Political coalitions replaced shared theology in defining conservative evangelical identity

Evidence

The evangelical Left and the Christian Right would pursue divergent trajectories, building their own networks and alliances. A common evangelical heritage and shared theological commitments diminished in significance as Christian nationalism, militarism, and gender “traditionalism” came to define conservative evangelical identity and dictate ideological allies. Conservative evangelicals would find they had more in common with conservative Catholics, Mormons, and with other members of the Silent Majority who were not particularly religious. Elements of class conflict also helped define these emerging coalitions. As children of blue-collar workers gave their lives in Vietnam, children of the elite protested the war on college campuses across the nation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, conservative Protestants had tended to lag behind other white Americans economically, but thanks to a thriving postwar economy, growing numbers of evangelicals were moving into the middle class. Still, many were only one generation removed from humbler circumstances, and in the 1960s and 1970s, as patriotism took on a populist dimension, conservative evangelicals were drawn to the values of the white working class. For these new allies, nostalgic celebrations of rugged masculinity would come to symbolize a shared identity, and a political agenda. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 121

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core task: Du Mez’s central claim that white evangelical identity was forged by politics and consumer culture, not theology. Also echoes Francis FitzGerald’s ‘The Evangelicals’ on the split between left and right. — connects to: Christian nationalism is not an exclusively evangelical ideology — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 213; “Evangelical” now functions chiefly as a Republican Party identity label — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 280; Evangelical identity alone predicts almost no political behavior once Christian nationalism is accounted for — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 100 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly did ‘nostalgic celebrations of rugged masculinity’ function as a bridge between class identity and political agenda — this is the mechanism the whole book hinges on.