Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation in Recommended Readings

May 24, 2022 Matt LeFevers rated it really liked it

What an upsetting read.

You know how sometimes an actor does such a good job portraying a villainous character, that it becomes difficult to praise the quality of the actor's craft? "Oh, so-and-so in that film? I hated them. Which I guess means they did a good job. But I also loathed every minute they were on screen. They are a terrific actor and I also hope never to see their face again."

This book is difficult to review for the same reasons. I despised reading it. It routinely made me angry, mad What an upsetting read.

You know how sometimes an actor does such a good job portraying a villainous character, that it becomes difficult to praise the quality of the actor's craft? "Oh, so-and-so in that film? I hated them. Which I guess means they did a good job. But I also loathed every minute they were on screen. They are a terrific actor and I also hope never to see their face again."

This book is difficult to review for the same reasons. I despised reading it. It routinely made me angry, made my skin crawl, made me want to read absolutely anything else. My general level of anxiety went up for the entire ten days I was reading this, and I came to dread opening it back up.

But none of this is a knock on Kristin Kobes Du Mez's achievement here. I think, like the actors I mentioned, she did such a good job that it is hard to even look at what she has made.

Jesus and John Wayne is heavily composed of primary sources. Like a skilled interviewer, Du Mez doesn't try to attack her subject, merely lets the subject damn themselves. Seemingly every page is a litany of direct quotations from the large cast of players she is following: their own (vile) beliefs in their own (vile) words. The end result of this is twofold: it would be almost impossible to argue against the points she is making here, since the citations and evidence are splayed across every paragraph, straight from the subjects' own mouths. And reading it was like willfully swilling down disgusting poison every day for a week.

The sheer quantity of racist, misogynistic, spiteful, prideful, self-satisfied vomit that has been downloaded into the inside of my brain makes me feel gross. I know that Du Mez is showing us these things so we can grapple with them, but the heavy reliance on quotes and speeches means that I consumed more awful rhetoric and hate in the last ten days than in my whole life prior to that. Much as I admire the disgusting quilt she's woven out of almost a century of direct quotations, part of me wonders how much of that I needed to subject myself to.

This book is devastating, well-argued and unflinching, as it drags the most rank and putrid truths about a movement out into the unforgiving light of day. I am so glad to be done reading it and hope to never do so again. ...more

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May 18, 2021 Sheila rated it it was amazing

This is a perceptive and distressing examination of American evangelicalism which answers the question: “ How in the world did evangelicals come to overwhelmingly support a man like Donald Trump for president?”

Du Mez believes the answer lies in a vision of what she terms “muscular Christianity”, developed in the early 1900’s, which is defined by “ masculine authority, militarism, and the sexual and spiritual subordination of women.” ( p. 298)

She traces this cultural movement from the ministry of This is a perceptive and distressing examination of American evangelicalism which answers the question: “ How in the world did evangelicals come to overwhelmingly support a man like Donald Trump for president?”

Du Mez believes the answer lies in a vision of what she terms “muscular Christianity”, developed in the early 1900’s, which is defined by “ masculine authority, militarism, and the sexual and spiritual subordination of women.” ( p. 298)

She traces this cultural movement from the ministry of Billy Sunday in the early 1900’s to Billy Graham in the mid century, with his emphasis on anti-communism and political interactions with American presidents and then further, to the rise of the Moral Majority and Dr. James Dobson. Later she examines the ministries of such figures as John Piper and Mark Driscoll, all the while demonstrating how gradually this version of Christianity began to emphasize a “ badass Jesus” , more like the actor John Wayne than like the New Testament Jesus, along with more and more rigid gender roles and a kind of Christian nationalism. By the end of her book, it is clear that given a choice between a woman, Hillary Clinton, and a brash, rule-breaking Trump who promises a return to a mythical golden era, evangelicals will choose Trump.

This book was unsettling for me but insightful. It made clear to me that my own Christian journey, that of a homeschooling, submissive wife, was not the counterculture lifestyle I originally believed it to be. Rather, I was swept up in a cultural tide, simply following the path of muscular Christianity set before me by Christian leaders. It took a Christian leader’s abuse of power to open my eyes to the fact that living in submission to male leadership had eroded my critical thinking skills and brought me to a place where I had given authority for what happened in my life to others rather than taking ownership of my life myself. I now happily identify as an former evangelical.

In summary, this book is highly recommended by me for those seeking to understand the viewpoints of evangelicals in their lives or to understand better the big picture of what they themselves have been taught as evangelicals. ...more

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