Jesús y John Wayne

A fascinating study that reveals how evangelicals have worked over the past seventy-five years to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of masculinity and Christian nationalism. The acclaimed Kristin Kobes Du Mez explains that the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Today's evangelicals may not be theologically astute, but they have read John Eldredge's Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex. And evangelical culture is replete with brawny heroes, mythical warriors, and tough soldiers; men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, or John Wayne, who assert white male power in defense of "Christian America." Thus, Du Mez reveals how Trump represented the fulfillment of the most deeply held white evangelical values, such as patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, indifference to #MeToo and opposition to the Black Lives movement. Matter or the LGTBIQ+ community.