My hope is that both will examine where they were, where they are, and where they should be, and make necessary course corrections before the inevitable shipwreck. Reviewing the perspectives, mindsets, and ideologies integral to the ongoing conflation of religion with politics in the name of Christianity in America was not easy. As the American population continues to urbanize, this message is both to the culture and to the church that seems intent on identifying with it. For me, reading through Jesus and John Wayne was an arduous task. Abundant biblical illustrations along with personal lifetime experiences are used in testimony. Showing no interest in turning the other cheek, he leaves a red right-hand print across his enemy’s face.
There certainly have been quite a few bad actors and charlatans in the history of American Evangelicalism, and Kobes Du Mez makes sure we know all the sordid details of. That being said, though, I want to make clear that most of the facts in this book are true. A ten-foot-tall Jesus who swaggers through every scene, speaking softly and carrying hot steel. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to. In a nutshell, that is exactly what I’ve found Jesus and John Wayne to be like. Examples of how far we have fallen from the traditional model are taken from the historical record and also seen through the lens of movies and television. In a new book, historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez contends that, over the last 100 years, most white evangelicals would cast a John Wayne type.
My purpose is to draw men back to a traditional, biblical understanding of their role as protector, provider, and patriarch of the home in obedience to Paul's command to, "Act like men, be strong," (1st Corinthians 16:13). In a little over a week, my new book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation will find its way into the world. Forces proven successful in destroying the family are now marshaling against the foundations of manhood. It is not intended to be slight to women. This book is about men, manhood, and masculinity. I like reading books Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation BY Kristin Kobes Du Mez where I feel my brain have an IQ orgasm. This lucid, potent history adds a much needed religious dimension to understanding the current American right and the rise of Trump. Revealing the role of popular culture in evangelicalism, Du Mez shows how evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the. Persuasively arguing that the evangelical dismissal of Trump’s flaws is the culmination of believing that “God-given testosterone came with certain side effects,” Du Mez closes with a bruising chapter on recent evangelical leaders’ abuses and sex scandals, such as those involving Mark Driscoll, Ted Haggard, and C.J. In Jesus and John Wayne, a seventy-five-year history of American evangelicalism, Kristin Kobes Du Mez demolishes the myth that white evangelicals 'held their noses' in voting for Donald Trump. The recent growth of homeschooling and Quiverfull (child-centric evangelical theology) and evangelicals’ suspicion of Obama are also explored. 9/11, she argues, revitalized the extreme warrior ideal for evangelical men and curtailed the softer patriarchy fostered by the Promise Keeper rallies of the 1990s. For Du Mez, the growth of Christian publishing and popular culture in the mid-century reinforced the sense that evangelicals were at war with liberal social movements like feminism and civil rights. Starting in the early 20th century, white Christian men followed charismatic preachers in striving for a muscular, militant masculinity. It was to explore connections between evangelical gender ideals and foreign policy that I first began my research into the book that became Jesus and John Wayne. Historian Du Mez ( A New Gospel for Women) explains white evangelical support for Trump in this engaging history of the shifting ideal of Christian masculinity.