The Culture Wars and Beyond: New Offerings in Religion and Sexuality

On June 26, 2015 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its findings for Obergefell v. Hodges, supporters of same-sex marriage celebrated a historic victory. The voices of dissent, mostly religious conservatives, had failed to sway the court by their argument that allowing same-sex marriage would diminish the meaning and purpose of the institution and threaten the wellbeing of the nation. The court majority recognized that same-sex marriage was not inherently a progressive cultural change but rather a reinforcing of the standards and stipulations of the marriage agreement. Therefore, without having to relinquish the ideal that "marriage is the keystone of the Nation's social order," the court acknowledged the essential similarities between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage.¹

Not surprisingly, two of the most recent scholarly contributions to religion and sexuality in the United States begin with a recounting of the Obergefell case, noting it as a flashpoint for both religious traditionalists and progressives. Like the Obergefell case, the history of religion and sexuality in the United States is not a simple trajectory from tradition to progress, repression to liberation. The outcome of the Obergefell case was striking not because it changed the legal definition or practice of marriage, which it did not. Rather, Obergefell demonstrated that sexual progress could emerge by embracing, not rejecting, sexual traditionalism.

Marie Griffith's much-anticipated, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics, is framed around the tensions between progressives and traditionalists. She recognizes that even as the courts and academics understand the coordinating relationship between the two parties, popular and political discourses are severely restricted by a culture-war mentality. A concept first introduced by James Davidson Hunter, the culture wars describe a stalemate between liberals and conservatives in which each views threats to their moral and social order as a threat to personal and national well-being.

In the late 1970s, fundamentalist religious coalitions such as the Moral Majority stoked these fears by asserting a seeming affinity between the political conservatism Republican party and the religious conservatism of white, evangelical Christians. For many of us growing up in the early 1980s, being Christian meant voting Republican and voting Republican meant voting against abortion, gay rights, and condoms. For decades, evangelical Christians in particular have shaped their faith around this constellation of moral issues, many choosing to vote for Donald J. Trump because, according to Griffith, "the election showcased such a clash of worldviews that Trump got the same sort of conservative Christian support that had traditionally been bestowed upon much more conventional Christian candidates" (p. 318). Evangelical support for Trump makes sense in the context of Griffith's argument, because his election was about maintaining a particular moral order in which women's power was circumscribed by gender traditionalism.

The warring factions in Griffith's analysis originated in response to women's political advances. Starting in the early twentieth century with women's suffrage, debates over women's public and political role cemented a rift that would forge a two-party system of American Christianity in which Protestant traditionalists and progressives vied for dominance. For traditionalists, women's suffrage indicated the failure of a nation to properly recognize the value of motherhood. Women's rights advocates understood the cultural currency of motherhood and utilized its moral rhetoric to support their claims to increased political power. They asserted a moral authority based on their ability to reproduce, children, yes, but also and more importantly a progressively strong civilization. Traditionalists were not convinced and became alarmed at declining birth rates, later age of marriage, and increased education for women, insisting that women's rights were achieved in direct opposition to women's God-given task of motherhood.

In both the traditionalist and the progressive view, white...