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

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A bold and courageous book that challenges the white evangelical morph of Christianity, examining how they’ve done damage to the Christian faith and, by extension, to this entire nation. It’s a thoroughly researched and deeply engaging read that will raise countless discussion points.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America.

Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.”

As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.

Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631495748
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	06/23/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	53,592
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a professor of history at Calvin University and the author of A New Gospel for Women. She has written for the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Christian Century, and Religion & Politics, among other publications. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Preface xv

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Saddling Up 15

Chapter 2 John Wayne Will Save Your Ass 33

Chapter 3 God's Gift To Man 60

Chapter 4 Discipline and Command 74

Chapter 5 Slaves and Soldiers 88

Chapter 6 Going For the Jugular 103

Chapter 7 The Greatest American Hero 118

Chapter 8 War For the Soul 134

Chapter 9 Tender Warriors 150

Chapter 10 No More Christian Nice Guy 173

Chapter 11 Holy Balls 187

Chapter 12 Pilgrim's Progress In Camo 205

Chapter 13 Why We Want To Kill You 219

Chapter 14 Spiritual Badasses 233

Chapter 15 A New High Priest 250

Chapter 16 Evangelical Mulligans: A History 272

Conclusion 295

Acknowledgments 305

Notes 311

Index 345

Editorial Reviews

"[Du Mez’s] astonishing gifting was in the way she took 1000 puzzle pieces and fit them together. I don’t swallow books whole but the evidence for much of what she’s written is staring us in the face."

Beth Moore

Is contemporary evangelical Christianity Bible-based, or is it more inspired by pop culture and politics? Narrator Suzie Althens lends a compassionate and thoughtful tone to this new audiobook on how Christian media has informed and changed evangelical Christianity. The author also explores how the politics of the 1970s and beyond have inspired changes to the Christian religion and given rise to the concept of the religious right. Althens’s delivery gives the audiobook the feel of watching a “Dateline” episode, and her performance makes the large amounts of information easier to take in. Even when the information presented is horrifying, Althens ensures that the tone of the audiobook remains informative and respectful. V.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile