Sheep, Sheepdogs, and the Good Shepherd: Gun Rights and American Evangelicals in the Recent Past

Abstract This essay explores evangelical Christians and the public debate over gun rights in the recent past, when white evangelical activism on behalf of the Republican Party and conservative politics converged with the development of a gun culture that emphasized an individual right to bear arms. It argues that political partisanship, attitudes toward gun rights, and the embrace of gun culture have influenced white evangelical identity, revealing internal divisions and raising questions about the nature of their relationship with the secular world. It also examines white evangelicals’ distinctions between “good guys” and “bad guys,” an exercise that requires coming to terms with human sinfulness and evil. The white evangelicals analyzed here see themselves in a conflict that requires both guns and political power to defeat the evil that other people represent. Good guys include both people who protect (“sheepdogs”) and those who need protecting (“sheep”). This worldview envisions little distinction between true Christian identity and American national interests, and it views racial attacks in a colorblind vacuum that reinforces conclusions about the need for guns to defend themselves and their churches. Dissenters within the church criticize the emphasis on individual gun rights and the gun rights subculture many evangelicals inhabit and defend.