By the early 20th century, white evangelical men felt their faith lacked a strong masculine identity. They criticized Victorian Christianity for emphasizing gentility over strength.

This perceived cultural shift towards "feminized" Christianity coincided with broader societal changes, like women’s emancipation and a move from labor to corporate roles.

Evangelicals began remasculinizing Christianity by emphasizing traits like aggression and strength, which traditionally contrasted with Christian virtues like humility and peace.

Figures such as Theodore Roosevelt popularized hypermasculine ideals by blending aggression with patriotism, further embedding these traits in cultural and spiritual identity.

These aggressive values created contradictions. Evangelicals reconciled violent masculinity with religious teachings by portraying rugged manhood as a duty to protect women and families.

As a result, evangelical masculinity became closely linked with cultural power, redefining faith to embrace militaristic and combative identities over gentler traits.

This shift didn't just reshape evangelical beliefs but also laid foundations for political and cultural alignments that reinforced patriarchal authority.

Ultimately, these dynamics had long-lasting implications on the interplay of faith, culture, and gender norms within evangelicalism (Chapter 1).

In the decades following 9/11, evangelicalism increasingly tied masculinity to militant ideals, urging men to embrace aggression as a sign of spiritual strength.

Movements like GodMen and Christian mixed martial arts highlighted these shifts, creating a version of faith that equated dominance with divinely ordained masculinity.

To counter this mindset, reflect on whether these aggressive ideals align with the transformative peace and humility central to Jesus’s teachings.

This call to reflection matters because militant faith nurturing confrontation over compassion can undermine core Christian values such as love and reconciliation.

Rejecting violent narratives helps foster healthier communities where faith is a source of healing, not a justification for domination or exclusion.

Following this approach allows evangelicals to reclaim the transformative power of their faith while avoiding the cultural traps of hypermasculinity and fear-driven ideologies.

By choosing compassion and collaboration over aggression, evangelical identity can evolve toward genuine inclusivity and spiritual authenticity.

Many family values campaigns aimed to protect the nuclear family, but their messaging often centered on reinforcing male dominance as its cornerstone.

In this vision, patriarchal authority was presented as divinely ordained, where fathers served as decision-makers and women were confined to supporting roles.

This structure wasn't just about personal relationships—it mirrored national militarism, framing male control as essential for societal strength.

According to the author, women’s subordination was portrayed as vital for maintaining both familial and national order, blurring public and private power dynamics.

Critics argue this framework degraded female autonomy while creating rigid roles that limited men’s emotional expressions and relationships too.

The author suggests that resistance to feminism and growing anxieties about societal changes led evangelicals to double down on patriarchal assertion.

This dynamic further politicized evangelicalism, embedding conservative power structures both in homes and public policies.

Ultimately, this ideological structure fostered a loss of individual agency and reinforced systems of inequality (Chapter 3).

After 9/11, evangelical rhetoric shifted to present Muslims as new enemies, much like communism during the Cold War. This equated Islam with terrorism.

Prominent evangelical leaders and media exploited this fear, calling for military actions framed as moral crusades, and linking patriotism with anti-Islam rhetoric.

Publications and testimonials from self-identified “ex-Muslim terrorists” reinforced these biases, shaping evangelicals’ perception of Islam as inherently violent and anti-American.

These narratives created a culture of fear, embedding Islamophobia into evangelical worldviews, which justified aggressive foreign and domestic policies in the name of security.

This increasing conflation of religion with nationalism shifted the focus of evangelical culture to become more politically militant than spiritually reflective.

The alignment of military interventions with evangelical ideology blurred lines between moral causes and territorial dominance, risking broader societal divisions.

The long-term consequence has been a cultural shift within evangelicalism, where militarism and faith intertwine, often at the cost of spiritual ideals.

These patterns suggest the potential dangers of letting politics and fear override foundational religious teachings (Chapter 6).

The evangelical push for aggressive masculinity neglects Christian values like empathy, humility, and peace, which are central to Jesus’s teachings.

By redefining manhood as militant and domineering, evangelical cultures promote toughness while dismissing vulnerability as weakness, creating gendered expectations for men.

This distortion risks alienating not just men but also women and marginalized groups who feel excluded from this narrow model of faithfulness.

The author argues this framework constrains believers' spiritual growth, prioritizing conformity to cultural ideals over alignment with Christ’s messages of grace.

The rise of leaders like Donald Trump, admired for breaking norms, illustrates evangelicals’ readiness to prioritize power over spiritual integrity.

This tendency perpetuates a faith rooted in image and dominance rather than love and transformation, fostering division and shallow belief systems.

The solution proposed is a return to humility and community-centered masculinity that reflects the relational aspect of faith, rather than combative isolation.

Such changes could reinvigorate evangelical culture, providing a faith that heals rather than polarizes (Chapter 8).

Evangelicals often conflate cultural ideals—such as militarism and patriarchy—with biblical principles, perpetuating myths of divinely ordained social hierarchies.

Take time to study the teachings of Jesus that emphasize compassion, equality, and love, contrasting them with cultural constructs that justify dominance.

Doing so requires challenging inherited traditions, questioning how much of evangelical culture reflects scripture versus societal anxieties of past eras.

This reflection matters because aligning faith with Christ’s values nurtures inclusiveness and spiritual authenticity, benefiting communities in profound ways.

When evangelicals rediscover Christ's holistic message, they’re more likely to break free from cultural entanglements that distort spiritual priorities.

Emphasizing love and relational outreach over policing morals empowers leaders and believers to foster fewer divisions and engage in restorative faith practices.

Ultimately, this approach broadens evangelical identity, rooting it firmly in spiritual maturation rather than political or cultural power plays.

As the 21st century progressed, evangelical identity fused spirituality with militaristic ideals, framing warriors as spiritual role models for men.

Books, sermons, and men’s movements equated masculinity with aggression, casting men as protectors of faith, family, and nation through dominance.

This shift led to widespread cultural narratives where men were urged to reclaim assertiveness to defend Christianity against perceived societal decay.

This rhetoric created rigid gender roles, where tenderness and vulnerability clashed with emphasized traits of strength, aggression, and control.

For many evangelicals, gendered expectations excluded those outside these ideals, fostering environments of conformity and discouraging nuanced understanding of masculinity.

This militarized faith cultivated loyalty and cohesion but risked alienating dissenters or individuals seeking more balanced gender representation in faith communities.

The consequences echo through evangelical theology and societal debates, intensifying divisions between traditions and progressive understandings of Christian duty (Chapter 7).