Table Of Content

The Holy Vote Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 1 07/10/22 3:36 PM Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 2 07/10/22 3:36 PM The Holy Vote Inequality and Anxiety among White Evangelicals Sarah Diefendorf university of california press Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 3 07/10/22 3:36 PM University of California Press Oakland, California © 2023 by Sarah Diefendorf Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Diefendorf, Sarah H., author. Title: The holy vote : inequality and anxiety among white evangelicals / Sarah Diefendorf. Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2022020935 (print) | lccn 2022020936 (ebook) | isbn 9780520355590 (cloth) | isbn 9780520355606 (paperback) | isbn 9780520975958 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Evangelicalism—United States— History—21st century. | Equality—United States. | Equality—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Anxiety— United States. | Anxiety—Religious aspects— Christianity. | Christians, White—United States— History—21st century. | Christianity and politics— United States—History—21st century. Classification: lcc br1642.u5 d54 2023 (print) | lcc br1642.u5 (ebook) | ddc 277.308/3—dc23/ eng/20220906 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020935 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022020936 Manufactured in the United States of America 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 4 07/10/22 3:36 PM Contents Acknowledgments vii 1. Good and Godly in Trump’s America 1 2. The Fear of Religious and Cultural Decline 23 3. The Imagined Secular: Confronting Feminism, Gender, and Family Life 46 4. White Evangelicals: Emotion Work and Racial Inequality 78 5. Sacred Sex: Marriage and Heterosexuality 107 6. We Aren’t the Extremists: Same-Sex Marriage and Changing Ideas of Sin 137 7. Enduring Inequalities in Unsettled Times 168 Appendix A: Navigating Prayer, Positionality, and Institutional Review 179 Appendix B: Participant Overview 193 Notes 195 References 203 Index 223 Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 5 07/10/22 3:36 PM Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 6 07/10/22 3:36 PM Acknowledgments I’ve read many book acknowledgments that begin with a similar senti- ment: book writing is anything but an individual process. I always thought this start was a bit trite, but then I tried to write a book. It turns out there is a very good reason why so many begin this process of thanks in a similar way. While we might have a cultural image of book writing as an isolating experience, perhaps locked in an office with a desk piled high with papers and a refusal to interact with the outside world, for me, at least, and indeed it seems many others, that was just not how this process played out. This was and is a gift. As an ethnographer in a career path dictated by research, and a form of research that can often feel quite isolating due to the sheer number of hours in the field and the ethical obligations that require many details of the realities of fieldwork to remain in the head of the researcher, writing this book brought me back into the community that makes me most animated about the profession of sociology. One of the greatest joys of writing this book was working with those whose presence in my life made it possible. I would first like to thank Naomi Schneider, my editor, who reached out to me about this work in its infancy. Thank you, and the team at UC Press, including Summer Farah and Stephanie Summerhays, for see- ing its potential and ushering this process along so smoothly. Material in this book appeared previously in 2019 as “Evangelical Responses to Feminism and the Imagined Secular” in Signs: Journal of vii Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 7 07/10/22 3:36 PM viii | Acknowledgments Women in Culture and Society 44 (4): 1003–26. Chapter 3 of this book is derivative of this original publication in Signs. This book manuscript began as my doctoral dissertation research. I am deeply grateful to my dissertation committee for their support of this work from day one: Sarah Quinn, Julie Brines, Judy Howard, Shirley Yee, and CJ Pascoe. Thank you for your encouragement, humor, and deep commitment to supporting feminist scholarship. The research that informs this book was generously supported with funding from the Herbert Costner Distinguished Graduate Student Paper Award, the American Sociological Association Martin P. Levine Memorial Dissertation Award, the Pepper Schwartz Endowed Fellow- ship in Sexuality and Relationships, and the University of Washington Presidential Dissertation Fellowship. This funding, in part, allowed me the privilege of working with Dan- ielle Nichols and Lilla King, who were remarkable research assistants while undergraduates at UW. Thank you for your contributions to this work. I am grateful to the rest of my community at the University of Wash- ington that supported this work. To Annie McGlynn-Wright, Patrick Denice, Marco Brydolf-Horwitz, Emily Gade, Victoria Sass, and Steve Karceski, thank you for your support, listening ears, and feedback, which ushered this project through its final dissertation stages; to my lovely cohort mates Ande Reisman, Jenni Branstad, Nicole Kravitz- Wirtz, Angela Bruns, and Kerice Doten; department encouragement from Heather Evans, Hedy Lee, Alexes Harris, Kate Stovel, Becky Pet- tit, Aimée Dechter, Susan Pitchford, Pepper Schwartz, Emily Knaphus- Soran, Erin Carll, and, last but not least, the UW Gender Group, par- ticularly Christina Hughes, Annie, Angela, Daiki Hiramori, and Connor Gilroy. Cheers to making and sustaining the community we needed. As I began the task of turning a dissertation into a book manuscript, I benefited greatly from the support of my writing group. Thank you to Melanie Heath, Caity Collins, and CJ Pascoe for your feedback on these chapters. I am so grateful for the online community we created and maintained as we wrote books in various stages at the same time. Your insights are all over these pages. In addition, I am thankful to the organizers and those in attendance at the University of Utah Political Science Colloquium, the University of Texas at Austin Ethnography Lab, the UT Austin Inequality Working Group, and Fem(me) Sem. Special thanks to Jim Curry, Becky Pettit, and Jennifer Glass for your organizing, support, and feedback. Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 8 07/10/22 3:36 PM Acknowledgments | ix My postdoctoral fellowship with the Scholars Strategy Network pro- vided me with the time and funding to think through much of this manuscript. And as it entered its first full drafts, I benefited tremendously from the thinking of some of my favorite scholars of religion: Lynne Gerber, Dawne Moon, Gerardo Marti, and Gail Murphy-Geiss. To my wonderful family, given and chosen, that checked in and supported me throughout this entire process, from the early days of fieldwork to the final book edits: Bob Diefendorf, Anne Diefendorf, Jenn Bégon, Manny Bégon, Diane Adair McDonald, Megan Sheppard, Kristen Veiga McVaugh, Morissa Henn, Jamie Henn, Michael Staley, Brayden Jensen, Nicki Dunnavant, Amy Juneau, Alex Reisman, Erica Reisman, Robin Reisman, Howard Reisman, and Ahmmad Brown. Thank you all for your love. Bowman Dickson: thank you for the hours you spent, listening intently as I verbalized this entire book outline to you while we were deep in the Grand Teton wilderness. Your reflections and creativity meant the world, and this book title is all yours. Diane and Jenn: I am so glad I am not the only book writer in the family. Thank you for your time, edits, and advice on craft. To Spencer, Parker, and Emerson: thank you for the laughter, silliness, and our weekly trips to Hogwarts and Wildwood. You remind me daily what is important. CJ, we talked each other through the figurative up- and down-hills of fieldwork, writing, and life, as well the literal ones; grateful for those long runs, and for what we joke is near- constant communication but for us is just our friendship. To my partner, Ande. Thank you for your patience, emotional support, commitment to read drafts or listen to my ideas after long days of work, your unwavering confidence in my ability to see this project through, and the countless ways you took care of us and our home so that I had the time to write. Finally, I remain grateful to everyone at Lakeview Church who was willing to share their world, experiences, fears, and vulnerabilities with an outsider. I hope we can all grow and learn together for a more just world in the years ahead. Diefendorf-The Holy Vote.indd 9 07/10/22 3:36 PM