I’ll eat up any sociological look at american evangelical culture. It is fascinating to be able to take a step back and look from the outside in at a subculture that I know myopically well.

I think Bowler did a good job of interviewing and including women from the various sub sub evangelical groups, like Black, Hispanic, and LGBTQ+ celeb women. The names I recognized are from white circles so it was interesting to learn about some of the differences and similarities.

As you might expect, celebrity evangelical women are highly influential for trend shaping, yes, but also for money making. They drive millions of dollars in women’s focused books, conferences, materials, and a more elusive to measure contribution to the perfect wife of a celebrity preacher, who would appear incomplete and untrustworthy without a woman tucked in the crook of his elbow. Their physical image and media presence, Bowler shows, is highly curated to walk the tightrope of aspirational yet not so perfect that they are unrelatable, modern and empowered yet always boasts her primary role is wife-mother-homemaker, stylish and trendy but modest, open and vulnerable but only publicly confesses easily forgivable sins (eg “doubting God” vs say, watching porn). In the end, their influence is borrowed from a male counterpart, like a father or husband, and if that connection is severed, their influence quickly dries up. Bowler makes the point well in the conclusion when she says that the time of women’s leadership has arrived, but the time of women’s leadership in theology hasn’t.