links to related sites. Its state­ ment of mission and faith (written by Gilbert Bilezikian, W. Ward Gasque, Stanley Gundry, Gretchen Gaebelein Hull, Catherine Clark Kroeger, Jo Anne Lyon, and Roger Nicole) has been endorsed by a range of notable evangelical pastors, theologians, writ­ ers, and academics, including Miriam Adeney, Carl E. Armerding, Myron S. Augs­ burger, Raymond Bakke, D. Stuart Briscoe, F. F. Bruce, Anthony Campolo, Robert G. Clouse, David W. Clowney, Kaye V. Cook-Kollars, Edward R. Dayton, Paul H. De Vries, Millard Erickson, C. Stephen Evans, Colleen Townsend Evans, Gordon D. Fee, Rich­ ard Foster, Donn M. Gaebelein, Kevin Giles, Vernon Grounds, Richard C. Halverson, Sandra Hart, Roberta Hestenes, Bill Hybels, Rufus Jones, Kenneth S. Kantzer, Rich­ ard C. Kroeger, Bruce Larson, Walter L. Liefeld, Richard F. Lovelace, David L. McKenna, Hazel M. Michelson, A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Alvera Mickelsen, Eileen F. Moffett, Samuel H. Moffett, Stephen C. Mott, Richard J. Mouw, Grant R. Osborne, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Ronald J. Sider, Lewis B. Smedes, Howard A. Snyder, Ruth A. Tucker, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, Timothy Weber, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The most recent addition to evangelical feminist organizations is the Egalitarian Christian Alliance (ECA) (http://www.equalitycentral.com/eca). Established in 1999, its online forum provides discussion, satire (often direct parodies of CBMW position statements), and links to other evangelical feminist organizations and resources. 18. Several key works in the ongoing debate between biblical feminists and gender essen­ tialists appeared in the 1980s and early 1990s. Rebutting many of Hurley’s (1981) ar­ guments for gender hierarchy, Bilezikian (1985) argued that the pastoral epistles did not teach headship or authority of men over women but were occasional letters in­ tended by the apostle Paul to correct specific problems in the early church. Similar and increasingly refined arguments appeared in Bristow (1988, 1994), Keener (1992), Kroeger and Kroeger (1992), Grenz and Kjesbo (1995), Groothuis (1997), Perriman (1998), and Cunningham and Hamilton (2001). CBE continues to advance these ar­ guments. The most substantial work in defense of hierarchy and complementary roles as God’s original design is Piper and Grudem (1991). See also Kassian (1990, 1992); Kostenberger, Schreiner, and Baldwin (1995); and Bordwine (1996). CBMW contin­ ues to advance these arguments, often in direct response to issues raised by the bibli­ cal feminists listed above. 19. For a discussion of the transitions in and broadening definitions of godly femininity, see Griffith (1997), especially 178–86 and 196–8, which focus on literature associ­ ated with the Pentecostal women’s group Aglow. See Bartkowski (2002) for a discus­ sion of the same themes in Promise Keepers literature for men. 20. Chapman’s (1992) best-selling book The Five Love Languages urged couples to dis­ cover the “love language” of their spouse. According to Chapman, while many men may assume that their love language is physical touch and women focus on talk, both should consider that their primary love language may be service, quality time, or gift giving. Love, in other words, is more idiosyncratic than gender specific.

Notes to Pages 59–75

215

21. See Dobson (2000a, 306). Much of his argument about the centrality of men to mar­ riage is based on Gilder (1986). 22. “Safe, clean, loving child-care facilities are a necessity in today’s culture. Thus, we need not question the wisdom of providing well-supervised centers for children whose mothers and fathers require assistance in raising them. That debate is over” (Dobson 2000a, 118). 23. Bartkowski’s (2000) analysis of Cole (1982) and Oliver (1993) is particularly useful in illustrating competing gender discourses within Promise Keepers. Since ten years separates the two publications, they also illustrate the transition in evangelical gender literature away from explicitly hierarchical statements of essential gender difference toward greater flexibility in ideals for godly masculinity and femininity. 24. Recently, it has been suggested that Weber typifies an emerging school of thought within Promise Keepers that has been heavily influenced by Robert Bly (Lockhart 2000). Yet Weber (1993, 70–71) writes scathingly about the mythopoetic men’s move­ ment, calling it self-indulgent and shallow and contrasting its vision of self-involved masculinity with his call to evangelical men to prioritize wives and children above self and career. 25. For a discussion of ideals of evangelical masculinity across the life course, see Hicks (1993). 26. In the summer and fall of 2000, I employed a four-part data collection strategy to pro­ duce a list of best-selling evangelical books on family. I compared titles on this list to the books recommended by CBMW and CBE and found no overlap between the rec­ ommendations of evangelical essentialist and egalitarian organizations and best-selling evangelical books on family, gender, parenting, manhood, and womanhood. (See ap­ pendix A for more detail on the research methodology.) 27. For a review of these debates, see Perriman (2001).

CHAPTER 4 Faith and Family 1. As Protestants, evangelicals are not part of a tradition in which a church hierarchy speaks with definitive authority. Yet while evangelicals have no Pope, certain people present themselves as authorities within the community, including some of the authors and speakers identified in chapter 3. To the extent that the ideas advanced by Dobson, Weber, Elliot, and LaHaye or Scanzoni, Hardesty, Bilezikian, Bristow, Grenz, and Keener are seen as church teaching, it appears that most ordinary evangelicals are look­ ing elsewhere for knowledge about how God wants them to live. 2. For a more detailed analysis of evangelicals and social activism, see Regnerus and Smith (1998a, 1998b), Smith (2000), and Smith et al. (1998). 3. Evangelicals are also somewhat less likely to be divorced compared to other religiously committed Protestants. Approximately 4 percent of evangelicals and 5 percent of fun­ damentalists are divorced, compared to approximately 7 percent of mainline and 10 percent of theologically liberal Protestants. Almost 24 percent of irregularly attending Protestants, 17 percent of churchgoing Catholics, 15 percent of non-Christian religious, and 8 percent of nonreligious respondents are divorced. 4. Approximately 5 percent of those we interviewed in person could be characterized as holding an unqualified egalitarian perspective on marriage. Among survey respondents, about 10 percent agreed that marriage is an equal partnership and disagreed with the notion of husbands’ headship. The large majority (approximately 78 percent) affirmed both husbands’ headship and equal partnership.

216

Notes to Pages 79–82

5. Hunter (1983), Manning (1999), Brasher (1998), and Stacey (1990) all locate hierar­ chical gender ideology in a literal interpretation of the Bible. In contrast, Griffith (1997) and Bartkowski (1997) are more attentive to the range of meanings and historical changes in evangelical ideas about submission. 6. Of course, belief in the inspiration and authority of the Bible is not unique to evangelicals. First-century church father Clement of Rome argued that Scriptures are “the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. . . . Nothing of an unjust or counterfeit charac­ ter is written in them” (Clement of Rome 1956, 1:17). Similar views were articulated by Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origin, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine. 7. A narrowly defined doctrine of inerrancy first appeared in the mid-seventeenth cen­ tury in the work of Francis Turretin, who argued that God “dictated and inspired” the prophets in such a way that their writing was both free from error in the originals (“the prophets did not make mistakes in even the smallest particulars”) and preserved from error in their transmission (“We cannot believe that God, who dictated and inspired each and every word of these inspired men, would not take care of their entire preser­ vation”) (see Rogers 1977, 30). In 1812, Archibald Alexander incorporated Turretin’s work into Princeton Seminary’s new curriculum. It remained the main systematic the­ ology text in use until it was replaced by Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology (1872– 73). Hodge himself drew heavily on Turretin in both his teaching at Princeton and his book, arguing that the Bible was “free from all error whether of doctrine, fact or pre­ cept” (1:152) and that inspiration was “not confined to moral and religious truths, but extends to the statements of facts, whether scientific, historical, or geographical” (1:163). Later Princeton theologians Archibald Hodge and Benjamin Warfield extended the doctrine in a set of articles in the Presbyterian Review, arguing in 1881 that, while men may have faulty judgment and language, “the historical faith of the church has always been that all the affirmations of scripture of all kinds whether of spiritual doc­ trine or duty, or of physical or historical fact, or of psychological or philosophical prin­ ciple, are without any error, when the ipsissima verba of the original autographs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense” (Rogers 1977, 17–46). By limiting inerrancy to the original documents, Hodge and Warfield made it impos­ sible to argue against the doctrine since those autographs have long been lost. Higher criticism and inerrancy were not the only options available to turn-of-thecentury evangelicals. A third strand, exemplified by Abraham Kyper’s (1968) Principles of Sacred Theology, Herman Bavinck’s (1928) Gereformeerde Dogmatick (in Rogers 1977), and James Orr’s (1952) Revelation and Inspiration, sought to engage German higher criticism rather than reject it outright. The Scriptures, proponents argued, were intended to communicate the message of salvation, not historical, chronological, or geographically scientific detail. “The Reformers, as they were called, wisely appealed to the ‘witness of the Holy Spirit.’ By this they understood a testimony that went out directly from the Holy Spirit, as author of the Scripture, to our personal ego” (Kyper 1968, 556–57). Thus, the central function of Scripture is not knowledge per se but knowledge of salvation. Debating a narrow doctrine of inerrancy was essentially, miss­ ing the point. 8. For a review of recent evangelical thinking on biblical inspiration and authority, see the set of articles titled “The Bible Tells Me So” in Christianity Today (October 23, 1995), especially George (1995, 17–21). 9. Overall, 94 percent of Pentecostal and charismatic evangelicals (compared to 90 per­ cent of other evangelicals) affirm the idea that husbands should be the head of the household.

Notes to Pages 82–95

217

10. While it is often assumed that evangelicals adopt the gender messages being deliv­ ered through evangelical radio and television broadcasts, the personal interviews sug­ gest that ordinary evangelicals tune in to what resonates with their beliefs rather than the other way around. I listen to Chuck Swindoll while I’m driving to work. On the way home I listen to the Christian Research Institute. I was listening to this one program, and it was talking about how there needs to be a lot of flexibility in men’s and women’s roles. I liked what they said because it kind of put what I had been feeling into perspective and I felt like I was out of sync with what everybody was saying. . . . And so I really finally was able to say, “Hah, that’s exactly how I feel.” I liked what he said, so that’s why I continue to listen.

48-year-old Presbyterian mother of three, Washington 11. Among the cultural tools shared across religious identification are the sense of mu­ tual dependence in marriage (which traces back to the Puritans) and the emphasis on men’s worldliness and responsibility and women’s spiritual sensitivity and relationality (embodied in the revivalism of an industrializing republic). Evangelicals share these ideals with cultural feminists, who argue that women are closer to nature, more spiri­ tual, and more relational than are men. As we will see in chapter 6, they share some of these ideas with liberal feminists as well, particularly those related to equal oppor­ tunity in employment.

CHAPTER 5 Spiritual Leadership and Decision Making 1. In terms of responsibility for spiritual leadership, evangelical and fundamentalist men and women are about evenly distributed, with about two-thirds of the men and onethird of the women saying that the husband takes primary responsibility for family spiritual life. Fifteen to 19 percent of the men and about 40 percent of fundamentalist and evangelical women say that the wife takes primary responsibility for the family’s spiritual life, and about one-fifth of each say that spiritual responsibility is equally shared. 2. Surprisingly, fundamentalist men are twice as likely as their theologically liberal and evangelical counterparts to say they give in to their wives on hard decisions (see table 5.2). What explains this tremendous gap? One possibility is that fundamentalists have numerous other areas in which they distinguish themselves from the world. These clear subcultural boundaries may open up a gender space in which fundamentalist husbands are free to defer to their wives in decision making. Among evangelicals, the mandate to be culturally relevant as well as distinctly Christian makes maintaining subcultural boundaries more problematic than it is for either fundamentalists (whose subcultural religious boundaries are securely located elsewhere) or theologically liberal Protes­ tants (for whom the issue of subcultural religious difference is not an issue). The re­ sulting ambiguity surrounding exactly how evangelicals distinguish themselves from the world increases the importance of maintaining the ideal of husbands’ headship and may also contribute to the higher proportion of evangelical husbands who say that their wives usually give in. 3. Although we designed the interviews for only one person in each household, in a hand­ ful of cases husbands or wives sat in during the other’s interview. While having one’s spouse present during an interview may dampen some people’s ability to speak plainly about areas of conflict, this excerpt illustrates some of the collective thinking-through that is inevitably lost when husbands and wives are interviewed separately. 4. For a discussion of the practice of egalitarian parenting, see Deutsch (1999).

218

Notes to Pages 105–129

CHAPTER 6 Dividing the Labor of Parenting and Housework 1. See LaRossa (1997, 1998) for a discussion of changing expectations about fatherhood as well as the corresponding lack of behavioral change. 2. Christenson (1970) envisioned parenthood as a reflection of the person of God: “This simple outline of parental responsibility is patterned after God Himself. . . . Part of the image of God in man is found in this, that we share His fatherhood. God is the Father. All earthly parenthood derives from Him” (63). Careful to specify that the fatherhood of God should be taken to mean both fathers and mothers, Christenson nonetheless described fathers as primarily responsible for discipline in the home, with wives act­ ing, as in other areas, as helpmate (see chap. 2, especially pp. 64–77). 3. See Christenson (1970, 44, 111, 123). The idea that husbands should help but not take responsibility for housework predates The Christian Family by at least two decades. Arguing against the “fatally flawed” feminist notion that housework be equally shared, Elton Trueblood and Pauline Trueblood (1953) wrote: “there is something better than the old-fashioned pattern of no housework on the father’s part and the new-fashioned pattern which makes the father a household servant. This is the wonderfully sane no­ tion that the man can help without in any degree lessening the woman’s responsibil­ ity” (96). 4. Dobson was not alone in blaming feminism for undermining the vocation of home­ maker. Phyllis Schlafly (1977), founder of the Eagle Forum, defended marriage as a source of “new identity and the opportunity for all-around fulfillment as a woman” and suggested that equal opportunity in employment “deliberately degrades the home­ maker” (2). 5. Beginning in 1991 with a meeting of 4,200 men at the University of Colorado’s bas­ ketball stadium, attendance at Promise Keepers’ stadium events exploded to 1.2 mil­ lion men at twenty-two rallies in 1996. A year later, the organization had already begun to lose momentum. Paid staff members were trimmed by 20 percent before the “Stand in the Gap” conference in Washington, D.C.; and in 1998 the organization laid off more than three hundred employees and shifted to a mostly volunteer staff. By 2000, Prom­ ise Keepers had held ninety-eight stadium conferences attended by 3.5 million men. Sixteen conferences were held in 2001, and the same number were planned for 2002 (http://www.promisekeepers.org/). For recent discussions of the decline in Promise Keepers, see Alsdurf (1998) and Mathisen (2001).

CHAPTER 7 Employment and the Needs of Children 1. A number of studies document the changes and debates about the relative priority of ideological, demographic, and economic factors in shaping women’s employment in the later part of the twentieth century, including Baxandall and Gordon (1995), Bergmann (1986), Edwards (2001a, 2001b), Goldin (1990), and Newman (1993). 2. See also Heynen (1965) and Hunt (1970). Although LaHaye (1968) went on to argue that marriage is a joint venture, not “two distinct corporations doing business under the same roof ” (29), he never developed a critique of the ways in which employment might threaten the stability of marriage by making men too independent from their wives. That line was taken up by several other evangelical authors, beginning with Dob­ son (1975): “We men have ignored our God-given responsibility to care for the wel­ fare of our families, to discipline our children, to supervise the expenditure of financial resources, to assume spiritual leadership, to love and cherish and protect. Instead, we have launched ourselves on a lifetime ego trip, thinking only of our needs and our

Notes to Pages 129–166

3.

4.

5.

6.

7. 8.

219

pleasures and our status. Is it any wonder that low self-esteem is a problem among our women?” (68–69). The issue found its fullest expression in Promise Keepers’ 1990s emphasis on responsible, involved fatherhood. Our perception of the 1950s as a time of family harmony and stability glosses over the decade’s sense of urgency over the loss of fathers’ authority at home and alarming changes in adolescent behavior. Trueblood and Trueblood (1953) argued that “double earning” (that is, wives’ employment) robbed men of their self-respect and made women insecure. Many of the 1970s objections against women’s employment echoed those of the early 1950s. “The ideological motive for the employment of married women may now seem a bit dated, but nevertheless continues strong in some areas. Many women are very ambitious to prove that they can compete with men in men’s fields, but they are not willing to give up the opportunity to have families, so they try to perform the miracle of carrying on two full-time occupations at once” (ibid., 27). Not all evangelical authors blamed feminism for these transformations in work and family; some were concerned because the center of productive activity had moved out­ side the household (Christenson and Christenson 1977). The solution they proposed was better communication, commitment, time, and caring on the part of men. See, for example, Balswick and Balswick (1991, 1999), Gundry (1980, 1999), Hull (1987, 1991, 1998), Scanzoni and Hardesty (1974, 1986, 1992), and Spencer (1985, 1997). For gender conservatives, see Cole (1982, 2001), Dobson (1970, 1974, 1980, 1991, 1992, 1999), Elliot (1976, 1992, 1999, 2000), Farrar (1990, 1996), Getz (1974, 1997), Harley (1986, 1994, 2001), Beverly LaHaye (1976, 1995), Tim LaHaye (1977, 1996, 2001), LaHaye and LaHaye (1976, 1998), and Smalley (1979b, 1988a). For a recent discussion of the cultural work involved in negotiating the demands and boundaries between work and family, see Nippert-Eng (1996) and Lamont (1992). For analyses of evangelical perspectives on secular humanism and the other shortcom­ ings of public education, see Sikkink (1998b) and Peschkin (1986).

CHAPTER 8 What Would Be Lost If Evangelicals Abandoned the Notion of Husbands’ Headship? 1. For three decades, Dobson has remained consistent in his belief that the frail male ego is itself part of God’s intent and design to introduce a division of authority into the household. According to Piper and Grudem (1991), if women ever find themselves “giving direction” to men, they should to do so in a way does not threaten the male ego (50). 2. Weber (1993), for example, challenges men to take the lead in communication: “He is the one who must take the initiative and learn how to speak ‘Woman.’ He is the one who must weather the awkward stuttering of lines from a woman’s phrase book. So many give up after a few faltering, self-conscious attempts” (118). 3. Catherine Clark Kroeger, former president of Christians for Biblical Equality, has been a vocal advocate of the need for increased awareness and responsiveness to the issue of domestic abuse within evangelical households. See Kroeger and Beck (1996, 1998) and Kroeger and Nason-Clark (2001). See also Alsdurf and Alsdurf, (1989), Bowman (1988/1989), Clarke (1989), Johnson and Van Vonderen (1991), Miles (2000), NasonClark (1997), Rinck (1990), and Strom (1986). 4. In their book, which is more than five hundred pages long, Piper and Grudem (1991) include only three brief references to domestic violence, which they link to “the failure

220

Notes to Pages 166–179

of parents to impart to their sons and daughters the meaning of true masculinity and true femininity” (67). 5. The mandate to be both in but not of it challenges evangelicals to adopt the best of textual criticism and historical and cultural studies in biblical interpretation (as well as participate in the arts, education, science, technology, government, and community service)—all without succumbing to the religious and moral relativism, materialism, and excessive individualism that appear endemic to American society in the late twen­ tieth century. 6. See the Calvary Chapel of Merced web site (http://www.calvarychapel.com/merced/ html/women_in_leadership.html).

CHAPTER 9 History, Community, and Identity 1. CBE presents an annual award to individuals who have taken great professional risks or made extraordinary efforts to promote egalitarianism. Recipients include univer­ sity professors denied tenure, editors encouraged to resign, and university administra­ tors who could no longer keep their jobs because of the incompatibility of their gender views with those of the institution.

Bibliography

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Index

241

INDEX

abuse: of husband’s authority, 21; physical, 165–166 accountability, 22–23, 70, 73, 83–84, 91, 103, 163, 168, 176; spiritual, 12, 71, 86, 90–91, 176–178 accommodation, 6, 11, 14, 61, 84, 130 Aglow, 10, 16, 214n19 All We’re Meant to Be, 39, 45, 46, 47, 49 Ammerman, Nancy, 9, 79, 168 Assemblies of God, 7, 67. See also denominational sampling authority: biblical, 8, 45, 49–51, 79–82, 96, 171; of the “heart” (personal relation­ ship with God), 82–83; men’s authority to lead, 12, 22, 46–49, 73–74, 79, 90, 124, 148, 163–164, 176; women’s authority to submit, 48, 101–103, 164, 175 Baptists, 81, 94, 134, 166, 181–182; women’s authority in church leadership, 24–27, 29, 34, 211n2, 211n4; statement of faith and message, 211n2. See also denominational sampling Bartkowski, John, 10, 12–13, 14, 59, 61, 79, 108, 168 Bendroth, Margaret Lamberts, 10, 14, 210n13 Berger, Peter, 4 Bible: authority, 8, 45, 49–51, 79–82, 96, 183, 216n6; debates over interpretation,

35, 50, 55, 80–81, 199–206; inerrancy, 10, 37, 50, 58, 65, 79–80, 83, 213n11, 216n7 Bilezeikian, Gilbert, 173 Bourdieu, Pierre, 14 Brasher, Brenda, 10, 13 Brusco, Elizabeth, 13 California, 11, 13, 81 Calvary Chapel, 172 Calvinism, 7, 25, 30, 45, 134, 211–212n6 charismatic, 13, 67, 81–82, 90–93, 167, 216n9. See also Pentecostal Chauncy, Charles, 26 Chicago Declaration, 45 Christenson, Larry, 46–48, 55, 105–106, 130 Christianity Today, 8, 44, 179 Christians for Biblical Equality (CBE), 56– 57, 61, 190, 214n17, 214n18, 220n1 Church Fathers, 208–209n3, 216n6 Clark, Stephen, 57 Cole, Edwin, 59 communication, 54, 75, 219n2 community: within the local church, 66, 92 complementarianism, 129, 163, 170; basis in the trinity, 60, 172–173, 176; gender differences in roles and authority, 51, 53, 57–58, 73–74, 135, 164 Concerned Women for America, 8 Congregationalists, 25, 27, 35. See also denominational sampling

241

242

Index

Cott, Nancy, 210n10, 210n11 Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), 56–57, 61, 172, 190, 213n15, 214n18 Crabb, Larry, 58, 107, 116, 164 culture wars, 9, 73, 146, 185

212n8, 213n16; evangelical feminism, see egalitarianism Evangelical Women’s Caucus, 45–46. See also Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus Evangelicals for Social Action, 45

Daughters of Sarah, 45 Davidman, Lynn, 9, 10, 11 Dayton, Donald, 210n13 denominational sampling, 181–183 dispensationalism, 7, 37, 45, 80 division of labor: household, 31, 43, 47, 88, 106–107, 111, 114, 125–126, 131, 156, 167, 218n3. See also headship; fatherhood; motherhood Dobson, James, 9, 54–55, 59, 65, 74, 78, 106, 108, 111, 116, 121, 129–130, 132– 133, 143, 145, 149, 156, 161, 167, 170– 172, 213n13, 213n14. See also Focus on the Family

Farrar, Steve, 107–109, 164 fatherhood, 60, 107–110, 117–118, 121– 122, 126, 130, 138. See also headship. feminism: opposition to, 10, 73–74, 109, 128, 131–132, 146, 147, 170, 218n3, 218n4. See also egalitarian evangelicals Finney, Charles, 29 Focus on the Family, 9, 39, 54, 65, 161 Fuller Theological Seminary, 8 Fundamentalism: distinctiveness from evangelicalism, 4, 127, 207n4, 217n2, history, 6–8, 37–38

Edwards, Jonathan, 25–26, 28, 209n7 Egalitarian Christian Alliance, 214n17 egalitarian evangelicals, 14, 32, 37, 39, 40, 44–47, 49, 51, 56–57, 75–77, 82, 84, 109, 110–111, 115–116, 124, 131, 135, 165–166, 168, 178–179, 2l0n13, 215n4; based on equality within the trinity, 45, 173, 200, 202, 204; pragmatic egalitari­ anism among conservative evangelicals, 77–78, 99–100, 115–116, 135, 193. See also Christians for Biblical Equality Elliot, Elisabeth, 39, 52–55, 129, 161–163, 167, 172 Ellison, Chris, 13, 108 employment: based on calling and gifts, 25, 29, 131, 135–140; debates over appropriateness of women’s, 49–50, 58– 59, 128–129, 130–131; support for equal opportunity in, 11, 33, 40, 74, 147–148, 167; changes in women’s, 13, 28, 30–31, 128–132, 134–141; curbing men’s overcommitment to, 58–59, 106– 107, 108, 110, 118–119, 121, 131, 133, 138–139 enlightenment, 36, 66, 155 Evangelical and Ecumenical Women’s Caucus (EEWC), 45, 56, 166, 179, 190,

Gallagher, Sharon, xii, 212n7 Getz, Gene, 51, 133 Graham, Billy, 8, 207n2 Griffith, R. Marie, 9, 10, 13, 16 Grimke, Sarah, 32, 35 Groothuis, Rebecca Merril, 110, 165 Grudem, Wayne, 166, 170, 172, 219n4. See also Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Gundry, Patricia, 46, 55, 131 Gothard, Bill, 212n10 Hardesty, Nancy, xii, 39, 44–47, 49, 110, 131, 135, 167, 173 headship, 11, 61, 69–71, 78, 113, 148; as accountability before God, 70, 72, 79, 86, 161; as authority, 109, 128, 149, 157; as decision-maker, 12, 47, 54, 73, 85, 93–99, 101–104, 114, 133, 142, 156, 160, 162, 164, 183, 185–186; as involved parenting, 12, 48–49, 60, 77– 78, 105–107, 117, 118–121, 123–125, 132, 136–140, 142–145, 157, 218n2; as protecting family, 28, 48, 51, 53, 59, 72, 90, 99, 121–122, 156–157, 178; as provider, 39, 43, 72, 106–108, 130, 149; as servant leadership, 12, 54, 58, 89, 112–113, 135, 158; as spiritual

Index

leadership, 12, 71–73, 83, 86–90, 114, 161–162; based on the Bible, 79–83, 114; based on hierarchy in the trinity, 60, 172–173, 175; benefits women see in, 117, 157–163, 176; cost of abandon­ ing, 166–171, 172–173, 176–177; rooted in natural sex differences, 69–71, 73–74, 84 Holiness Movement, 7, 32, 181 housework, see division of labor Hunter, James Davison, 10, 11, 13, 77 Hurley, James, 51, 54 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, 207n3 Kroeger, Catherine Clark, 56, 219n3 LaHaye, Beverley, 8, 51, 53 LaHaye, Tim, 7, 51, 53, 129, 133, 145, 149 Lewis, C.S., 41–43, 52 liberal Protestantism, 6, 7, 8, 18, 67, 86, 117, 134 local knowledge interviews, l87–189 Lutheran, 43. See also denominational sampling Manning, Cristel, 9, 11, 13 Mather, Cotton, 20–22, 109, 208n1 Melton, J. Gordon, 181 Methodist, 27, 34. See also denominational sampling millennialism, 6, 7, 33 Moody, D. L., 34–35 Moody Bible Institute, 37 motherhood: devaluation of, 129–130; natural for women, 52, 109, 111, 138, 146–147, 171, 175; nineteenth century idealization of, 30–32, 36, 118; not interchangeble with fatherhood, 124– 125, 121n9; wive’s priority, 52, 59, 106, 109, 133–137, 142–145 mutual submission, 16, 27, 45, 74–77, 102, 159, 163–164, 169, 204. See also egalitarian evangelicals National Association of Evangelicals, 8 nineteenth century social reform move­ ments, 32–37

243

Palmer, Phoebe, 7, 32 Pentecostal, 5, 7–8, 10–11, 13, 16, 67, 81– 82, 93, 157, 168, 170, 216n9. See also denominational sampling Piper, John, 166, 170, 173. See also Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Presbyterian, 25, 27, 31. See also denomi­ national sampling Pride, Mary, 131–132, 146, 161, 163, 167 Promise Keepers, 10, 13, 59, 61, 65, 70, 108, 120, 163, 189, 218n5 Puritans, 19–24, 48–49, 53, 61, 72, 99, 209n4, 209n5, 209n6. See also Cotton Mather; Samuel Sewall; Benjamin Wadsworth Regnerus, Mark, 215n2 Robertson, Pat, 9, 65, 133 Ryan, Mary, 210n11 Quakers, 23–24, 27, 33 Sayers, Dorothy, 40–41 Scanzoni, Letha, 37, 44–46, 47, 49, 110, 131, 135, 167, 173 servant leadership, see headship; complementarianism Sewall, Samuel, 20, 23, 208n2 Sewell, William, 15 Smalley, Gary, 107, 157–158 Smith, Christian, 5, 9, 12, 169, 183, 185, 189 spiritual leadership, see headship spiritual warfare, 91, 93 Stacey, Judith, 11, 13, 77 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 34, 35 submission: and women’s agency, 10, 12, 16, 102, 161, 164–165, 168; to God, 10, 25, 74, 76, 89, 163, 164; wives to husbands, 10, 21, 36, 43, 47, 51, 74, 101–102, 123, 161, 163–164. See also mutual submission VanLeeuwen, Mary Stewart, 57, 110 Vineyard Christian Fellowship, 11 Wacker, Grant, 7

244 Wadsworth, Benjamin, 19, 20–22 Weber, Stu, 59–60, 107, 109, 116, 156,

159, 170, 172

Wesley, John, 27–28, 33

Whitefield, George, 25, 208n2

Index Wilcox, W. Bradford, 108

Willard, Frances, 33, 34

Williams, Rhys, 9

Women’s Christian Temperance Union

(WCTU), 33

Index

245

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sally Gallagher is an associate professor of sociology at Oregon State Uni­ versity. In addition to her research on evangelicals and gender, she received a Fulbright award for her fieldwork in Damascus, Syria. She is currently working on a manuscript assessing the dynamics of gender, community, and class in Da­ mascus.