A Rhetoric of Equivalence in White Christian Women's Advice Ministries.

This article analyzes the rhetoric used in lifestyle advice books marketed to white Christian women by Baker Publishing Group, a major publisher within the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA). It identifies a pervasive "rhetoric of equivalence" that links women's laborious self-control—manifested in dieting, submissive relationships, and intensive homemaking—with submission to divine authority, which is then equated with being "countercultural" and ultimately framed as evangelism or Christian witnessing. The term "countercultural" functions as an empty signifier within this discourse, allowing patriarchal gender roles and white supremacist norms to be presented as sacred and oppositional to secular culture. The article argues that this rhetoric individualizes systemic issues, reinforces traditional gender roles, and obscures racial dynamics by universalizing whiteness, thereby shaping white evangelical women's religious identity and witness in ways that uphold both patriarchy and white supremacy.