In this post within my book analysis series on Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne, I’m going to be looking at chapters 5-6. Chapter 5, entitled, “Slaves and Soldiers,” focuses on the work of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell, while chapter 6, entitled, “Going for the Jugular,” largely covers Evangelical support for Ronald Reagan in the 80s, as well as the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Before I jump into chapters 5-6, though, in response to some of the feedback I’ve gotten to my first three posts, I want to clarify just what my criticism of KDM’s book is. I am not criticizing the book for pointing out clear abuses that a wide range of Evangelical leaders have engaged in. Many (if not most) of the Evangelical leaders she criticizes, I criticize too. That’s not the issue, as far as I’m concerned. My criticism of her book boils down to two things. First, I do not think it is wise or good to broad-brush the entirety of “white Evangelicalism” as being guilty of corrupting the Christian faith based on the bad actions of a number of Evangelical leaders. To make my point, what do you think reaction would be if I wrote a book entitled, “How Black Protestantism Corrupted the Christian Faith,” and I focused mostly on the sins of men like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Creflo Dollar? There is no question that they have been guilty of doing many things as ministers that have been anything but truly Christian, but it would be utterly wrong to broad-brush “black Protestantism” in that way. To do so would actually be racist.
My second complaint is that, in addition to the clear sins and abuses of many Evangelical leaders, it seems to me that the real basis upon which KDM has determined that “white Evangelicals” are guilty of corrupting the faith is thoroughly political. She seems to be implying that merely holding conservative positions on political issues amounts to “corrupting” the Christian faith. In that respect, I find that line of attack to be no different from ultra-fundamentalists like Ken Ham, or Jerry Falwell, or a large number of those whom KDM criticizes in her book. If I can put it this way, Falwell’s “big sin” was that he politicized Christianity and essentially preached that real Christianity meant embracing the Republican Party platform. It wasn’t that he held conservative views. But KDM essentially argues that Falwell’s “big sin” was having conservative views, because conservative views aren’t Christian…thus implying that liberal views are. By making that argument, she is, in my opinion, guilty of the same “big sin” Falwell is, just from the other side of the political spectrum. In any case, let’s look at chapters 5-6.
Chapter 5: Slaves and Soldiers—Summary
In Chapter 5, KDM walks through a few more Evangelical events in the 1970s. She begins by saying that “at its most basic level, family value politics was about sex and power” (88) and that it “involved the enforcement of women’s sexual and social subordination in the domestic realm and the promotion of American militarism on the national stage” (88). The two Evangelical leaders she focuses on in this chapter are Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell.
Before his famous Left Behind series in the 1990s, LaHaye and his wife wrote How to Be Happy Though Married in 1968, and then The Act of Marriage in 1976. Essentially, these books (especially The Act of Marriage) encouraged married couples to have healthy sex lives and gave rather detailed sex advice so that husbands and wives could have a fulfilling sexual relationship within their marriage. KDM, though, characterizes it as trying to liberate heterosexual couples “to freely enjoy sex within the confines of patriarchal marriage” (91) and “patriarchal authority” (92). The LaHayes also said that wives want their husbands to be masculine, a hero, and a prince charming. In their other books, they wrote against abortion-on-demand, big government, the ERA, higher taxes, and the legalization of homosexual rights among other things. Since the LaHayes had gone to Bob Jones University when it practiced segregation in the 1940s, KDM adds “pro-segregation” and “anti-interacial dating” to her list of defining characteristics of Evangelicalism, along with anti-communism, anti-feminism, anti-gun control, and pro-patriarchal marriage.
Then there was Jerry Falwell, the prime mover of the Moral Majority movement of the 70-80s. He was a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who (obviously) rose to prominence on the political stage with the Moral Majority. He warned about the threat of Communism, spoke of the need for America to stay militarily strong to stop the spread of Communism, and spoke out against the growing welfare state, divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and government overreach into the lives of private citizens. KDM says that Falwell was a segregationist, but the only proof she gives of this is her claim that Falwell said “civil rights agitation” was inspired by Communist sympathizers and Marxism. I honestly don’t know if he really was, but KDM doesn’t really provide actual evidence to back up her claim. She also claims that Falwell “battled for the rights of (white) families” (99) and that he used a lot of military language and metaphors in his writings and speeches.
When it came to the 1980 presidential election, white Evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. KDM notes that Carter wasn’t exactly an impressive president and “seemed unable to lead America out of the mess he’d made” (102), the most notable failure being the Iran-Hostage crisis. That being said, she says that the reasons why Evangelicals voted for Reagan were that they “had placed patriarchal power at the heart of their cultural and political identity” and viewed Carter as a wimp who wore cardigan sweaters and smiled too much.
My Response to Chapter 5
I am absolutely not a fan of either Tim LaHaye or Jerry Falwell. I completely agree that both men have done a whole lot of damage to Christianity. In fact, whenever I read Romans 2:24, when Paul says, “The Name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” I can’t help thinking that verse is immediately applicable to men like LaHaye and Falwell.
That being said, although I will never read marriage/sex-advice books by Tim and Beverly LaHaye, I have to say I am perplexed by the way KDM objects to those books. Call me crazy, but even though the advice is coming from the guy who plagued the Evangelical world with the Left Behind series, I fail to see how encouraging married couples to have healthy sex lives within their marriage is a bad or “patriarchal” thing. Telling husbands and wives to tend to the sexual needs of their spouses is actually good advice—the Apostle Paul says so much in I Corinthians 7. To twist that as saying, “Oh, the LaHayes were telling wives to submit to the voracious sexual libido of their husbands,” as KDM does, is just bizarre to me.
I would also be remiss to point out KDM’s tendency to lump a whole lot of various political stances (taxes, the size of government, gun rights, abortion, being against communism etc.) in with clearly sinful behavior (racism, segregation), all on the basis that the LaHayes went to Bob Jones University in the 1940s. Yes, BJU was horrifically racist and segregationist—but to use that as a reason to lump all those other various political issues together under the umbrella of “racism” is rather dishonest. Again, that is not to say there are Evangelicals/Fundamentalists who are racist, are pro-second amendment, and who are very domineering to their wives. Clearly those kinds of people exist. To impugn all Evangelicals or Evangelical culture as a whole of being that way, though, is problematic to say the least. The Evangelical culture in which I grew up in the 80s pretty clearly condemned the racism of BJU. In fact, I remember one of the most popular Christian singers of the 80s, Steve Taylor, even had a song, “We Don’t Need No Color Code,” in which he lambasted BJU: “Down in Carolina way, lived a man named ‘Big BJ”/BJ went and got a school founded on Caucasian rule/Bumper sticker on his Ford said, ‘Honkies, if you love the Lord.”
Chapter 6: Going for the Jugular—Summary
In Chapter 6, KDM largely covers the Reagan years and notes the increased political involvement of a number of Evangelical leaders. She points out that although Reagan was raised a Presbyterian, “his church attendance was sporadic” (104). KDM also points out that Reagan had been divorced, but that Evangelicals didn’t care about that because Reagan exuded masculinity, spoke against communism, and promoted Christian nationalism. KDM also says that they liked his platform of getting “tough on crime” because that really meant dealing with “the threat of black men” (105). KDM then says, “domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse didn’t register” to either Reagan or Evangelicals. In fact, she says that Reagan, like Nixon, used the “southern strategy” to appeal to southern racists and segregationists to win the presidency. She even says that Billy Graham “aided and abetted the southern strategy” by advising Republicans how to make inroads in the South.
In this chapter, KDM also covers the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s, when strict, conservatives in the SBC basically conspired to force out more politically moderate and liberal Baptists. In addition, she mentions how Evangelical leaders supported Reagan’s policy of getting tough with the USSR, as well as his support of the Contras in their war with the revolutionary Marxist group, the Sandinistas.
My Response to Chapter 6
In my second post in this series, I noted that KDM characterized Nixon as a “lapsed Quaker” and McGovern as “a former ministry student, son of an evangelical minister, and a deeply religious candidate.” Now that we come to Ronald Reagan, KDM tells us that although Reagan was technically a Presbyterian, that his church attendance was “sporadic,” plus, he was divorced. Translation? “Well, he didn’t go to church every Sunday and he was divorced, so he isn’t a real Christian.” Now, I have no real idea as to the spiritual life of Reagan (or any presidential candidate, for that matter)—I don’t know any of them, and neither does KDM. But I do find it highly ironic to see KDM engage in the same kind of thing I’ve often seen many right-wing partisan Evangelicals have done, namely seek to disparage the candidate in the opposing party as “not really being Christian.” In that respect, it seems to me that the very thing KDM accuses politically partisan Evangelicals of doing (and they do) is the very thing she engages in.
In any case, KDM doesn’t attempt to explain the issues and reasons that led to Reagan’s defeat of Carter in the 1980 election. Instead, she attributes the Evangelical vote for Reagan to three things: Reagan’s “masculinity,” his being against communism, and the notion of “Christian nationalism.” I have to ask, though, is she saying being against communism is a bad thing? And what does “masculinity” even mean in the context of a presidential campaign? I remember the 1980 campaign as a kid. The general consensus across America was that Carter was a weak leader. People felt he handled the hostage crisis horribly and were appalled that Iran, who soon became the #1 state sponsor of terrorism around the world, had taken innocent American civilians hostage. Americans wanted a president who would project strength on the world stage so that really bad actors (like Iran and the USSR) wouldn’t feel emboldened to promote world-wide terrorism and genocidal communism.
So, is KDM saying she would have preferred the USSR and Iran to exert more influence in the world? Is she saying that fighting against such things isn’t good because it is too “masculine”? That is why her claim that Evangelicals just liked Reagan’s “masculinity” rings hollow. It doesn’t really say anything. Instead of trying to understand the actual events at the time and how they impacted the way people across American (not just Evangelicals) voted, KDM just throws out “masculinity” as a superficial accusation that avoids any critical analysis of relevant events of the time.
Another thing I have it ask is what exactly does she mean by “Christian nationalism”? It is, after all, a term she uses throughout the book, but she never takes the time to actually define it. Does she mean the kind of mentality some people have that conflate patriotism to America with Christianity—the kind of people who have those kind of grotesque paintings of Jesus helping Donald Trump sign bills into laws? Is she referring to the Josh Feuersteins of the world? If that’s the case, then I completely agree with her that that kind of “Christian nationalism” is horrifically bad and has corrupted the faith. Absolutely.
But who in their right mind is going to confuse Ronald Reagan with Josh Feuerstein? If you can’t tell the difference, if you insist on conflating the two, then I can’t take you seriously, anymore than I can take seriously a person who can’t tell the difference between Michelangelo’s David with hardcore pornography. That, though, is the problem with KDM’s use of “Christian nationalism.” By not clearly explaining what she means by the term, she ends up using it as an undefined blanket term to stereotype any Christian with conservative values who believes America should have a strong national defense.
Let’s look at getting “tough on crime.” Is it inherently a racist thing? KDM thinks so. Now, yes, there have been politicians who have used policing in a racist way that has disproportionately affected black people. To just label someone as being racist, though, because that person wants to address crime, is really problematic. And to further say, “Oh Reagan and Evangelicals just wanted to get the black guys! They think domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse is totally okay!” is simply not a serious analysis. It is a juvenile and partisan hit job. I shouldn’t even have to explain why. It is so wrong on its face.
Even though this topic has immediate relevance to the situation in America over the past year, it is too big a topic to address in this post. All I’ll say is that it is a fact that the various cities in which funding for police has been drastically reduced or where the police force has been significantly reduced are the same cities that are seeing drastic spikes in crimes, sexual assaults, abuse, and homicides—and the people who are being most affected by the increase in crime are minority communities. You can say all you want that “getting tough on crime” is racist, but the stats don’t lie. Minorities have been disproportionately affected by the rise in crime in those places that have reduced their police presence.
Again, these issues involving race, crime, and policing are multi-faceted and complex, and it does nobody any good when people reduce these complexities to, “Oh, if you say you want to get tough on crime, then you’re racist.” In fact, partisan political rhetoric like that prevents real reform and change from happening. In fact, rhetoric like that perpetuates the problems that need to be addressed.
Finally, regarding the conservative take over of the SBC, KDM is absolutely right in condemning it. Those kinds of Baptist leaders who orchestrated the takeover should be absolutely condemned. That is a prime example of how the politicization of Christianity corrupts the faith, and in many segments within Evangelicalism (especially in the SBC) that has happened. But again, for criticism to be legitimate, it has to be leveled at the actual perpetrators of corruption. It cannot be broadbrushed to an entire group (“white Evangelicals”) who largely have conservative political views.
