Evangelical identity may be defined by culture-war militarism rather than doctrine

Evidence

What did it mean to be an evangelical? Did it mean upholding a set of doctrinal truths, or did it mean embracing a culture-wars application of those truths—a God-and-country religiosity that championed white rural and working-class values, one that spilled over into a denigration of outsiders and elites, and that was organized around a deep attachment to militarism and patriarchal masculinity? — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 552

Categorization

• DEFINE: Poses the book’s operative definitional question: is white evangelicalism a doctrinal category or a cultural-war identity?
• QUESTION: Star for the reader’s stated goal — this is the definitional crux they want to contest: does this strand constitute evangelicalism or merely dominate it?
• DEEPTHINKING: The question of whether an identity is defined by its doctrine or by its cultural-performance application is genuinely hard to settle and central to the whole book’s argument.
• XREF: connects to: American conservative Christianity exalts a hypermasculine, militarized image of Jesus. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 347; Evangelical conversion is usually a datable, emotionally charged event — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 32; Evangelical churches fuse patriotic and military ritual with Christian worship to sacralize the nation — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 36 (+1 more)