God's Viral Warriors

Christian Nationalism, Masculinity, and the Representation of Self

in Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities
Author:
Jason Luger Geographer, Northumbria University, UK Jason.Luger@northumbria.ac.uk

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0250-7011
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/jbsm.2024.050104
Keywords:
authoritarianism; digital ethnography; intersectionality; masculinity; nationalism
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Abstract

This article introduces the character of the viral God warrior: the online/offline represented/performed self of Christianity, nationalism (e.g., Christian Nationalism), muscular masculinity, and, significantly, whiteness. Through an online ethnography focusing on critical visual and discourse analyses, and critically reading semiotic signposts and codes, the article suggests that this emergent masculinity is complex, contradictory, and not easily categorized as “open” or “closed,” toxic or desirable. It is, like masculinity more broadly, hybridized, dynamically fluid, and intersectional. Nonetheless, it is a troubling masculinity in the way it allows for a meeting of extremism and the mainstream and acts as a sanitizing mask (through the vectors of faith, health and patriotism) that belies latent racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and authoritarian (and fascistic) characteristics that virally disseminate through broader society and culture.

Contributor Notes

Jason Luger is an urban, cultural and political geographer at Northumbria University. Drawing from critical post-structuralist and postmodern spatial theories, and utilizing ethnographic (offline, online) methods, his work focuses on the production of (public) space; online/offline negotiations of culture, politics, and identity; masculinities; public art and art-activism; and the geographies of illiberalism (authoritarianism and the far-right). He has been published in academic journals, has edited/co-edited two volumes and three special journal issues, and has a forthcoming monograph on Urban Life During Illiberalism (2025, expected), with Bristol University Press. Email: Jason.Luger@northumbria.ac.uk; ORCID: 0000-0002-0250-7011

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Cover Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
24
Keywords:
authoritarianism; digital ethnography; intersectionality; masculinity; nationalism
Print Publication Date:
01 Mar 2024
Online Publication Date:
01 Mar 2024
Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024

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