I would love to hear your feedback and recommendations.
If you have missed any parts of this paper, you can click on the following hyperlinks:
Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Defining the Evangelical - Melting Pot or Mosaic?
Part Three: Constructing the Mythology of the Evangelical
Part Four: Defining Evangelical - The KKK Evangelical Mythology
Part Five: Representation - Kook
Part Six: Representation - Kon
Bibliography
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“The ‘K’onquistador (Conquistador)” is the representation of evangelical as megalomaniac. They are not concerned about people - they are headhunters aiming to personally convert as many people as they can. They are less about grace and more about divide and conquer.
Often, this is linked to the idea of insensitivity. Rather than respecting the free will of individuals - they relentlessly intimidate, infiltrate, push and shove until a person gives up - not so much out of conviction as exasperation!
There are countless examples of this representation in the media - but one of the most notorious illustrations of late is seen in the satirical film, Saved (Dannelly, 2004) – one of whose producers for the film was the legendary Michael Stipe from R.E.M.
Mandy Moore plays Hilary Faye – an over-zealous, proselytizing, power-hungry ‘Jesus freak’ who is an all-controlling student leader in a conservative, evangelical high school. This film is laden with Christian jargon such as:
- “Prayer works – it’s been medically proven”
- “We’re kickin’ it Jesus style”
- “Do you have a passion for Christ?”
- “Who’s down with G-O-D?”
While these slogans might sound satirical, they are unfortunately part of the colloquial talk of evangelicals (trust me - I've heard it all before... and unfortunately been personally guilty of using some of this 'evangelese'!)
Mary (Jena Malone) is a Christian teenager who becomes pregnant from her gay, Christian boyfriend – who gets taken to rehabilitation in order to ‘cure him’ of homosexuality. After a period of serious questioning, Mary rejects her faith, and becomes friends with the renegade, ‘apostate,’ Jewish student, Cassandra (Eva Amurri). Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan), the ‘hip’ youth pastor/teacher (whose character goes between kook and kon stereotypes – has his own issues to deal with!) suggests to Hilary that she talk to Mary.
Hilary Faye takes this suggestion as being carte blanche to perform an exorcism on Mary. She and her cronies hunt down Mary, cornering her on a sidewalk with their van where the following conversation occurs:
- (Hilary) You are backsliding into the flames of hell… Mary, turn away
from Satan! Jesus, he loves you! - (Mary) You don’t know the first thing about love
- (Hilary) I am filled with Christ’s love [forcefully throwing a Bible at
Mary’s back, - [Mary runs away, hurt and exasperated] (Dannelly, 2004)
This idea of the conservative Christian as imperial, insensitive, proselytizer is yet another example of the essentialized representation of evangelicals in the media – power-hungry and willing to do whatever-it-takes to accomplish their mission.
When I think about these three illustrations together, the kook, the ‘k’on, the ‘k’onquistador… and then add together the multiple representations which they exemplify in the variety of pop culture media; I can understand why the term evangelical evokes such reactions and warnings...
Who would want to like someone like that???
To be honest, the postmodern side of me doesn’t take these representations that seriously. In fact, I find them somewhat amusing – as I know people who are like that (and have unfortunately found myself confirming that stereotype through my own naivety at times!) Part of me wonders whether or not this is my own hegemonic co-optation to an idea that is being interpellated to me as a media consumer?
There is a need for a great awakening of the sleeping giant of evangelicalism – gaining consciousness to the naturalization of this idea of the KKK evangelical mythology (Barthes, 1972).
Such consciousness requires us to engage in an identity politics that challenges such representations.
Richard Dyer has emphasized that "...how we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others is based on how we see them [and] such seeing comes from representation. It should come as no surprise then that they way representations are regulated through various media, genres and within various discourses, has been given considerable attention." (Hartley, 2002, 202)
Go to Part 8 - Essentializing the Evangelical: A Multiplicity of Representations that Break the Mold
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