SOCI 101: Introduction to Sociology—A Peer Review of Teaching Portfolio

This benchmark portfolio targets the Spring 2018 semester of SOCI 101: Introduction to Sociology, a large-enrollment course that combines lecture and recitation classes. It describes course objectives (my goals for the course); an overview of course content and a description of the students enrolled (the target audience); teaching methods (assignments and classroom activities); and assessment of student learning (analyzing quantitative and qualitative data of student performance). In order to evaluate course objectives and their relationship to teaching methods and student learning, I collected data from student feedback following each exam (a post-exam questionnaire). I then compared this feedback with assignment grades in order to understand broad patterns on the relationship between lecture and recitation attendance and student demonstration of course objectives. I also analyzed a series of student writing assignments to qualitatively assess different student trajectories and the scaffolding of writing assignments to help students demonstrate course objectives. The portfolio concludes with a summary and list of planned changes for the future

Christian sex advice websites offer a peek into evangelical politics

On May 4, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allows churches and religious leaders to explicitly endorse or oppose a political candidate without penalty to their nonprofit, tax-exempt status. Responses from white conservative evangelicals showed that this wasn’t what they were looking for.What they wanted, it seems, was legal protection for religious institutions and business owners to deny services to samesex couples and transgender persons. I am a sociologist studying contemporary evangelicalism and sexuality, and my research shows that the political beliefs of white evangelicals have deftly shifted from the bully pulpits of the Moral Majority in the 1980s to cultural messages that appear hip and modern. In particular, Christian sex advice caught my attention because it showcases how evangelicals can hold beliefs that are simultaneously pro- and anti-sex

What makes a man: Gender and sexual boundaries on evangelical Christian sexuality websites

This article examines how some evangelical Christian men create alternative meanings associated with gender-deviant sex in order to justify it within an evangelical framework. The author shows how Christian sexuality website users construct gender omniscience—a spouse and God’s all-knowing certainty about one’s ‘‘true’’ gender identity—to reconcile men’s interests in non-normative sex with their status as Christian patriarchs. By constructing gender as relational and spiritual, they simultaneously normalize their behaviors while condemning others who participate in similar acts but fail to meet the requirements of gender omniscience. Challenging common assumptions about evangelical sexuality, this article offers insights into the intersection of heterosexuality, masculinities, and religion

Book Review: \u3ci\u3eMaking Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns,\u3c/i\u3e by Christine J. Gardner

Evangelical messages about adolescent sexuality appear straight-forward: unless they are married (and heterosexual), teens should not have sex. However, as communications scholar Christine J. Gardner shows in her book, Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns, how evangelicals go about promoting abstinence is both complicated and unexpected. Gardner focuses on how social meanings about religion and sexuality are constructed in evangelical abstinence campaign by examining the rhetoric of three U.S. campaigns (the primary focus of the book) and one African campaign. One of her most surprising findings—and the one for which the book’s title is based—is that U.S. evangelicals use sex in order to sell abstinence. Instead of stressing that unmarried teens should not have sex, these campaigns emphasize that great sex awaits them in marriage. Sex in marriage is both the “goal” and “reward” (48) of teenage abstinence. Gardner argues that this approach problematically makes the message of evangelical abstinence campaigns all about eventual self-fulfillment that campaigns cannot actually guarantee, rather than religious qualities like sacrifice or suffering. ... Making Chastity Sexy offers a convincing critique of U.S. evangelicals who use secular means (an emphasis on individual satisfaction) in order to promote a religious message (abstinence before marriage). Not all readers will agree with Gardner’s prescription that campaigns should return to their religious roots and promote qualities of “pious living,” like sacrifice and suffering (196) or with her argument that teenagers will find the message of piety as convincing as (and ultimately more realistic and rewarding than) the message of good sex in marriage. Nonetheless, this book is well argued and will appeal to a broad audience. For an undergraduate course, Gardner’s work is highly readable and offers a way to discuss the cultural specificity of religious messages by comparing evangelical Christianity in the United States and Africa. For advanced scholars, Gardner provides an excellent qualitative examination of how religious persons make sense of their sexuality within contemporary society

Why the Christian right opposes porngraphy but still supports Trump

Many commentators have pointed out the hypocrisy of Christian leaders who claim a moral high ground while supporting President Donald Trump. The latest scandal involving an alleged extramarital affair with pornographic film star Stormy Daniels proves no exception. The Christian right that supports Trump has found ways to justify their support of the president, for example, with analogies of how God used King David, a man with personal flaws, for the greater good of the country. All the while, however, evangelical leaders remain definitively opposed to pornography. In the words of an evangelical celebrity and outspoken opponent of pornography, Josh McDowell, it is “probably the greatest problem or threat to the Christian faith in the history of the world.

Book review: Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews, by Lynn Davidman.

Lynn Davidman begins Becoming Un- Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews with a powerful story from her own life. She, like the respondents whose interviews provide the data for the book, chose to leave the Hasidic Jewish community in which she was raised. Davidman uses her own story and the stories of others to shine a light on an understudied religious community. In doing so, she richly illustrates a complex definition of what religion is: a combination of shared rituals and embodied practices, in addition to prescribed beliefs. This is why leaving religion involves more than losing faith. As Davidman argues, leaving ultra- Orthodox Judaism requires significant bodily transformations that affect the mundane and day-to-day (like getting dressed or preparing a meal) as much as life’s monumental occasions (like a wedding or birth of a child). If the book’s rich descriptions are its strength, a lack of sociological theory is a weakness. Davidman engages with Goffman’s concepts of performativity and front/ back stage as well as concepts coined by Durkheim related to ritual and ‘‘collective effervescence’’ to interpret the narratives presented in her book but does little to extrapolate this analysis to broader implications for sociology. For scholars who do not share an interest in Orthodox Jewish communities, they would have to make connections themselves to common themes among other kinds of ‘‘defectors.’’ One attempt at these connections was Davidman’s persistent analogy to LGBTQ coming-out stories, but I found this to be superficial and distracting given the clinical and outdated description she presents. One area where I wish she would have developed a theoretical discussion is around her use of the term ‘‘passing,’’ or how her respondents deftly navigated multiple and varying social settings. Davidman’s book presents a moving portrait of what it is like to leave Hasidic Judaism. It is a book that is felt and will surely find a place among readers in Jewish studies and those interested in conservative or Orthodox religious communities

The False Dichotomy of Sex and Religion in America

Religion and sexuality are polysemic categories. While conservative religion often fights against progressive sexual politics in contemporary America, this “usual story” is fractured and destabilized by people navigating the relationship between religion and sexuality as complex social creatures, not pundits or caricatures. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, I examine salient issues of sexual politics—including abortion and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and pornography—to show how religious actors have been on both sides of these debates. Because of this polysemic complexity, scholars of religion must not only tend to the dynamic interaction between religion and other categories, we must also recognize and study the diversity within the categories themselves

Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet

American evangelicals have a rich history when it comes to promoting sexual pleasure within marriage, having drawn upon multiple mediumslike books, workshops, and radio shows-since the 1970s.4 Today, evangelicals encourage sexual expression through all of these channels, as well as through a wide range of digital media, including online sex toy stores, online message boards, blogs, podcasts, and virtual Bible studies that discuss a plethora of topics related to marital sex. The content of these digital resources reflects the ideas presented in print literature written by well-established and respected evangelical authorities, but unlike a book that is already written, the internet is like a book that is constantly being rewritten by a collective of ordinary believers, each with unique experiences and perspectives. These spaces also allow non-evangelical religious collaborators who buy into the parameters set forth by evangelicalism (that sex is intended only within heterosexual, monogamous matrimony) to contribute to online religious dialogue. The Internet allows creators and users of Christian sexuality websites to draw from existing religious doctrine while also talking about God in personal and sometimes unorthodox and unprecedented ways. Although many scholars and cultural critics claim that conservative Christian messages about sexuality simply reproduce gender inequality and homophobia, I show how online discussions about Christian sexuality enable and limit women\u27s agency and reinforce and challenge heteronormativity.6 On Christian sexuality websites, women\u27s discussions of sexual pleasure and men\u27s discussions of gender-deviant sex practices move beyond hegemonic understandings of men as dominant penetrators and women as submissive actors. Website users find ways to integrate women\u27s multiple experiences of pleasure and men\u27s interest in non-normative sex into a religious framework. They maintain beliefs that privilege men and heterosexuality while simultaneously incorporating feminist and queer language into their talk of sex: they encourage sexual knowledge, emphasize women\u27s pleasure, and justify marginal sexual practices within Christian marriages. These findings suggest that Christian sexuality website users present themselves as sexually modern rather than prudish, distancing themselves from stereotypes about conservative religion and sex. Chapter 1 examines how some evangelicals draw from existing religious doctrine to talk about sex in strikingly different ways from evangelicals in the past, constructing a new sexuallogic for what counts as godly sex. Chapters 2 and 3 examine how Christian sexuality websites become context and culture for the online communities that work to reconcile religion and sexuality. Chapter 3 details how website users get to know each other and trust that they are among a community of like-minded believers. Chapter 4 examines how women frame talk of their own pleasure by telling sexual awakening stories. Chapter s focuses on men who take the advice given in evangelical print literature to a logical extreme--extending the emphasis on mutual pleasure and sexual permissiveness within marriage so as to justify sex acts that are seemingly inappropriate within an evangelical context

Rethinking Social Movement Participation and Non-Participation: How and Why South Dakota Pro-Choice Clergy Perceive, Confront, and Navigate Risks

This paper challenges predominant assumptions and definitions presented in social movement literature about risk, activism, and social movement participation by examining the unique case of South Dakota pro-choice clergy. Whereas past research assumes that participation in social movement-related activities results in activist identity, this study shows that perceptions of risk, rather than social movement activities, determine whether or not these clergy join the social movement group, Pastors for Moral Choices, and whether or not they identify as activists. Further, I show that factors often credited with causing social movement participation may be the same factors used to justify not participating in social movements. Finally, I find that progressive clergy perceive multiple levels of risk within the conservative state of South Dakota, and they navigate these risks and advocate for reproductive rights by acting as "whistleblowers." Overall, this paper complicates social movement concepts and categories and seeks to challenge what is taken for granted in social movement research

Superstars and Misfits: Two Pop-trends in the Gender Culture of Contemporary Evangelicalism

This paper examines gender in two forms of mediated contemporary Protestant evangelicalism in the United States: a male-dominated punk network, called Misfits United, and a women’s group studying Beth Moore’s Bible study, It’s Tough Being a Woman (ITBAW). While the appearance and performance styles of these two groups are drastically different, both support gender hierarchies in similar ways. Misfits United and Moore’s ITBAW present the gender of their Christian God as flexible, even transformative, and in effect open up discursive space to conceptualize gender on non-traditional grounds. Paradoxically, however, both reinforce traditional gender roles by emphasizing what distinguishes God from His creation: the gendered constraints of human biology