Domestic Security: Defending the Evangelical Home in the Southern California Sunbelt

Abstract

Historians have been eager to trace the roots of “family values” discourse as a political phenomenon linked to the rise of the Religious Right. But the sacralisation of the Christian family deserves attention in its own right as a cultural phenomenon. Southern California provides an obvious case study, as religious conservatism and a growing military‐industrial presence intersected there in the postwar era. A case study of this region also illumines larger trends, since the national experience and the Californian experience converged in this period. A popular set of 1950s advice booklets by Bible Institute of Los Angeles (Biola) Vice President William W. Orr provides crucial understanding of evangelical efforts to provide foolproof methods for enacting God’s design for family security. Evangelical visions of family order did occasionally represent real rifts with postwar mainstream culture. But more often, oppositional rhetoric served to symbolically preserve evangelicals’ distinctive identity even when cultural trends were largely consonant with their own. Their assumptions about gender, emphasis on sexual fulfilment within marriage, and guidelines on the roles of husbands and fathers, ostensibly grounded in timeless biblical principles, were deeply indebted to mainstream values of companionate marriage and affectionate parenting.

Making a Home, Keeping God Close

“…Neumann (2019) scrutinized a popular series of 1950s booklets by Biola, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, penned by its vice president, William W. Orr. Neumann posits that Orr portrayed his mission as a battle against a secular culture believed to be in opposition to "family values," a battle Orr deemed necessary even if the culture refused to fight back (Neumann, 2019). In this vein, the Cold War significantly influenced the sanctification of the family.…”

“…In this vein, the Cold War significantly influenced the sanctification of the family. Many Americans longed for a psychological fortress in the face of global upheaval, their own little slice of heaven on Earth amid the chaos (see also May, 1988). The stark Cold War rhetoric, portraying a conflict between two opposing forces, contributed to the creation of oppositional language, thereby symbolically preserving evangelicals' distinct identity.…”