Jesus and John Wayne
Outstanding perspective on current problems in the USA political scene. Why are Christians not behaving like Christians? A lot of insight is provided here
Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2021–2026years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- See also perhaps Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez:
> The book examines white evangelical affinity for Donald Trump. Du Mez explains that white evangelical support for Donald Trump during the 2016 United States presidential election was a continuing trend rather than an exception. The book focuses on the militant masculinity that white evangelicals idealize and how it has manifested in a pattern of abuse among evangelical leaders. Du Mez criticizes mainstream evangelicals such as John Eldredge, John Piper, and James Dobson for advancing the evangelical ideal of militant masculinity.[4]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_John_Wayne
The Christianity that is often in the news in the US is of a particular variety.
- You'll most often see "Republican Jesus" brought up by the people who were born and raised in the evangelical church. People quite familiar with the subject. I am one of those people.
I guess if you want to ignore the movement of evangelicals to the right wing over the past 40+ years, then perhaps you could pretend it's just an invention of the "Left". But as someone who was alive for this transition and was once deeply embedded in American fundamentalist culture, I can tell you it's no invention.
There are countless books on the subject if you want to understand the history. "Jesus and John Wayne" is a recent release on the evangelical move to the right, and the evolution of "Republican Jesus". It's a good introduction if you're not familiar with the background. Written by someone who was once a member of such churches, and is still a practicing Christian.
It's true that not all Americans have this particular view of Jesus. Non-evangelical, non-fundamentalist denominations will give you a different viewpoint. If the Christians you know belong to those faiths, then "Republican Jesus" would seem quite alien. But the evangelical faiths have had much more success in broadcasting their version. Which makes their version of Jesus the one most prominently seen in the public square and the one currently in use by one of the political parties.
- I just got done reading Jesus and John Wayne. A century or more of hammering it into boys and men that we're inadequate if we're not virulent warrior providers had to have predictable consequences, didn't it?
