White Women Who Lead: God, Girlfriends, and Diversity Projects in a National Evangelical Ministry

Abstract

A robust body of literature has used feminist analysis to study white evangelical women in the United States, but few of these studies have addressed the reproduction of racial inequality. Beginning with the assumption that women-led evangelical ministries are racialized organizations, the authors examine the relationship between racial and gender ideologies and the messages of white evangelical women leaders at the IF:Gathering, a popular annual Christian women’s conference in the United States. On the surface, the women who lead IF embody a contradiction: they support the conservative gender ideology of evangelicalism while challenging this religious tradition by encouraging all Christian women, regardless of race, to act as leaders within their communities. However, the authors’ in-depth content analysis of live-streamed and video-recorded conference sessions reveals that the mostly white speakers at IF use race to credential their leadership. Speakers draw from a mixture of racial and gender ideologies to stress the importance of telling diverse “girlfriends” about Jesus and rescuing women of color “in the trenches” (those who are from the global South or living in U.S. cities) from poverty or sexual exploitation. The findings reveal how potentially progressive and empowering messages at a women-led evangelical organization limit the definition and scope of women’s leadership and reinforce the white patriarchal status quo.

Pela Gandong local wisdom as multicultural education model after the Ambon Conflict

“…For example, the Sambas conflict, the Poso conflict, the Sampit conflict, the Bloody Wamena and others, but the Ambon conflict is the biggest and most destructive. Diversity is a gift that has been given by God and is grateful for (Dietrich, 2018;Burke & McDowell, 2021). But at the same time, if there is no management of diversity management, then the gift turns into a bloody conflict, and a terrible event; never thought it would happen.…”

A Girl Defined by God: Biblical Womanhood, Anti-Feminism, and White Evangelical Microcelebrities

“…Research on Evangelical white women in the US has explored their reactionary relationship to two secular forces: anti-racism and feminism. Many scholars have focused on the ways that Evangelical women mobilize their whiteness to bolster their authority (Mikkelsen andKornfield 2021, Burke andMcDowell 2021) and express conflicted responses to feminism, which often functions as an ideological stand-in for a range of progressive movements (Diefendorf 2019). Further, given the constraints of women's authority within gender-traditional religions like Evangelicalism (Burke 2012), women's use of social media to engage in ministry can deepen existing crises of Biblical authority (Gaddini 2021, Laughlin 2021.…”

“Too Much to Hope”: Analyzing Clergy Rhetoric on White Supremacy

“…To better understand the mechanisms linking religion with racial ideologies, we can shift our focus to the level of religious organizations and the clergy who lead them. Racial ideologies exist within particular contexts, so organizations play a key role in amplifying and adapting existing ideologies (Burke and McDowell 2021;Doane 2017;Ray 2019). Clergy discuss racial issues from the pulpit (Brown, Brown, and Jackson 2021;Djupe and Gilbert 2003;Guth et al 1997), but we know little about what they say within those messages.…”