The name "Jesus and John Wayne" caught my attention, but I wasn't that interested until I heard the author and historian, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, on a podcast. The book offers an explanation of how many white Christian evangelicals voted for President Donald Trump.
I thought that the title was just a catchy turn of phrase - a literary device of comparing opposites - until I started reading the book and came to the sickening realization that the Christian leaders themselves were the ones who named "John Wayne" as a god. The book is filled with the history of decades of the leaders of the Christian conservatives turning Jesus of the Bible into their own dream of the perfect leader. Alan Bean, Baptist scholar, said, "The unspoken mantra of post-war evangelicalism was simple: Jesus can save your soul; but John Wayne will save your ass" (59).
Historian Du Mez wrote, "Onscreen and off, Wayne epitomized an old-fashioned, retrograde masculinity, and one increasingly understood in politicized terms. A staunch proponent of 'law and order,' Wayne had no time for 'cowards who spit in the faces of the police,' for 'judicial sob sisters,' for people who advocated for criminals without thought for the innocent victim. He was similarly dismissive of student protestors... Wayne's crassness was part of his appeal, if not the key to it - and this would become a pattern among evangelical heroes, religious and secular...To many conservatives, including evangelicals, Wayne personified 'a tone of life' that needed to be covered if the country was to reverse course 'from the masochistic tailspin of this prideless age.' He modeled a heroic American manhood that rallied the good against evil; took pride in the red, white, and blue; and wasn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. That Wayne never fought for his country, that he left behind a string of broken marriages and allegations of abuse - none of this seems to matter. Wayne might come up short in terms of traditional virtue, but he excelled at embodying a different set of virtues. At a time of social upheaval, Wayne modeled masculine strength, aggression, and redemptive violence" (58-59). We can't help but note the similarities between President Trump and John Wayne.
This book also explains the history of how the Evangelical Christians came to be such a powerful political voting group. Thankfully, it is a history that I was a little protected from because I was raised in a global, egalitarian, Wesleyan-Holiness denomination. Imagine my surprise then, when the Church of the Nazarene was included in Du Mez's history.
The Nazarene's were quite proud of one of its "own," Dr. James Dobson. My family listened quite often. Not religiously as we were quite a busy blue-collar/pastoral family with a lot of ministry and work to keep us busy. But we listened enough to hear Dr. Dobson's teachings on homosexuality and the roles and men and women in the home. The gender roles issue never registered with me as a kid because I filtered it through my Nazarene heritage. My mom supported our family financially when dad became a pastor and women were always included on the church board and in all areas of leadership in our denomination.
Thankfully, I had my first child in 2000. I had listened to a lot of "Focus on the Family" and even Rush Limbaugh (not named in the book) until then. After starting to have children, my life was just too loud to have the radio on. I completely stopped listening to "Focus on the Family" when we moved to the farm, because the advice on parenting didn't apply to my life. I remembered hearing that the dad should be the one to give the babies their bath. I had a choice - to listen and be angry at Ryan all the time - or to not listen and adjust my expectations. Thanks to my babies, I missed the worst of the political propaganda. Despite this, I was influenced by Dr. Dobson as I read many of his parenting books.
The history begins with Billy Graham, moves through Jerry Falwell, Sr, and continues with Dr. Dobson and John Piper. There are many other players in the story as well that play a huge part in the growth of the ideal Christian man that John Wayne symbolizes. Not surprisingly, even the homeschool movement has had a role.
But what do all of these figures have in common? Fear.
Fear of losing power. Fear of feminism. Fear of Black people. Fear of Muslims. Fear of losing control. Fear of Communism (and now socialism). Fear of homosexuality. Fear of public schools (11-13).
And we are left here: "While dominant, the evangelical cult of masculinity does not define the whole of American evangelism. It is largely the creation of white evangelicals. The vast majority of books on evangelical masculinity have been written by white men primarily for white men; to a significant degree, the markets for literature on black and white Christian manhood remain distinct. With few exceptions, black men, Middle Eastern men, and Hispanic men are not called to a wild, militant masculinity. Their aggression, by contrast, is seen as dangerous, a threat to the stability of home and nation" (301).
(Unless of course they can keep the violence on the football field or the MMA ring.)
I highly recommend "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation." I recommend it for those who are seeing the disconnect between what Jesus said and what some are hearing in some churches. If your church is preaching a "John Wayne" type figure instead of the Jesus of the Bible, this book explains why.
I learned many things by reading this book. But one of the most striking is about those who accuse others of "socialism." In US history, the habit began during the cold war as all enemies were called communists, but has morphed into using the word socialism since the fall of the USSR. Some who are using the word socialism by in large do not even know what socialism (or marxism) is as a governmental or economic system.
What they are really afraid of is equality.
Jesus, help us examine our hearts for any fear we have of the equality of all people. All people are made in the image of God.
An example Christians using the John Wayne figure in a song by the Gaither Vocal Band, 2008
Du Mez, Kristin Kobes. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelical Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. New York, NY. Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W Norton & Company, 2020
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