Manhood anxiety was framed as a religious problem solved within the family

Evidence

For evangelicals, the problem of American manhood was at its heart a religious one, properly addressed within the Christian family. Fundamentalist megachurch pastor Jack Hyles made this case in his 1972 book How to Rear Children. The son of a distant, alcoholic father, Hyles had grown up in Texas, served in the 82nd Airborne Division in the Second World War, and later turned to ministry. In 1959, the “skinny, charismatic Bible thumper with a Southern-fried drawl and a couple of cheap suits” showed up in Hammond, Indiana, and took charge of its First Baptist Church. He quickly built the church into one of the largest Independent Fundamental Baptist churches in the nation, boasting an attendance of over 20,000 and housing “the world’s largest Sunday School.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 123

Categorization

• QUESTION: Hyles’ military-pastor biography and 20,000-attendee church are evidence for the consumer-scale apparatus Du Mez posits — worth verifying his reach and influence in the broader fundamentalist ecosystem.
• XREF: connects to: Christian horror at Muslim divorce masked an unspoken fear of polyandry