Book Report day.

Good Thursday morning readers! Thanks for stopping by.

I am home tending to my blind doggie while much of my family is vacationing. So I have time to write, to read, to ponder life’s simple and complex issues! Ha

This musing is a book report of sorts. I just finished reading “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelists Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. I love to read. I read fiction and biographies and even books like this that take a look at something religious and historical.

This book. Oh my. There were times I had to put the book down because I could feel my blood pressure going up. There were times I wanted to literally cry. There were times I got very mad. There were ‘aha’ moments because I remembered something from back in the news. And there were times of real grief.

Du Mez researched the American White Evangelical movement back to it’s beginnings and I was glad she did, because I found that part interesting. I never knew all that went on in it’s early days of forming. I was just a kid. When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s I had heard about certain people and events but never thought much about the deeper religious meaning – and certainly not the political connections. Yes, I was just a child. So reading now about what was going on in the US with the Christian conservatives back then was eye opening and enlightening. Plus, I was raised in the Lutheran faith so I was not hearing about mega Southern Baptists churches and their leaders , and groups like The Morale Majority, and others. I didn’t know much about Goldwater, Falwell, Graham, Dobson, and Driscoll. Like I said in the “Marla’s Musings” before this one, I did not grow up with religion and politics so closely weaved, and part of family dinner conversations.

Growing up, and in church, I was never told to think of Jesus as a ‘tough warrior’ for a cause. He was never compared to John Wayne, a white, strong protector, willing to get in there and fight for a cause. I had no clue that there were church denominations teaching this, and encouraging their faithful to respect a ‘masculine form of leadership’ in religion and in politics. I didn’t know that church leaders told parishioners in sermons that women had a feminine, serving place in society and in religion – and there they needed to stay. Because men decided – and they needed to be served. It was ‘in the Bible.’

I will admit at times the author made me blurry eyed with all the examples of this type of thinking, because there was so much of it found around our country then. I suppose she meant to show that it was not just a few white males leading this way of thinking and living – it was a whole, huge movement – and there were church leaders in mega churches, and Christian TV and radio hosts, Christian book authors, and even some songwriters all promoting white male religion. They promoted superiority, and used fear and God’s wrath if we go astray. Homeschooling came about mostly to encourage this kind of Christian conservative teaching.

I was definitely NOT in that world.

So, I think this is why I have been so shocked while reading “Jesus and John Wayne.”

The hold (the power that they loved) by white male evangelicals collided with my world when Donald Trump ran for president.

Ms. Du Mez writes of how Trump, even with ALL his sinful ways, was looked at as a savior, actually sent by God. He was powerful, unapologetic, big on America, and a white male. He portrayed a no-forgiving John Wayne character, riding in (not on a horse but down an escalator) able to say anything, push his agenda, needing nobody, and acting like the alpha male. Some Evangelical leaders didn’t like his crassness and womanizing but they wrote it off as the testosterone of a strong white male. Oh, just something you have to expect. (And we all sin, right?)

These white male leaders then promoted Trump at church worship services, through media outlets, giving campaign money to him, and more.

For so long, truly since Trump became a candidate, I just could never understand how anyone could see and listen to the man and not be appalled. I think I still do. But, now I know that many, many members of Evangelical and conservative faiths were told that to believe in God is to bow down to the ways of the white men – because they will ‘make America great again.’

A power documentary to watch is “The Family” – which is a look at the secretive ways that the conservatives tried (and still are) to enlist young white men to push them into politics.

I will admit that since Trump was elected, and then with the weird two years of CoVid living, my faith has been tested. I find myself so frightened by the misuse of the Christian religion, and the ways it is being put into our government. I worry about the future. I don’t want to be a part of it if it’s run by old white guys who tell me what to believe. I struggle – because I still truly believe in God as the creator, and as my personal Lord and savior. I am an honest, free Christian woman.

I wonder about this book. Should I recommend it? Those who need to read it won’t consider it. Those who want to learn about the Evangelical movement that they are a part of won’t want to know, right? It’s the way it is these days. They believe the rhetoric they have been told over and over that everything is fake, and stories are made-up.

All I can say is, I think everyone NEEDS to read it. Does it have a happy ending? Not on these pages. Hopefully – somehow. Religion (all religions, but this book is about Evangelicals) and government should ALWAYS be separate. It is in the founding of our country. It is America.