How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the
Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in
2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential
reprobate's staunchest supporters? These are among the questions
acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John
Wayne, which delves beyond facile headlines to explain how white
evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment.
Challenging the commonly held assumption that the "moral majority"
backed Donald Trump for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals
that Donald Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than
the betrayal, of white evangelicals' most deeply held values. Jesus
and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years
of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have
worked for decades 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 Du Mez explains,
the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the
role of culture in modern American evangelicalism. Many of today's
evangelicals may 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
popular 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. Trump, in other words, is hardly the first
flashy celebrity to capture evangelicals' hearts and minds, nor is
he the first strongman to promise evangelicals protection and
power. Indeed, the values and viewpoints at the heart of white
evangelicalism today-patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive
foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and
opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community-are likely
to persist long after Trump leaves office. A much-needed
reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have
rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history
and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with
enduring consequences for all of us.
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