Jesus and jon wayne. How evangelicals corrected and fractured a nation a division of the ww norton and company. She earned her phd in american religious history. Who also teaches religious studies at the university of tennessee in martin. I welcome everyone on behalf of our sponsors including humanities tennessee. We love to hear from our authors and from you who are listening via facebook live, and youtube. Please feel free picture questions in the chat feature i will present them later an hour 45 minute session. Here at a previous outside meeting at the southern festival of books we meet in the tennessee plaza. That display would be organized who continues as her bookseller. Your purchases to the online link helps keep the southern festival of books free you can also contribute to the southern festival by supporting us on the website at ww w during our session and make comments but i will ask a few questions and we want you to engage with her as well. Those interested in the role of religion in the United States with the representation of masculinity, the changing of evangelical christianity, the role of books and myths and establishing and maintaining will find the book fascinating and revealing as a historian, doctorate works with written texts and she demonstrates with multiple the weight these books and ideas have shaped consciousness and the evangelical movement. Particularly in regard to masculinity. As you know the work of published scholars doctor david gushy, doctor beth allison bar and the late rachel evans. Jesus and jon wayne fills in a significant gap. As an educator draw from her expense in teaching and scholarship from the opening preface. Want to eat read that opening paragraph. More than 15 years ago at the Christian University where i teach one day after class. Sitting on the path that leads this book i just wrapped up a lecture explaining how theodore roosevelt, americas cowboy president had embodied a rugged masculinity that led masculine strength to american power. Why students told me theres a book i needed to read i understood why my students had insisted that i read it. The book begins with a quote for roosevelt, the credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly cold and timid souls who can evident victory nor defeat. Under roosevelt word ran a passage from the gospel of matthew, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and violent men must take it by force. This book itself went on to sketch a vision of christian manhood that bore a striking resemblance to roosevelt muscular ideas, god was a wire and men are made in the image of this war your god. Every man needed a battle to fight. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you to the southern festival of books as well for this opportunity to spend a little time thinking about this together. So yes, the idea for jesus and jon wayne came to me long, long ago. It was a couple of students in my class that convinced me i needed to pick up the book which i have right here. After class that day i headed down to my local Family Christian bookstore. It still has the price tag on the back even the Family Christian bookstore is no longer around. I picked up the book and i was really shocked by what i read. For a couple of reasons i was shocked by this conception of christian manhood. This book was drawing on the christian scriptures. Instead the book was drawing on hollywood heroes. From the movie braveheart other mythical warriors. And that really caught my eye. At the same time this is in the early 2000s, 2005 or 2006 when i came across this. It was more than 4 million copies was everywhere at the time. I heard about it long before ash thought i should read it myself. It was during the iraq war. At that time i was seeing all the survey data come in about how white evangelicals by far and away more likely to support the iraq war. To support the war in general to condone the use of torture. In fact they start asking what they have to do with the other. Setting the project aside for a family long time for a couple of reasons. One i was not quite sure how mainstream all this was. Even though i was look at these incredible book sale figures. Everybody i knew was reading these, and other copycat books. But i was reading seemed really extremist. I was not quite sure if i should be devoting my attention obviously not that significant. I ended up setting the project aside until the fall of 2016. In the days after the release of the excess hollywood video, i was hearing the words of evangelicals using to defend their ongoing support for then candidate donald trump. And it dawned on me, i have heard these words before. I have heard exactly this rhetoric we need an alternate champion. We need a warrior who is going to win our battles. We need someone who will protect humanity. A man who is worthless, a man who will do what needs to be done. It was at that point, especially a few weeks later after the 2016 election i decided i needed to write this. Went back to the researcher and start all those years ago what we were looking at was not just friendship. And that is where this book came about. So i thought i would take a little bit of time here today to read a few of my favorite passages. Not all of my favorite passages there are other favorites that did not quite make the cut. I really enjoyed writing about access and dynasty. I also took special pleasure in writing about conservative evangelicals condemnation of president clinton in 1990s for his moral failings. [inaudible] right where i left off with the fall of 2016. At that point if you remember, a lot more asking the question, how could evangelicals support a man like donald trump. To be honest there asking that same question. How could family values, conservative support a man who floated every value they insisted they held dear. How could the selfprofessed moral majority, erase enter and embrace a candidate who revels in vulgarity. How could evangelicals who turn what would be into a National Phenomenon to justify their support for a man who seems the very antithesis of the savior they claim to emulate . They scrabbled to explain part evangelicals were holding their noses. Choosing the lesser of two evils and Hillary Clinton was the greatest evil. Evangelicals were thinking purely transactional terms. Trump is often said to do. Voting for trump because he promised to deliver Supreme Court appointments, that was to and the unborn and secure their liberty but maybe the polls are misleading paid by confusing evangelicals in name only with good, church attending, bible believing christians, sloppy posters were giving evangelicalism a bad rap. But evangelical support for trump was no aberration. Was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was rather the culmination of evangelical embrace as a militant masculinity and ideology that enshrines Patriarchal Authority and condones the callous display of power at home and abroad. By the time trump arrives proclaiming himself their savior, conservative white evangelicals have already traded a faith that privileges humility and elevates the least of these so derives as the prominence. Rather than turning the other cheek, they had resolved to defend their faith and their nation, secure in the knowledge at the ends justify the memes. Havent replaced jesus of the gospels with a vengeful or your, its no wonder many came to think of trump in the same way. In 2016, many observers were stunned but evangelical apparent betrayal of their own values. In reality, evangelicals did not cast their vote despite their belief because of them. One of the things that i do in this book, is a little different than what other scholars of evangelicalism have done before. I dont design evangelical by professed theology. It is the belief so a lot of scholars and evangelicals themselves will point to things the authority of the scripture, the centrality of the cross of christ. Conversion is him the bornagain experience and then evangelism and activism. Instead, i see evangelicalism as a Cultural Movement and largely as a consumer culture. So heres what i have to say about that. White evangelicalism has such an expansive reach in large part because the culture it has created. The culture. Over the past halfcentury or so, evangelicals have produced and consumed a vast quantity of religious products. Christian books and magazines, contemporary christian music, christian radio and television, feature Films Ministry conferences, blogs teachers home to core evangelicals are hard pressed to articulate even the most basic tenants of evangelical theology have nonetheless done that in this evangelical Popular Culture. Theyve raised focus of the radio programs are grown up walking cartoons. They blacked out a meager income of the newsboys, they learned about purity before they learned about facts and have a silver ring to prove it. They watch the passion of the christ, soul surfer or the latest kirk cameron film they attended promise keepers with guys from church and read wild at heart in small groups. They learned more from pat roberson, joyce meyer in the Gospel Coalition than they have from their own pastor sunday sermon. So by taking evangelical consumer culture seriously thats when we can start to see the values have been instilled throughout conservative white evangelicalism. A sad couple what we see only look at Popular Culture we see what religious formation is taking place. From the start has been both personal and political and learning how to be christian men has made books on masculinity extremely popular. Evangelicals also learned guns, war, order the military, Foreign Policy and the nation itself. Despite evangelical frequent claims the bible is their social and political commitment evangelical must be seen no member number of bible verses will dislodge the greatest truth at the heart of it. Masculine authority and militarism, the sexual and spiritual subordination sunday schools and Vacation Bible School boys learn to be superheroes and girls to be beautiful princesses. To marching information the church group boys or trains use guns and both girls to play at makeup, to shop and decorate cakes. Churches host special mothers day services handing out flowers or sweet pastries and pumps to womens in the congregation. On fathers day they grow wild game or host contests were men soft football or compete inseminate in hunting games when taking home a box of steaks. One church had a smoking barrel that were men and boys shoe comes and meets eat smoked meat. Sometimes involving the smearing of blood has a masculine rite of passage. Christian schools mass catlike night, eagles or crusaders. Hold Chapel Services hosting weightlifters for jesus or locals to tear apart from groups district phonebooks and dump by so many of christ. National mens conferences bring them together with her favorite christian authors for worship and asked soaring. They hold the fight club minister come up with their homegrown version of manly mens group or one church rebranded their mens retreat as a mens advance because men dont retreat. Decided to bible men come together as knights of the round table women handmaiden of the lord. The christian reach a reflects reinforces these dynamics. Christian have greeting cards for women but also develop a duck dynasty product line marketed to men. Nelson bibles publishes bible for teenagers that contain the text of the older new testament christian lifestyle advice for boys and girls club. Emblazoned with an image of writing into battle the boys version urges boys to fight the fight of epic battles of the Old Testament and how unstoppable lawyers got so awesome. The new testament provides a list of Beauty Secrets and quizzes on topics like are you dating a godly guy . On the guys speak out section four girls can hear it men have to say on tons of important issues. The gendered nature as close as your nearest hobby lobby store. Home by a powerful evangelical family, hobby lobby recently helped spearhead opposition of the Affordable Care acts contraceptive mandate in the companys profits have help fund the museum of the bible in the nations capitol. In the evangelical or the craft store influence or be on the beltway. The past decade the local christian bookstore has declined as of the brickandmortar outlets has christian rituals migrated to online retailers including christian book. Com, an increase in the amazon prayer together with walmart, hobby lobby has claimed a slice of the religious market by pioneering an era of big box christian retail. Bring it in and the secular, hobby lobby is loved by crafters and White Christian women alike. Course the categories are not mutually exclusive. Books targeting evangelical men and women. You can find aisle upon file gender specific merchandise. Little girls an entire section of Pink Princess theme sent walmart creating girls are made of bows, bling and sparkly think other things are mining girls it comes from within a gentle and quiet spirit. Grown women can find glittery coffee tellers adorned with lipstick, mascara, coffee and jesus. Go over to the mens section seen a for an assortment of fake schools, cowboy boot to core, full shaped drawer pulls a bullet Action Shotgun shape grilling spatula sought to bring his army, marines, Ronald Reagan and the second amendment. One wall plaque boldly proclaims i stand for the National Anthem against red, white and Blue American flag. A signage and show devoted to jon wayne memorabilia. I bought one of these myself from hobby lobby jon waynes plaque. They conservative evangelical can position themselves against the secular but as the cultural evangelicalism of hobby lobby can be difficult to distinguish. Many evangelicals the masculine values and like jon wayne, Ronald Reagan, rush limbaugh, and donald trump and bodies have come to define evangelicalism itself. At the taste of the book and what is within these pages. What is happened since the book came out. You get that from the title of the subtitle in particular. What is remarkable is how evangelicals themselves including many conservative white evangelicals have been fact embrace this book. It has been astounding, really. Within a couple of days of its publication it started getting letters from evangelicals themselves. A mental to brace myself for vicious trolling once this book is published. And instead, i have been absolutely swamped with letters from more than a year now but i still get several every day. Most of these letters Say Something like this is the story of my life. Thank you for helping me too see. They go on to share extended narratives of how their own experiences math bond, sometimes uncannily closely to the narrative in jesus and jon wayne. And how many of them are experiencing a reckoning, grappling that this is their life story this event is what they meant all along. As were waiting on questions to come in, i thought i would begin with one. Also, ideologies are often complex and their sources. How did you discover the enduring role of jon wayne across the decades with respect to the representation of evangelical masculinity . I did not set out to write a book about jon wayne. This is a book about jon wayne he doesnt pop up. My very earliest document in the early 2000 i call hero worship. Because i saw how evangelicals love their heroes. And then i noticed very quickly, they have other things in common. They were all white men. Without exception. And they were all who embodied this rugged masculinity. White men who were not afraid to use violence to bring order. And i started noticing, was right up front. That was before him in the 90s evangelicals loved that movie. I just could not find a way with braveheart in the books title but i like jon wayne to because i saw jon wayne popping up. Not evangelical, not known as the poster boy of family values at all. And in these ways, reminiscent of donald trump obviously as well. The Something Else jon wayne does, in his movies represent the good guy with a gun, the white man who brought order through violence and is a greatest hits, right . in the 1960s and 1970s in particular. He was popular in the if cold war era and increasingly came to symbolize this rugged, traditional, even retrograde white masculine power. And he did so on screen, but he did so off screen as well. And he was a strong proponent of conservative politics, of barry goldwater, of phyllis valvely and is of his close friend Ronald Reagan. He was quite racist and is very prolaw and order, antihippie, right . And so he embodies this ideology in so many ways, and thats the john wayne that evangelicals over time really held up. In eric metaxas words, we all know john wayne is the icon of american masculinity. Thats just taken for granted and then we go from there. Thanks. You those that the vietnam war was a, quote, a Pivotal Moment in the formation of an emerging evangelical identity. Could you say a little bit about that . Yeah. I that was one of the surprises. First was reading these popular books on evangelical masculinity the. I discovered a whole lot [inaudible] in the 2000s and the remarkable success of his book, of course it would, and and then there was a whole literature from the 19903s, some of the promise keepers movement, so i looked at some of the most popular books there and was able to, i just kept running up against many of these books opened with themes from the vietnam war. So i thought that was significant, and i continued to kind of trace things back. I came to see how the vietnam era was this critical juncture in, you know, in American History that in the early years of the cold war when evangelicals were first asserting their power or just trying to assert power. And in the context of the early cold war, that worked great. They were staunchly anticommunist, and communism was antifamily and antiamerican, so it was all perfect if, but they werent alone are. Liker so many is other americans of this consensus era, you know, also in terms of traditional gender roles, that the postwar era. And so evangelicals were not on the margins. They were moving increasingly to the center. Billy brown was their celebrity, and hes in and out of the the Eisenhower White house, things were great. Youve got the civil rights movement, youve got the feminist movement and you have the vietnam war and the antiwar movement. And this is where we see this divide where more and her americans are starting to question american goodness and american greatness. And this is when evangelicals double down. And so they link traditional gender roles, particularly this rugged has clipty, Patriarchal Authority with defense of christian america, with military strength, with, you know, defense of all that as right and good and isnt oppositional values because they know that more and more americans are questioning these very values. They really see themselves as the faithful remnant, and its the up to them to fight to defend feint, family and faith, family from external and internal threats. Okay, thanks. We have a question from our audience. Are the events with january the 6th consistent with your argument in john wayne, or would you materially revise it in light of january 6th . Oh, thank you for that question. [laughter] yes, absolutely. So i had to write the process for the for paperback edition. It was, it had to be submitted in november of 2020. And i had to beg for that time. I first wanted to submit it before the election, no, you cant do this. We need to see this out. So i turned it in, and just around the corner we have the events of january 6th. And absolutely consistent with this militancy, this in fact, you know, there were a lot of christian symbols among the insurrectionists. Theres really good coverage on this. He has a prayer offer, of course, on the floor of the senate, but you also had prayer offered by the proud boys on their way to the capitol. If you listen to that part this particular, it could be voiced on any given sunday. And what really caught my eye in the crowds on that day was a sign that had braveheart on it. And it had a picture of a William Wallace character but with a trump head and, you know, holding up a severed head that was labeled marxism or socialism and a sword in the other hand. You have the same imagery, all of this. So really what we see happening january 6th is consistent with this mill militancy. Which is not to say that all evangelicals condoned the violence. But i will say is i was watching very closely at the broader evangelical response. At first there was a lot of denial, you know, this wasnt us, this was antifa, and that was inspired by Franklin Graham initially. And then there was a lot of violence not addressing it. And then i heard a lot of we dont condone violence but [laughter] and then, essentially, justifying it. You do what needs to be done. So, yeah, i think that the book would not need to be revised at all, however i would open up the next new preface with january 6th as a case study. Thanks. Ive got a question. One of the things that i noticed when i first read the book was youve read lots of books. [laughter] in writing this book. And theres just a wealth of information in the last 75 years. Yeah. So im going to just drop im going to name drop here for a minute. Go for it. You mention, or note the works of phyllis schlafly, elizabeth elliot, bill goddard, james dobson, kim and beverly la hay and John Eldridge and others such as oliver north, mark driscoll, al moeller who were foundational in beginning and supporting the development of an image of masculinity as rugged and in some measure excusable within the movement. On the other side, you mentioned figures like rick warren, bill highballs, jim wallace, russell lord and others who have pushed back against part of this mythic development. What grow see as the future . Yeah. First of all, yes, many, many books were read, and i do want to give my shout out to i had three University Research assistants, students who e helped me with this, and they were phenomenal. Theres no way this book could have been written in this way without their, their labor and insight. So, yeah, im glad you listed the variety of figures that were talking about because all of evangelicalism, conservative white evangelicalism cant be reduced to militancy, right . Youve got all kinds youve got Russell Moore, so this is where the story is, right . One of the things i kind of do throughout this book is kind of get a handle on who are we talking about, what is evangelicalism. I have a series of networks and alliances, and im always asking, you know, what is fringe here and what is mainstream . And sometimes people that are pretty sure that they are mainstream, like, christianity today, right . People like Russell Moore find out and have found out over the last five years that theyre not, that they are being pushed out and that theyre being, you know, pressured. And so one of the things this book is going is trying to tease out what is the mainstream, what is the fringe actually . What are the Power Dynamics actually here . And if thats the center of evangelicalism, perhaps its tipped over time. So thats a way to procrastinate and answer your question whats next, where do we go next. You know, were seeing here a fracturing, a splintering of evangelicalism but not down the middle. Its not like a 5050 divide. When i try to wrap my head around kind of what were seeing, i keep kind of coming back to that, you know, that infamous 81 of white evangelicals who voted for trump. I think thats Holding Steady. It held steady in 2020. Its Holding Steady as im surveying this landscape where you built these prominent voices, those are the ones we know because the national medias covering them. You can find figures like that throughout american evangelicalism, and you can find pastors stand ising up and saying this is not okay and a few of them are losing their all pits because of it pulpits, right . Members of organizations. Theres a lot of division happening right now within evangelicalism, within and families. This reckoning is very real. At the same time, i dont see a lot of shift happening with respect to evangelical institutions, evangelical organizations. Theyre often powerful donors that kind of hold to the status quo. And if so what i see happening across evangelicalism often does mimic what we just saw where figures are courageously kind of standing against these power structures for a time and then either they get pushed out or they say i cant do this anymore, and they leave. Where do they go . A variety of places, but organizations that they left are, if anything, more radicalized because those voices of dissent have been removed. So thats really what i see happening right now. I cant predict much further into the future because as historians we know that, you know, you just never know whats around the corner. The day before i was putting together my remarks, i sent out a number of queries on my Facebook Page about people having read authors such as Maribel Morgan or tim la hay or some others, and it was intriguing the responses i got back. Sometimes people think about facebook and it being an echo chamber of, you know, similar thought to what the person who is a facebook friend to someone. It was intriguing how many of them had actually heard of those particular and if they had been attar of evangelical movement early in their lives, they were read this their homes. They were sometimes kept in the drawer for certain kinds of knowledge about human sexuality, for example, a couple of those that you mentioned. One person who is a pastor in a church mentioned that he had pulled out a couple of copies of these books from the library because he didnt think they represented what his group now thinks about with regard to role of men and women. A number of these texts that you mentioned were essentially aiming at the concept of complementarity which is a big, driving force still within certain parts of the evangelical movement. It was intriguing. Some said my mother read this book, and it probably led to her second divorce. So its these were books that were tremendously influential not just on shaping images of masculinity, but also images for women. Absolutely. And for their role and their interactions with men. Yeah, yeah. You know, ive talked with so many readers who are sharing these stories. Just this week i was talking with a podcaster who shares, his dad had given him a down of the act of marriage, very graphic sex [laughter] you know, just before his wedding and saying dont read this until after you get married. And he goes its so many people. Parents for a generation younger, right, that was their bible of purity. This is what it means to be a christian, this is what it means to be american. And ive just been hearing from so many people who are saying, you know, i patterned my life, we pattern our lives around them, our marriage around making this work. And i hear traumatic stories from abuse survivors, particularly women who were blaming themselves as they were taught, you know, for their own abuse because clearly they were not meeting their husbands needs, they were not sufficiently submissive and these really harrowing stories that, sadly, are, you know, so familiar to a certain subset of americans and yet, you know, this whole world is almost invisible to people outside of this culture. So much so that when we were working on this book, hi editor whos from completely outside of this world questioned some of these publication numbers. No, no, no, publishers are always exaggerating, this isnt whered you get those. Well, this was from the New York Times. Oh. Okay, then its legit. [laughter] but these books are not make willing it onto the New York Times bestseller list, and if they would, theyd be these christian sex books on the list all the time [laughter] and thats not what the New York Times is going to promote to their readers. So what happens is this whole world with this deeply formative generation of evangelical ises is almost unknown to people outside of that world. Were coming up toward the end of our time, and i do have this question, sort of a futureasking question for you. I see that you also have a new gospel for women. The challenge of christian feminism in addition to jesus and john wayne. The role of gender, its construction and the authority that it assumes have been in your scholarship. If you could suggest briefly what youve learned so far and where do you see yourself going next . Yeah, thanks for this one. My first book, new gospel for women, is on the history of christian feminism looking particularly at activists in the late 19th and early 20th century who keep running up against the back of christian men who are abusing women ander respectful. So ultimately she concludes the crime must be the fruit of the theology. And she goes to the scriptures and retranslates and reinterprets the christian scriptures. But she identifies as a fundamentalist christian. So its this remarkable story that has been all but lost. But what i really took from from that was that conservative, biblebelieving christians, right, who uphold the authority of the scriptures believe the word of god is inerrant can read those scriptures and conclude that christianity is against patriarch key, that christianity is for womens equality. And as soon as i kind of wrapped my head around that, then i understood that, you know, the bible can be interpreted in that as i understood that the bible can be interpreted in that direction in the direction of patriarchy, so the historian in any given moment, we should not just be assuming this is biblical teachings but why are these people in this moment taking this in this direction and that led to jesus and john wayne. Other historians have assumed they will be patriarchal because it is biblical instead of asking why and what cultural layers are they building on to this, so that was my first book, my next book is kind of the next chapter of jesus and johnis wayne, cultural study o christian womanhood and it is called live last love and it is looking at cultural products like christian romance and mommy blogs and hallmark movies and analyzing this in terms of neoliberalism, post feminism and white supremacy. Okay. Thank youht very much for real enlightening book. I enjoyed it. I know many of our readers will enjoy it, please do keep up your great work, remember parnassus books, thank you, have a good evening. Seeking educational excellence, charles love recently argued black lives matter in the 6019 projects are a danger to the future of american democracy. It was founded to reimagine the founding of america around when the first black africans were brought here as slaves and what they say is slavery and antiblack racism is endemic to american, but ford america could not have been founded and is in the dna of america. I thought your dna could not be changed. It is my logical argument if it is in the dna of america why try to change it . Why fight it . What good will it do to tear down the system because it is in the dna, it is still there. When you rebuild the system guess what it will be . White racism. It is still there because it is in the dna and it makes no sense. The other thing they say, 14 essays, everybody write an essay on different topics to explain their problem in the process of the country and wide is a problem and around slavery, not racism and what it says is every problem we face in America Today can be linked to slavery. If black wealth is lower, slavery. If education is bad, slavery. More blacks are in jail, slavery. Right . So i think thats worse than what crt is pushing, its in the school that no one is saying it is not so what do we do . In the book i write a chapter on every essay and the 1619 project and say this is what they say, it is mostly true. They i have to be honest, it is well written. I throw it in, 90 true, you cant really instantly dispute the that is not true, they paint wonderful pictures of slavery and individual sources and people love and learn from stories. Tell a story of a black man who through all racism found a way to make money and a racist white neighborhood killed him because he was making too much money. The problem is they master the liable mission and legal that out. If you teach this in school and go through eleventh graders who dont know much and this is their first learning and teach them this, let me check and see if that is right they dont know what you left out, they think this is all of america. It will make her angry, disgruntled citizens who love to hate the country. You can watch the full program anytime online, cspan. Org booktv, watch for charles love. Cspanshop. Org is the cspan store, browse our latest collection of cspan products, apparel, books, holmdel core and accessories. There is something for every cspan fan and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operations. Shop now or any time, cspanshop. Org. Listening to programs on cspan through cspan radio just got easier. Tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7 a. M. Eastern, important congressional hearings and other Public Affairs events throughout the day and weekdays at 5 p. M. And 9 p. M. Eastern. Catch washington today for a fastpaced report on the stories of the day, listen to cspan any time, tell your Smart Speaker play cspan radio, cspan powered by cable
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