Act Like Men: Social Engagement and Evangelical Masculinity

Abstract

This article contributes to ongoing public and scholarly debates about evangelical social engagement in the United States. I illustrate that, for some conservative evangelical men, activism is fused to the cultural construction of masculinity. My central argument is that, despite becoming invested in ‘new’ acts of social engagement, these conservative evangelicals continue to rely on a familiar cultural script that uses individualist logics, rather than structural logics, to address social problems. My primary example is a relatively recent men’s movement, Acts29, and its commitment to anti-human trafficking campaigns. This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork and textual data collected between January 2009 and March 2011.