Evangelical masculinity books marketed to family markets served political identity-building

Evidence

Within the evangelical men’s movement, men did stand together, citing each other—sometimes even bordering on plagiarism—sharing platforms, and promoting each other’s work. The pursuit of warrior masculinity helped forge a larger community across the evangelical subculture. Books on evangelical masculinity were marketed to suburban megachurch men’s groups, denominational and nondenominational men’s ministries, and homeschool networks, binding disparate strands of American evangelicalism together in a shared cultural identity. At first glance, these books didn’t appear to be about politics; they were merely helpful handbooks on family and child-rearing. Yet they were both subtly and profoundly political. Farrar liked to cite the bogus Tocqueville line that had appealed to Reagan, too: “America is great because she is good, and if America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” They were, after all, in the midst of a war for the soul of America. For America to be good—and great—the warrior must be awakened. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 379

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s key task of explaining how consumer culture transmitted the militant-masculinity strand; also connects to the bogus Tocqueville quote trope in Reagan-era politics.
• SEED: Article angle: how ostensibly apolitical ‘family handbooks’ functioned as political transmission vehicles — the conservative book-market strategy.