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Updated and expanded-with a new foreword by Kristin Kobes Du Mez,
author of Jesus and John Wayne-Malestrom provides a redemptive
vision of biblical manhood and a way through the treacherous seas
of patriarchy. Like the danger of a maelstrom in the open seas, a
relentless force threatens our culture, swirling with hidden
currents that distorts God's image of personhood. This book reveals
how the malestrom is one of the Enemy's single most successful
strategies. Its victories are flashed before us every day in the
headlines as men lose sight of who God created them to be. It has
consumed the evangelical church that stoops to offering toxic
"manly" solutions to the wrongs it perceives in society and
distracts from the rich potential God has entrusted to his sons.
Digging deeply into the stories of men in the Bible who subverted
cultural hierarchies, Carolyn Custis James shows us how
countercultural God's design for men really is. Through personal
story, biblical commentary, and cultural analysis, Custis James:
Makes a strong case for the unbiblical nature of patriarchy.
Illuminates the sociology of marginalization and cultural gender
roles. Takes a close biblical look at Jesus and what his character
and humanity means to the men of the church today. Malestrom offers
what we so desperately need-a biblical, global, timeless vision of
godly personhood that is big enough to encompass the diversity of
men's lives and strong enough to withstand the crises they face.
"It is one thing to critique the abuses of a domineering
masculinity and lament the religious and societal consequences, but
Carolyn Custis James takes the next crucial step and offers us a
better path forward. For those asking, "What now?" Malestrom serves
as a sure-footed guide." -Kristin Kobes Du Mez
In Jesus and John Wayne, a seventy-five-year history of American
evangelicalism, Kristin Kobes Du Mez demolishes the myth that white
evangelicals "held their noses" in voting for Donald Trump.
Revealing the role of popular culture in evangelicalism, Du Mez
shows how evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus
of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian
nationalism in the mould of Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson and above
all, John Wayne. As Du Mez observes, the beliefs at the heart of
white evangelicalism today preceded Trump and will outlast him.
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 utterly remade their faith, with enduring
consequences for all Americans.
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