Jared Matthews’s Reviews > Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation > Status Update

For a community opposed to the changing socio-political landscape in general (war, race relations, gender roles), it is no surprise that the sexual revolution would have it’s own counterpart in conservative evangelicalism.

They seemed primed and waiting for a message that would preach against gender equality and propose an alternative, regardless of its lack of roots in a Christian worldview.

Maribel Morgan’s solution to the problem of chauvinism and inequality was to acceptance. Accepting the role you have been forced to play. Acting more like an object and seducing her husband would yield the materialistic desires of the wife, a new refrigerator, a trip to the Bahamas, etc.

This is not a loving marriage of mutuality, but a baptized sexual servitude, in the pursuit of manipulating their husbands.

The evangelical political posture was in line with most Americans during the Cold War, but the Vietnam war would create a divide between the views of many Americans and the uncritical militarism of evangelicals.

Atrocities committed during the Vietnam war created a sense of horror for many young Americans and demolished myths of American goodness.

Without much consideration, Evangelicals clung to their militarism.

Communism’s portrayal as fundamentally anti-Christian caused politics to become primary to evangelicals. No longer open to disagreement, your political affiliation became a moral imperative.

Being anti-communist, this particular “christian” political affiliation was pro-America; militaristic (against the communist threat) and hesitant towards civil rights (as a critique of America’s fundamental identity).

Similar to the wedding of 20th century masculinity with Christianity, 20th century gender roles and patriarchy were also wed and baptized with Christianity, embraced as something Christianity explicitly teaches.

This is the origin of various distinctive evangelical teachings. 20th century Americans decided that 20th century life was distinctively Christian and they convinced others that this was God’s desire.

Through the demonization of communism America could easily be seen as having God on its side. This may be the root of much of Christian nationalism in America.

While evangelists used this to inspire Americans to embrace Christianity in their life, it was a type of Christianity characterized by 20th century masculinity, uninterested in having Jesus define their ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman.

Opposition to this pagan masculine ideal, regardless of how christian its reasons, is slandered as weak, effeminate, and defeatist.

Combined with political compromise (or idolatry), this is characterized as mutinous and that will only lead to the superiority of Russia, china and the communists that are unamerican and unchristian.

Through fearmongering, Christians become willing to give up their ideas for safety

It seems a pagan (or American) definition of masculinity is driving the shape of the Christianity perpetuated by these evangelicals.

This masculinity is characterized by raw physical strength, high competitiveness, the willingness to engage in warfare, and the desire to usurp authority, demand submission and command others.

This masculinity is read back on to the Bible and Jesus and taught as an ideal.

While Billy Graham’s characterization of Jesus as a “star athlete who could become your life’s hero” and “our great commander” isn’t entirely wrong, it’s emphasis is entirely in the wrong place.

This message appeals to those who want faith in Jesus, but don’t understand the biblical picture well enough to understand that the primary emphasis is a suffering servant and advocate of sinners.

The evangelical rebrand of fundamentalism placed a high priority on spreading its specific brand of Christianity through magazines, radios, and popular sermons. Its path forward was through establishing a network to support itself, composed of evangelical colleges and conferences.