Representing federal government overreach or even an insidious communist agenda, desegregation also heightened the long-standing imagined threat to white womanhood.Įvangelical militancy cannot be seen simply as a response to fearful times for conservative white evangelicals, a militant faith required an ever-present sense of threat.
Newt Gingrich called Wayne’s Sands of Iwo Jima “the formative movie of my life.” change may start at the White House, but it finishes at your house”) It did, however, stock Todd Starnes’s The Deplorables’ Guide to Making America Great Again (“Winning was just the beginning. When Rachel Held Evans and Jen Hatmaker ran afoul of conservative orthodoxies related to sexuality and gender, LifeWay stopped carrying their books. They are more likely than members of other faith groups to own a gun, to believe citizens should be allowed to carry guns in most places, and to feel safer with a firearm around.Įvangelical leaders bestow authority upon one another, blurbing each other’s books, defending each other on social media, and determining which up-and-coming writers, pastors, and organizations are worthy of promotion-and which should be shunned. More than any other religious demographic in America, white evangelical Protestants support preemptive war, condone the use of torture, and favor the death penalty. Donald Trump did not trigger this militant turn his rise was symptomatic of a long-standing condition. In reality, evangelicals did not cast their vote despite their beliefs, but because of them.
… Rather than turning the other cheek, they’d resolved to defend their faith and their nation, secure in the knowledge that the ends justify the means. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad. Here are quite a few of the best of the best from this book:īut evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. I always include a few pages of Quotes and Excerpts from the book – the “best of” Randy’s highlighted Passages. #3 – This book describes why the left has little chance of moving Evangelicals in their direction. #2 – This book explains the enduring power of John Wayne’s hold on America and how the Evangelicals adopted that view as their own. #1 – This book provides something of a history of the rise of, and power of, the Evangelical movement over the last century. When I prepare my synopses, I always ask: What is the point? Here it is for this book: Evangelicals adopted the stances of the conservative Republican culture as their own views, and built a network of reinforcing messengers that has led to Evangelicals becoming a most reliable voting block.Īnd I ask Why is this book worth our time? Here are my three reasons for this book: I felt like I was reading a history of the struggles of my lifetime. From Billy Graham to Bill Gothard, with plenty of Pat Boone mixed in, along with Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and others. The book provides something of a history of my own intellectual life at least, from a major chapter of my life. (The author is a Professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University). This is a provocative book, written by a careful researcher. And, I present synopses of books dealing with issues of social justice for the Urban Engagement Book Club, sponsored by CitySquare in Dallas (currently, only on Zoom).įor July, I presented my synopsis of the book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. I present synopses of business books at the First Friday Book Synopsis (in Dallas, in-person and over Zoom). Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
In learning how to be Christian men, evangelicals also learned how to think about sex, guns, war, borders, Muslims, immigrants, the military, foreign policy, and the nation itself. It is linked to opposition to gay rights and gun control, to support for harsher punishments for criminals, to justifications for the use of excessive force against black Americans in law enforcement situations, and to traditionalist gender ideology.įROM THE START, evangelical masculinity has been both personal and political. Christian nationalism-the belief that America is God’s chosen nation and must be defended as such-serves as a powerful predictor of intolerance toward immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians.