The author challenges the argument advanced by some that only “unchurched” embrace these values. The book also traces the exploitation of this vision of masculinity by the conservative political movement from the presidencies of Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. More troubling yet are the connections between this culture, purity teaching, and sexual abuse. Kobes Du Mez traces the influence of the Promise Keepers movement, John Eldredge’s books, Pastor Douglas Wilson, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper in upholding militant masculinity and male control of families. This is a movement not only about masculinity but patriarchal gender roles, supported oddly enough by women like Elizabeth Eliot, Phyllis Schlafly, and Marabel Morgan (remember The Total Woman?). She traces the fascination with the square-jawed, passionate Billy Graham and the youth leader become family guru Bill Gothard as early figures in this trend, teachers like James Dobson and Tim LaHaye, media figures as diverse as Mel Gibson and Duck Dynasty, and military figures like Oliver North. She traces how Wayne’s muscular and sometimes violent form of masculinity supplanted the Jesus of the gospels as the evangelical model of masculinity.
Her title is drawn from “Jesus and John Wayne,” a 1980’s Christian hit of the Gaither Vocal Band. Kristen Kobes Du Mez, a Calvin University historian, offers a carefully documented account of the development of authoritarian, patriarchal and “muscular” models of masculinity which have invaded evangelical religious subculture and played a vital role in evangelical political engagement. This is one of the most intensely discussed books in religious publishing over the past year. Summary: A historical study of how the ideal of rugged masculinity typified by John Wayne influenced the evangelical embrace of authority, gender roles, and conservative, nationalist politics. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020. July 25, 2020.Jesus and John Wayne, Kristen Kobes Du Mez. “Jesus and John Wayne Exposes Militant Masculinity in the Age of Trump.” Baptist Global News. by so thoroughly exposing a faux religion rooted in power and privilege, Du Mez poses a provocative question: What would white American evangelicalism look like if we had listened to the civil rights marchers, anti-war protesters, gay rights advocates, and second-wave feminists instead of shutting them out and shutting them down?Īlan Bean. Her book includes a couple of references to my article and uses one of my best lines as a chapter title: “The unspoken mantra of post-war evangelicalism was simple: Jesus can save your soul, but John Wayne will save your ass.” Evangelical enthusiasm for Donald Trump, I argued, suggested that that militant masculinity of John Wayne had eclipsed the spirituality of Jesus.ĭu Mez came across my article because she was thinking along similar lines.
I first became aware of Du Mez’s project shortly after writing a piece for Baptist News Global in October of 2016 called Jesus and John Wayne: Must we choose? When I Googled “Jesus and John Wayne,” the first item up was a 1980s song by that title by the Gaither Vocal Band that portrayed American evangelicals as living in a healthy tension between the fierce masculinity of John Wayne and the radical grace of Jesus. The majority of white American evangelicals support Trump, she says, because he embodies the kind of militant masculinity they have learned to love. In Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, she explains why. Kristen Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin College, isn’t buying either of these explanations. Others see evangelical support for Trump as nothing more than transactional politics.
0 kommentar(er)
