Domestic Security: Defending the Evangelical Home in the Southern California Sunbelt

Historians have been eager to trace the roots of "family values" discourse as a political phenomenon linked to the rise of the Religious Right. But the sacralisation of the Christian family deserves attention in its own right as a cultural phenomenon. Southern California provides an obviou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of religious history
Main Author: Neumann, David J. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell [2019]
In: Journal of religious history
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B California (Süd) / Evangelical movement / Family / Example / Sacralization
RelBib Classification:CB Christian life; spirituality
CH Christianity and Society
KBQ North America
KDG Free church
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Historians have been eager to trace the roots of "family values" discourse as a political phenomenon linked to the rise of the Religious Right. But the sacralisation of the Christian family deserves attention in its own right as a cultural phenomenon. Southern California provides an obvious case study, as religious conservatism and a growing military-industrial presence intersected there in the postwar era. A case study of this region also illumines larger trends, since the national experience and the Californian experience converged in this period. A popular set of 1950s advice booklets by Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola) Vice President William W. Orr provides crucial understanding of evangelical efforts to provide foolproof methods for enacting God's design for family security. Evangelical visions of family order did occasionally represent real rifts with postwar mainstream culture. But more often, oppositional rhetoric served to symbolically preserve evangelicals' distinctive identity even when cultural trends were largely consonant with their own. Their assumptions about gender, emphasis on sexual fulfilment within marriage, and guidelines on the roles of husbands and fathers, ostensibly grounded in timeless biblical principles, were deeply indebted to mainstream values of companionate marriage and affectionate parenting.
ISSN:1467-9809
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of religious history
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/1467-9809.12570