Gender Marital Roles in an Ecumenical, Covenant, and Charismatic Christian Community

Marital gender roles and  religion continue to capture the landscape of much sociological research in families. A significant amount of research has emerged in investigating the Promise Keepers movement whose primary locus is in Evangelical-American Christianity. Much of the critique of the movement focuses on language such as: "the last gap of patriarchy," the "first backlash of patriarchy," "soft-boiled masculinity, "sphere of anti-feminist backlash,' "hegemonic masculinity," "an essentionalist retreat from progressive gender relationships," and the Promise Keepers  representing the centrality of the political within the family.

            Against this backdrop, this paper presents empirical evidence from a 350 member Ecumenical[1], Covenant[2],  Charismatic[3] community named "Alleluia" in Augusta, Georgia, USA. Husbands are expected to lead, protect and provide for their wives and children. They are called to be leaders in their marriages and could be seen to reflect the images portrayed above in regard to the Promise Keepers. However, with data based on interviews from  randomly selected cases (36) and 300 members of 350 who provided quantitative information, a very different story of leadership is presented.

            The husbands model their leadership on a kenotic style of headship. This consists of leadership which is humble, empty of self-interest, sacrificial love (agape), a detachment from status privilege, gentle, meek, kind and self-effacing. They are to love their wives as "Jesus loves the Church," and wives are to respect their husbands.

            From the interviews, both of men and women, this was the common story. Regression analysis of measures of gender roles shows significant correlations with a wide variety of measures of religion.

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[1]  A Community of various Christian denominations.

[2] This refers to the kind of community wherein members make a life-time vow to live the Christian life in close and intimate relationships with one another.

[3] A Community which uses the charismatic gifts

See more of: RC06 Roundtable I. Global Changes in Families: Implications for Family Processes, Cohesion, and Identity Formation
See more of: RC06 Family Research
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