It was setting up an image of Christian manhood that was very militaristic. It was really fascinating to me first that it didn't really draw on the scriptures very much for building a model of Christian masculinity instead drew from Hollywood heroes and kind of mythical warriors.
They told me I had to read it, I read it. Including the book by John Eldredge, Wild at Heart. It was my own students who introduced me to the literature on Christian manhood that was incredibly popular back in the early 2000s. I'm a historian of gender and religion.Īlso, what I was observing around me as a new professor at Calvin University, actually it was Calvin College. What sparked it was a combination of my academic training.
My interest in questions of evangelical masculinity go way back to the early 2000s. If you have a paperback edition, I tell a little bit of this story in the new preface. What was it that prompted your interest in the subject matter to begin with? It was written in the age of Donald Trump, of course. I think we should just establish the context of it a little bit. Well, more than a few hundred people have read this book and many of us have appreciated tremendously. We're thrilled if a few hundred people read them and appreciate them. As an academic, we're used to spending years working on projects. I mean that both in a qualitative way and also in a public fanfare sort of way, right? You're a historian, you write books, you study things, and this has been sensational I'm sure. I'm sure it's caught you somewhat off guard. You've been everywhere in the last months since the 2020 publication of this book. I think I'm sure that this is as I mentioned to you before, probably your 147th podcast. I actually didn't think about that, but I think there must be something subliminal about that I'm atoning for something. Well, I'm looking at myself right now on this camera and realize that inadvertently I put on my Mr. She is the author of the sensational book actually that has really captured the attention of many Christians in America, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. She is a professor of history at Calvin College. I'm your host, George Mason and I'm delighted to welcome to the program today, Dr. Kristin Du Mez is a keynote speaker at a Symposium organised by the Australian Catholic University and Deakin University and brings together North American and Australian researchers to look at the way Christianity has related to public life in each country over the past 50 years.Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. She tells Communication Mixdown why she wrote the book, what her research revealed and how people have responded to the book in the US.įor Australians, Kristin's book is a cautionary tale about what we might expect if Christian Right activists succeed in their efforts to move State Lberal Parties and the Coalition even further to the right to take up Trump-style policies. Kristin's book reached number four on the New York Times best sellar list last month, so it's obviously having an impact. Last year she published Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, a study of white evangelical views of masculinity from the Cold War to the present, culminating in the election of Donald Trump. Her research focuses on the intersections of gender, religion, and politics in recent American history. Kristin Du Mez is a professor of history at Calvin University in Grand Rapids Michigan in the United States.