Evangelical militarism inverted the traditional civilian-control-of-military ideal

Evidence

Whereas in previous generations a sense of the inherent risk of war had prevailed, a sense that war could lead to unintended consequences and that military power was “something that democracies ought to treat gingerly,” by the early 2000s this sense had all but disappeared. With evangelicals in the vanguard, Americans had come to see the military as a bastion of “traditional values and old-fashioned virtue,” a view only possible by turning a blind eye to reports of military misconduct and sexual abuse within the ranks. Members of the military tended to agree with assessments of their superior virtue, although some senior officials did express reservations, suggesting that such tendencies were not healthy in armed forces serving a democracy. But there were no serious checks on this inclination. When civilians become the leading militarists, the very concept of civilian control of the military loses its potency. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 522

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘civilians become the leading militarists’ inversion echoes the book’s broader pattern of consumer culture (a civilian realm) dictating theology, and connects to arguments about the militarization of police and domestic life more broadly. — connects to: American conservative Christianity exalts a hypermasculine, militarized image of Jesus. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 347; 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
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that civilian control of the military loses potency when civilians themselves become the militarists is a dense, counterintuitive inversion worth sitting with - it explains how a democracy embraces perpetual war without military overreach because the civilians themselves supply the zeal.