“Rise Up Warrior Princess Daughters”: Is Evangelical Women’s Submission a Mere Fairy Tale?

Many evangelical and Pentecostal churches emphasize men's headship (authority) over women. Yet women in such congregations often work outside the home and exercise forms of church leadership. Several studies have concluded that headship talk is mainly an identity marker for religious communities otherwise little distinguishable from the surrounding culture. A case study of Sydney's Hillsong megachurch reveals that headship language does much more. Read in a broader context than relationships between individual men and women, headship forms part of a discourse about authority and submission that encompasses pastors' authority over laity, the state's authority over citizens, and Christian authority over secular society.