Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life provides a sociological and historical analysis of gender, family, and work among evangelical Protestants. In this innovative study, Sally Gallagher traces two lines of gender ideals—one of husbands’ authority and leadership, the other of mutuality and partnership in marriage—from the Puritans to the Promise Keepers into the lives of ordinary evangelicals today.  Rather than simply reacting against or accommodating themselves to “secular society,” Gallagher argues that both traditional and egalitarian evangelicals draw on longstanding beliefs about gender, human nature, and the person of God.

Preface
Part I Evangelical Ideals -
Evangelical Family Values in Social Discourse
A History of Mutuality and Gender Hierarchy
Twentieth-Century Evangelical Ideals
Part II Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism Faith and Family -
Spiritual Leadership and Decision Making
Dividing the Labor of Parenting and Housework
Employment and the Needs of Children
Part III Understanding Evangelical Identity, Gender, and Family -
What Would Be Lost If Evangelicals Abandoned the Notion of Husbands' Headship?
History, Community, and Identity: Tools and Truths in the Evangelical Tool Kit
Appendix A: Research Methods
Appendix B: Tables
Appendix C: Excursus into Exegesis: Essentialist and Biblical Feminist Interpretations of Key Biblical Texts
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sally Gallagher is an associate professor of sociology at Oregon State University and the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for fieldwork on families in Damascus, Syria.