As Fosdick wrote in his 1913 devotional The Manhood of the Master, “Is not wrath a part of every great character’s equipment?”įosdick was a liberal theologian and a key figure in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy that drove conservative factions of various Protestant denominations-and almost all Southern Baptists-out of mainline seminaries and publishing houses. During this same period, Christian churches grew increasingly alarmed at the declining number of men in their pews and wondered, as Baptist preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick did, whether the cause lay in the historic emphasis on Jesus’ “wan, sad face … his meekness and humility.” Instead of emphasizing the Jesus who humbly submitted to an unjust death, perhaps it was time to elevate the Jesus who whipped the moneylenders out of the temple. In the latter half of the 19 th century, mounting anxiety over industrialization’s softening effects on middle- and upper-class male bodies led to an emphasis on sports and physical activity in schools across Great Britain and the United States. Moreover, Du Mez’s book is a discomfiting reminder of the need to address the existential desperation leading modern men to worship a Christ molded in the image of GIs and gunslingers.Īlthough Jesus and John Wayne largely begins with the rise of Southern Baptist preacher Billy Graham in the 1940s, the strain of “muscular Christianity” that it traces has long, transatlantic roots. But in its interrogation of the blurred lines between creed and community, Jesus and John Wayne should prompt readers of all spiritual traditions to wonder whether there isn’t something in America’s cultural waters corroding the link between sound theology and religious practice that defies authoritarianism’s lure.
The fulcrum of this evolution, says Du Mez, is a gender essentialism that exalts the archetype of the warrior (or the lone ranger) as the Christian masculine ideal-casting aside the Jesus who brings peace for the one who brings a sword.Īs a Calvinist herself, Du Mez is unafraid to ask difficult questions of her faith. Jesus and John Wayne is an expansive synthesis of how a fusion of politics, religion, and popular culture over seventy-five years has driven many in the Evangelical movement to embrace a militant White Christian nationalism. But Metaxas’ transformation must have been less surprising to Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin College and author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Metaxas, said Dreher, was “one of the sweetest men you could hope to meet, gentle and kind.” For years he was a writer for Veggie Tales, a children’s television program featuring cheerful tomatoes that sang praise songs to a God who infused love in people’s hearts. Metaxas’ bellicose language and involvement in the “Jericho March” stunned his longtime friend, Rod Dreher. In the end, crosses and “Jesus Saves” flags would be seen intermingled among the crowd that finally broke into the Capitol on January 6. The organizers vowed to return to Washington the next month to provide spiritual succor alongside the larger “Stop the Steal” rally protesting Congress’ ratification of the election results. Goliath” as they listened to preachers, would-be prophets, and a pillow salesman expound on how God would restore Donald Trump to the White House. The supposedly fraudulent results of the 2020 election were “evil,” he said, a “rusty knife to the throat of Lady Liberty.” The only Christian solution was to “fight to the death, to the last drop of blood.”Ī few days later, Metaxas emceed the “ Jericho March,” a pro-Trump Christian rally in which attendees, clad in American flags and MAGA hats, carried Bibles and signs with slogans like “Donald vs.
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nationīy Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Liveright, 384 pp., $18.95)Įvangelical author Eric Metaxas was in a fighting mood when he sat down for an interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk in December 2020.
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