ABSTRACT
Evangelical Christians as a group have been perceived to be of increasing geopolitical importance over the past several decades, but most especially during the presidential administration of George W. Bush. During the Bush presidency (2001–2009) a number of theories have been advanced regarding the linkage between this constituency and many of Bush’s more controversial policies in the Middle East; including support for Israel and regime building in Iraq and beyond. As Esther Kaplan had noted, 40 per cent of Bush’s electoral support was composed of Christian evangelicals who enjoyed close links with congressional Republican leaders such as Tom de Lay. 2 This chapter is less concerned with these theories than how geopolitical events interact with evangelical theology to produce feelings of security and insecurity among this core constituency. It will also examine the role that the evangelical Christian Internet community plays in disciplining participants’ subjectivity and bolstering their emotional security. Further, this case study examines the role of religion in providing emotional security in times of perceived danger by documenting how a subset of evangelical Christians who believe in the eschatology called premillennial dispensationalism gain a sense of security (or fail to do so) by interpreting geopolitical events in a communal setting.
