Christian Fundamentalism, Masculinity, and How We Deal with the Apocalypse
Over the summer, when writing an environment-related research paper, I kept noticing that the connection between masculinity and Christian fundamentalism, particularly in the United States, was central to explaining attitudes toward, and solutions suggested for, climate change. This dangerous cocktail of ideologies seemed to be at the heart of how we view nature, reinforcing binary, gendered interpretations of the world around us (feminine, submissive nature vs masculine, dominant humankind). Additionally, images of masculinity created by Christian fundamentalism seemed to directly lead to fascist ideologies and behaviours. The origins of groups such as the Proud Boys, an American neo-Nazi white supremacist organization, can be clearly traced to masculinity and American Christian values. The very specific aesthetic of American Christian fundamentalism fosters a regimented and rigid hyper-masculinity which is always poised to erupt into violence - and purports that it would be Christ-like to do so.
The ideal masculine form in American Christian fundamentalism is, unsurprisingly, represented by the figure of Jesus Christ. However, the Jesus endorsed by American televangelists and Christian media is not the willowy, peace-loving figure that may first come to mind. Instead, this Jesus is muscular, strong and manly. Jerry Falwell, a televangelist who founded the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia, was very clear on this point in one of his sermons, in which he proclaimed, “Christ wasn’t effeminate. . . . The man who lived on this earth was a man with muscles. . . . Christ was a he-man!” Films such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which is a 2 ½ hour-long movie featuring a nearly uninterrupted montage of torture and gore, depicts Jesus’s life as a violent war. This image of Christ is offered up for emulation by televangelists and celebrity pastors, necessitating the existence of an “other” for the Church and its followers to be up against. Namely, feminists. The waning power of the Church and its diminishing number of attendees has been attributed to the decline and demonization of masculinity. It’s disturbing to read articles or listen to sermons by pastors who insist that “effeminate culture” is eroding Christianity, and that real believers must fight back against “feminism” to reassert masculinity back into the church. There have therefore been explicit calls for increased masculinity made by prominent American Christian figures. Scholars have argued that this hypermasculinity is deemed necessary to compensate for the fact that Christianity requires men to have an intimate relationship with a male deity. “Submission to church authority, after all, is a potent form of emasculation… Glorified acts of force and violence against outsiders, against nonbelievers, compensate for this unquestioning submission.” (Hedges, 2006).
This romanticization of violence appears over and over in American Christian mythology. The Left Behind franchise, for example, written by conservative evangelist Tim LaHaye, is an interpretation of the Rapture, a future event in which it’s believed that all true Christians will be called into the heavens. In LaHaye’s adaptation, the protagonists of the series are born-again Christians, who are “left-behind” after the Rapture and must wage war against the forces of the Antichrist. These forces cannot be ‘saved’, and the suffering of non-Christians is ignored. The franchise, although widely criticised for anti-semitism and Islamophobic sentiment, was wildly popular in the United States, with 16 bestselling books, a young adult series, 4 movies, and a video game series. Not only does the series profit by stoking fears of a coming apocalypse, scholars fear that it “may be a dangerous rationalization of social inequalities that elevates the logics of the neoliberal economy to the level of the sacred.” (Monahan, 2008) The success of Left Behind truly showcases the defining characteristics of American fundamentalist Christianity; a glorification of bloodshed and a valorization of the hypermasculinity necessary to commit such violence against “nonbelievers.”
All this information might be new and surprising - I certainly hadn’t heard of this franchise before conducting research for this piece. But it’s important to note that a huge section of America consumes media like this, which has very real impacts on politics, nationalist sentiments, and bigotry in the United States. As mentioned previously, the Proud Boys, a group instrumental to planning and carrying out the January 6th insurrection, has been constructed from the understanding of a masculine, violent Christianity, from these roots becoming a full-fledged white supremacist and neo-Nazi organization. For many American right-wing personalities and organisations, the erosion of masculinity, Christianity, and “whiteness” are one and the same, all caused by a tolerant and effeminate liberal society. Calls for gender equality, racial justice, and democracy are framed as attacks on (hyper)masculinity, religious values, and Western civilisation.
Additionally, this masculine Christianity layered onto environmentalism leads to its logical conclusion, commonly referred to as eco-fascism, which is just a front for racism and anti-immigrant, isolationist ideologies in the name of preserving the natural beauty of the nation. Many mass shooters who have cited environmental reasons for their actions also identify with the bundle of identities stemming from ultra-masculine Christian values. Unfortunately, these beliefs are no longer fringe or radical - it’s not just mass shooters who are spouting this kind of rhetoric. When elected officials are able to say things such as “we need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists” (which is verbatim what Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene recently stated), we should not only be very alarmed, but also work to understand how exactly we’ve gotten to this point in history.
Image courtesy of Anthony Crider via Wikimedia, ©2020, some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
