Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism

Evidence

Not all evangelicals in Graham’s day embraced such patriarchal teachings. Some believed Christ’s atonement had nullified any “curse” placed on Eve in the Book of Genesis, opening the way to egalitarian gender roles; in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, evangelicals in this tradition had been enthusiastic proponents of women’s rights. Graham’s patriarchal interpretation reflected the more reactionary tendencies of early-twentieth-century fundamentalism. He added a new twist, however, by wedding patriarchal gender roles to a rising Christian nationalism. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 64

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s need to distinguish a dominant strand from the whole — shows evangelicalism once contained an egalitarian tradition. — connects to: Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204; Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 46; The Second Awakening drove determined evangelical mobilization toward equality despite imperfect methods — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 48 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: When did the egalitarian reading die out, and how thoroughly? Does this look like a mid-century takeover of a living tradition?