Warfare metaphors saturated the physical environment of a flagship megachurch

Evidence

Haggard’s church manifested this warfare mentality. In its lobby loomed The Defender, “a massive bronze of a glowering angel” wielding a broad sword. Upstairs, children gathered in Fort Victory, a space designed to look like an Old West cavalry outpost. Across the parking lot stood the World Prayer Center’s global headquarters, a “spiritual NORAD,” and in its atrium stood another bronze warrior angel armed with enormous biceps and packing a sword. The chapel contained computers where visitors entered personal prayers; the center’s staff provided more politically oriented prayers—for a marriage amendment, for the appointment of new justices, and for the president. The center also offered prayers for US foreign policy, for God to “crush [the] demonic stronghold and communist regime of Kim Jun II,” and for the forces of good to prevail in Iraq. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 473

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly serves the reader’s contestation goal: the physical/material apparatus of militant masculinity is exactly the cultural transmission mechanism Du Mez argues for.