By Christian Rightcast
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In a disheartening but long-anticipated 6-3 decision, the Supreme court struck down 1973’s Roe vs. Wade decision, eliminating constitutional protection for abortion. In this first episode after a 2021 hiatus, the hosts examine several threads in the anti-abortion movement’s generations-long trajectory:
* The origins of the modern anti-abortion movement, and Francis Schaeffer’s role in bringing the “Catholic Issue” to a relatively indifferent Evangelical world in the late 70s
* The movement’s strategic shift in the early 80s from totalizing “fetus-centered” to “woman-centered” and “conscience-centered” arguments against abortion and incrementalist legislative goals
* The rise of deceptive “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” and their legally-fraught history of deceiving patients seeking abortions; Kristin discusses her experiences with the young fundamentalist women who keeping them running, and the danger of assuming the movement is primarily a male one
* The tension between the anti-abortion movement’s “anything is justified to stop murder” rhetoric, and its opposition to sex education and contraceptives; Jeff discusses his own history as a committed anti-abortion ideologue in the 90s, and the role that tension had in convincing him to leave — and eventually support abortion rights.
Articles and essays in this episode include:
* The Changing Strategies of the Anti-Abortion Movement, 2021, by Daniela Mansbach and Alisa Von Hagel, Political Research Associates
* Foot Soldier of the Patriarchy, June 2022, Kristin Rawls, Revue
* On Murder and The Other, June 2009, Jeff Eaton, Growing Up Goddy
Books mentioned or cited in this episode include:
* Women against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century, 2017, Karissa Haugeberg
* After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate, 2015, Mary Ziegler
* Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present, 2020, Mary Ziegler
* Handbook for a Post-Roe America, 2019, Robin Marty
* Whatever Happened To the Human Race? 1979, Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop
* Crazy for God, 2008, Frank Schaeffer
In this episode, Jeff and Kristin tackle two separate stories: the rise of a Charismatic worship musician and his path into right-wing politics… and the controversy around an award-winning Christian romance novel whose hunky hero “participates in” genocide.
News and Updates
* Talking about Doug Wilson’s Neo-Confederate Christianity and the Ivermectin debacle on the I Don’t Speak German podcast
* The Cult Behind Josh Duggar on Behind The B******s
* Christianity Today’s The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast
* “Giant media companies are complicit in presenting religious extremism as harmless,” by Kristin Rawls on Flux Community
* Mike Warnke’s The Satan Seller, on the You’re Wrong About podcast
* “Selling Satan: The Tragic History of Mike Warnke”, published in 1992 in Cornerstone Magazine
Sean Feucht, Neo-Charismatic worship musician and activist
* Who Is Sean Feucht? by Shannon Leigh on Medium
* “Hate watch groups voice alarm about Sean Feucht’s Portland security volunteers”, by Alejandra Molina on the Religion News Service, August 08 2021
* “Sean Feucht Calls Black Lives Matter Movement a ‘Fraud,’ Seeks to Turn ‘Riots’ Into ‘Revival’” by Peter Montgomery on Right Wing Watch, June 18, 2020
* The New Apostolic Reformation, on Wikipedia
* PROPHETIC ALERT!!! by Lance Wallnau: Podcast host, Prophet of God, and Life Coach
* Amanda Rogers explains the difference between Christian Identity and “vanilla” right wing fundamentalism
At Love’s Command, the Romance Novel with Genocide
* “Romance Writers Of America Was Doing Better With Race — Until A Recent Award Choice”, by Karen Grigsby Bates on NPR.com, August 05 2021
* “Romance Writers of America Rescind Award for Lakota Genocide Redemption Narrative,” by Steve Ammidown in The Library Journal, August 26 2021
* “When a Jew loves a Nazi: Holocaust romance's award listings cause outrage”, by Alison Flood in The Guardian, August 10, 2015
* “A Nazi, A Jewish Prisoner, And A ‘Magic’ Bible, Or, Christian Romance Fiction Gone Very, Very Wrong”, by Julia Seymour on Religion Dispatches, September 05 2015
* Creating the Innocent Killer, by John Kessel in Foundation, the International Review of Science Fiction, Vol. 33, No 90, Spring 2004
* Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, by Elaine Radford
Doug Wilson is a key voice in modern Reconstructionism, an ideology that envisions America (and the world) remade into a confederacy of self-governing, patriarchal theocracies. Despite a history of eye-popping apologia for slavery, Wilson has become a key crossover figure for Reconstructionism. He leads a 1000-strong independent church in Moscow, Idaho; dialogues with more acceptable Fundamentalist leaders like R. C. Sproul and John Piper; laments the ugliness of the MAGA crowd, and does his best to project an image of free-thinking scholarship rather than angry dogmatism. Despite his genial tone, Wilson’s theology and beliefs are extreme even by the standards of Reconstructionism.
In this episode, we try something new — and we’re not sure whether it succeeded or failed. Rather than start with a deep dive into Wilson’s history and the controversies surrounding his work and his church, we took a (relatively) fresh look at his recent material on YouTube, as well as his son’s breakout YA novel. Beyond Wilson’s long history of racism, the undercurrents of misogyny in his arguments were impossible to ignore. Several quick searches later, it became clear that Wilson had sheltered pedophiles and punished their victims at his church in Moscow, Idaho.
Listen to this episode to hear us discover our Spidey-Senses were correct in real time… Content warnings apply: topics including religious abuse and child sexual abuse are discussed.
Mentioned in this episode
* Episode 11: The Father of Christian Reconstructionism
* Episode 12: From Rushdoony to Ron Paul, with Racism
* Southern Slavery as it Wasn’t: Coming to Grips with Neo-Confederate Historical Misinformation by Ramsey, William L. and Quinlan, Sean M., 2004
* Christ Church and New Saint Andrews College at Wikipedia
* Man Rampant, the Doug Wilson Youtube show
* Man Rampant Episode 1: The Sin of Empathy (2021)
* 100 Cupboards, by N.D. Wilson (2008)
* Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, 2020
Further reading
* Doug Wilson’s Pedophile Problem: Sex Offender For Whom Wilson Begged Leniency Back in Court with Infant Son, by Libby Anne, Love Joy Feminism, 2015
* Far-right evangelicals excused sexual abuse long before Donald Trump, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Flux, 2021
* The Jamin C. Wight Story: The Other Child Molester in Doug Wilson’s Closet, by R.L. Stollar, Homeschoolers Anonymous, 2015
* Doug Wilson’s Religious Empire Expanding in the Northwest by Mark Potok, The Southern Poverty Law Center, 2004
* As a plague sweeps the land, zealots see a gift from heaven, by Leah Sottile, High Country News, 2020
* Douglas Wilson’s ‘spiritual takeover’ plan roils Idaho college town
* The Controversialist, by Molly Worthen, Christianity Today, 2019
* It Is Long Past Time for Evangelical Leaders to Condemn Doug Wilson's Views on Slavery and the South, by Libby Anne, Love Joy Feminism, 2018
* Why Is a Famous Evangelical Pastor Defending Slavery?, by Morgan Guyton, Huffington Post, 2013
* Idaho pastor agrees with Trump on Charlottesville protests, by Nick Gier, Idaho State Journal, 2017
It’s easy to mistake “Purity Culture” — Evangelical Fundamentalism’s distinctive take on sexuality and social mores — for prudishness. It’s much more than a simple “don’t have sex” campaign: the movement combines several related ideological threads in ways that can torment insiders and baffle outsiders. In this episode, Jeff and Kristin explore Purity Culture’s history, its manifestations in popular culture and Christian media, and its impact on the teens and adults who’ve grown up in it.
Purity Culture’s building blocks
We’ve broken Purity Culture down into four specific pillars, each of which contributes to the culture’s dangerous toxicity.
You don’t own yourself
The idea that people have the right to control their own bodies, and choose what kinds of things they’re comfortable with both sexually and socially, is acknowledged to a limited degree — but tempered by the belief that God is the ultimate “owner” of every person’s body, and that we have no right to choose things that He doesn’t approve of.
Nancy DeMoss’s 2007 article, “Free To Be Modest,” published on the conservative Christian web site The Rebelution, articulates the idea directly: “My body is not my own. It’s not mine; it doesn’t belong to me (1 Cor. 6:19)… An immodestly dressed woman is giving away something that doesn’t belong to her. This principle of ownership means that you and I are not free to dress in any way we please.”
This foundation means that while Purity Culture may arrive at some of the same conclusions about sexual ethics and cultural mores, it does so via a very different path and proposes very different solutions to societal problems. In Purity Culture, for example, the fundamental moral transgression of rape is not the violation of another person’s autonomy but the act of extramarital sex.
A totalizing definition of purity
It’s easy to assume the culture’s idiosyncratic definition of “purity” is just shorthand for sexual abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage. Its definition of “Impurity” isn’t just about specific acts, though: it includes any thought, feeling, action, or motivation that would produce pleasure outside of “God’s Plan for sex.”
Having dreams about sex, lingering over the swimsuit ads in the Sunday paper, being gay, making out after prom, looking too long at a passing jogger’s abs, sex with a co-worker, and grooming children for abuse all exist under the broad umbrella of “impurity.” They’re evil not because they affect others or have specific consequences, but because they violate Purity Culture’s specific definition of sexuality that’s acceptable to God. Members are encouraged and trained to be on constant alert, wary of any idle thought or passing glimpse of the opposite sex that might lure them into lustful fantasies, rendering them impure.
As a corollary, blame for nearly every emotional or relational challenge faced by young teens, single twenty-somethings, and married couples is laid at the feed of “impurity.” After a lifetime of exposure to these totalizing messages, guilt is inevitable — and that guilt is treated as evidence from God that Purity Culture’s strict guidelines are true.
Gender essentialism and patriarchy
The third component of purity culture ideology is the assumption of deep and fundamental differences between mens’ and womens’ sexual drives and desires. Old tropes are codified as God’s Design: men are frequently described as “visual creatures” easily inflamed by desire, while women are “love-seekers” whose bodies tempt men.
This idea is closely related to the concept of Christian patriarchy — the idea that men have been put in charge of their families by God, and women are meant to function as helpers in the task of raising a Godly family. Although modern purity culture proponents often emphasize the importance of “mutual submission” before God, the idea of a divinely ordained hierarchy, and inescapable biological difference between mens’ and womens’ sexual desires, appears again and again.
The books, articles, sermons, and curriculum that spread and reinforce purity culture repeatedly return to this divide. Boys are told to avoid tempting glimpses of women, assured that their self-restraint will make them strong warriors for God, and promised a lifetime of mind-blowing sex if they “hold out” until marriage. Girls are taught that only their modesty can protect pure men from “lustful thoughts;” it’s assumed that girls and women don’t want sex, just the love that manipulative boyfriends promise in exchange for it.
Purity as a front in the culture war
The final component of modern purity culture is the idea the “staying pure” is more than just a personal choice about sex: it’s a way to strike a blow for God in His war with Satan. This view scoops up a wide range of cultural phenomena — from changing mores about marriage and sex, to capitalism’s incessant use of sex to sell products, to growing cultural acceptance of LGBTQ identity, to public health STD-prevention efforts — and frames them as Satanic attempts to lure individuals into “impurity.”
This war-in-your-pants, war-in-the-heavens framing ratchets up the stakes, and positions anyone who disagrees with purity culture’s assumptions and conclusions as a potential opponent in a a war with eternal consequences.
Additional notes
Although Kristin and Jeff discussed broad trends and their own experiences in purity culture, time limits meant that several important threads went relatively unexplored. The role of Elizabeth Elliot’s 1984 book Passion and Purity, a touchstone for many teens raised in the culture, deserves a mention. Josh McDowell’s Why Wait? campaign, meant to fight a late-80s “epidemic” of teen sex, was a separate effort launched shortly before the similarly-named “True Love Waits” campaign discussed on the show. Finally, the role of race in purity culture deserves much more attention: racist stereotypes about sexual desire and promiscuity often shape a community’s subjective decisions about sexual guilt, innocence, and victim-blaming.
Some of these themes are addressed in more detail in the links below.
References and Further Reading
Books about Purity Culture and fundamentalist gender roles
* Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, 2020
* Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, by Linda Kay Klein, 2018
* Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity, by Dianna E. Anderson, 2015
* The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, by Jessica Valenti, 2009
Books and essays from the Purity Culture movement
* Christian Sex Education: A Biblically Based Approach, by Jimmy Hester, 1993
* I Kissed Dating Goodbye: A New Attitude Toward Relationships and Romance, by Joshua Harris, 1997
* The Modesty Survey and The Responsibility of Modesty, The Rebelution, 2010.
* Lies Young Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free, by Nancy Wolgemuth & Dannah Gresh, 2008
* Every Man's Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time, by Fred Stoeker and Stephen Arterburn, 2000
* Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul, by John Elderege, 2001
* Tender Warrior: God’s Intention For A Man, by Stu Weber, 1995
Articles and news coverage
* A Brief History of Sex Ed in America, by Johannah Cornblatt, Newsweek, 2009
* ‘Leaving to sin’ is more about evangelicals’ obsessions than the desires of those who leave, by Chrissy Stroop, Flux Network, 2021
* How the ‘extreme abstinence’ of the purity movement created a sense of shame in evangelical women, by Julie Ingersoll, The Conversation, 2019
* A World Without Consent: Rape culture, and the terrifying burden of agency, by Jeff Eaton, Growing Up Goddy, 2013
* How Evangelicalism's racist roots and purity culture teachings catalyzed the Atlanta killings, by Ashlie Stevens, Salon Magazine, 2021
* How purity culture and anti-Asian racism intersect in some white evangelical circles, by Sarah Ngu, NBC News, 2021
* 7 Lies That Purity Culture Teaches Women, by Natalie Collins, Christians for Biblical Equality web site, 2015
* The Flaw at the Center of Purity Culture: The rules don’t apply equally to everyone, by Angie Hong, The Atlantic, 2021
* A Personal Encounter with Purity Culture: Evangelical Christian Schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Olivia Stanley, The Bible & Critical Theory Vol. 16, No. 1 (2020)
* Before "True Love Waits" there was Josh McDowell and Petra, by Chris Gehrz, The Anxious Bench, 2019
* Purity Culture’s Racism Robs Women of Color of Their Reproductive Agency, by Dianna Anderson, Rewire News, 2015
First: a content warning for Christian Rightcast listeners. This episode directly addresses child sexual abuse, religious abuse, and specific techniques used by the Duggar family and Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles to protect child sexual predators.
Last month, our series on Christian Reconstructionism was hitting its stride. Then news broke that Josh Duggar, made famous by his Christian family’s 19 Kids and Counting television series on TLC, had been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse materials. A number of Christian Rightcast listeners reached out, asking about context for the events, and we considered the best approach.
The story has clear connections to the reconstructionist themes Kristin’s research has focused on: the Duggars have long been advocates of fundamentalist homeschooling, evangelical purity culture, Quiverfull ideology, and the reconstructionism-influenced teaching of Bill Gothard. Given the seriousness of the story, though, we felt a dedicated set of episodes focusing on the issue was justified and necessary.
In this episode, we attempt to explain the context and the ideology of Bill Gothard’s popular and influential Institute in Basic Life Principles; how its focus on authoritarian discipline and sexual purity provided cover for sexual abusers including Gothard himself; how the group’s teachings shielded Josh Duggar from both consequences and treatment; and finally how its manuals for dealing with sexual abuse blamed Josh’s victims for his actions.
If you’d like to better understand the broader ideology of “Purity Culture” that contributes to these issues, but don’t want to tackle the material in this episode, our usual context-building work will be tackled next episode. If you have questions, feel free to reach out on Twitter or drop us a line here in the comments.
References and Source Material
* "New charges allege religious leader, who has ties to the Duggars, sexually abused women" by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post, January 2016.
* "The Cult Next Door" by Bryan Smith, Chicago Magazine, June 2016.
* "The Fundamentalist Trap" by Joshua Pease, The New Republic, October 2018.
* "Bill Gothard Resigns From IBLP" by Nick Ducote, Homeschoolers Anonymous, March 2014.
* "Bill Gothard’s Brother Accused of Racketeering, Stealing Millions from the Elderly" at Homeschoolers Anonymous, January 2015
* "Amended Lawsuit Against Bill Gothard" and "A Summary of Allegations against Bill Gothard and IBLP" at Homeschoolers Anonymous, January 9 2016.
* "Gothard Explains Why God Allows Child Molestation", Parts one, two, three, and four, at Homeschoolers Anonymous, August 2016.
* "A Summary of Allegations against Bill Gothard and IBLP" and "10 Revelations in the Lawsuit against Bill Gothard and IBLP" by Libby Lane at Love, Joy, Feminism; January 2016.
* "Bill Gothard Threatens Recovering Grace with $1M Lawsuit" at Homeschoolers Anonymous, February 2016
* "On Growing Up In Bill Gothard’s Homeschool Cult" by Micah J. Murray, February 2018
Last episode, Kristin walked us through the high points of Christian Reconstructionism — RJ Rushdoony’s extremist vision of a feudal, patriarchal America ruled by religious law. In this episode we explore the racist building blocks of his ideology, as well as the careful definitions many Reconstructionist-inspired movements use to claim their views are actually anti-racist.
Warning: Rushdoony’s writing, and the writing of several Reconstructionst offshoot movements, are cited extensively in this episode. Explicit and extreme racism, dehumanizing language, and defenses of slavery, are quoted for clarity and may be disturbing or triggering for listeners.
Books, Papers, and Key Personalities
Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction, by Julie Ingersoll
Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism, by Michael Joseph McVicar
Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest, by Crawford Gribben
Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism, by Molly Worthen
Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History, by Gillis J. Harp
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances FitzGerald
Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, by Kathryn Joyce
"Southern Slavery as it Wasn'T: Coming to Grips with Neo-Confederate Historical Misinformation", by Ramsey, William L. and Quinlan, Sean M., 2004
Ludwig von Mises biography at Encyclopedia Britannica
Fredrich A. Hayek biography at Encyclopedia Britannica
John Dewey's philosophy of education at The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Christian Reconstruction Movement in U.S. Politics, by Julie Ingersoll, 2017, at Oxford University Press
Writings by and About Key Reconstructionists
The Messianic Character of American Edication, by RJ Rushdoony
"Can We Tithe Our Children?", by RJ Rushdoony
"Angry White Man: The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul, by James Kirchick, 2008, The New Republic
"There's Something About Gary." by Declan McCullagh, 1999, Wired Magazine
Critical Analysis
"God’s Plantation: Vision Forum and the Old South", by Nick Ducote, 2014, Homeschoolers Anonymous
"Kinism: A Racist and Anti-Semitic Religious Movement", 2013, published by The Anti-Defamation League
"Identity Unmasked: Meet the Proprietors of the Internet's Largest Neo-Confederate Propaganda Machine," 2019, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center
"The Year in Hate, 2004," 2004, by Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center
"Doug Wilson’s Religious Empire Expanding in the Northwest," 2004, by Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center
"Identity Dixie Leaders Helped Plan Deadly Rally," 2019, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center
"As a plague sweeps the land, zealots see a gift from heaven," by Leah Sottile at The High Country News
If you’ve ever discussed “school choice,” wondered why some Christians , or puzzled over a “Taxation Is Theft” sign, you’ve encountered the legacy of Rousas John Rushdoony — one of the most influential but least-known fundamentalists of the 20th century. Rushdoony founded and shaped the Christian Reconstructionism movement for decades, articulating its principles and goals in innumerable sermons, essays, and a 900 page magnum opus he titled The Institutes of Biblical Law. In this episode, Kristin kicks off our series on Reconstructionism and its influence on American culture with a look at Rushdoony’s early history, the ideas he baked into Reconstructionism, and the breadth of its influence on other movements like education and tax policy.
Sources and Reference Material
* Building God's Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction, by Julie Ingersoll
* Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism, by Michael Joseph McVicar
* Survival and Resistance in Evangelical America: Christian Reconstruction in the Pacific Northwest, by Crawford Gribben
* Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism, by Molly Worthen
* Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History, by Gillis J. Harp
* The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances Fitzgerald
* Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, by Kathryn Joyce
* “The Libertarian Theocrats: The Long, Strange History of R.J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstructionism,” by Michael J. McVicar in The Public Eye, Fall 2017.
* “Angry White Man: The bigoted past of Ron Paul,” by James Kirchick in The New Republic, 2008.
* “There’s Something About Gary,” by Declan McCullagh in Wired Magazine, 1999.
* “As a plague sweeps the land, zealots see a gift from heaven,” by Leah Sottile in High Country News, 2020.
Over the course of our series on End Times and Apocalypse narratives in the Christian Right, one name has come up over and over. Hal Lindsey’s breezy 1970 book The Late Great Planet Earth repackaged the broad strokes of Dispensationalist theology for the post-Woodstock world, framing Bible Prophecy as the more accurate version of popular “new age” pursuits like astrology and palm-reading — and the key to unlocking an increasingly frightening modern world.
In this episode we take a closer look at Lindsey’s book, the new elements it introduced to the Dispensationalist playbook, the effect its success had on both Christian fundamentalism and American pop culture… and the careful rhetorical games Lindsey plays to frame his idiosyncratic views as The Simple Truth of Scripture. We also answer questions from listeners about the evolution of “rapture media,” the Christian Right’s relationship to Israel, and more. If you have questions about this series — or additional subjects you’d like to see explored, jump into the comments here on Substack or reach out to us on Twitter!
Mentioned in this episode
* The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey
* The Late Great Planet Earth, film adaptation, narrated by Orson Welles
* Superchurch: The Rhetoric and Politics of American Fundamentalism, by Jonathan J. Edwards (Table of contents and summary)
* Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America, by Daniel Vaca
After two episodes of history and context, Kristin and Jeff tackle the movie that put Rapture Horror on the pop culture map: 1972’s A Thief In The Night. It’s short but packed with B-movie flourishes, Evangelical cultural ephemera, and fundamentalist political paranoia. Produced on a relatively slim $68,000 budget, it exploded in popularity and earned millions — primarily from donations collected when the film was shown in churches.
A Thief in The Night uses the broad strokes of Dispensationalist / Fundamentalist rapture beliefs as a narrative backdrop, but it’s not really about eschatology. (Over the top world-building and zany Antichrist antics come later, in its three less-impressive sequels.) Instead, this film leans into the themes of regret and isolation by following a small handful of characters who repeatedly hear Christians’ warnings about the End Times but respond in very different ways.
The Good One earnestly converts, the Bad One mocks both the Gospel and the Rapture warnings as pointless, and the Uncertain One — Patty — is the film’s central character. When the Rapture comes, Patty is left alone and terrified in a world that slides quickly into violent totalitarianism. Quickly as in… several days. United Nations World Government Dictators move fast, y’all.
Beyond its role as Fundamentalist cultural ephemera, A Thief In The Night can be understood in two ways. The political events in its fictional world are a window into Evangelical and Fundamentalist anxieties about communism, ecumenicalism, and the erosion of Christianity’s cultural dominance in American life. But structurally, the film’s message is a classic street-preacher question: “If you were hit by a bus, would you go to heaven or hell?” The backdrop of the Rapture — and the often-repeated idea it could happen at any moment — demands an immediate decision. Patty’s response is Fundamentalism’s ultimate cautionary tale: she’s unwilling to commit… so she’s left behind.
Mentioned in this episode
* A Thief In The Night, available to stream via IMDB TV and The Internet Archive
* “The Strange History of The Blob Movies,” by Ryan Lambie on DenOfGeek, with excerpts from Science Fiction Confidential: Interviews With Monster Stars & Filmmakers
* Apocamon: Final Judgement, the Pokemon-themed retelling of John’s Apocalypse
Apocalyptic narratives have shaped Christian tradition for millennia, but growing demand for “standardized” Christian reading materials at the turn of the 20th century turned End Times theology into big business. Jeff and Kristin follow the rise of the Christian publishing and media industry, zeroing in on key “crossover” hits that transformed Dispensationalist theology into a pop culture powerhouse.
Core Reading
* American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, by Matthew Avery Sutton
* Superchurch: The Rhetoric and Politics of American Fundamentalism, by Jonathan J. Edwards (Table of contents and summary)
* Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America, by Daniel Vaca
* What Would Jesus Read?: Popular Religious Books and Everyday Life in Twentieth-Century America, by Erin A. Smith
Selected Excerpts
By investing early in premillennialism and dispensationalism, the Revell Company not only presented its books as means by which Christians could acquire the certainty they sought but also championed the therapeutic orientation of consumer capitalism… Like other commercial publishers, Revell and its authors argued that their books offered the assistance that consumers needed. “The only motive inspiring this small volume,” Moody explained in the preface to his book Heaven: Where It Is, Its Inhabitants, and How to Get There (1880), “is that souls may be helped.” This sales pitch helped Revell sell nearly 90,000 copies of the book within four years. Although dispensationalist literature might seem less straightforwardly therapeutic than books about heaven and “how to get there,” both genres of books invited consumers from across the spectrum of denominational attachments to treat their consumption as a means of achieving relief from uncertainty.
From Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America, by Daniel Vaca
"Revell hit its stride with celebrity books, dating back to Dale Evans’s personal story Angel Aware (1953), about the death of her and husband Roy Rogers’s young daughter, and provocative titles such as Marabel Morgan’s Total Woman (1973), which suggested that housewives should greet their husbands wearing only Saran Wrap."
From “History of Revell Publishing”, by Cathy Lynn Grossman in Publishers Weekly, 2020
"The evangelical book industry flourished in the 1950s, organized by a new group called the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) to serve the growing number of Americans who identified with the Christianity of Billy Graham.
There were about 300 evangelical retail stores in 1950. That grew to about 700 in 1965, about 1,850 in 1975, then more than 3,000 in 1985. By the mid-1990s, there were more than 7,000 such bookstores across the country, and Christian retail was a $3 billion business."
From “The Christian Book Industry Had Another Rough Year. Here’s Why They Are Holding Out Hope for the Next Chapter,” by Daniel Silliman in Christianity Today, 2019
The Late Great Planet Earth was an incredibly successful “crossover” book—one of the first texts to bridge the divide between religious and secular audiences. After Lindsey’s book sold a half million copies, Bantam picked up the rights and released a mass-market edition. While the text for the Zondervan and Bantam editions was identical, the Bantam edition had a different cover—one explicitly modeled on Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, a popular speculative history of how aliens from outer space had visited earth in ancient times. The Bantam version was shelved with science fiction, and as Publishers Weekly noted, “next to books about the I Ching and Transcendental Meditation.”
“We are getting our books out there where the unbeliever action is,” trumpeted one evangelical publishing executive about these partnerships. Evangelical houses were happy about the larger audience for Biblical truth, and paperback publishers were thrilled to have the profits.
From “The Late Great Planet Earth Made the Apocalypse a Popular Concern”, by Erin A. Smith in Humanities, 2017
Works Mentioned
* If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do, directed by Ron Ormond, 1972, at The Internet Archive
* A Thief in the Night film series, directed by Russell S. Doughten Jr., at The Internet Archive
* The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey
* When Your Money Fails: the 666 system is here and The new Money System: 666, by Mary Stewart Relfe
* Mastermind, Earth King, Man Of Peace, and The Voice; by Michael Youssef
* The New World Order, by Pat Robertson, with critical reception.
* The Illuminati, by Larry Burkett
Additional Articles
* “Evangelicals Incorporated: An Interview with Daniel Vaca”, by John Turner in The Anxious Bench, 2020
* The Weird History Of Christian Apocalypse Movies, by Jesse Carey in RELEVANT Magazine, 2014
* “The End Is Always with Us: The 40th Anniversary of ‘A Thief in the Night’”, Amy Frykholm in Religion & Politics, 2012
* “Apocalypse now? Christian Rapture fiction and the end of the world”, by David Barnett in The Guardian, 2011
* “Believers, Sympathizers, and Skeptics: Why Americans are Conflicted about Climate Change, Environmental Policy, and Science”, Jones, Robert P., Daniel Cox, and Juhem Navarro-Rivera. PRRI. 2014.
* Review of QAnon and the Battle of Armageddon: Destroying the New World Order and Taking the Millennial Kingdom by Force, by Marc-André Argentino
The podcast currently has 17 episodes available.
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