Church & State 250: Evangelical Fear, Masculinity, and Political Power

How did “biblical manhood” become so tied to aggression, politics, and power? 

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University and author of Jesus and John Wayne, joins Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram to explain how white evangelical ideas about masculinity helped shape American Christianity and American politics. Du Mez traces the rise of rugged Christian manhood through culture, Cold War politics, the Religious Right, Ronald Reagan, fear of feminism and secularism, anti-Muslim rhetoric, and the culture war machinery that turns complicated issues into loyalty tests. 

She also connects masculine power to institutional self-protection, including the Southern Baptist Convention’s response to women in leadership and sexual abuse reform. This conversation is not just about men. It is about how gender, theology, fear, capitalism, and political power worked together to shape modern white evangelicalism, and why America’s 250th raises urgent questions about religious liberty and democracy.

Guest Bio
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, PhD, is a historian, New York Times bestselling author, and professor of history at Calvin University. Her work focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, politics, and American evangelicalism. She is the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, A New Gospel for Women, and the forthcoming Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. She is also a Senior Democracy Fellow with PRRI. In this conversation, Du Mez helps explain how white evangelical ideas about masculinity, femininity, fear, family, politics, and power shaped the modern church and the country around it.

Book Mentioned
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781631499050

Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781324090977

Relevant Links & Resources
Kristin Kobes Du Mez Official Website
URL: https://kristindumez.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Uh yeah, honestly, it's it's a bit of a struggle right now because I I'm filled with sadness when I see the state of our country and the health of our democracy in this moment, when I see the divisions that have been intentionally created and stoked between Americans, and when I see American constitutional rights and democratic norms under siege. And you know, this isn't just my opinion. This is look at literally any global organization that monitors democracy, and you can find all kinds of data points. And also to see that conservative Christians are at the forefront of these attacks in many cases. It grieves me. At the same time, you know, I I feel more patriotic than I ever have, probably. And I because I I love this country, and I um think that we have a constitutional framework, while far from perfect and far from perfectly implemented, is uh a thing of great value and even beauty.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Hey, welcome back, faithful politics listeners and viewers, and welcome back to our Church and State 250 Plus series, where we're looking taking a look at the more than 250 years of religion in American history and how it helps shape the country we're all living in today. I'm your political host, Will Wright. I'm joined by your faithful host, Pastor Josh Bertram. And our guest today is none other than Kristen Covas Dumay, who is a historian whose work focuses on gender, religion, and politics in American history. She's the author of Jesus and John Wayne, which is a New York Times bestselling book, and has become one of the key works for understanding white evangelicalism, masculinity, and political power in America, and is also coming out with a new book called Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. And we are just so happy to have Kristen back with us to help or to help us explain how religion has been tied to American history. So welcome back to the show, Kristen.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Thanks so much for having me. It's good to be back.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Yeah, it's good to have you. And and uh I'm I'm just gonna just stay off the top. I still maintain that you're a superwoman. The uh very first time we had you on, I called you a superwoman, and I I still do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So that was a that was many years ago, wasn't it? So thank you for helping to uh put Jesus and John Wayne out there.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah, no problem. So um so let's just jump right into it. So a lot of your work revolves around, you know, masculinity. I mean, it it was sort of a it was actually the the reason that I picked up Jesus and John Wayne, because I'm trying to better understand sort of like how masculinity works within the church. I didn't grow up in the church, so a lot of these conversations about masculinity and what it means to be a man are really foreign to me, even though I'm a Christian, but I didn't come to the faith much later in life. So I I'd love for you to just kind of start us off there. Like, how did masculinity become such a huge or important aspect of what it means to be a Christian?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah. Yeah, first I'll go back even a step further back than that to talk about how I became interested in gender and ideas of masculinity and femininity because I went to graduate school to study American religious history and intellectual history. I was convinced that that was the history that really mattered. What do people believe? And it wasn't until I was in graduate school, my first semester, that I was introduced to the study of gender, to how ideas of masculinity and femininity change over time, how they're linked to things like religion, yes, but also to economics, to things like foreign policy. And I was converted on the spot. I thought this, this is the history that really matters, right? And and it's it's not just one thing that ideas of masculinity are very much linked to uh belief, to religious belief, to theology and understandings of scripture in the case of Christianity. And so that was kind of my uh intellectual formation. And so when I was introduced to the topic that became Jesus and John Wayne, I already had eyes to see. I had a kind of framework. I had a way to understand how throughout history and in various faith traditions and cultural systems, ideals of masculinity are always linked to power. So how power is wielded, who has that power, to what ends is that power put. And so, I mean, this this isn't like postmodern theory, although you can bring that in if you want to. It really is, I'm a pretty straightforward historian. It really is just observing the past and observing how this works. And so it was actually in the early 2000s that students at Calvin brought to my attention at that time the best-selling book on Christian manhood, John Eldridge's Wild at Heart. And they told me I had to read it. And I took their advice, I opened it up and I saw exactly what they meant. It it resonated so much with what I was teaching them about early 20th century ideals of rugged masculinity that Teddy Roosevelt prefigured. And so I just took the tools that I had learned as a cultural historian and as a historian of gender and religion and applied that not just to the past, but also to contemporary evangelical ideals of masculinity. Inside those books, it's all about this is biblical, this is scriptural. But as a historian, I can attest that you know, what people perceive as biblical, which parts of the Bible they pull out, which parts they downplay, changes dramatically over time. And so that's kind of how I approached this topic to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, that's really cool. And it was such an amazing journey to watch, even be able, like, well, one, watch even over the past few years, like how you've grown in your influence, you've grown in your even in this argument that you're bringing, which is so good. And why I guess my question with this is well, two things. Like, what kind of manhood? I mean, you're we're talking about like rugged masculinity, but what does that what does that look like maybe? You can give some of the contours of that, kind of draw that for us. And then why was this model biblical, right? You mentioned that we were going to the Bible, people were thinking this is a biblical masculinity. Why did it feel so biblical to people?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah. Well, the first thing that struck me actually when I was reading, not just Wild at Heart, but a lot of the other books that were being published in the early 2000s on a Christian manhood was actually how little biblical interpretation was in the books, very few Bible verses, even. So they were instead looking to cultural models, but then calling this Christian manhood. But the contours of this biblical manhood or Christian masculinity were consistent across all of these different kinds of uh iterations, these different preachers' books, and so on. And that was embracing a warrior motif. Uh so the Christian man is a warrior. God is a warrior God, and men are made in his image. Every man has a battle to fight. And so this idea of aggression that God filled men with testosterone so that they could be aggressive, so that they could fight to protect the faith and their families and the nation. It was a very militaristic conception of what it meant to be a man and an obedient and faithful man. Now, that may be well and good, and you could link that to particular, you know, passages if you want. But uh what struck me also was what was missing from that. And what was missing uh most uh glaringly was the fruit of the spirit. You know, the scripture is very clear on the fruit of the spirit. Literally, like what is the evidence that you are in the spirit, that you are, you know, being obedient to Christ, that you are a follower of Christ. Like this is Christianity 101, right? So what's the fruit of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, these sorts of things, right? These were not part of that masculine package, the the godly masculinity. In fact, many of these attributes were derided as feminine, as effeminate, right? And so right there, that's a pretty big red flag to me to question you, what's really happening here? What are the cultural sources of this? And what are the political and religious ends that this particular vision of quote unquote Christian masculinity are being put to? So I guess that's how I would sum it up. A lot of times after reading Jesus and John Wayne, uh, especially evangelical readers who appreciated the book, would come back and say, okay, but now tell us what is the Christian vision of masculinity? And as a historian, that's not really what I'm trained to do. And they really probably shouldn't take, you know, my word on that over that of many other people who are trained, you know, much better than I am in theology and, you know, talk to their pastors and so on. But as a historian, I think I can at least help them see what is right in front of them so that they can go back to the scriptures and to theology and come up with maybe a more accurate understanding of Christian manhood, one that might not look just like Mel Gibson's William Wallace in the movie Braveheart.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Yeah. So what are what are the consequences of, you know, sort of this hyper masculinity? Because I I think that's important because somebody might listen to this, you know, might say, well, you know, I I like things that are traditionally coded as masculine, you know, I like cars or whatever. Like I I don't really have any of those things. That's why I don't really know what to say. I like comic books and video games. So like I don't know how masculine it is. But like well, what's what's the consequence, I guess, of having this kind of masculinity in the church? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Oh, well, right there, I think it's important to say that historians who study masculinity while we'll throw around the term masculinity, uh, will often use the plural. There are masculinities, right? There's not one box that you can say, you know, anything in this box is masculine and everything else is not. That is not how how culture works. That's not how you know history shows us that a a particular culture and different Christian cultures will consider different things, quote unquote masculine at different times. Right. Again, this is just uh historians know this. This is the air we breathe. It's just the evidence that is staring us in the face. You don't need any theory to get there. Um, you can build theories off of this historical reality, but this is just the historical reality. So there are many different ways that people imagine ideal masculinity and that Christians imagine ideal masculinity. And so one of the problems is when you build this box and say these things are masculine, monster trucks, masculine, fishing, masculine, sports, masculine, right? Men who are made in God's image, right? Who maybe don't love monster trucks, maybe appreciate classical music, right? Um are they not real men? Are they somehow not being who God made them to be because they aren't, you know, spending their money on monster truck shows, right? You know, like this is a kind of so in a very practical way, it's it's extremely limiting. And when I was researching Jesus and John Wayne, and after the book came out, I heard from so many men who just said, thank you. I never felt welcome in Christian spaces. I felt like the odd one out in evangelical, in my evangelical church because I didn't fit inside this artificial box, right? And so they could be free to be who God made them to be, which is a much kind of wider spectrum of what it looks like to be a Christian man. So that's important. But I'd say one other, there's one other problem that is is not just personal, but political. And that is when masculinity, a Christian manhood is defined by particular traits of aggression, even, you know, using violence to achieve what is good and true. And, you know, gentleness and self-restraint are labeled as effeminate. That doesn't just contribute to an understanding of Christian manhood. It also subtly but powerfully reshapes our understanding of Christianity itself. Is Christianity a faith that grasps for power and that uses that power to dominate and control, to be aggressive by any means necessary? Or is Christianity a faith that is about following Christ who divested himself of power and called his followers to take up the cross and follow him?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

You know, so Christianity, big religion, majority religion in America. So like when when we talk about, you know, Christians wanting to kind of you know rise up, male figures, you know, instill this sense of masculinity, like like I'm assuming we're not talking about all Christians. So so can you can you just kind of help narrow, you know, funnel down who we're talking to, you know, if it's denominations or ethnicity or or whatever. I'd just love to hear what you have to say.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

So in the book, Jesus and John Wayne, it is a book that focuses on white evangelicals. And, you know, I've been accused of being racist because I use the white adjective in the subtitle. But again, speaking as a historian, this is kind of just how we work, right? That because precisely because there are differences, cultural differences and different historical time periods, uh, racial and ethnic differences, we're looking at different communities and evangelicalism, with a few exceptions, and particularly if you go into some Pentecostal and charismatic spaces, you'll have more kind of racial diversity. But the vast majority of kind of when we think of evangelical megachurch culture, but also the whole culture industry around evangelicalism, contemporary Christian music, uh, Christian bookstores, the Christian publishing industry, all of this is very white dominated. It is largely a white religious culture. And so I'm just acknowledging that fact and saying this is the culture that I am looking at. Now, uh, having said that, then you can you can look at ideals of masculinity in, say, black church culture. And you'll see some similarities and then some differences. There, initially I thought I might have a chapter exploring some of these differences, then the book was way too long and that didn't get included. But I did some preliminary research, and what I was finding was in Black Christian spaces, there was much more of an emphasis on fatherhood and less of an emphasis on this aggressive warrior ideal. In white spaces, this aggressive warrior ideal was almost exclusively a white ideal, and men of color were held up as threats, right? So whether it be immigrants or, you know, black people in the, you know, quote unquote, the ghetto or thugs and so on. If you go back to the 60s and 70s, that language you come across a lot. So men who were not white and their masculinity was perceived as a threat. White men had to be the protectors of vulnerable women and children, protectors of the faith, and so on. You can go into the mainline and there you're going to find a real variety. You'll certainly have less of this rugged uh masculinity. But as social scientists will point out, drawing too stark a line between evangelical and mainline churches becomes problematic because a lot of mainline Christians are consuming products produced by evangelicals. This is where there is a lot of spillover. Their Bible studies are published by evangelical publishers in many cases. People in their pews are listening to Christian radio and being influenced by uh evangelical and particularly white evangelical values. So in the main line, you're going to have a wider variety of views of masculinity. Certainly this will be less pronounced, but it won't be absent entirely.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Yeah, that that actually makes a lot of sense when you look at the different groups, and you would expect to see some differences, right? You would expect that they wouldn't be certainly monolithic, and yet you'd expect to see overlap, similarities. And it's probably in the differences, right, where the things get most interesting, right? And those contrasts. And you know, as you were as you're talking, I I was thinking about the idea that we have like, how did this get so political? In other words, I'm trying to get the words out, but like I see how the I see how they have this masculinity, you have this idea, people are attracted to this, this is used as a message, maybe a vision, maybe a vision of America, a vision of the country, a vision of what things should be. And again, if someone could understand, right, and put those things together and figure out and make some assumptions. Like I can see how this would become an issue or this become political because of the way that this vision interacts with political aspects of life, like voting and leaving the house and you know, being out there in the marketplace, stuff like that. And yet I would love to get some more clarity on how this became political in the way that it is today, in the way that we understand it now. I mean, you even have groups like the moral majority talk about the religious right. These are things that are thrown around. We've talked about it on this program, but many times they don't have a lot of definition or at least specificity to them to really understand. So how how did this become political? What do these terms, moral majority, how how do they fit into all this?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, you know, as I tried to tr tease out the origins of this particularly militant vision of masculinity, you know, I saw uh kind of early 20th century muscular Christianity as a precursor, but really this particular strand emerged in the Cold War era. And it was never not political. And in fact, in Jesus and John Wayne, uh that book was published before Christian nationalism kind of became a big thing in terms of public discourse, right? So I didn't really foreground that. But what I will say is for historians, Christian nationalism as a as a term is is nothing new, right? It's something that inside scholarly spaces, uh, we've been talking about for decades. And so there is a line in Jesus and John Wayne where I essentially say uh this rugged masculinity, you know, really only makes sense within a Christian nationalist context. And um, and because of that, and because of the nature of the book, when not long after the book published, a few months later, uh, we had January 6th, and the the media really keyed in on Christian nationalism and and I got pulled into those conversations. But, you know, for me as a historian, this was just kind of background and it was it was almost obvious. But at that time, I was like, how do I just how do I define Christian nationalism? And there were working definitions out there from a number of sociologists and political scientists, but they were super wordy. And I just thought my readers are gonna, you know, fall asleep halfway through this definition. So I made up my own on the spot, which is essentially just the way that we had been using it in scholarly circles, but in in laypersons' terms, which is the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and must be defended as such. Now, what that means exactly, right? That's the varieties of Christian nationalism. Some people will have a pretty accurate understanding of, well, founded as a Christian nation. Yes, but with a lot of caveats, right? A more historically accurate understanding. And others will, you know, completely embrace the David Barton mythical notions of America's founding. And then the defended as such. Some will say, well, yes, we want to promote Christian values, absolutely, but in a way that aligns with other Americans' constitutional rights and a pluralistic understanding of America. And then there are some uh conservative Christians who are not, uh, when push comes to shove, going to support the constitutional rights of Americans that they feel contradict their understanding of God's laws. They are not proponents of democracy. They would rather restrict the power of people who. Do not believe as they believe, right? And so this is kind of the larger background of Christian nationalism. And this militant understanding of Christianity was always embedded within kind of culture wars politics. In the 1960s and 70s, as it was emerging, it was very much in the context of the Cold War. We need strong men to fight for American freedom. And that fight needed to take place in a military sense and also in a spiritual sense. And what you see happening then over time, as the foreign threat diminished, over the course of the Cold War, and particularly by the end of the Cold War, the domestic threat was elevated because enemies of Christian America could be found abroad and at home. And those enemies were people like liberals, secular humanists, Democrats, right? And so you see that this strong, rugged masculinity using aggression, of violence to achieve righteousness could be turned both against foreign enemies and against domestic enemies. And so when you see this, those who are the loudest proponents of militant Christian manhood are also the loudest proponents of kind of culture wars politics. So you can you can trace that back to the rise of the Christian right. Certainly the moral majority, these movements are emerging in the 1970s. And that's a really critical moment historically because, in terms of our broader political history, that's when we see the party realignment taking place as Southern white Democrats are leaving the Democratic Party largely because of their disdain for civil rights, moving into the Republican Party. The Republican Party by the late 70s is becoming the party of conservatives and of conservative evangelicals. And so you see opposition to civil rights blending with quote unquote family values, conservative social values, and also, and importantly, and this is usually ignored or um overlooked, free market capitalism. So there is an economic vision that is linked to social conservatism that is linked to this aggressive vision of uh masculinity and Christian manhood in particular.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Oh, the the the the free market capital that that's interesting. Kevin Cruz, I think, writes a lot about this in his book, which is great, by the way. But I'm curious about the this isn't one of the questions I sent you, but it was something that came to mind um as we were talking regarding sort of this Christian capture of masculinity and sort of like its influence and its effect. Like, did that have anything to do with sort of the election of like Ronald Reagan or even like Donald Trump? Because I'm I'm I I'm thinking back and I don't want to, I don't want to bury, you know, say too much because you know, still your thunder. But like Ronald Reagan, I think, was like primary with against like Pat Robertson or something like that, you know? And I'm like, and Donald Trump had like, I don't know, like 16 some odd people up against some. I'd love for you just to kind of make make it make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, in in Jesus and Jamline, I do talk about the the importance of the 1980 election, actually, where we have Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter, right? And this is really a fascinating snapshot into the kind of partisan realignment and the blending of kind of cultural values with political values where religion was still trying to figure out exactly where it fit in, evangelicalism in particular, because of course in 1976, Jimmy Carter drew all kinds of national attention for coming out as a born-again Christian. And the media was like, what does this even mean? And you know, born-again Christians are like, You can't you've got to be kidding me, you don't know what this means, right? It was a whole thing, you know, he's a Southern Baptist and Sunday school teacher in Plains, Georgia, you know, salt of the earth evangelical, if ever there was one. But evangelicals sour on him very quickly for a variety of reasons that I get into in the book in a little bit more detail. But along with that then came the contrast between Carter's ostensibly insufficient masculinity. He was telling people that they needed to cut back because of the energy crisis. You know, he was he was introspective and he was self-critical and he was not bombastic and certainly embraced the gentler side of a Christian manhood and the love your neighbor type of uh Christian ethics more than the warrior ethics. Whereas Ronald Reagan strolled on the scene and he carried with him the aura of kind of cowboy hero, he was an actor, he had a California ranch, he physically looked the part, the kind of rugged American, uh, you know, red-blooded man, and played that up very well. And so when evangelicals who were already being really kind of discipled into this particular vision of masculinity and masculine power and embracing and wielding political power, hold up Jimmy Carter and then look at Ronald Reagan, even though Carter theologically aligned with them when Reagan did not, the majority of white evangelicals cast their vote for Reagan over Carter. And so it turns out 1976, the previous election, was the last time that evangelicals voted for predominantly for a Democrat. And that it really achieved this political turn. And then around that, that didn't just happen organically, right? You had the rise of the moral majority, the broader Christian right, men like Jerry Fowell, uh, men like, you know, Billy Graham played a role in this, even if somewhat chastened after Watergate, and the networks and organizations and institutions they founded, things like the moral majority, things like the Council for National Policy, um, people like Rich DeVos were around the table here, powerful political uh figures, pastors and people like Tim LaHaye, um, Beverly LaHaye, these folks, and billionaires. And they're all around the table and they stay together over the decades to really advance, again, this vision of conservative moral values and free market economics.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Well, uh, real real fast. Well, was Paul Ryrich, Paul Weyrich one of the one of the people?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Absolutely. He was, he was, he was very much had a seat at the table and was one of the people really pulling the strings very early on. And yeah, it actually a lot of this, I talk about this a little bit in Jesus and John Wayne in the next book, Live, Laugh, Love. I go into much more depth in terms of this really critical era in the 1970s, in the emergence of the Christian right and the political vision, who was at the table and what their motives actually were, where the money was coming from. And you can just see it all play out. And it's what was interesting to me too is I I tracked down some opposition in the 1970s from fellow evangelicals and from fellow conservative evangelicals who started to say, wait a minute, what you're doing here is dividing the church. You're dividing the body of Christ along political lines when that is unbiblical. And of course, uh historically we can say who who ended up winning that battle, but it was really important to me to bring out some of that early opposition, like as people were realizing in real time what was being done to the American church by people with immense power.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Aaron Ross Powell What role did fear play in all this movement? Fear feminism, secularism, communism, liberals. You might you've already kind of talked about this, but this long, but I'd love you to go into more, even the sense of cultural losses in cultural decline or national decline, right? I would love for you to talk about that because that's one of the major motivations now, I hear a lot, especially cultural loss, right? That that that we're not only losing the culture, but the nation is leaving, right? We're gonna lose. So because of the weakness of wokeness and liberalism and all that. So what what role is fear in this against these kinds of groups in your research?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Fear is absolutely essential to this whole game plan. And we back in 2016, when there's a lot of attention around what at the time was a novel question, you know, how could white evangelicals, family values evangelicals support a man like Donald Trump? It was the question of the hour. And uh one of the working theories was they're just so afraid. They're so afraid because of demographic changes and cultural changes and the sea change on LGBTQ rights, and they're afraid for their religious freedom, and they're they're just so afraid. What choice did they have but to rush into the arms of a man like Donald Trump who promised to protect them? And the more ruthless he was, the better, right? That was kind of the narrative. And there is some truth to that. When I was researching Jesus and John Wayne, however, there was a moment where something just snapped into place for me. And that was when I was researching the chapter on a kind of bizarre chapter in Jesus and John Wayne, but one of my favorites, on this phenomenon of ex-Muslim terrorists who became celebrities in conservative evangelical spaces. These were men who claimed to have been ardent Muslims and in some cases like terrorists. And then they converted not just to Christianity, but to evangelicalism. And then they went on the evangelical speaking circuit for years. Some of them are still on the circuit today, warning evangelicals about just how dangerous Muslims are and how they are targeting Americans and American Christians and American families. Well, one of these guys actually came to Calvin University where I teach. And my colleague, Doug Howard, is an expert on Islam, Islamic history in the Ottoman Empire. And he actually went and listened to the guy. And within like a couple minutes of the talk, he was like, This makes no sense. This guy's a fraud. And so he actually reached out to the sponsoring organization, Focus on the Family, and was able to talk with the president and discovered, lo and behold, they knew his story was made up. They knew he was a fraud and that did not keep them from promoting this guy. And there was a whole group of these guys who were out there, all of them complete and utter frauds. And that's that's when something clicked into place for me. Evangelicals were afraid. I knew evangelicals personally who were desperately afraid of Islam. And they were reading books published by Christian publishing houses written by, you know, former Muslims who would tell them just how scared they should be. But it was largely a manufactured fear. So the fear was real, but it was being generated with lies to produce this fear for political ends. And so in the early 2000s, evangelicals were far and away the demographic, most likely to support the Iraq war, to support war in general, preemptive war, to condone the use of torture, all of this as, and it was justified by the need to protect Americans and American Christians from dangerous things. And that model, I think, is very important to keep in mind. People's fears are real, but so much is being manufactured. And let me also say this is this is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. Finding a scapegoat, finding a group, a vulnerable group to blame. The rhetoric around immigrants, my goodness, that has come to what we are seeing and is largely supported and amplified and produced by conservative evangelicals right now. I mean, just go to social media and you'll see what I'm talking about. Hateful rhetoric, dangerous rhetoric. Any historian of 20th century authoritarianism will tell you this is dangerous rhetoric. Rhetoric around LGBTQ folks and trans folks in particular, the kind of scapegoating, the kind of rhetoric that does not allow for careful and compassionate conversation. It only allows for you are with us or you are against us. If you are against us, you are evil, you are on the side of the devil, right? That's what we're facing right now. And again, historians of 20th century authoritarianism will tell you this is nothing new, but it is more dangerous, I would argue, when it comes cloaked with the language of Christianity. I do have that effect on people's apologies.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

We spoke to Matt Taylor not too long ago, and he's like, I don't know why I don't get invited to parties. I'm like, oh, I know why. I know why, Matt. But it's it's it's true though, because so we we just spoke with um a couple days ago, we spoke with uh Paul Juke and about some research about anti-Christian nationalism, really, really great stuff. And he he sort of jokingly said, he's like, oh, it's an election season, so that means Sharia Law is back, you know?

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

And and and it makes perfect sense. And and I and I can't remember where I read it, but but I read somewhere where where they said, you know, communism used to be sort of the fear-mongering technique back in you know the 60s, and today it's it's you know, Sri Allah. And and I'm I'm wondering if if that's if that's a a correct analysis and if there has been shifts and other things that Christians should fear, you know, since like the 60s.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

It's not just Sharia law. So Sharia law hasn't, I mean, communism was just so pervasive as an organizing principle for post-war evangelicalism. Like you really cannot overstate its significance. And and I actually go into much more detail in Live Laugh Love on that as well. What this really means. How do we understand what you know anti-communism meant to evangelicals? Um, and and it goes very, very deep. I get into things like Chinese communist thought reform or brainwashing and how that was used as a model, inspiring some evangelical groups, actually, right? It gets gets very wild. So there's a little spoiler for you all on that front. But it's so it's not just Sharia law, but yes, Sharia law will pop back up. But let me let me just tell you a little story of a few years back when you know I was on social media and Jesus and John Wayne had come out. So I was a bit of a target. And at one point somebody came after me demanding to know my position on trans women in in women's sports. And I and like now this is well, of course, but this was like out of the blue for me because it was very, very, you know, before this had become a thing. I remember just being utterly baffled. Like, I I I I don't know. I I have no position on sports generally. Like, I I don't, I'm not super sporty. I don't really follow this. Like, I I I don't even know what this is about. And then sure enough, within months, it became the big issue. And this is how the right operates. They test issues, they they do trial runs, and and the women's sports worked for a while, but then they they came up with a better one, which was, you know, the mutilation of children, which much more clearly targeted evangelical anxieties over parental rights and over the future of their own children. There's a long history of that, right? And when I'm providing this kind of framework, I don't want to suggest that these are not important issues that need to be looked at very carefully and that people should be expected to have a variety of views on, right? But what this kind of framing does is it makes those conversations impossible.

unknown 39:22

Right?

SPEAKER_00 39:23

You can't even go there, there's only one right answer, and don't even think about it, just give this right answer and it's this side or that side on issues that are highly complicated and I would argue deeply important and too important to be politicized in the ways that they are. Because we need careful theological conversation, and we need the insights of psychologists and biologists and all of the things, right? The conversations that we are not having because it has become so politicized in this way. But what I know, and I've learned some of this too from the writings of Catherine Stewart, who is an investigative journalist who goes into these spaces on the right, goes into their planning sessions. They, you know, so let her in. Some of these are public events, and she talks about exactly this strategy. They do, they, they test different issues to see which ones take hold. And if it doesn't really gather steam, set it aside and they try the next one and they try the next one until they find that one that takes hold. And then that becomes the new litmus test, and that becomes the new kind of wedge issue, and it works so well for culture wars politics. And, you know, everybody else is kind of left scrambling, like, oh, wait, wait, what is this? And what what am I supposed to say now? But this is a deliberate strategy that has been employed with great success. And it it helps maintain this all-important us versus them distinction. And and it maintains this sense of threat and sense of fear. They are coming for you, for your children, for your family. Therefore, you need to back us as we fight for you.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah, you know, it's like an ends justify the means kind of thinking. And I see this a lot. I see it a lot in the evangelical world that I grew up in. I see it a lot. I think it's, you know, it's a human problem is is is what I would uh what I would propose. But the ends just ends justifying the means, right? That kind of thinking, it shapes us in in in really negative ways. We assume that, you know, the process isn't gonna change us along the way, and it always does. And in in the the the means they transform us into whatever the means are, right? If it's violent, we become more violent, right? If it's some kind of exploitation, we become exploitative, uh, you know, or we try to cover things up, right? And and I guess when I'm looking at this, it's we have this like uh this ins justify the means kinds of thinking that I grew up with. And yet on the other side though, like it seems like there are these things that are chosen that are gonna attract people, get them really angry, get them riled up, and then get them on your side, which makes which makes sense, right? I feel like politicians want to do that, and for us, it's like we we gotta make sure that we're not getting so bamboozled all the time by these politicians who are constantly doing this. But what's interesting to me is the ability that it seems uh in the church world to ignore things that should be dealt with because of, you know, we're well, we're dealing with the bigger issues, you know. At least we're uh fighting against the LGBTQ agenda or or some kind of you know uh demonic agenda or something like that, and yet then abuse or institutional protection is is justified. And you you part of what you've done is you've exposed a lot of these cultural patterns of abuse, of protecting the institutions. And I would love for you to kind of talk about that. What what is going on? How are these things connected, right? The larger political and cultural patterns in the church and outside, how have you found that these things are connected? The abuse, the institutional protection, and how does that play a part in this?

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah, I love the way you you framed that. By focusing on these things, what are we not doing instead? And what does it make it more difficult or even impossible for us to do? And I think of the SBC as an interesting case study here where, and I track some of this in in Jesus and John Wayne and more in Live Laugh Love, but the coalescing opposition to abuse reform inside the SBC. And other denominations have have their own stories with. In this respect as well, but the SBC, largest Protestant denomination in the country, and you know, very much at the center of this contested issue. And uh what has been striking to uh kind of critics of the SBC and many inside the SBC, to be fair, is how ready the SBC is to disfellowship, kick out churches that employ women in any sort of a role that they might be considered, you know, pastors in some sense, uh, or wielding any kind of authority that uh the powers that be or conservative powers that be do not want them to wield, right? That uh all kinds of energy has been expended on that and authority used to remove churches from the SBC. What happens in the case of sexual predators who are pastors, have been pastors, staff members? All of a sudden, there we hear about how, well, you see, the structure of the SBC, it's not actually a formal denomination. We don't actually have the power to interfere in local church issues. So we can't really have a database, certainly not one that we're gonna make public. We can't really do anything. Our hands are tied. Sorry about that. And so we see predators who are maybe uh either they're kept in the pulpit, kept in power, and they they keep abusing, or they quietly leave, but then pop up in another church and abuse more children, more women, and then they pop up in another church again, right? And so it's this real disconnect between, you know, where are your values? And there's a certain hypocrisy there. And many reasons can be given for this. One is yes, protecting power, but it it really feels like it has to go deeper than that to understand whose power are they protecting, which power in particular are they protecting? But I think even broader than that, we could ask to get back to your framing, you know, what are they not doing when they're doing this? When you embrace this warrior mentality, it becomes impossible to lead with a love your neighbor mentality. With it, it becomes impossible to lead with the way, you know, modeling yourself after Christ. Arguably, and this is, you know, I'm speaking as a Christian myself, and the thing that keeps me in the faith tradition is the person of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Gospels, which is so kind of runs counter to human nature in many ways. Again, divesting oneself of power, giving power, becoming the, or whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me, right? That is revolutionary teaching. And Jesus didn't just teach it, he modeled it. And there is something that just is so counterintuitive about that. And that to me is the draw of Christianity and the mystery of Christianity. And we are not wired for that. I'm a Calvinist, so I'll point to sin there. But right, we have to kind of work against a certain prideful and possessive instinct that I think comes pretty natural to many of us and give that up and follow Christ, who is a servant and a suffering servant. So when you're fighting the culture wars, you have already defeated what I would argue is the essence of Christianity itself.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Well, so Kristen, you have spent your career studying evangelicalism, gender power, all the things. And, you know, we by the time this airs, the 4th of July would have already passed, America would have celebrated its 250th anniversary since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's a semi-quincentennial, I believe is what they call it. So I'd love for you just to just just let us know like what does this moment mean to you personally? I mean, like, you of all people would probably have the most informed insight on like what 250 years means looking at American religious history. Like, so yeah, I'd love to just hear hear what it means to you.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Uh you know, honestly, it's it's a bit of a struggle right now because I I'm filled with sadness when I see the state of our country and the health of our democracy in this moment, when I see the divisions that have been intentionally created and stoked between Americans, and when I see American constitutional rights and democratic norms under siege. And, you know, this isn't just my opinion. This is look at literally any global organization that monitors democracy, and you can find all kinds of data points. And also to see that conservative Christians are at the forefront of these attacks in many cases. It grieves me. At the same time, you know, I feel more patriotic than I ever have, probably. And I, because I I love this country, and I think that we have a constitutional framework, while far from perfect and far from perfectly implemented, is uh a thing of great value and even beauty. And so standing here, living through the 250th, I was born. I'm a bicentennial baby, by the way. So kind of entered the world during those celebrations, which which was a time when the the Christian right and moral major the Christian right was coalescing, really. Like that was a key, key moment, 1976, red, white, and blue, patriotic choirs in churches and all the things, right? That was just the catalyzing moment for what we now refer to as Christian nationalism. So here we are, 50 years later. And I hate to say they've achieved or succeeded probably beyond their wildest dreams, or at least seem on the cusp of succeeding to implement in order that undermines our basic constitutional and democratic republic. What I would point to is what was one of the extremely valuable things written into our founding documents principles was the ideal of religious liberty. And the immediate historical backdrop to that moment were the religious wars that had ransacked Europe, Christians fighting against Christians. And it wasn't just about theology, it wasn't just Catholics against Protestants, right? It was theology linked to territorial power. And the founders took some lessons from that. And they forged a government framework that would protect people's religious practice, religious belief. And at that time, it was remarkable and notable for doing so. And so to see that being undermined by Christians who claim to be defending Christianity, what I know is that, you know, it it will come back to haunt even those very Christians because religious liberty is absolutely precious and essential to the flourishing of genuine religious faith in any nation.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, I think that's really well said, Kristen. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for being a part of this Church and State 250, and just thanks for sharing your insight with us.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Thank you. It's been a pleasure, and thank you for doing this important project.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

Absolutely. And to our viewers and listeners, guys, thanks for joining for another episode of Faithful Politics, the Church and State 250, 250 years plus of church history and American history. Christian history in America. So we appreciate you guys. Share this with someone who needs it, who's who can need to hear this. Keep showing them this series because we got great episodes coming up. You've already uh gone through this journey with us so far, so thank you. And guys, until next time, keep your conversations not right or left. But up.