I somehow doubt that people of color, other minorities, and women feel the same way (Gee, I wonder why?). However, it’s too easy to see how they are really more drawn from that conservative strain in American history, which is predominantly white, male, religious (only surface/in general), and beholden to a myth of American “greatness.” This imagined “greatness” culminated and reached its zenith (in their minds) in the 1950s. Evangelicals believe their ideas/thoughts/beliefs in these areas (culture/political) are biblical. She touches upon and delves into some of the most recognized names in evangelicalism, from Billy Graham to James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, all the way up to Mark Driscoll.Īnd, I think she gets it mostly right.
![jesus and john wayne book review jesus and john wayne book review](https://public-platform.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2020/08/09170141/Snag_20287b32.png)
On the entire Protestant spectrum, it would be considered fairly conservative theologically, so one should not think this view is coming from way outside the evangelical camp.ĭu Mez surveys approximately a seventy-five-year history of American evangelicalism, especially in how they decided to enter the cultural and political discussion on a national level. Calvin is hardly a liberal or left-wing fringe university. She is a professor of history at Calvin University and took her Ph.D. This has resulted in a powerful toxic river that has polluted our national discourse, especially in the area of the political.Īnd, given my experience in that world and my own research and reading, I have to agree with the writer. The book is a primer for the thesis that white evangelicalism in America has powerful cultural and historical streams of a militant /masculine/patriarchy running through it, including tributaries of racism and white nationalism. In fact, if someone were to ask me why I finally and formally said goodbye to evangelicalism, I might as well reply: “Read Jesus and John Wayne.” And I left that world for many of the reasons noted in this book. I eventually left that world and no longer identify as an evangelical/Southern Baptist. My experience of that world was from the mid-1970s up to around the early 2000s, and the book really covers that time span very well. The book is a survey of modern American evangelicalism.
![jesus and john wayne book review jesus and john wayne book review](https://i0.wp.com/thingsabove.us/wp-content/uploads/dove.jpg)
I grew up in the world described in this book. That was sort of how I felt as I would turn each page.
![jesus and john wayne book review jesus and john wayne book review](https://thrivetrack.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Christian-Beliefs.jpg)
For most of us, it’s probably a mixture of both. And depending upon one’s experience in those places, the memories can be good or bad. If one has ever visited their hometown, maybe their old high school and similar places, they know that nostalgic feeling. Reading this book was like a walk down memory lane.