This paper examines how two Christian digital content creators, Joel Webbon and Eric Conn, deploy popular masculine aesthetics to promote Christian Reconstructionism—a far-right movement on the fringes of American evangelicalism—through Instagram. I argue that Webbon and Conn exemplify how Christian Reconstructionists, and far-right Christians more broadly, draw on a variety of masculine scripts and tropes to present themselves as exemplary, admirable, and replicable Christian men. Masculine aesthetics, then, allow Webbon and Conn to downplay the extremist components of their ideology—which calls for the abolition of the federal government, the death penalty for feminists, homosexuals, and blasphemers, the restriction of women to work exclusively in the home, and the monopolization of authority by men in the home, church, and society at large. Instead, Webbon and Conn package their views in aesthetically appealing, seemingly relatable content that resembles mainstream conservative Christian masculinity.
To advance this argument, I evaluate the visual components of Webbon and Conn’s Instagram posts, examining how they deploy popular masculine tropes and aesthetics to promote Christian Reconstructionism. Specifically, I draw on Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s concept of militant masculinity and Raewyn Connell’s framework of masculinities. Du Mez argues that since the 1950s, White evangelicals have promoted “militant masculinity,” an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority as divinely ordained and commands men to be rugged, aggressive, and dominant over their wives, children, and society at large.
Webbon and Conn’s Instagram accounts reflect this White evangelical message of militant masculinity. Through their sermon clips and Instagram captions, they call on men to have children and marry women, assume absolute authority in the household, church, and government, and for women to submit to their husband’s authority. However, they package militant masculinity in unique ways.
Conn, a pastor in Ogden, Utah, founder of the Christian Reconstructionist publishing company New Christendom Press, and editor-in-chief at Gun Digest, curates his Instagram grid with nature photos and displays of rugged masculinity. His feed features grand, picturesque landscape shots of the Rocky Mountains, images of Conn and his friends hoisting a hunted mountain goat by the antlers—with their rifles prominently displayed—and snapshots of Conn atop a snow-covered mountain after a miles-long hike. Alongside these photos are posts of families packed into church pews singing hymns, stock photos of children reading the Bible, illustrations of nineteenth-century White women caring for young children, and video clips of Conn performing deadlifts. His page exudes a blend of hunting trophies, fraternity, gender traditionalism, and a masculinist Christianity, portraying a man who has mastered his body, ventured through the wilderness, and connected with God.
While Conn’s feed displays a man who has conquered nature, Webbon’s Instagram profile depicts a man who has conquered his mind. The pastor of Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, Texas, Webbon posts clips from his sermons alongside illustrations of Calvinist theologians captioned with lengthy quotes. On his podcast, he wears a black suit and sits in a leatherback chair, with his book Fight by Flight visibly propped on the side table with bookshelves behind him. In some photos, he poses with his wife and three children with their suburban neighborhood in the background. In others, he sits either with the Bible open in his lap or his hands clasped together, as if deep in thought. Webbon seems scholarly, a man constantly contemplating, studying, and thinking about grand theological ideas while leading his church and family in, as he describes, an increasingly godless world.
Online, Conn evokes the frontiersman, who journeys through the wilderness, lives off the land, and scales mountains—all with a tripod to capture his escapades. Webbon assumes the role of the pastor and patriarch, preaching to his congregation and leading his family. Webbon’s masculine aesthetic is one of intellectual mastery and domestic stability, while Conn emphasizes rugged individualism and physical prowess.
Ultimately, while Conn and Webbon promote militant masculinity, Du Mez’s framework does not capture the variety of masculine scripts and tropes deployed by conservative Christians to proliferate this ideology. Drawing on Raewyn Connell’s framework of masculinities, I assert that Conn and Webbon demonstrate how conservative Christians perform an array of militant masculinities, packaging their ideology within multiple masculine archetypes to promote patriarchal authority.
By focusing on how Conn and Webbon perform different versions of masculinity through Instagram, my paper likewise extends discussions on how far-right activists use social media to package their ideology for new audiences. Conn and Webbon are part of a broader network of Christian Reconstructionists. They are both students of Douglas Wilson, the infamous pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, who has been a leading figure in Christian Reconstructionism for over four decades. Conn and Webbon host one another, Wilson, and other students of Wilson on their podcasts, advertise each other’s books, and host in-person conferences to educate attendees about the tenets of Christian Reconstructionism and leading a patriarchal household. Although their Instagram accounts have only a few thousand followers, when viewed through this broader network, Webbon, Conn, and their peers have built an online network of hundreds of thousands of followers, subscribers, and patrons who consume and fund their content.
Ultimately, this paper highlights how Christian Reconstructionists strategically use social media to mainstream their extremist ideology by embedding it within widely recognizable and aspirational masculine aesthetics. By examining how Conn and Webbon perform masculinity on Instagram, this paper reveals how far-right Christians adapt their messaging for digital audiences, making their radical vision appear palatable and even desirable to mainstream conservative evangelicals. Rather than presenting themselves as fringe extremists, Conn and Webbon leverage masculine archetypes—the rugged frontiersman and intellectual patriarch—to attract followers, establish credibility, and reinforce patriarchal authority. In doing so, they demonstrate how militant masculinities are not monolithic but instead draw from multiple scripts to reach different audiences. More broadly, this paper contributes to scholarship on evangelical masculinity, social media, and far-right digital culture by showing how ideological movements survive and expand in the digital age, not merely through explicit political messaging but through aesthetic and performative strategies that shape how online audiences perceive power and authority.
This paper highlights how two Christian Reconstructionists, Joel Webbon and Eric Conn, use Instagram to mainstream their extremist ideology by embedding it within widely recognizable and aspirational masculine aesthetics and making their radical vision appear palatable and even desirable to mainstream conservative evangelicals. Rather than presenting themselves as fringe extremists, Conn and Webbon leverage masculine archetypes—the rugged frontiersman and intellectual patriarch—to attract followers, establish credibility, and reinforce patriarchal authority. In doing so, they demonstrate how militant masculinities are not monolithic but instead draw from multiple scripts to reach different audiences. This paper contributes to scholarship on evangelical masculinity, social media, and far-right digital culture by showing how ideological movements thrive and attract new followers in the digital age, not merely through explicit political messaging but through aesthetic and performative strategies that shape how power and authority are understood.