Abstract

As the political power of the religious right mounts, so too does the importance of studying how conservative Christians shape their understanding of themselves in relation to the world around them. ‘Toxicity’ as a chemical, biological, and social phenomena is integrated within many contemporary conservative panics over what is and is not normal and what should and should not be tolerated. Drawing on medical humanities, religious media studies, disability studies, and feminist studies, this thesis approaches conservative Christian discourses of toxicity through a multidisciplinary discourse analysis. My research reaches across denominations and mediums to show the breadth of these discourses and their contemporary and historical implications. What I find is that discourses of toxicity are primarily employed in conservative Christian media to wrestle with issues that challenge this group’s political, spiritual, and religious assumptions about what (and who) does and does not belong. I integrate theoretical analysis throughout to illuminate how discourses of toxicity deal with the self/other divide and conclude by considering how these discourses relate to other concepts such as sin and abjection.