Get Your Hands On Jesus And John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith And Fractured A Nation Penned By Kristin Kobes Du Mez Accessible Via Brochure

youve ever looked at the evangelical political landscape and wondered, . . exactly how did we get here This is the book for you, It was a difficult and frustrating read, Many of the things mentioned are things I literally lived out in my own life, But it was insightful and helped connect a lot of dots as well, I wish there had been more of a solution presented but at the same time, its more difficult to argue with facts and history presented in this way.
This is brilliant and deeply challenging, For starters, it helped me to better articulate why I have always felt like a foreigner in American Evangelicalism, Having grown up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist circles, I saw much of these attitudes and trends, At the same time, being a part of that movement outside of the United States provided some insulation from the worst elements,

In general, I think this is an excellent and necessary book for all evangelicals to read, As we hear more stories of those who are deconstructing, this book helps to explain why, It will be hard for many to understand which of their convictions and beliefs are indigenous to the Christian faith, and which are parasites spoonfed to them by ethnocentric, political, or cultural interests.
It has been hard for me,

I think it is worth engaging with secular, scientific literature on masculinity, though, Du Mez can give the impression that the only ones who are advocating for certain masculine traits were those with a political or theological impetus, However, some of the soft sciences have been known to express some of the same ideas, Are men biologically predisposed to greater aggression Is that bad in and of itself What nuances exist between men and women at a neurological and biological level that should be affirmed for the sake of healthy development and what happens if we outright label them as wrong Do we run the risk of shaming boys for who they are, painting a picture of the Hulk that must be domesticated I'm not saying that those biological/neurological differences merit a hierarchical structure, but they must be engaged and explained.


I honestly don't know, I'm left with so much learning, and at the same time with many questions, But they are the good kind of questions, the kind that will make me a better man, leader, and pastor for the men and women God has placed around me.
I cant remember the last time I had such a visceral reaction to a book, I am so

angry, but it is a righteous anger, I am angry at how the faith I hold so dear has been twisted and manipulated into the evangelicalism of America, Im so angry that I was gaslit into believing that people like John Piper, Focus on the Family/James Dobson, and even Billy Graham were good and had the purest of intentions.
Im so angry. Anyone who grew up evangelical needs to read this, I was raised in a conservative Evangelical household, So was my wife, and so were most of my friends of my generation, Part of this identity was theological: the inerrancy of the Bible, which for most of us entailed youngearth creationism, was the critical plank, But a politics defined by opposition to abortion and homosexuality was at least equally important for our parents generation, I first realized this when, without any real shifts in my theology, I began to slide toward full libertarianism, I was subsequently refused a teaching job at my Evangelical alma mater, not because I was unable to sign the doctrinal statement, but because I admitted that I was not in a position to push my students toward activism on behalf of the Defense of Marriage Act.


The outline of Du Mezs history is by now pretty familiar besides lived experience, Ive read enough books and articles on the history of American Christianity that few of the names she mentioned were foreign to me.
But three years after the incident I described above, White Evangelicals voted in large numbers for Donald Trump, whose manifest moral degeneracy and venality dwarfed anything pinned on the reviled Bill Clinton.
It would be difficult to explain the extent to which it felt like a betrayal to me and many of my young Evangelical friends, The November decision itself was not overly surprising when choosing between a Republican with a checkered past and a cheerfully proabortion Clinton, many good Christian people, we knew, would feel obligated however dismayingly to vote for the former.
But that didnt explain why Trumps popularity with Evangelicals actually warmed during the scandals and offenses of primary season and remained relatively constant during his years in office.
You sometimes hear religious conservatives complain about Trumps loose lips, but almost never about his flagrant misogyny and cruelty, The hypocrisy of “decent church people” supporting an inveterate liar and adulterer, especially after unrelenting assaults on the Clintons for bad character, was hard to take in,

Du Mezs contribution to my understanding is that this pattern itself is not new, A significant force that made Evangelicals cohere behind Trump, despite enormous differences in values otherwise, was a resurgent but venerable commitment to patriarchy, The White Evangelical community has had repeated love affairs with irreligious tough guy celebrities defined not by fidelity to Christian principles, but by brash machismo and jingoistic militarismmen of the John Wayne type, contemptuous of the wimpy and “feminine” idealism attributed to justice activists and the liberal welfare state.
On a personal level, Trump may be the ultimate parody of the ideal, but when he embraced the masculine rhetoric and political interests of White Evangelicals, he stepped up to a wellworn podium and took ownership of a longstanding cultural complex.
And millions of White Evangelicals embraced him as one of their own,

In other words, Trump is not an anomaly, and the poison in White Evangelical politics goes deep, These tough guys lie transparently and often to their supporters, but maintain influence through fear: the fear that White conservatives and their values will lose privileged social status, and that the malefemale hierarchy will be further upset.
They give voice to a ressentiment that rises from the gut and cannot be reasoned or argued with, We have seen the fruit of this in the Trump administration, which is characterized not by any particular policy achievements but by shameless corruption, incompetence, racism, indifference to rule of law, and the courting of terroristic violence.
Du Mezs narrative also gives little hope that Trumps Evangelical stalwarts, reared for decades by wellfunded Christian nationalist organizations that promote militant masculinity and positive views of vigilante action, will settle for an America that begins to takes seriously, say, structural inequality.


Du Mez closes with a chapter observing that scandals cyclically fell a swath of Evangelical male leadershipoften despite the enduring loyalty of many rankandfile Evangelicals, In the latest round, the credible charges include toxic and abusive leadership Driscoll, Patrick, Mahaney and engaging in or covering for serious sexual misconduct Haggard, Gothard, Mahaney again, Philips, Wilson, Duggar, Schaap, Hybels, Patterson.
Since Du Mezs book was published, the younger Falwell has also been forced down in a sex scandal, There are many indications that the culture of sexual assault and coverup in Evangelical churches goes far beyond such highprofile cases, The point is so obvious it hardly needs articulating, but Du Mez articulates it well: this is the natural fruit of a noxious retrenchment on patriarchal power,

Demographic changes will, it seems likely, erode Evangelical power in this country in the long run, Evangelicals will just as probably continue to bolster authoritarians overseas such as Bolsonaro, There is not a lot of hope on offer here for an orthodox Christian who would like to see the White American church respond to the possibility of cultural displacement with grace, organized in care of the vulnerable rather than repression of perceived threats.
But perhaps the most appropriate response for those of us who feel this way is to step up to precisely that work, The label “Evangelical” may, in our present context, imply a politics of hardness of heart but the true evangel is the humble work of Christ, If there is anything to what we believe, the Spirit is not contained by the frailty of our religious culture, There are people living according to this Spirit even in this time, and true repentance and cultural conversion is never too much to pray for, .