How evangelicals capture add faith and a fractured a nation,a division of the www norton and company. She earned her phd in american religious history from notre dame. Im daniel pigg, professor of english and teaches religious studies at the university of tennessee, martin. I welcome everyone on behalf of our sponsors, including muay b manties, tennessee. We want to hear humanities tennessee. We want to hear from our author and you listening via Facebook Live and youtube and stream yard. Feel free to enter your questions in the chat feature and ill present them to dr. Du mez later in our 45 minute session. If you were at a previous outside meeting of the tennessee southern festival of books, you would know that we meet in the tennessee legislative plaza. You would see a big tent with all the books featured in the southern festival of books 2021. That display would be organized by our book seller. Thank you pronasis books for your continuing support. Your purchase through pernasis books through the online link helps keep the southern of book festival free. You can support us on the website at www. Humtn. Org. During our session, dr. Du mez will present from her book and make comments. I will ask a few questions, and we want you to engage with her as well. Those interested in the lull of religion in the united states, the representation of masculinity, the changing and developing theology of religion and theyll find her book fascinating and revealing. As a historian, dr. Du mez works with whitten text and demonstrates the way these books and ideas have shaped conscious in the evangelical movement, particularly with regard to masculinity. As you know, the work of other scholars such as dr. Randall balmer, dr. Mark knoll, dr. David nushy and late ray tshell hillevans, dr. Du mez, jesus and john wayne fills in a significant gap. As an educator, i was drawn to her experience in teaching and scholarship from the opening preface, and i wanted to read that opening paragraph. More than 15 years ago at the Christian University where i teach, two students approached me one day after class. Sitting me on the path that would lead to this book. I had just wrapped up a lecture explaining how theodore roosevelt, americas cowboy president embody add white masculinity that linked masculine strength to american power. My students told me there was a book i needed to read. That book was john eldriges, wild at heart, discovering the secret of a mans soul. I opened the book and understood why my students insist that had i read it. The book begins with a quote from roosevelt. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is. Ed by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly and whose place shall never be of cold and timid souls and know defeat. Those words ran a passage of the gospel of matthew. The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and violent men must take it by force. Nc this book itself went onto sketch a vision of christian manhood that bore a striking resemblance to roosevelts muay cue larra and militaristic review and men were made in the image of the warrior god and every man need add battle to fight. Dr. Du mez. Kristin thank you, daniel, and to the southern festival of books for this opportunity to oospend a little time speaking about books together. So, yes, idea for jesus and john wayne came to me long, long ago, and it was a couple of students inn my class who convinced me that i needed to pick up eldridges book, which i have right here. After class that day i headed down to my local Family Christian bookstore. The book still has the price tag on the back, even though the Family Christian bookstore is no longer around, and i picked up the book and i was really shocked by what i read. For a couple of reasons. One i was shocked by the militaristic conception of christian manhood, and i was surprised by just how little this book, especially on christian masculinity was drawing on the christian scriptures. Instead the book was drawing on hollywood heros, especially mel gibsons William Wallace from the movie braveheart sports grill mythical creatures. This was in the early 2000s and in 2005 or 2006 when i came across this and it was everywhere at the time. I had heard about it long before i actually decided to read it myself. It was during the iraq war that my attention was first drawn to it. At that time i was seeing all the surveys about it come in about how white evan jell cals and away more than any other americans to supported the iraq war and support war in general and condone the use of torture and ipo started asking what might one of these things have to do with the other . I ended upsetting the project aside for a fairly long time and for a couple of reasons. One, i wasnt quite sure how mainstream all this was, even though i was looking at these incredible book sales figures and everybody was reading these in the christian circles. Books like eldridges and other copy cat books and whatever i was reading seemed really extremist and i wasnt quite sure if i should be devoting my attention and giving my life to something that might just be that in the darkest underbelly of american christianity and not that significant. So i ended up setting the project aside till the fall of 2016. It was in the days after the release of access Hollywood Video that i was hearing the words of evangelicals were using to defend their ongoing support for then candidate donald trump. It dawned on me, ive heard these words before, ive heard exactly this rhetoric of we need an ultimate fighting champion. We need a warrior whos going to win our battles. We need somebody who will protect christianity. A man who is ruthless and will do what needs to be done and it is at that point and especially a few weeks later after the 2016 election that i decided i needed to write it. I needed to go back to that research that i started all those years ago and what we are lookingg at wasnt just cringeng and thats where this book came about. 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 the favorites that didnt quite make the cut. I really enjoyed writing about eric and duck dynasty. I also took special pleasure in writing about conservative evangelicals condemnation of president clinton in the 1990s for his moral failings, in particularly in light of 2016 and what followed. But im going to read just a few passages here that i think open up what this book does. Ill start right where i left off with the fall of 2016. At that point if you remember, a lot of people were asking this question on how could evangelicals support donald trump and a lot of evangelical leaders were asking that same question. How could family values conservatives and support a man that supported every value they insisted they hold dear. How could the selfprofessed fmoral majority embrace the candidate that revel in vulgarity and how could evangelicals turn what would jesus do into a National Phenomena and justify their support for the man that seemed an tis piece for the savior they emulate. Evangelicals wereed holding ther noses and choosing the lesser of two evils and evangelicals were thinking in purely transactional terms ason trump himself said to do. Voting for trump because he promised to deliver Supreme Court opponents and secure their own religious liberty. Or maybe the polls were misleading by confusing evangelicals with name only with good church attending, bible reading and they were giving evangelicals a bad wrap. The support for trump was no aberration or nearly a pragmatic choice. It was m it was rather the cooly nation of embrace of militant masculinity and patriotic authority and condones the callus display of power at home and abroad. By the time trump arrived proclaiming himself their savior, conservative white evangelicals tradeir add faith that privileges humility and elevates the least of these and derives the provence of wooses. Rather than turning the other cheek, they resolve their faith and nation and secure in the knowledge that the ends justify thehe means. Many were stunned by the apparent betrayal of their own value and in reality, evangelicals do not cast their vote despite their belief and 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 is i dont define evangelicalism primarily by it professed theology. The doctoral belief and scholars and i evangelicals themselves point to authority of the scriptures, the centrality of the cross and christ and christ atonement and this born again experience and evangelism and activism. Instead i see evangelicalism as a Cultural Movement and largely as a consumer culture. Heres what i have to say about that. White evangelicalism has an expansive reach in large part because of the culture its created. Lthe culture that it spells. Over the past half century or so, evangelicals have produced and consumed a vast quantity of religious products. Christian books and magazines, contemporary christian make and radio and m television and feate films,nd ministry conferences, blogs, tshirts and home decor. Many would be hard pressed to articulate the basic tenants of evangelical theology have nonetheless been emmers in the Popular Culture and theyvegy raised children with the help of focus on radio programs growing up watching veggie tales cartoons and have news of the dc talk and learn about purity before they learned about sex and they have a silver ring to prove it. They watch the passion of the christ, soul surfer or latest film with the church group and wild at heart in small groups and learned more from pat robertson, joyce meyer, and the Gospel Coalition than they have from their own pastors sunday sermon. So by taking evangelical consumer culture seriously, i think thats when we can start to see the values that have been really instilled in a conservative way of evangelicalism and a couple words about what we see when we look at Popular Culture and we see sort of religious things taking place in the area and evangelical masculinity is political and learning how to be christian men and books on masculinity extremely popular spaces, evangelicals learn how to think about sex, guns and war and a nation as well. Despite the frequent claims that theyre evangelical commitment, its seen as political and Cultural Movement as the chiefly bias theology and its not on the faucet of this larger identity. Well watch the greater truth not with the authority and the sexual and spiritual spored subordination have been apart of the decade and sunday school and bible school and boys learn to be super heros for christ and girls beautiful princesses and children sing im in the lords army while marching in formation and church group train to use guns and bows and girls apply makeup and shop and decorates cakes and churches host special mothers day services and handing out flowers and pastries to women in their congregation. On fathers day, they grill wild game or host dad contests for mens contests and compete in simulated hunting gamed and winner taking home a box of steak. One Kansas Church host antiseek an annualgame. Christian schools often boasting mascots like knights, eagles, our crusader and weight lifters for jesus or local groups of look alikes and tear apart phone books and jump through bags of ice. National mens conferences bring men together with their favorite christian author for worship and ax filling and churches host fight Club Ministries or home grown versionig of manly mens group and one church rebranded their mens restreet as mens advance because men dont a retreat. Study the bible, men come together as knights of the round table, women as hand maidens of the lord. The christian retail and specialize in greeting cards for women. Theyve often good duck dynasty product line marketedut to men. Nelson bibles publishes bibles for teenagers that contain the text of old or new testament and christian lifestyle advice for boys and girls. The girls new testament was pretty smiling girls on the cover providing a list of beauty secrets, advice and topics like are you dating a godly guy and girls can hear what young women have to say on tons of important issues. Hobby lobby helped spearhead the Affordable Care act and mandating the Company Profit and the museum of the bible in the nations capitol. The evangelical world and the influence extends far beyond the beltway and the past decade the local christian bookstore declined with book and mortar outlets as theyve migrated to online retailers including lifeway, christianbook. Com and increasingly amazon. Together with walmart, hobby lobby claimed a slice of the religious market by pioneering an era of the christian box retailer. Brining the sacred and secular bridging the sacred and secular and hobby lobby with White Christian women alike and the categories are not mutually exclusive. Beyond dark displays of esv bibles and books targeting evangelical men and evangelical women, you can find aisle upon aisle of gender specific merchandise. For little girls, entire sections of Pink Christmas themed products and other items reminding girls that true beauty comes from within from a gentle and quiet spirit. Grown women finding coffee tone blurs with coffee and jesus and the section of assortment of fakese texas long horn skulls ad boot decor and bulk Action Shotgun shanked s grilling spata and celebrate the army and marines and Ronald Reagan and the second amendment. One wall plaque boldly stating i stand for the National Anthem and red, white, and Blue American flag and theres assorted man cave signage and a shelf devoted to john wayne memorabilia. I bought one of these myself. This is from hobby lobby, a nice john wayne plaque. Conservative evangelicals have long positioned themselves against the secular but as the cultural yvon jell cal of hobby evangelical of hobby lobby shows, the masculine values with men like john wayne, william a wallace, reynold reag, rushe, limbaugh, jordan petersen and donald trump embody and come to define evangelicalism itself. Thats just a taste of the book, whats within these pages. Ill say b a brief word about wt has happened since the book came out. The book was published last juno now, june 2020. It was described early on by one reviewer as urgent and sharp elbowed, and you get a sense of that from the title, subtitle in particular. So whats really remarkable is how evangelicals themselves, including many conservative white evangelicals have embraced this book. Its been astounding really. Within a couple of days of its publication, i started getting letters from evangelicals themselves. I was told to brace myself for vicious trolling once this book was published. Instead, i have been just absolutely swamped with letters for more than a year now, i still get severalte every day. Most of the letters Say Something like this is the story of my life. Thank you for t helping me to s. Then they go onto share like extendedk narratives of how ther own experiences map on sometimes uncannily closely to the narrative in jesus and john wayne and how many of them are now really experiencing a kind of reckoning and grappling with the fact this is their life story and this is in fact when they meant all along. Daniel as were waiting on some questions to come in, i thought i would begin with one. Ideologies are often complex in their sources. How did you discover the enduring role of john wayne across the decades with respect to the representation of evangelical masculinity . Kristen i did not set up to write a book about john wayne but this is a book about john wayne. He does pop up. Daniel he does. Kristen very early on and when i was going to row search this, early on in the 2000s, i called hero worship. These heros had things in common, they were all white men with one exception and they were all bright men who embodied this rugged masculinity. White men not afraid to use violence to bring order. Here i started noticing or first of all i started noticing mel gibsons William Wallace was outside and eldridge started that fad before him in the 90s and evangelicals love that had move Virgin Islands i just couldnt really find movie and i just couldnt find a way to please mel gibsons character William Wallace from the movie and some are not evangelical and not known as. Poster boy of family values at all. In these ways reminiscent of donald trump as well and theres Something Else that john wayne does, in his movies, he represented the good guy. The good guy with the gun. The white man who brought order through violence. In his greatest hits, the nonwhite pop Law Enforcement the japanese, the mexicans, the vietnamese and native americans. So thats what he came to symbolize on screen. During this critical moment in the 1960s and 1970s in particular, hes popular in the cold warn era and increasingly e came to symbolize this kind of rugged traditional even grretrograde white masculine power. He did so on screen but he did so off screen as well and he was a strong proponent of conservative politics. Berry gold water and Ronald Reagan and he was quite racist and very pro law and order and antihippy and he embodies this ideology in so many ways, and held up in erics words and john wayne is the icon of american masculinity and thats taken for granted and then we go from tthere. You note that the vietnam wharves a Pivotal Moment in the formation of emerging evangelical identity. Could you say a little about that . Kristin yeah, that was one of the surprises in researching that and just how front and center the vietnam wharves, and my first clue was reading the popular books on evangelical masculinity and after reading eldridges, i started saying what else is out there. Eldridge inspire add whole lot of other books in the 2000s and the remarkable success and then theres a whole literature that came out in the 1990s in conjunction with the Popular Movement and i lit that up with fair and it was able to run against many books open with scenes from the vietnam war and that was significant and i continued to kind of trace things back and came to see how the vietnam era was this critical juncture in American History that in the early years of the cold war when evangelicals were first coming on to the stage and reasergeant their power aerodynamic reat power and they were antigodly and antiamericans and they werent alone. So many other americans. This is consensus era and this is also traditional gender roles and this is the postwar leave it to beaver and evangelicals not on the margin and moving increasingly into the center and had billy graham as their celebrity and in and out of the white house and things were great in the 1950s and then the 1960s happened and youve got Civil Rights Movement and feminist movement and you have the vietnam war and Antiwar Movement and this is where you see this divide where more and more americans are starting to question american goodness and american greatness and this is when evangelicals doubled down and they link that drum commissional gender roles and it white patriot strength and its not opposition of values and they know more and more americans are questioning these very values and from that point on, they see themselves as this remnant and its up to them to fight to defend faith, family, and nation from external threats but also from internal threats. Daniel okay, thanks. We have a question from our audience. Are the events of january 6 consist with your argument in john wayne or would you materially revise it in light of january 6 . Kristin thank you for that question. Yes, absolutely. I had to write the preface for the paper back edition. It was it had to be submitted in november of 2020 and i had to beg for that time, they first wanted me to submit before the election and they cant do that. We need to see this out. So i turned it in and then, you know, just around the corner we have the events of january 6 and absolutely consist with this militancy, this in fact there was a lot of christian symbols among the insurrectionists. Theres a really good coverage on this. You have the prayer offered 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 prayer in particular, it could be voiced d in any evangelical term on any even sunday. What caught my eye in the crowd on that day was a sign of that said braveheart on it and had atu picture of a William Wallace character with a trump head and holding up a severed head that was labeled markism or socialism and in the other hand theres the same imagery. Really what we see happening january 6 is consist with the militancy and i will say i was inwatching very closely at the evangelical response and first there was a lot of denial. This wasnt us. This is antifa and inspired by franklin gram initially. Then there was a lot of silence. Just not addressing it. Then i heard a lot of we dont condone violence but the book wouldnt need to be revised but maybe id open a new preface, thee next few preface with january 6 as a case study. Daniel thanks. Ive got a a question, one of te thins that i noticed when i first read the book was you read lots of books in writing this book, and theres just a wealth ofat information in the last 75 years. Im going to name drop here for a minute. Kristin go for it. Daniel note the works of marybell morgan, bill goddard, james dobbson, tim and beverly la hay, al mowler foundational in supporting the image of masculinity as rugged, aggressive, and in some measure excusable within the movement. Other side, you mention figures like rick warren, bill hible, Russell Moore and others who have pushed back against part of this mythic development. What do you see as the future kristin yeah, first of all, many books were read and i want to give a shoutout to my three student researchhe assistants tt helped me with this and they were phenomenal. Theres no way this could have been written in this way without theirhe labor and insight. So, yeah, im glad you listed the variety of figures that were talking about because all of evangelicalism, all of white evangelicalsis and conservative white evangelicalism cant be reduced to this. Theres a purposedriven life and moore in the mix and rouses russellmoore. Beth moore and Russell Moore both left the ftc recently. This is where the story is. One of the things i try to do throughout this book is get a handle on who are we talking about . What is evangelicalism . I talk about it as a consumer culture on a series of networks and alliances and im always asking this question of what is fringe here and what is mainstream . 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 if theyre being, you know, anpressured. O so one of the thins this book is doing is trying to tease out what is the mainstream and what is the fringe and Power Dynamics at play here in does the center of evangelicalism shift over time . Thats the way to procrastinate in answering your question in whats next. Where do we go next . Were seeing here a fracturing and splintering evangelicalism down the mid and will not like a 50 50 divide. Trying to wrap my head around the kind of what were seeing, i deep kind off coming back to tht 81 of white evangelicals that vote for trump. Thatsge holding very steady and held steady in 2020. Holding steady as im surveying this landscape and you still see prominent voices, figures like beth moore andau Russell Moore d the National Media is covering that. Find figures like that throughout american evangelicallist and pastors, standing up saying this is not okay and a few of them are losing their pulpits because of it and theyre out of jobs. Members of organizations and christian schools. At the same time i dont see a t lot of shift happening we van evangelical constitutions and theyre often powerful supporters and whats happening often mimics what we saw with beth moore and Russell Moore where theyre courageously standing against these power structuring over time and then either they get pushed out or they say, i cant do this anymore and i leave. Where do they go . A variety of different places, but what that means is that the institutions that theyve left, organizations that they left are more radicalized because those voices of dissent have been removed and thats what i see happening now and i cant predict much further into the future because as historians we know that, you know, you just never know whats around the corner. Daniel on 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 mirabel morgan and hays and it was intriguing the responses i got back and some think about facebook and some facebook friends essentially being an eco chamber of similar thought of who was a facebook friend that someone might hope. It was intriguing how many of them had actually heard of those particular texts. They had been a part of evangelical movements during their lines, they were read in their homes and sometimes kept in the drawer for c certain kins of knowledge about human sexuality and a couple others 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 the role of men and women. A number of these texts as you mentioned were essentially aiming at the concept of complimentarity and it was a driving force of evangelical movement and some said my mother read this book and probably led to her second divorce. These were books that were tremendously influential. Not just on shaping images of masculinity but images for women. Kristin absolutely. Daniel for their roles and interactions with men. Kristin yeah, so many are sharing these stories and this weekend talking with a podcaster who shared that of his dad had given him a copy of tim and beverly hayes, the active marriage just before his wedding saying dont read this till after you get married. So many people, i kept stating goodbyes and josh harris for generation younger and that was their bible of purity. This is what it means to be a christian and what it means to be a marriage, and ive just been hearing from so many people saying i pattern my life, we pattern our lives around that. Our marriage around that and it didnt work. Some people stuck with it for a long time and i hear traumatic stories of these survivors and particularly women who were blaming themselves as they were taught for their own abuse because clearly not meeting their husbands needs and not submissive and sadly these stories are so familiar to us is and certain stuff of americans and yet this whole world is almost invisible to people outside of this subculture. So many so that when were working on this book, my editor whos from completely outside this world questioned some of the publication numbers because he was like no, no, no. Publishers are always exaggerating. Where did yous get this . This was in the New York Times and hes like, oh, okay then. Then its legit. This whole thing with these books notot making it on the New York Times best seller list and theyd be these prophesy books andn christian sex books and on the list all the time and not what the times are promoting to theirhi readers and this whole world is deeply formative of generation and conservative evangelicals and almost unknown to people outside of that world. Daniel were coming up toward the end of our time and i have this question, a future asking question for you. I see you also have a new gospel for women, catherine bushnel and the challenge of christian feminism in addition to jesus and john wayne. Clearly the role of gender, its construction, and the authority that it assumes have been important in your scholarship discuss what you see briefly and where youre going so far and what youve learned next. Kristin yeah, christian feminism is looking at trafficking activism in the late 1920 century andni writing up against the fact these are christian men who are abusing women and respectable christian men and concludes that the fruit of christianity and translates them into radical christian texts and its fundamental christians and its this remarkable story that has been all but lost but what i really took from that was that conservative bible believes christians who uphold the authority of the scriptures believe the word of god is inherent and can read the scriptures and conclude that christianity is against pate your key and as soon as i kind of wrapped my head around that, then i understood that the bible can be interpreted in that direction and in the direction of pate area i can and as a historian in any given moment, we should be not just assuming that what were seeing is biblical teaching and why are people taking this in this direction and that led to jesus and john wayne and other historians have just assumed that evangelicals will be patriot cal and that was my first list and next list and john wayne in some ways is a cultural study of White Christian womanhood and live, laugh love and it is looking at cultural products like christian romance and mommy blogs and hallmark movies and christian liberalism and hope supremacy and more. Fodaniel okay, dr. Du mez, thak you so much more a really enlightening book. I enjoy t i know our readers dorks keep up your great work. Remember the prenasis books. Thank you so much and have a good evening. Kristin thank you. Former defense secretary mark talked about his time serving in the trump administration. Heres a portion of that interview. One of the things i wrestle with a lot, sacred oath, oath is to the constitution and part of the constitution is article 2 establishing the president being the commander in chief and youre also bound to obey his law for orders and many ways i was fortunate because President Trump rarely issued orders but for the germy case and germany case and in terms of the congress appropriation, and it would be me at times or me and john bolton or john bollton and mike pompeo and the president and pushing the Security Assistance for ukraine. It happened and we learned why later. She really get my commander, european command, gave a series of principles. What is any popup that would reissue our allies, russia. He came back in pretty good concepts. Met the directory to drop troops. At the same time allowed me too set in either consolidate them in other countries eventually push the board, which meant the most undefined to reassure our allies into russia. I thought it was a very clever idea put forth by the combat commander. I endorse it. Write to the president exactly limited i pretend that he wanted. Again i did not like its origin. But we came up with the end solution to meet the president s intent. But for me to do with strategic and bolster that the russians biblical narrative relic associate talk about what other specific booktv. Org. X look virtual gaithersburg book festival. I am trying to honor, to be your house. Before get started started i would ask you please sponsor this book from bookseller partner politics and prose. 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