Background

A significant body of research has established the central role of religion in creating and preserving cultural beliefs about gender. But existing studies have tended to focus more on the multiplicity and flexibility of religious beliefs about gender, and less on the ways in which the cultural production of varying religious beliefs about gender can involve active conflict. Attending to the institutional processes that shape the production of competing beliefs is important for considering how religion can challenge or enshrine patriarchy.

Purpose

This paper examines how religiously formed beliefs about gender are produced through organizational conflict to shape varying public responses to survivors of domestic violence.

Methods

The paper employs a qualitative, comparative research design to analyze the public discourse of two evangelical organizations that were founded to produce and promote two competing gender ideologies in the contemporary evangelical movement: complementarianism and egalitarianism. Analyzing the public discourse of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Christians for Biblical Equality from 1987 to 2018, I coded for the ways in which both their beliefs about creation, sin, and submission and their references to one another’s ideologies shape their different attention to abused women’s experiences.

Results

Christians for Biblical Equality both presents domestic violence as a distortion of God-ordained equality and critiques patriarchal theology for contributing to domestic violence. The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood both presents domestic violence as a distortion of God-ordained male authority and defends their ideology against criticisms that it promotes abuse. This intersection of beliefs and organizational conflict results in either centering or pivoting away from abused women’s experiences.

Conclusions and Implications

This study illustrates the importance of examining how the institutional processes that produce hegemonic and alternative religious belief systems about gender are marked by the negotiation of both organizational and gendered power. In making this argument, the paper contributes to our understanding of how religiously formed cultural belief systems can challenge or reinforce patriarchy.

中文翻译：

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福音派组织对家庭暴力的回应：宗教信仰的文化生产如何挑战或尊崇父权制

背景

大量研究确定了宗教在创造和维护有关性别的文化信仰方面的核心作用。但现有的研究倾向于更多地关注关于性别的宗教信仰的多样性和灵活性，而不是关于不同宗教信仰的文化生产可能涉及积极冲突的方式。关注形成相互竞争的信仰的制度过程对于考虑宗教如何挑战或供奉父权制很重要。

目的

本文研究了宗教上形成的性别信仰是如何通过组织冲突产生的，以形成对家庭暴力幸存者的不同公众反应。

方法

本文采用定性的比较研究设计来分析两个福音派组织的公共话语，这些组织的成立是为了在当代福音派运动中产生和促进两种相互竞争的性别意识形态：互补主义和平等主义。分析了 1987 年至 2018 年圣经男女和基督徒促进圣经平等委员会的公开话语，我编码了他们对创造、罪恶和顺服的信仰以及他们对彼此意识形态的引用塑造他们不同关注点的方式虐待妇女的经历。

结果

支持圣经平等的基督徒都将家庭暴力描述为对上帝所命定平等的扭曲，并批评父权神学助长了家庭暴力。圣经男性和女性委员会都将家庭暴力描述为对上帝命定的男性权威的扭曲，并为他们的意识形态辩护，反对批评它促进虐待。这种信仰和组织冲突的交叉导致集中或远离受虐待女性的经历。

结论和启示

这项研究说明了研究产生霸权和替代性宗教信仰体系的制度过程如何以组织权力和性别权力的协商为标志的重要性。在提出这一论点时，本文有助于我们理解宗教形成的文化信仰体系如何挑战或加强父权制。