Here in Part 5 of my detailed book analysis of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book, Jesus and John Wayne, I will look at chapters 7-8. Again, my format will consist of a brief summary of a chapter, followed by my response to it. Let’s jump in…
Chapter 7: The Greatest American Hero—Summary
In this chapter, Kobes Du Mez (KDM) tells about Lt. Col. Oliver North, who oversaw the Iran-Contra affair, in which the US secretly sold 1500 missiles to Iran in exchange for money and the release of three hostages, and then diverted that money to aid the Contras in their war with the Sandinistas. Most of the chapter is an overview of North’s life, his conversion, and Evangelical leaders’ support of him during and after Iran-Contra. North’s family was a military family. He had grown up Catholic but had become a born-again Evangelical as an adult. Then in the 1970s, when his wife threatened him with divorce because he acted like “a headstrong military leader” and was an absent husband and father, he came across James Dobson’s book Dare to Discipline credited it with saving his marriage. KDM then says that the North family then joined a predominately white charismatic Episcopal church that “blended patriotism and Christianity” (122). What that meant is that the church displayed an American flag out front and that congregants like North were told to make a difference for the Lord wherever they were. After the Iran-Contra hearings, North was largely celebrated for his patriotism by many Evangelical leaders (like Jerry Falwell), he wrote a number of books and spoke at a number of Evangelical churches (KDM points out that he received “undisclosed fees”).
KDM also talks about the rise of the “Christian men’s movement,” and how certain pastors like Edwin Louis Cole emphasized that the Christian concept of real manhood involved men being truly masculine and still tender toward others, not like the worldly “macho” concept of manhood that lacked moral character and promoted sexual promiscuity. At the same time in the 80s, though, there were a number of sex scandals within the Evangelical world, most notably those of Marvin Gorman, an Assemblies of God pastor in New Orleans, Jimmy Swaggart, a televangelist in Baton Rouge, and Jim Bakker of the PTL Club.
My Reaction to Chapter 7
In all honesty, I don’t have much of a reaction to either Oliver North or KDM’s assessment of him. I remember the Iran-Contra Affair (the hearings took place when I was in high school), and I remember seeing his books in the local Christian bookstore. I knew some people loved him and some people hated him, but I really didn’t think much of him either way, and neither did anyone I know at the time. So, although it seems a lot of Falwell-types were enamored with him, all I can say is that in the Evangelicalism I knew in my late teens and early-20s, North wasn’t really a big deal. I do question, though, the way KDM characterizes North’s church. I’m not sure having an American flag out front and telling congregants to make a difference for the Lord constitutes “blending patriotism and the Bible.”
I also remember the Swaggart and Bakker sex scandals. They, too, happened when I was in high school. I went to an Evangelical Christian high school, and quite frankly, we all laughed at Swaggart and Bakker (and particularly liked Saturday Night Live’s skewering of both men–this one even includes Pat Robertson as well). Televangelists like Swaggart and Bakker may have had their followings, but in my Evangelical world, no one took them seriously and most saw them as clownish charlatans—fringe carnival-barkers, along with the likes of Robert Tilton, Peter Popoff, and Kenneth Copeland. To be clear, this was during the late-80s and early-90s that I started feeling not really “at home” in the Evangelicalism in which I grew up. I started to feel that Evangelicalism was largely just shallow—well-intended and sincere people, but there was a shallowness to it. It wasn’t because of the likes of Swaggart and Bakker—it was already well-acknowledged within my Evangelical circle that they didn’t represent the majority of Evangelicals.
Chapter 8: War for the Soul—Summary
Chapter 8 largely covers the political landscape during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In this chapter, KDM touches upon a variety of topics. She points out Falwell’s controversial comment about how AIDS was God’s wrath upon homosexuals, and then says that he “forged connections” with South Africa’s apartheid regime, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, and the “brutal right-wing dictatorship in El Salvador.” She doesn’t cite anything to back up these claims and doesn’t take the time to explain exactly what Falwell did. I’m not a fan of Falwell at all, and I remember his callous and un-Christian comments about AIDS, but I would have liked to see KDM provide actual documentation or just cite something to back up her claim that he cozied up with South Africa’s apartheid regime or Imelda Marcos.
KDM also mentions the failed presidential campaign of televangelist Pat Robertson and points out that at the beginning of his campaign it came out that his wife had been seven months pregnant when they had gotten married. Robertson’s main platform was foreign policy, specifically on taking a stand against “godless Communism” and the defeat of Marxist regimes in the Third World. Nevertheless, most Evangelicals just didn’t get behind him, even those like Falwell, LaHaye, and Dobson. Eventually, George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in the 1988 election, who lost, according to KDM, because Republicans questioned his patriotism and his masculinity.
By 1992, though, the Democrats retook the White House by getting Bill Clinton elected. KDM describes Clinton this way: “Despite his southern and Baptist credentials, Clinton was anathema to the Religious Right” (139). In a later chapter, she again describes Bill Clinton as “a moderate Southern Baptist,” who nevertheless was accused by Evangelicals of being a draft-dodger, smoking marijuana, and lying about Gennifer Flowers. On top of that, his wife, Hillary, advocated for civil rights, had campaigned for George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, and was a career woman. During Clinton’s presidency, Evangelicals also were against his allowing women to serve in combat and homosexuals to serve in the military (the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy). And then there was his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a young White House intern.
Despite Evangelicals decrying Clinton’s bad behavior, though, his standing and approval rating drastically improved throughout the country. KDM’s take on Evangelicals’ opposition to Clinton’s escapades, though, boils down to that they really weren’t that concerned with Clinton’s mistreatment of women—they just didn’t like him. Besides, many Evangelical leaders had their own sordid pasts anyway. KDM concludes that Evangelicals didn’t really care about Clinton’s mistreatment of women because just a few years earlier, they had supported Clarence Thomas when Anita Hill (whom KDM describes as “a devout Christian”) accused him of “persistent sexual harassment.”
At the end of the chapter KDM mentions the rise of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio in the 1990s, along with the rise of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. According to KDM, neither man made his name as a “Christian broadcaster,” but Evangelicals flocked to them because of “their masculine brand.” All the same, she notes that in the 1990s many Evangelicals turned their attention to fighting global poverty, human trafficking, the global AIDS epidemic, and the persecution of Christians around the world.
My Reaction to Chapter 8
I want to focus my comments on chapter 8 to how KDM frames her discussion of Evangelicals’ reaction to Bill Clinton. I noted in my earlier posts that I couldn’t help but notice that the very way KDM describes various presidential candidates reveals her own partisan bias. Her description of Bill Clinton, quite frankly, takes the cake. She describes him as a “moderate Southern Baptist,” and papers over Clinton’s clear and obvious moral failings. It wasn’t just he had lied about a previous affair with Gennifer Flowers, it was that numerous other women had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and even rape that had happened only a couple of years earlier. KDM doesn’t even mention the rape allegations. Furthermore, his bad behavior was ongoing. He was getting blowjobs from a 20-something intern in the Oval Office…and he had lied to a grand jury. Make no bones about it—Bill Clinton was a pig. And the fact that his popularity increased after the Lewinsky scandal doesn’t really reflect too well on the American public.
But KDM doesn’t seem too concerned with fairly depicting Clinton. She’s too busy trying to paint him as a “moderate Southern Baptist.” She begrudgingly acknowledges what he did wasn’t good, but she’s more concerned with partisan hackery when she says that Evangelicals didn’t really care about Clinton’s indiscretions because a few Evangelical leaders had been caught in sexual indiscretions. Really? Not only is she papering over Clinton’s bad behavior, she broad-brushes all Evangelicals as guilty of not really caring about women based on the bad behavior of a few Evangelical leaders, most of whom ultimately lost their positions when their bad behavior finally came to light.
Now, it is fair to point out that men like James Dobson condemned Clinton’s sexual misbehavior, only to excuse the sexual misbehavior of Donald Trump (KDM makes this point later on in her book). That is textbook hypocrisy. Having said that, though, it is just as hypocritical for KDM (and many liberals and “ex-Evangelicals” by the way) to blow a pharisaical gasket in 2017 over Trump’s tryst with Stormy Daniels in 2005, while ignoring, excusing, or playing down the exact same kind of bad behavior of other political candidates who happen to align with more liberal political stances. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. And this is what bothers me about KDM’s book most of all. Although she is correct to point out the politically-partisan hypocrisy of a host of bad Evangelicals leaders—this is absolutely true—she nevertheless engages in the exact same politically-partisan hypocrisy.
By the way, I remember watching the Clarence Thomas hearings. It was a circus. And I have to say that for KDM to say, “Oh, Evangelicals didn’t really care about mistreatment of women by Clinton because, look…the Clarence Thomas hearings!” is grossly juvenile. First of all, the allegations against Thomas amounted to (1) Thomas had asked Hill out on a few dates, and (2) Thomas made sexually inappropriate comments in the workplace. Numerous women came forward to accuse Clinton of affairs and rape. On top of that, the fact that the Democrats had Ted Kennedy, a serial womanizer who literally left Mary Jo Kopechne trapped in a car in a river to die at Chappaquiddick, on the Senate committee exposed the rank hypocrisy of the Democrats. I’m sorry, but for KDM to broad-brush all Evangelicals of not caring about women by making a moral equivalence between the Thomas hearings and Clinton’s actions (and then ignoring the hypocrisy that was going on in the Thomas hearings) is just political hackery.
I don’t want my assessment of KDM’s book to come across as a politically partisan attack. Rather, I am trying to show that much of her book is just that—a politically partisan attack. Like I’ve said before, she is broad-brushing and condemning “white Evangelicals” as an entire group based on (1) some truly reprehensible behavior by a number of Evangelical leaders, and (2) the general conservative voting record of Evangelicals. And in the process of doing that, she engages in shocking hypocrisy in the very way she portrays Democrats and Republicans in general.
As I’ve said before, it isn’t that many of her specific examples aren’t true. It is the blatantly partisan way she is framing them within her larger narrative. That is why I am not impressed with her book. I see the same dynamic going on in her book as I have seen in many of the writings of Ken Ham when it comes to politics and social issues. If you are a right-wing fundie, as soon as you read words like liberal, evolution, secular, abortion, Marxist, you’re going to buy into any accusation in a given article by Ham, and you’re not going to be even a bit skeptical and take the time to assess whether or not the accusations have merit. That’s how manipulation and propaganda works. By the same token, if you are a left-wing partisan, or possibly a former Evangelical who has been hurt by your church, you are going to read certain words like masculinity, militancy, patriarchy, anti-woman, etc., and you’re going to accept anything the author gives you because it feeds your bias.
But truth matters, and criticism of anything has to be focused and fair and proven. Sadly, though, it seems that more and more Christians are being sucked to the kind of blatantly partisan stances we see with the likes of Ken Ham and KDM. In my opinion, both are just dressing up their political views in Christian robes. I have no problem with people expressing their political views. But if you are going to write an article or a book about what real Christianity is or about how it is being corrupted by politics, then you had better make sure that you are not using partisan political stances to act as the standards by which you are evaluating whether or not someone has corrupted the faith—because if you do, then your own analysis becomes corrupted by politics itself.
