SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE AND INTERNALIZED SEXUAL PREJUDICE: PERFORMING MASCULINITY AT THE SUMMIT CHURCH

My thesis explores and analyzes the interwoven relationship between constructions of gender and sexuality, and how ideologies around gender difference function among some conservative evangelicals in the United States. I utilize theoretical concepts from Raewyn Connell, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu to identify and examine particular practices evident at the Summit Church in Durham, NC. I theorize how collective beliefs become embodied by church participants. I explain how gender and sexuality are socially constructed, reproduced, and constrained through repeated practices associated with masculinity and femininity. Specifically, I analyze how the practices of preaching, biblical interpretation, prayer, and exclusion form a hostile social environment for sexual minorities. Patriarchal notions of gender, and specifically conservative Christian manhood, are practiced by members and leaders at the Summit, in part through the categorical stigmatization of gays. Individuals at the church may understand their specific beliefs in terms of faithful obedience to God, and a demonstration of God’s love, but they often fail to recognize the harmful effects of their discourse. Overall, I argue that the various collective practices which reproduce and legitimate an anti-gay discourse in churches like the Summit, are often embodied by sexual minority individuals within the social environment, and cause serious negative effects related to their mental health and physical well-being.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Martin, Chase Eugene

• evangelical

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/82215

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/82215