Book Review: Jesus and John Wayne
Content warning: abuse/domestic violence
Reading Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a little like reading a biography of my upbringing, just not the fun parts. With all that I’ve processed in the past decade, I am so thankful for this book and the work it is doing. The book untangles the web of Christian nationalism, American evangelicalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, and if you don’t think those things are connected, then you definitely need to read it.
When I was still in the Christian Patriarchy movement starting to deconstruct my beliefs, I felt like everything I was taught and the people I grew up with existed in a bubble, protected from the outside world. I tried to search the internet for resources on my questions but found little except for Homeschoolers Anonymous. No one outside of Vision Forum seemed to know anything about Vision Forum, and no one seemed to care.
I’ve been gone from the movement for almost eight years, and still most people I meet haven’t heard of this corner of American Christianity. But more research is being done, and more people are gaining recognition of this shadow world, perhaps due to the 2016 election and the widespread evangelical support for Trump. Christian nationalism has reared its well-funded and long-established head in seemingly new (but really should have been expected) ways.
Du Mez lays out the historical cards of 20th-century American evangelicalism to show how no one should have been surprised by the white evangelical support of Trump, which she calls “the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.” From the “culture wars,” to fear-mongering over communism, to systemic racism in evangelical colleges, Du Mez shines a light in all the dark corners.
And of course, John Wayne makes his appearances as the ideal man for patriarchy-leaning evangelicals, serving as a precursor icon of sorts for Trump: he’s masculine, gun-bearing, “law-and-order” establishing, and dominating.
We watched quite a few John Wayne movies when I was a kid. My favorite was True Grit (because of the girl who could ride horses and shoot a gun—no surprise). But I distinctly remember the way John Wayne treated women in his films. In McLintock, Wayne’s character publicly spanks the leading lady, played by Maureen O’Hara, and he also encourages a man to spank his (Wayne’s) adult daughter. In Donovan’s Reef, he spanks a woman after saying, “I wear the pants.” These scenes are shown as positive and funny, and the woman is shown as “getting what she deserves.” John Wayne’s films had instances of feisty, independent women, but they were shamed by the ultramasculine Wayne, who used his hands to bring them to submission. Even as a kid, I hated these scenes. Something inside me rattled with an anger I didn’t understand.
The spanking of women didn’t just happen in John Wayne movies. Many other pre-1970s films included similar scenes. But it is important to note that a role model like John Wayne, who was admired for his “masculinity,” played characters who dominated women. The nonconsensual spanking of adult women is taken for granted as unacceptable behavior today, and yet, it hasn’t left the darkest corners of extreme Christian patriarchy. Wife-spanking (in reality, a form of domestic violence) is actually condoned in some extremist circles of patriarchal evangelicalism.
I think it’s safe to assume that most evangelicals today would not condone such violence, but the idea of male domination and female submission is still widely accepted, taking various forms, some more extreme than others. It is not enough to make an argument that those who commit domestic violence are exceptions to the rule, but we must assess the underlying theologies and systems that may enable or encourage that behavior.
If we’re honest, authoritarianism, hypermasculinity, and striving for political power are ingrained in the white evangelical church today. Du Mez analyzes this trend and the impact of leaders like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, who were very involved in politics as well as church. This history is complicated with many nuances, but Du Mez does an excellent job of parsing it out.
Reading Jesus and John Wayne helped me feel validated in my own experience in the more extreme patriarchal circles of American evangelicalism. It’s not often that you find critiques of Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips (Vision Forum), and John Piper in the same book, all of whom were very influential in my upbrining. Some would rather have these names separate, as if their problems are their own, as if they are exceptions. For instance, some people appreciate Wilson, but disparage Phillips. Some love Piper’s writing, but hate Wilson’s. But Wilson, Phillips, and Piper do have links to a broader, deeper theology of patriarchy, and it matters that they are not simply exceptions to the general population of evangelical leaders. Since leaving Christian Patriarchy, I’ve found that many people think of these leaders as fringe or extremist, but their impact has in fact been quite large. And if we look to an overview like Jesus and John Wayne, we see that these leaders (and the ideas they support) are not actually as fringe as they may seem.
This book is just as good as you’ve heard, and Du Mez has done such important work in untangling the web of politics and evangelicalism. If you’re interested in understanding the history of white evangelicalism and Christian nationalism in America and the root causes of how they are expressed today, then this is a must-read.