Poor socialization, zealous religious conditioning, and puritanic sexual repression in the family culminate in guilt, bodily shame, and inappropriate sexual conduct.
Susanna Vas
With over 2.3 billion members, Christianity is the largest religion in the world. What we portray as a single religion actually comprises around 45,000 denominations with various theological, moral, social, political, and ethical views. Even within denominations, there are individuals and groups who—on account of their stances on matters in the aforementioned categories—fall under the umbrellas of conservatism, conservative liberalism, liberal conservatism, or liberalism.
Some wear these labels as a badge of honor and others resist them altogether. Both choices are understandable. In our times when usernames on social media are judge and jury, identifying as conservative or liberal will invite unpredictable reactions and responses. You may attract a warm, like-minded following or a belligerent bunch of hostiles.
Casual research on gender in the Bible led me down a rabbit hole of conservative Christian social media. Perusing these accounts, I identified some recurrent views and themes which I have enumerated below.
Pro-patriarchy
Conservatives like Larry Solomon of Biblical Gender Roles (BGR) and Biblical Sexology acclaim patriarchy as a virtue, deeming it God’s design for humanity. They summarily reject feminism, humanism, egalitarianism, and complementarianism. They advocate traditional gender roles and encourage demeaning perceptions of women. The woman’s foremost purpose is to submit her body, mind, and will to her male head. Therefore, it is acceptable to view women as “doormats”. Most concerning is Solomon’s justification of child marriage for girls because they are fertile, fit, and moldable.
BGR and Christian Domestic Discipline (CDD) regard the Bible as a sex manual rather than sacred scripture. Instead of conforming their views to the scriptures, they contort scriptures to conform to crude, carnal interpretations. Therefore, they have handy exonerations—drawn abundantly from the Old Testament and the Pauline corpus—for objectification, disempowerment, marital rape, and domestic corporal punishment.
Solomon has expanded and monetized his “ministry” through paid podcasts and matchmaking services. BGR, CDD, The Traditional Mother (Paulina Prieto), and the now-defunct YogiOabs (Avinash Saha) are arguably misleading their followers by using the Bible to rationalize fetishes and fantasies of dominance and submission.
Traditional Latin Mass Apologism
This subject is particular to Roman Catholic Christianity. In a historic move, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) legitimized the Novus Ordo (NO), an abbreviated and vernacularized Traditional Latin (TLM) or Tridentine rite. For the most part, the NO moves with the currents of modernity, allowing contemporary worship music, relaxed dress codes, female altar servers, and increased laity participation. Critics of the NO regret the watering down of the majestic TLM rite and the vulgarization of the mass. Fr. Casey Cole OFM delicately reminded Catholics that they shouldn’t be worshipping the liturgy, but rather what it signifies.
The Religious Hippie (Amber Rose Schneider) argues that altar service should be reserved for boys who want to discern their vocation to the priesthood. According to her, the presence of girls—who “will never become priests”—on the altar is distracting to young, hormonal boys. The Gospels expose the fallacy of this argument. Before it was socially acceptable, the unmarried Jesus kept company with women. His male apostles were present during the symbolic sacrifice (The Last Supper), but women—the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Veronica, the women of Jerusalem, and Mary the wife of Clopas—notably accompanied Him during the actual sacrifice (the Passion).
The critics also invoke the merits of Latin. Although a dead language, it is immortal and incorruptible. As living languages are constantly in flux, words and their meanings multiply, and not always gracefully. Moreover, discontinuing the TLM supposedly disconnects us from our heritage and perfect communion with the saints who attended it. None of these are airtight arguments as Christ did not institute a sacred language nor did he speak to people in foreign words. Even when the apostles received the gift of tongues, the crowds heard their message in their own languages.
I’ll reluctantly admit that very few contemporary hymns can hold a candle to the pre-recording-industry classics (“Abide With Me”, “Amazing Grace”, “Lead, Kindly Light”, etc.), let alone the Gregorian chants (“Miserere Mei”, “Pange, Lingua Gloriosi”, “Dies Irae”, etc.). Musical, vocal, and lyrical virtuosity has arguably been replaced with four-chord melodies, mundane lyrics, and juvenile rhymes. Although deemed irreverent, commercial, and disposable, modern gospel music combats elitism by encouraging personal expression, engagement with the spiritual, and community participation, especially among youth.
Modesty
Modesty is a slippery concept because there’s no one-size-fits-all definition.
Most conservative Christians address modesty in terms of gender appropriateness and body coverage. TLM Catholics consider their mass more reverent because of the dress code where sloppy, sleazy, and desirable dressing is discouraged. Women wear dresses or skirts with veils while men wear crisp formals or casuals.
BGR reckons women should curate their wardrobes and customize their appearances according to their husbands' preferences. Larry Solomon asserts that modesty is about “appropriateness” rather than coverage. By this logic, a swimsuit is immodest inside a church but modest at a beach.
Conservatives encourage veiling following 1 Corinthians 11, but for different reasons. The Religious Hippie, Megan McKinney, and A Catholic Wife (Deena Barca) veil out of reverence for the Eucharist, in imitation of Marian modesty, and because sacred religious objects like the monstrance and the altar are, in a sense, veiled. Lindsay Kirkland from Tiny Notes of Home veils out of respect for herself and her husband. Larry Solomon and A Traditional Mother believe women should veil to remind themselves that, unlike men, they have a human head (their father or husband) above them.
Christianity is the only Abrahamic/major religion to impose head-coverings on women but not men. Jewish men wear the kippah, Muslim men wear the taqiyah, Zoroastrian men wear the topee, and Sikh men wear the dastar.
Instead of spelling out dress codes, dietary laws, and language rules, Christ made room for believers to exercise their moderation and discretion with regard to these matters. Whether the Pauline corpus is dogma or commentary will remain a central conflict between conservatives and liberals.
Quiverfull Family Modeling
This philosophy is inspired by Psalm 127:3–5. These verses compare an abundance of children in the home to a quiver full of arrows. Even so, not every large Christian household espouses Quiverfull beliefs.
Quiverfull adherents are archaic patriarchal cultists who take “Be fruitful and multiply” to extremes. The parents shun birth control and family planning and produce more children than they can reasonably provide and care for. Unsustainable living conditions could put such families in the crosshairs of social services. The parents usually live remotely in conservative communities to keep their families intact. They practice homeschooling as they distrust the public school system and its “immoral” indoctrinations. Instead of warding off the evils of schools and society, their domestic milieu ends up breeding them.
Poor socialization, zealous religious conditioning, and puritanic sexual repression in the family culminate in guilt, bodily shame, and inappropriate sexual conduct. The Duggar family—who ineffectively claim they are not Quiverfulls—went from beloved to notorious when Josh, the oldest child, was accused of molesting four of his sisters and five other girls. Quiverfull fundamentalists blame the female victims instead of holding the male abusers accountable.
Republicanism
In the USA, Republicanism is the B-side of Christian conservatism. Conservative Republican Christians are notable for their jingoism.
Camille and Haley Harris uploaded an election campaign song called “That’s Why America Loves President Trump” in November 2020. The lyrics commend Trump for supporting “religion, speech, and guns” and “building that wall” at the US-Mexico border. Guns complete the machismo ideal: the hunter, the protector, the defender.
There is a lack of remorse for historical atrocities like attempted indigenous genocide and slave trading. Larry Solomon, in his side project, Biblicist Nationalist, urges white Americans to be proud of their ancestors for Christianizing the country, albeit through political violence. To paraphrase him, wars happen all the time in the Bible. Someone wins and someone loses. The loser lives under the sway of the victor.
Republican Christian social media also evinced resistance to pandemic protocols and trivialization of COVID-19 through anti-vax propaganda, conspiracy theories on microchip implantation, and unfounded accusations against Biden and the Democrats for fear-mongering and brainwashing.
Their modus operandi is to ruffle the liberals by condemning what they support and supporting what they condemn. If a liberal says black lives matter, a conservative retorts that all lives matter. If a liberal supports Palestine, a conservative supports Israel because Israel was Yahweh’s pet. If a liberal is pro-choice, a conservative is pro-life. If a liberal supports sexual freedom, a conservative endorses purity culture. If a liberal accepts non-heteronormativity, a conservative unleashes fire-and-brimstone posts and hashtags.
Conclusion
No two believers believe alike, yet on Sundays, we (Catholics) say, “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Sometimes with conviction, sometimes with skepticism, sometimes with amusement, sometimes out of habit.
Susanna Vas is a 23-year-old Literature postgraduate with a restless curiosity about all things Christian.
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