Kristin Kobes du Mez on the Origin of the Culture Wars
The American political landscape has been undeniably impacted by American evangelicalism and its leaders. Few people know the details of this better than Kristin Kobes du Mez, who literally wrote the book on it (Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation). In this episode, she joins us for a conversation about evangelicals' political impact, the legacies of toxic masculinity and racism within the church, and how our current culture wars trace their roots to this messy mixing of church and state.
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EPISODE RESOURCES
Transcript
Beth [00:00:00] Hey, it's Beth. Before we get started, I wanted to give you a quick heads up that between minutes 20 and 30, today we have a discussion about how the MeToo movement intersects with the evangelical culture. We always want to respect the different places that we're in when we're listening to our podcast. And if that would be a tough headspace for you today, you might just want to skip that part. Thanks for listening.
Sarah [00:00:29] This is Sarah.
Beth [00:00:30] And Beth.
Sarah [00:00:31] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:33] The home of grace-filled political conversations.
Sarah [00:00:48] Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are going to share our recent conversation with Kristen Kobes Du Mez, The New York Times, bestselling author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Kristen is a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University. We met her on a speaking gig at Calvin. Again, we make the best connections on these trips, and we knew we would absolutely have to have her on this show. Y'all this book, if you have not read it, picks up so many important threads, puts them together and says, "This is how we got to Donald Trump, you guys." And it feels like all these missing pieces, all these questions, she just answers them. And the history is impeccable. She is just telling stories that even as a person who grew up in the white evangelical church, I didn't understand and had not heard. And that's why we wanted to have her on here, because she she really fills in and expands the story in a way that is incredibly helpful.
Beth [00:02:00] Yeah, she takes you through Oliver North, and Promise Keepers, and Billy Graham, and you're just following this path that makes the past few years in American politics feel less like an earthquake and more like the logical extension of what we had been building toward. So this is a really helpful conversation and I can't strongly enough recommend her book if you're still having that feeling of, like, "How did we get here?" She really puts the pieces together in a way that doesn't have anything to do with economic precarity or the other types of explanations that have been offered up for understanding where the Republican Party is today.
Sarah [00:02:40] Before we dive into that conversation, we are booking speaking events for next year. We're filling out our calendar. And we wanted to share a little bit about what we speak on and how we speak at these events. We were in Oklahoma City last week. We did one talk on our new book, Now What? and one talk on our old book, I Think You're wrong, But I'm Listening. But we always get as quickly as we can to the question and answer portion, because that's where we find we can do the most good. What we are really talking about in these speaking events is communication. Sometimes we use politics as the example. Sometimes we're talking about family relationships. Sometimes we're talking about workplace difficulties. But I feel like no matter the theme of the speech, the message we're trying to convey and the tools we're trying to give to people are how to let people feel heard and how to be heard themselves, especially post-COVID. Some of that has broken down in real ways and people are in pain. And that's why we love doing this, because it feels like we're getting out there, we're listening to people, we're trying to help with everything from-- we had somebody ask, "How do I see the point to my teenager when they've really proved it [Inaudible] to 'I want to know my sister better and she doesn't want to talk about this stuff and I want her to know me and I want to know her.'" So how do we bridge that divide?
Beth [00:04:07] We've spent time with companies who are struggling with communication and connection because so many people are working remotely now. And we try to talk in very specific ways about what do you do if conflict surfaces while everybody's on Zoom and you can't really feel the vibe in the room? How do you navigate those situations? I think our speaking is so different from most speaking because there are two of us, so we're always in conversation with each other. We're bringing our different personalities to the table, our different life experiences, our different work histories. And so we're able, I think, to really connect with almost everyone in the room, because at least something from one of us touches on a real experience or a real need that's being expressed in the room. And that's what's fun for me. We're never doing the same presentation twice. It always has its own energy. I learn something every time we speak. Even though I could tell all of Sarah's anecdotes at this point and she could tell mine, something new is drawn out every time we're out doing this. And it really enriches my thinking. And we can tell from the Q&A how much trust is built in a short period of time because people are very vulnerable and honest with us. And I hope that we're giving them actionable takeaways when they leave.
Sarah [00:05:25] Yeah, that's what made me so proud when we were in Oklahoma, Shana said, "You feel like you're giving something very valuable because it's not just a TED talk that the kids could watch on the Internet and it would be the same." Nothing we do in any location is the same from a speech that we have done or a talk that we have done in another location, because that's why we like spending time in these communities, too, is because we draw on our conversations with state legislators. We draw on our experiences at the First American Museum when we're making connections and trying to answer people's questions and give them some skills and some even language to use in their own communication environments as well. So we're really, really, proud of the work we do on the road and we would love to come to your community. So if you're interested in bringing us, or your organization, or your university, please reach out to Alise at Hello@Pantsuitpolitics.com. There's links in the show notes. You can reach out and DM or however you want to get in contact with us. We would love to hear from you. Mission accomplished Du Mez. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics.
Kristin Du Mez [00:06:39] Thank you. And you said my name so beautifully. That's, like, the best I've heard.
Sarah [00:06:45] Oh, God. You don't even know. I love a ribbon. We are on a really good start right now. This is a perfect start.
Kristin Du Mez [00:06:52] Absolutely.
Sarah [00:06:53] Okay. Your book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Boy, do you have good timing.Excellent.
Kristin Du Mez [00:07:02] Yeah.
Sarah [00:07:04] Excellent timing. I mean, you're out there, you're naming this-- I'm going to use the word trend very loosely here. Because I feel like you were illuminating this trend and then all this polling came out and said, "Hey, you know what, evangelical is more an identity than it is a religion." But I'm saying trend because what you illuminate in your book is that t's not really a trend, it's sort of been the name of the game from the beginning.
Kristin Du Mez [00:07:28] Exactly. Yeah. I was tracking this. I started the research that went into this book more than 15 years ago. And before that I had been paying attention. And so, honestly, when I was writing the book, it just felt almost cathartic to get it all on paper and to say as I was watching things unfold on the national scene, I just kept thinking, I can explain this. I think I can explain this. And so actually I worried it was going to be too late. And yet the wave has not yet crested. I'm not sure if and when.
Sarah [00:08:00] Oh, no.
Beth [00:08:03] Maybe it has, we won't know. We won't know until we're on the other side.
Sarah [00:08:07] Okay. Let's go with the second one. I would prefer the second one.
Beth [00:08:12] Well, I think it's really helpful that you open the book that way with a definition of evangelical. So can you lay that foundation for this conversation? When you when we say evangelical in this discussion, what are we talking about?
Kristin Du Mez [00:08:24] Yeah, what I'm not talking about is how most scholars had defined the term, and that is as a theological identity. And there's kind of traditional way of describing it, that evangelicals are Bible believing Christians. They uphold the authority of the scriptures. They emphasize cruciscentrism. The centrality of the cross conversion is on this born again experience and then activism. So they're acting out of these faith commitments. And when I was looking at my research, I just came to the realization that that doesn't really describe what I'm seeing. And I don't actually offer a definition of evangelicalism. I think there's something kind of ahistorical about that because evangelicalism or what we call evangelicalism changes so dramatically over the centuries. And so I'm just trying to describe what we're seeing when we look at people who are calling themselves evangelicals, identifying as evangelicals. And then it lists categories that pollsters will identify as evangelicals, really from World War Two era to the present. And so when I look at that movement, I do see it as not primarily a group of people defined by theological doctrine, but rather it's a social and cultural movement. And in many ways, I think it's helpful to understand it as a consumer culture. As a people united and shaped by the products they consume, Christian radio, Christian publishing. And so it's not really are you a real evangelical or a fake evangelical by name only, it's how deeply have you been immersed in this consumer culture, in this world of evangelicalism? How much has that shaped your values? And then I go and say, "Well, what are some of those values? And let's look at what people are consuming and what they are actually embracing and identifying with."
Sarah [00:10:10] Why are evangelicals such good marketers? Why do you see this adopting the media, be it magazines, radio, TV? There's a real skill there, and it is a definitely a through line that you see of this group taking advantage of new media and new markets and really embracing that consumer culture. Why, Kristin? Why?
Kristin Du Mez [00:10:32] That's such a good question. We can honestly spend an hour exploring that-- we won't.
Sarah [00:10:38] It's our podcast, we can do whatever we want. Go ahead.
Kristin Du Mez [00:10:41] So there are all sorts of things that kind of feed into this. One of which is just the evangelism. This evangelism at the heart of-- so unlike many denominational Christians or church-oriented Christians, they're out there to promote their brand. They're out there to convert. They're out there to get the word out and to draw people in. And so marketing is a huge part of that. You want to make your product look good. You want to show people that they have a need for it. You want to draw people in. And so evangelicals have, for more than a century, been really, really, good at branding and selling a product. And what is the product? Evangelicals will say it's salvation, it's God's truth, it's the gospel. That's what we're selling. Other observers might say you're really just bolstering your own power. You're selling your own product. You're benefiting off of this and you're trying to control other. So different interpretations there. But if you go back to 1942, it's an interesting moment. That's when we have the foundation of the National Association of Evangelicals. And they come together and they're looking around and saying, "After the Scopes trial and so on, we lost control or weren't able to take control of many mainline denominations." They didn't disappear. They were doing really good work, but in little isolated places. So Bible colleges, and they started their own churches, their own small denominations. And so they came together in 1942 and said, "Imagine what we could do if we banded together." So strength in numbers. And when we come together, then we aren't just doing these good things in little places. But we can have organizations that link these Bible colleges together and we can have magazines with subscribers in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. And we can have Christian publishing, and we can have bookstores in every town across this country. And think about the good work we could do then, right? This is in 1942, and it was just amazing going back and reading that and realizing that within like 15 years or so, they had accomplished all of that. They did it and they are still doing it.
Sarah [00:12:50] Well, we just interviewed Colin Woodard about American nations and he talks about these regions. And I wonder if some of this is--I mean, we're definitely going to get into the American nationalism. And some of it is so distinctly American. You look back on further back Christian history, you see a lot of nationalism, a lot of just we're battling about ethnic identities. You come to America, especially in the 19th century, 20th century, and you have this fertile ground where, well, we're not talking about-- at least not up front-- an ethnic identity. So there's this ability to take on another type of identity. And I think you could definitely make the case that American identity is definitely a consumer identity more than Europe or other parts of the world. Do you think that that is this distinctly American piece of the puzzle?
Kristin Du Mez [00:13:41] It is. It has a very American flavor to it, certainly. But then what we see happening and has been happening for a long time is this is being exported globally, too. Since Jesus and John Wayne came out, first I had toyed with having a final chapter on the global reach of this Jesus owned John Wayne Christianity and I decided didn't have time, space. It was just too big of a project to squeeze into a chapter. But since the book came out, I have heard from Christians in so many parts of this world, in China, and in Australia, and in the Netherlands, and in Brazil (especially Brazil), in Kenya that this is being exported. It has been through this consumer culture, through Christian radio, through desiring God materials and the Gospel Coalition, and they are consuming this. And so it is very much a global movement.
Sarah [00:14:35] Wow.
Beth [00:14:36] So talking about the effectiveness of marketing, I think leads us perfectly into a conversation about masculinity, because as I'm reading your book, masculinity feels like both the chicken and the egg to me. Like, maybe this was part of what made it such effective marketing, but at some point it became the product itself. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Kristin Du Mez [00:14:57] Yeah. Masculinity. So this book was originally just conceived as a book on white evangelical masculinity and militarism. And and then down the road, my publisher said that both the words masculinity and militarism were too big to have in the title. So I scratched that, but that's really what this is about. And my attention really was drawn to this entire subject area by some of my students at Calvin University, a Christian university where I teach. In the early 2000, actually, they draw my attention to this literature on Christian manhood. That was all the rage. We are talking selling millions of copies about creed. And I thought, okay, that's really interesting. When I read this, it was a very militant conception of masculinity, of Christian manhood. And what struck me immediately was that it really wasn't very biblical. For all their talk of being Bible believing Christians, there weren't a lot of Bible verses in these books. Instead, they were drawing on popular culture, on symbol, on myth. And they loved cowboys and warriors and soldiers, and William Wallace from the movie Braveheart. And, yes, John Wayne kept popping up. And so it becomes this kind of thing where they're drawn to this imagery, not out of a arguably real biblical place, and then embrace the symbolism and then use that to, in a sense, refashion their biblical teaching, what they see in the scriptures, their theology, so that Jesus himself, the Jesus of the Gospels-- which traditionally gentle Jesus, meek and mild kind of thing, love your neighbor as yourself-- gets transformed into this ruthless warrior Christ. So to follow that Christ is to not take up your cross, but really take up your sword.
Sarah [00:16:53] Well. And I feel like what you do so well is, when you're living a moment like that, when you're when you're watching this ebb and flow of masculinity, it feels like the first time it's happened, right? It feels like, oh, this is it. This is the first time they've really leaned into this militancy. And then the way you track it back. Because when I was growing up, I definitely grew up in the promise keepers, George W. Bush, compassionate/conservative, the sort of softer masculinity.
Audio Playback [00:17:22] Is it to celebrate the fact that we as Christian men have been uncompromising models of integrity and purity? Tragically, no. We have not come to demonstrate our power to influence men. We have come to display our spiritual poverty that Almighty God might influence us.
Sarah [00:17:47] And then so I missed this flow of super militant, masculine, hardcore that came after that. But again, that's not the first time we've seen that. We've seen that ebb and flow even through Billy Graham. I thought it was so interesting at that point in time where there was a sense of like the military was a bad place for Christians to be. It was this place of immorality, but then again it then it became like a fertile ground for mission work. And then it became this way too much religion inside the military and sort of this evangelical thrust through that institution. And it's just like you just see this ebb and flow, ebb and flow back and forth as they... It is this weird mix of theology and culture, right? It's not like there's no-- especially the sexism that runs through a lot of this. There's some Bible verses being quoted there in the real when I was growing up even in the Promise Keepers face.
Audio Playback [00:18:46] We believe Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and we believe as men we have dropped the ball, we have abdicated our roles in it. We are going before God and we're asking him to forgive us. That's the reason that we're coming.
Sarah [00:19:02] And so there's all this consumerism theology, especially is expressed towards women, inside this ebb and flow of this militancy, softer masculinity, all of that. It's just so intense.
Kristin Du Mez [00:19:16] Yeah. One of the things that I really wanted to do is to show change over time. That things have not always been the way they are now. And I think that's especially important for evangelicals, because evangelicals tend to speak in terms of this is God ordained, this is timeless truth. It doesn't mean you can't have timeless truths, but history is going to show you that a lot of the things that you think are timeless and permanent actually are really recent. And so that's why I went back even to the 19th century briefly in this book, to show that there was a time when Christians and when evangelicals thought that to be a godly man was to show gentlemanly restraint. This is Victorian and Christianity, but you had a kind of tougher, harsher masculinity, more dominating masculinity in the American South during that time that was embraced by evangelicals. And then in the early 20th century, you have this kind of more unification north and south around muscular Christianity. This is a Teddy Roosevelt era, too. But even then, things were different. And so you had liberal Protestants who are as likely to embrace that muscular Christianity as conservatives. In World War One, you were as likely to have liberal Protestants embrace militarism when a lot of conservative Protestants were actually pacifists. You see, you just have to go back in time and realize, oh, wow. Yeah.
[00:20:36] As recently as 1940, as you say, the military was a place where a lot of evangelical thought that's where boys go to become corrupted. Lots of bad stuff happening there. And they were right. There was a lot of bad stuff happening there. Read some of the news reports. And then once you get that in your in your rearview mirror, then you can start realizing, okay, how did our current arrangement come to be? And the Cold War plays a role there. Where in the Cold War strong militant manhood was necessary to defend the nation and evangelicals right on the forefront saying to defend Christian America, too. And so you have to defend that country against external threats, but also defend Christianity against internal threats. And this is where we see this culture wars, militancy really building. And you can trace that to and even then-- your right-- ebbs and flows. In 1990s that's when it kind of adds, this is when you have maybe it's time for a new masculinity. Maybe feminism is here to stay. We need warriors, sure. But we need tender warriors. And we need leaders, but servant leaders. And patriarchy, sure, but a soft patriarchy. And then the pendulum swings again and we're back in the trenches. You don't want tenderness.
Sarah [00:21:57] Well, if you're marketers, you always have to have something to sell. Like how they convince us something's out of style so they can sell the new one.
Kristin Du Mez [00:22:04] So true. And I will say one thing the Promise Keepers movement did is it created a market for men's literature. Before then, almost all the Christian devotional literature, popular Christian books were bought and read by women. And that still is the case, but the 1990 created the men's groups. And [Inaudible] If you have a men's group, you have to read something, right? It's a vast industry and we should follow the money.
Sarah [00:22:32] Word.
Beth [00:22:33] That leads me to Tucker Carlson.
Sarah [00:22:37] Follow the money is an excellent transition to Tucker Carlson.
Beth [00:22:42] When I hear him talking about fertility and virility and this very aggressive sexualization of men, I have a real men in black experience of that. Like, this must be another life from another galaxy coming here to test us in some way. But I feel like this might be wholly unsurprising to you because you write a lot about sex and about how this subculture has, in very detailed ways, tried to be an educator, an instructor, an indoctrinator around sex. So I would love to hear your thoughts on, well, does Tucker feel like an alien to you or does this seem like a trajectory that could be anticipated?
Kristin Du Mez [00:23:24] Can I choose both?
Sarah [00:23:25] Yeah. Did you go scene by scene through that documentary and be, like, let's just take this one. You could teach a whole class probably.
Kristin Du Mez [00:23:31] Oh, yeah. Where to start with this? Okay. I will say that when we were pitching this book to publishers, there are actually Christian publishers who wanted to publish this book on Jesus and John Wayne. And I thought, are you sure with that? And they're, like, "No, no, really." So we did end up submitting initial chapters and proposal to at least one Christian publisher. And I found out later that they actually ran into trouble with it because it triggered their anti-porn software. And it's like the evangelicals own words because I'm quoting from evangelical sex manuals. And as you said, they are very explicit here. And, yes, so masculinity is also about sex and it also entails all sorts of commitments about femininity. So the idea is that God filled men with testosterone. So they have the aggression necessary to defend faith, family, and nation and an aggressive sex drive. And so it's up to women to preserve modesty and morality. And also they do that by dressing very modestly so they don't seduce men who are not their husbands, that if they are married, they have to seduce their husbands. It's all on them. They have to meet their husband's profuse sexual needs. And so this is this ideology. It sounds really crass saying it like this. But, honestly, read these books, hundreds of books on how to be a Christian wife, how to have sex as a Christian. This is what you will get over and over again.
[00:24:59] This is the formula. And so if anything goes wrong, a man steps out of line. There is always a woman to blame. All right. A woman who seduced him. Even young girls will be accused of seducing their abusers. Or often it's the wife. The wife who clearly wasn't meeting his sexual needs, so what could he do? And so this is this really toxic ideology at the heart of these teachings on gender, on male power, and on female submission. And when I read that in the literature, again, I started this research more than 15 years ago, and then over the years I kind of set the project aside, but I still was watching what was going on in these evangelical spaces. And I saw one after another of the men who had been promoting these teachings become implicated in scandals, sexual abuse, abuse of power. And in the cases of sexual abuse, you could just see this ideology working itself out and not just in terms of the perpetrator, but in terms of victims who are not even able to counteract this abuse, to call it out, and especially in terms of the communities who had been trained to always defend the man and blame the woman. And just horrifying stories. Just so many of them.
Sarah [00:26:19] Yeah. I want to get into to the racial component of all of this. But before we move on from this, as we see the Southern Baptist Convention issuing its investigation, as we see the announcement that the DOJ is investigating the Southern Baptist Convention, do you see change? Do you think this will upend that ideology or do you think it's just another ebb and flow?
Kristin Du Mez [00:26:48] I see some change. What I see changing isn't really because of the investigation. It was earlier because of the MeToo movement. And there is what some have called the ChurchToo movement. The work of Rachael Denhollander in particular in this respect really brought more stories to the surface and for the first time some women at least really thought there was a chance that they could be believed. And so I think that's partly what we're still seeing here, is the surfacing of these stories. When the Southern Baptist Convention released its investigation earlier this summer, late in the spring, not too long ago, I was watching that closely, but honestly, it was a little bit frustrating. Because at this point to still have people responding with it's just hard to take, honestly, because these stories have been out there for a very long time now. I wrote Jesus and John Wayne several years ago. Four years ago I was writing it. It's been out for two and a half years, in production for a year. And I heard all these stories, and I had heard them for years because I was actually listening to women and I was tracking these stories and these were credible. And in many cases, they were being prosecuted. And so these stories were out there to anyone who cared to find them. So at this stage in the game to have, oh, wow, this is going to be a huge turning point, I'm dubious. It will wait and see. What it has done I think, though, is presented it's no longer possible to really be neutral on this inside the SBC. And so it's exposed some rifts that were already there, I think, between people who are really pushing back, pushing back against the sexual abuse investigation and against survivors and their advocates. And then the most SBC folks who I would like to think are trying to do the right thing but exactly who falls on what side of that line, it's still in process.
Beth [00:29:16] What is the obstacle to owning up to this abuse in the way it's been handled? What's the risk of doing the right thing here?
Kristin Du Mez [00:29:25] That's a really good question. There are risks. First and foremost, there are financial risks. We can talk about litigation. Now, people like Russell Moore would say that should not be a church's first and foremost concern is issues of liability. So there are real divisions there. So that's a very practical obstacle. And then there are the cultural ones and especially just the cultivation within many of these evangelical spaces of loyalty to those who hold authority. So to the pastor, to the father, again, this is patriarchy. And the idea that to be a faithful Christian is to show deference to those that God has appointed over you and children to parents, women to men and men, men to their pastors, and then pastors to more powerful pastors. And that really works against exposing some of these stories. And then there's this idea of but this is going to hurt the mission of the church, right? This is going to tarnish our brand. Again, it's about brand and it's about conversionism. If you can say, "But if we look bad to those that we're trying to convert, then they're not going to convert and they're going to be damned to all eternity," so you can see where this is going, ends justifying the means. So let's just keep this quiet.
Sarah [00:30:58] The stakes are high.
Kristin Du Mez [00:30:59] Keep it quiet. Yeah.
Sarah [00:31:16] Well, I wonder what you're thinking post-COVID. There's so much writing about pastor burnout, about how people no longer are interested in their pastor's authority if that pastor does not align with their politics, or if the pastor is not aligned with their sort of identity inside the Republican Party. There are moments in COVID where I thought, this goes against everything I understand about the evangelical movement with regards to authority, where people were really pushing back on these authority figures. And it's almost like they're being trained through that Donald Trump lens of like being an outsider, fighting back against the elites. I mean, do we see any analogy and history of that pushback on that authority narrative? Because it feels like that's really happening right now.
Kristin Du Mez [00:32:10] Oh, yes. There are lots of analogies if you look at the history of authoritarian populism. And that's an important point that you make that I should say deference to authority. But we need an adjective there, deference to God ordained authority. And so as soon as you can start to kind of instill doubts or questions or just outright claim, they are not doing God's work, they are not on our side. But what's the meaning of God's side? Because we're clearly on God's side. God is on our side. As soon as you can put them on the outside then, no, you do not want to show deference to their authority. Then they are no longer one of us. And so this populist element is so strong within American evangelicalism. And I think that caught a lot of leaders off guard. So within the evangelical movement, if you look at kind of MAGA politics, you had a lot of pastors who are all in. So I want to acknowledge that. Now pastors had even more prominent evangelical voices who are saying, oh, whoa, wait a minute. This is not consistent with our theology or with our beliefs or with who we're supposed to be as followers of Jesus Christ. And look what happened to these folks. You know, Russell Moore out of a job. You look at the kind of attacks that get thrown at people like David French. Look at what happened to Beth Moore, for goodness sake. Beth Moore pushed out of the SBC. The most powerful Southern Baptist woman, arguably the most powerful evangelical woman, she crosses this set of interests, she is very quickly defined out of the fold and pushed out of the fold. So that's the other dynamic that we have to see. So it is incredibly exhausting for pastors right now. I talk with a lot of them all the time and I have been now for years. And they are torn. Those who aren't like full onembracing this this ideology torn because they know they push things too far, they're going to be out of a job. Which isn't just their income, they can get another job, but it means that they no longer can speak into that community. So I hear a lot of this, "Well, I want to at least still be able to shepherd this flock." But they try to actually do any redirecting and they run into that very harsh opposition and they just have to either be quiet or leave.
Beth [00:34:47] Being quiet doesn't even seem possible to me though, because my experience of people who strongly identify with this culture is that they are not looking for neutrality. It's not that I want a pastor who doesn't speak about politics. It's that I want my version of this preached explicitly. And I don't know what you do with that as a pastor. I also don't know what to make of that as a citizen because in addition to being such powerful marketers, there are such powerful lobbyists. And not just in using the pulpit to marshal political support, but in secretive, well-funded behind the scenes efforts to control politicians, Supreme Court justices. So I wonder what you think. Is it possible that some of the cracks around sexual abuse start to have a domino effect in exposing more and more of that less than transparent operation?
Kristin Du Mez [00:35:49] Yes, absolutely. And I think that's why there's so much pushback, too, from certain corners of evangelicalism against the exposure. Vicious pushback, I will say, to really targeting survivors and their advocates. And, in fact, if you want to go conspiratorial here-- we're actually just looking at the evidence-- you can see how in certain pockets of the SBC, for example, this whole anti CRT movement was just kind of manifested before our eyes. Where we saw it happen in real time. I remember not too long ago I had to google it what the heck is CRT? And then within months I was having speaking invitations canceled because I was accused of being a proponent of CRT. Like, it happened that fast. And so you can see the timeline and who's actually promoting it. The very same people who are trying to quash the sexual abuse stories are the ones who are promoting the anti CRT movement in tandem. And so, yes, we have to not just look at one facet here, but at this whole picture. Now, in terms of if our pastors have to speak explicitly on this, in many cases they're going to encounter little resistance if they do. But there are also kind of different ways of understanding what is political and what is not. I mean, you actually hear a lot of evangelicals swear that their pastors are not in any way political. And then I'll go visit their churches and I'll hear their preachers preach against the evils of big government. I'll sit there where I hear a prayer thanking God for the anointing of Brett Kavanaugh, but totally not political because in in their mind, this is godly, this is just Christian, this is just what Christians do. This is just obedience. Nothing to see here.
Sarah [00:37:46] So talk to us about that alignment. Like you said, it's not just about masculinity or patriarchy, but there is a real white Christian nationalism. Talk to us about when you start to see that rise, if there's the same ebb and flow or if that is a steady fuel for this fire.
Kristin Du Mez [00:38:07] Yeah. When I started writing this book, I thought it was a book about masculinity. And very quickly I realized it was also a book about race. And my first clue was that evangelicals just loved their heroes, still do love their heroes. And the first document actually that I started that what became this book, I called Hero Worship. And then I noticed that all of their heroes, every single one, were men and all white men. And then not just white men, but often white men who kind of proved their heroism by subduing nonwhite peoples. So we could talk Teddy Roosevelt and his imperialistic nationalism and racism. Early 20th century, look at the figure of John Wayne. All of his greatest hits, he's the white guy with the gun. He's going to bring order to chaos. And he's going to do so through violence or the threat of violence against nonwhite populations, Japanese, Mexicans, Native Americans. This is just this motif. And once I started to pay attention to that, I came to see. And then historically speaking, if you go back to-- I mentioned before this-- the Cold War era was really critical to kind of crystallizing this whole worldview. And at that time, you have this threat of communism. And communism was perceived as anti-God, anti-family and anti-American. And it was a legitimate threat. Legitimate military threat. But then you also see this ideology of kind of rugged, strong masculinity make sense to defend against this threat and and to defend Christian America. And there's a pretty much a consensus around this, especially among white Americans.
[00:39:59] It wasn't just evangelicals who held these values, kind of Leave It to Beaver era, post World War Two, Cold War consensus are all on the same page, again, especially white folks. And then the sixties happened, and I just kind of start to splinter this when evangelicals had just kind of moved into the centers of power. This was the heyday of Billy Graham in and out of the Eisenhower White House. All their plans to like let's take back this country, it was going really well. And then sixties, boom, civil rights movement. Really threatens the status of white Americans, especially white southerners. A whole lot of those white southerners are white evangelicals. And then the feminist movement also and the antiwar movement, all of these. And the answer to all of the above is the assertion of white patriarchal authority. You can see how evangelicals, political mob mobilization and partizan political mobilization happened in that historical context. So mobilizing to fight back against school desegregation, hugely important. When we hear them talk about big government is bad, context has to be federal government desegregation efforts. And when they talk about parental authority, they are not talking about the authority of black parents to make choices about where their kids go to school. And so history is just going to show us that we have to understand the roots of this rhetoric, of this ideology, and then understand how it operates today.
Beth [00:41:36] I feel like Billy Graham had the best publicist on earth. I just was really struck reading about him in this book versus the image of Billy Graham I grew up with.
Audio Playback [00:41:46] Reverend William Billy Graham's untiring evangelism has spread the word of God to every corner of the globe and made him one of the most inspirational spiritual leaders of the 20th century. As a deeply committed Christian, his challenge to accept Jesus Christ has lifted the hearts, assuaged the sorrows, and renewed the hopes of millions. Billy Graham is an American who lives first and always for his fellow citizens.
Beth [00:42:12] And I am so curious to just continue to kind of unpack, like, where my version-- and I would say the same about James Dobson. And I would say as a child of the early 1980s, they both were presented to me as like gentle grandfatherly spiritual guides can do no wrong.
Audio Playback [00:42:33] For over 40 years, Dr. James Dobson has been working to support the institution of the family. During that time, he's authored over 30 books, written hundreds of articles, broadcast thousands of radio shows, and produced many videos and films.
Beth [00:42:48] And to see them in such overtly political terms was pretty jarring.
Kristin Du Mez [00:42:53] Yes, absolutely. I grew up in a Christian home, but not one that was at the center of evangelicalism. I come from a little Dutch immigrant culture, reformed tradition. And so I was exposed to some of this. I did not grow up in a home where Billy Graham was idolized by any stretch. He was pretty much irrelevant that not our guy, not our tradition. And James Dobson also viewed with some skepticism, although, listen to Christian radio and James Dobson comes on every day. So part of of my upbringing but not at the center. And so, honestly, I really learned about Billy Graham by reading history books about Billy Graham. And so I was actually caught off guard by the response of so many evangelicals to Jesus and John Wayne, particularly around the issue of Billy Graham. First I got some real pushback, but mostly I got kind of your response of how I miss this? How could I not have known that this is Billy Graham? And then I become this historian that's kind of debunked the Billy Graham myth, when, in fact, I am not. I'm just copying what other historians have been saying for decades. All of that, none of that was archival research on my part. I was just taking the most solid peer reviewed scholarship and working with it. So I didn't understand quite how shocking it was going to be to evangelicals. But I came to understand that evangelicals have controlled their own narratives so effectively. They write their own histories. They write their own stories. And they punish those who say, "Actually, there's a different story here. You're missing some of this." And you're shamed. I've been called out I don't know how many times for not being nice, being too critical, or not saying enough nice things about these evangelicals. And, look, if I'm going to be writing a book on evangelical masculinity and militarism and why it matters for American democracy, there's just a little bit more bad than good.
Sarah [00:44:55] Not a lot of nice things to say, guys.
Kristin Du Mez [00:44:57] I'm sorry. This is where I end up. But I could write another story about another aspect of evangelicalism, and maybe there'd be more nice things in it. But whether we write our nice stories or our more critical stories, the key is for historians. How do all these stories come together? How is it that the same people are giving money to charity and to missions and seem like such nice people, and are such nice people when you visit their church on a Sunday. And also supporting these policies and ideologies that are doing great harm. And I think that's where the question really has to be.
Sarah [00:45:28] Well, and Billy Graham was a marketer, too, right? He made a choice in those moments in the sixties to say, okay, well, where is our customer base? And here's what I have been dying to ask you. Well, considering all this history of white Christian nationalism, there's all this reporting right now. I even read an article quoting one of your coworkers at Calvin Mark Mulder about Latino Protestants in America that Latinos are, in huge numbers, converting from Catholicism to evangelical Protestantism. And so I'm like, okay, well, what are y'all going to do now? Because you lack a growing customer base, you really do, and you have one. But it's going to be in direct conflict to a lot of this white Christian nationalism. And so what's going to happen next?
Kristin Du Mez [00:46:15] So the thing is-- sorry to have to tell you this-- the conversions that we see among Hispanic Christians into evangelicalism are not necessarily in conflict with this white Christian nationalism. If you're looking at racial differences, certainly in black Protestant, even black quote 'evangelical circles', all of those are very small because most black Christians who hold to these theological beliefs do not identify as evangelical because it's super clear to them there's a whole lot more going on each of these theological points. But if we look at Hispanic evangelicals, that's where you see much closer overlap between white evangelicalism and Christian nationalism and their own beliefs. I was watching this trend as I was writing Jesus in John Wayne and I think one plausible explanation is they have a common commitment to patriarchy, this kind of cultural machismo that they're coming from. And then who are we talking about in terms of Hispanic Americans, even that there's such diversity within that category. Some of these Hispanic folks identify as white. We're looking at different immigrant cultures or just so many differences within that demographic category that, in fact, when you look at signs of embrace of Christian nationalism and what goes hand in hand with that support of Trump, much higher numbers in Hispanic Christian spaces than we would see, for instance, in African-American spaces.
Sarah [00:47:47] Interesting.
Beth [00:47:49] There are obviously layers and layers that we can talk about with respect to the Dobbs decision, the decision explicitly overturning Roe V. Wade. I wonder, as a researcher around gender and evangelicalism, what interests you most about what could come of this decision?
Kristin Du Mez [00:48:07] I've long been curious about claims that up until now that Republicans were never going to actually push for the overturn of Roe because it was so useful to them politically to keep holding that out there. We do know that fairly significant numbers of evangelicals have had abortions. And so now we're kind of moving from the rhetorical phase, if you will, into living with this decision. And so I'm really curious to see how that will play out in evangelical spaces, because for a long time, we saw change over time in the sixties. You can go back and read a cover story in Christianity Today. Abortion, good or bad? Answer, it's really complicated. You're not going to get that today. The Southern Baptist Convention well into the 1970s, pro-choice official platform. Pro-Choice. Which isn't to say that anti abortion is anything new in American Christianity, in Christian history more widely or in American evangelicalism. But there was more nuance. And that nuance in our lifetimes, in evangelical spaces, was largely squeezed out. So I certainly grew up that life begins at conception and pro-life equals Christian and everybody else is of the enemy, really. And so much so that honestly, even just a few months ago or in the last year or two, when some Republican politicians would kind of slip up and say, yes, women ought to be prosecuted. And a whole bunch of the pro-life leaders and movement were like, oh, no, we don't go that far. I was, like, don't you know, [Inaudible] I think you said it was murder. And I didn't realize actually that you wouldn't take it to that logical extreme. And so, honestly, for me, as a researcher who's studied this, who's watched this, who's lived this, I'm just watching so closely to see exactly what you asked, what does happen next. And so much is up in the air right now. I'm really curious to see what the next year or two is going to bring.
Sarah [00:50:31] Well, I think it's just like what you articulated about the Southern Baptist Convention that you-- it exposed the conflict and exposes some of the disagreements and exposes some of the alignments that were under the surface in a really clear way. Especially as every state starts to really get into the weeds like South Carolina. Are we going to do a total ban? Are we going to do a complete and total abortion ban? And you start to see, well, who's here for the righteousness, the theology? I'm going to use the word theology there pretty loosely, but who's there for the righteous cause and who's here for the politics, and whether it's good politics or not? Because I think that's what you're seeing immediately is who for this was good politics. And when it stops being good politics, they have some questions. And who was here for other reasons? And, look, I think that you have both groups inside the evangelical.
Kristin Du Mez [00:51:23] Absolutely. So who's scrubbing their websites now? They're really stark anti abortion rhetoric. Who's foregrounding that? I just saw a piece put out by Family Research Council yesterday or today where they were saying there is never a scenario in which abortion can save the life of a mother. [Inaudible] a whole bunch of medical professionals. Like, excuse me. Yes. How do you say this? How do you do this? So you're absolutely seeing the tensions within.
Sarah [00:52:12] I feel like Dobbs is an excellent transition to your next book that we want to just announce quickly. You guys, I met with Kristin a few months ago and she told me the title. I made her stop. I was like, stop, I need a moment. I need to just soak in the joy I feel at the title of this book that I think is so perfect. Tell the people. Tell them, don't make them wait another second.
Kristin Du Mez [00:52:36] It is called Live, Laugh, Love. Yeah. I don't have the title yet, but it is a cultural history of white Christian womanhood. And I'm guessing probably 97% of your listeners could probably outline the chapters with that.
Sarah [00:52:51] Yeah, they could. Would that help you at this point? Would you like some submissions?
Kristin Du Mez [00:52:55] Yeah. Honestly, when I first posted this, "This is my next book," and I just saw the response on Twitter was overwhelming. And I was so impressed. Like, yeah, we're doing Christian romance and we're doing CCM and of course we're doing Amy Grant, and yes, we're doing MLMs, and we're doing Hallmark movies. We're doing it all.
Sarah [00:53:15] Oh, my God. Well, we might need to reserve a little more time when that book comes out. I would say probably 3 to 5 hours should do it. Maybe a two parter.
Kristin Du Mez [00:53:24] Absolutely.
Sarah [00:53:25] Like a series? Oh, yeah. Series. Yeah, I think a series. Oh, my lord. I'm so excited. Because that's the thing. It's like you're reading Jesus and John Wayne and the whole time you're like, Oh, but the other side of this. The other side of this is so--
Kristin Du Mez [00:53:36] I felt that writing it. Yeah.
Beth [00:53:40] And I want to ask you about that, because if you look at Twitter, it looks to me like a lot of white men's reaction to your book has been negative.
Sarah [00:53:49] Oh, lord. This is a podcast, but I'm roll my eyes so hard right now, just so y'all know.
Beth [00:53:54] And a lot of white women's reaction has been like, oh, my God, thank you.
Kristin Du Mez [00:53:58] Yes.
Beth [00:53:59] And a lot of people of color have said, like, right, we say this too.
Kristin Du Mez [00:54:04] Yeah, nothing new here, but thank you for saying it.
Beth [00:54:08] Twitter is not real life. I'm aware. So how does that track your real reception of this book? Because you do talk a lot about how instrumental evangelical women were to creating this myth of masculinity. So what has the response been like from that group?
Kristin Du Mez [00:54:25] Yeah, I love talking about this. First, let me say that don't be fooled. The very loud voices on Twitter of certain conservative white evangelical men, particularly those invested in white evangelical power structures that I am critiquing-- and I could name names if needed-- they are actually not the majority in terms of certainly not the feedback I get. I have literally gotten thousands of letters now from readers. I think about 2000 probably. Since two days after the book released, I started getting the first letters coming in. And more than half of these are from white evangelical men who are saying thank you. Thank you. This is the story of my life and thank you for helping me to see. And I have conservative, complementary, PCA pastors who are big supporters. I've got SBC pastors, big supporters. This is opening up a divide within those spaces. So don't be fooled. Yes, I do take on we might refer to as the Theo Bros. And it is honestly kind of fun for me as a historian. Up until this project, everybody I had written about had been dead for like a century or more. And so these guys are like buried. You could just tweet at them. And then, ta-da, you have more evidence. And it's kind of fun.
Beth [00:55:50] I love today how someone called you humorous and you were like, no, that's too far.
Kristin Du Mez [00:55:56] Well, they called me humorous and they accused me of castrating most American men. So I did [Inaudible] saying I was not humorous. I do like being on Twitter. But among evangelical women, a lot of women who are on Twitter-- again, Twitter is not an accurate reflection of reality, probably a good thing. I know there are women, obviously, you don't have this kind of patriarchal system persists for so long without a whole lot of buy in from women. And so, yes, that'll be part of Live Laugh Love. But there are also many women who are just saying "Thank you for helping me see, for helping me escape, for helping me know that this was not just me. And that I wasn't the crazy one here." And it's just really affirming to see. Especially I've heard from a number of survivors of sexual abuse who say that having their story, either actually their personal story or representative story, part of the historical record now makes a huge difference. They aren't just on the fringes. They aren't just kind of forgotten. Their story matters and their story, as awful as it was, is now part of the historical record.
Sarah [00:57:12] Well, thank you for your work. Again, reserve approximately 3 to 5 hours for part one on your second book. We'll have you back then. Thank you so much.
Kristin Du Mez [00:57:22] Thank you. I'm a big fan. I really appreciate this.
Sarah [00:57:25] Thank you so much to Kristin. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. We will be back in your ears, but a day later. We will be back in your ears on Wednesday of next week because of Indigenous Peoples Day, which is a federal holiday on Monday. We can't wait to hear from everyone then. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.
Beth [00:57:53] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [00:57:58] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [00:58:04] Our show is listener-supported special thanks to our executive producers.
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