Evangelical gender ideology extended to harsh corporal discipline and extreme marriage correction

Evidence

DOUG WILSON PROVIDES an interesting case study of the shifting alliances within the evangelical subculture. When he published Future Men in 2001, Wilson certainly wouldn’t have located himself at the center of evangelicalism. In fact, he was a stalwart critic of mainstream evangelicalism. Although his views on gender and authority aligned in many ways with those of other conservative evangelicals at the time, Wilson often carried those views to extreme, or perhaps logical, conclusions. A woman wearing a man’s clothing was “an abomination.” If a wife was not properly submissive, it was a husband’s duty to correct her. For instance, if dirty dishes lingered in the sink, he must immediately sit her down and remind her of her duty; if she rebelled, he was to call the elders of the church to intervene. In terms of child-rearing, “discipline must be painful.” God required the infliction of pain on those dear to us. Homosexuality must be suppressed, not excluding the possibility of the death penalty, though banishment was also an option. Wilson endorsed the concept of “Biblical hatred,” a form of militant masculine faithfulness exhibited by one of his heroes of the faith, Scottish minister John Knox. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 458

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘Biblical hatred’ as a coined concept of militant masculine faithfulness.
• XREF: connects to: Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204