When two members of Congress recently shared images of their well-armed families gathered in front of Christmas trees, many assumed it was merely an act of provocation, a loaded gesture designed to exasperate opponents and excite supporters...No matter their intended effect, the photos represent a tradition far older than our current penchant for political trolling — one that, like it or not, is part of widely held interpretations of the upcoming holiday and the beliefs of many who observe it. That is the tradition of Muscular Christianity...For more than a century, American Protestantism has been shaped by the movement known as Muscular Christianity, which arose to combat expressions of the faith that critics of the time claimed had become bookish, soft, sedentary and — as they judged it then — excessively feminine. Popular publications such as 1912’s “The Masculine Power of Christ; or, Christ Measured as a Man” argued that Jesus was “distinctly manly and virile,” and it was the task of the Christian to be so as well...“We believe in muscular Christianity,” one advocate of this form of the faith said in 1860. “We believe that the minister of muscle will fight a more valiant and stronger battle with the passions and prejudices of men … and that saints’ bodies as well as sinners’ are none the worse for an hour at the dumb bells or weights.”A somewhat more macho approach found particularly fertile ground in the expanding United States, where it meshed with myths of the frontier yielding to self-reliance and Manifest Destiny. Theodore Roosevelt was among its most prominent proponents. In 1903, the year he took a tour of 25 Western states, he declared, “I do not want to see Christianity professed only by weaklings; I want to see it a moving spirit among men of strength.”..More than 40 percent of White evangelicals own firearms, far outpacing other religious groups and the general population, according to a Pew Research Center study. In a sense, American evangelical culture is a significant part of American gun culture, and vice versa. Neither would be the same without the other. Their entwined influence can be seen in scriptural arguments for bringing firearms to church, as well as on hoodies extolling the trinity of “God, Guns and Trump” worn at the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6...Long implicit in evangelical understandings of scripture and tradition, the connection between God and guns has lately been finding more visible expression. On Dec. 25, Christians around the world will remember the birth of an infant often called the Prince of Peace. Some will also celebrate a man they’re certain would know how to handle an AR-15, and in this they see no contradiction.
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