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How Religion Constructs the Family
Rita Trimble, Graduate Student in Comparative Studies
Rita Trimble is a graduate student in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. Her research interest is in the intersection of religion and family, and is centered on how American churches and their members work together to construct visual and narrative images of the ideal family/citizens, what kinds of families that includes or marginalizes, and how that relates to current family values rhetoric and public policy.
Trimble's research has included a study of how different family representations are mobilized for particular effect. Her analysis of Focus on the Family materials, for example, shows how they use pictures that violate family photo conventions, especially those that circulate with more typical family pictures, to amplify arguments that certain configurations do not qualify as "good families," or do not count as families at all. They emphasize a normative familial gaze that often reveals class, race, gender, and sexual anxieties that under gird much of the pro-family movement.
On the other hand, investigating several mainline denominational church ad campaigns, Trimble has found themes that point to an effort by some denominations to establish brand identities in opposition to that of a more religiously conservative media presence. Portraying themselves as welcoming and relevant, these denominations depict families that challenge the standard image of white, middle-class "mom, dad, two kids, and a dog." Rather than present these Other arrangements as "broken" or incomplete, the images celebrate families comprised of single mothers, same-sex couples, singles with no children, interracial couples, working-class families, and racially diverse images in general.
In addition to the obvious purpose of increasing membership, Trimble speculates that, taken together, these ads seem to make a statement against what some might characterize as a militant force for familism. One might even surmise that these campaigns indicate some denominations' desire to reclaim their twentieth-century role in movements for social change, as when they have engaged in campaigns for abolition, anti-lynching, women's suffrage, and civil rights.
Trimble is currently engaged in an ethnographic study of a mainline denominational congregation that identifies itself as a "reconciling" church. Generally, that signifies that a congregation has formally committed to be part of a grassroots movement to challenge denominational policies regarding homosexuality. In practice, it means this congregation chooses to openly and proactively welcome people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, and draws on an expansive definition of the word "family," including an attentiveness to singles.
Issues Trimble hopes to explore include individual clergy and congregants' ideas about what constitutes a "good family" and what potential they imagine for their church and their denomination to engage in activism in family issues like same-sex marriage, child and family welfare, marriage as an anti-poverty measure, or other issues they identify as important. She is most interested in investigating what meaning they attach to their membership in a reconciling congregation—particularly as it relates to affecting their own or society's understanding of family and citizenship.
