Ideas - How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election might have been a surprise to some. But to historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, it was the latest chapter in a long relationship between white American masculinity and evangelical Christianity. As the 2024 election draws near, Du Mez shares how exclusion, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism are the basis for the evangelical church.  

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We're going to win. We got work to do. We got work to do. Okay. The 2024 U.S. presidential race has seen its fair share of drama. An assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Then Joe Biden dropping out in favor of Kamala Harris. Then another assassination attempt on Donald Trump. But in one corner of the American electorate, very little has changed over the years. And that would be the Christian right.

We humbly ask you to bless our nation and to bless our president, Donald Trump. Lord, I thank you that America didn't need a preacher in the Oval Office. It did not need a professional politician in the Oval Office, but it needed a fighter and a champion for freedom. And Lord, that's exactly what we have. White evangelical support for Donald Trump remains around the 80% mark. Evangelical Christians have been key to Republican fortunes for decades. They're a big, committed voting bloc, and they exercise influence over everything from access

to abortion to the fate of democracy itself. Men, you want to be tougher than you think you are. Women, you ought to be looking for and ditching every vestige of feminism that you can find. So it's the real Christians versus the fake Christians. And if the church is a body, then apostasy and fake Christians are like cancer. Take a closer look at that block and you'll find a story of exclusion, division, and abuse of power. Who is considered inside the fold? Who is cast outside the gates? Which shortcomings are quickly forgiven and excused?

Blatant racism? Misogyny? Abuse of power? Sexual abuse? Covering for sexual abuse? Well, at least he gets the gospel right. Well, at least he gets the gospel right. Kristen Kobes-Dumé spoke in April 2024 at a conference called Beyond Culture Wars, organized by Martin Luther University College, federated with Wilfrid Laurier University and the Institute for Christian Studies.

We continue to see these attacks from the right against mainstream evangelical organizations and institutions, you know, claiming that they've sold out to the left, claiming that their leaders have no integrity, you know, promoting the idea that the only way to be an authentic, faithful Christian in this political moment is to align 100% with MAGA politics. I'm Kristen Kovist-Dumé. I'm a professor of history at Calvin University and author of the book, Jesus and John Wayne, A White Evangelical's Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Thank you so much. And let me just say it is good to be in Canada. Yes. I'm here to tell you about what's been going on south of the border, or let's see,

west of the border, I guess. I'm from Michigan. And when I wrote Jesus and John Wayne, I really thought it was a U.S. story primarily. But not long after the book published, I started hearing from Canadian readers saying, we've got a lot of this stuff going on on our side of the border as well. And this is actually spilling over the border. And to that, I would say, I'm sorry. Evangelicalism, I treat as a series of networks and alliances, think ministries, conference circuits, popular culture, Christian publishing, Christian radio, television, music, and this cultural evangelicalism crosses borders. And not just the Canadian border, but I hear from Australian Christians and Brazilian Christians and British Christians and Chinese Christians all experiencing this kind of imperial U.S. evangelicalism. For anyone concerned with the resiliency of American democracy,

and from what I hear that includes a lot of you folks as well, I don't think it's inaccurate to suggest that the fate of American democracy may well come down to how, quote-unquote, moderate evangelicals, these folks in the middle, respond to the escalating erosion of democratic norms and institutions. However, deciphering which way evangelical moderates are going to fall is no easy task. To begin with, many evangelicals and their defenders insist on downplaying the centrality of politics. Evangelicalism, they contend, is a movement defined chiefly by its theology.

Evangelicals themselves, they say, are salt-of-the-earth Christians who give generously to charitable causes. They care for their local communities. And too often, they are the ones who have been demonized by scholars, such as myself, and the media. As such, they should not be unfairly stereotyped, lumped together into a basket of deplorables with neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville and other supremacists. Now, it is absolutely true that most white evangelicals were not marching with neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, nor were most evangelicals storming the Capitol on January 6th. Yet, it is also true that underlying affinities make it difficult for many mainstream evangelicals to unequivocally condemn these acts. 60% of white evangelicals believe the election was stolen, and of those, 39% believe that true American patriots might have to resort to violence to save the country.

Indeed, in many cases, the kinder, gentler version of evangelicalism has proven to be fully compatible with the movement's authoritarian tendencies. After her lecture, Kristen Dumais spoke with Ideas producer Sean Foley. The lecture that I recorded happened in April, and there was plenty happening then. You know, how has this wild past couple of months on the presidential campaign trail changed how you are viewing the upcoming election? What we're looking at right now, a lot of similarities and a couple of differences. In terms of the white evangelical population, stalwart support for Donald Trump persists. The most recent survey that we have puts white evangelical support at 82% for Donald Trump. And so that is really, you know, over the last almost decade now, that's the constant.

We can count on that number being 78, 80, 81, 82, sometimes 83 percent. We've also had developments in terms of the role that abortion plays. We've had some backtracking on the part of Donald Trump, where he's coming out as at least partially pro-choice. Many were not happy with that. But again, we're still at that 82 percent. So it doesn't look like that bothered them all that much. There are a lot of other things they like about him. And so, you know, that's kind of where we are on the Democratic side with Kamala Harris. We have a fresh wave of enthusiasm across the board and also an interesting development with faith voters for Harris and also evangelicals for Harris.

There's a small group that is putting out some ads and trying to disrupt that evangelical narrative. So that's kind of what's going on right now. There's a lot going on. Yeah, there's a core there that hasn't really been disrupted by what would be broadly characterized as a very disruptive period in American politics. Yeah, and what we still have happening are the pressures being exerted inside evangelical spaces. So if a prominent figure inside the evangelical world comes out and supports or endorses Kamala Harris, they will be attacked.

Even if you just say, I can't vote for Trump, right? That'll get you in trouble in a lot of spaces. We continue to see these attacks from the right against mainstream evangelical organizations and institutions, you know, claiming that they're selling out, that they've sold out to the left, claiming that their leaders have no integrity, essentially, you know, promoting the idea that the only way to be an authentic, faithful Christian in this political moment is to align 100% with MAGA politics. And those forces remain as strong as ever as we get closer to the 2024 election. Is there a person in the evangelical world that you feel is really taking it on the chin right now? There are a lot of people who are taking it on the chin. Some of the more prominent examples are figures like Beth Moore.

We've been told in 2 Thessalonians 2.15 to hold on to the teachings of the scriptures. She hasn't gone quiet, but she has backed away from some of her more explicit political language. And by political language, I mean things like saying, hey, Christian community, let's take abuse seriously. Let's not support abusers in our churches or, you know, taking on Trump and evangelical support for Trump around the issue of abuse. You would think that would be, you know, a fairly safe thing to do. It was not. It led to her getting forced out of the Southern Baptist Convention. She was the most popular and influential woman in the entire SBC, and she was pushed out.

In Colossians 2.19, it talks about people who have gotten so distracted by spiritual things that they have lost contact with the head who is Christ. In other words, they're all distracted with all the things that go along with being religious, spiritual people. But they've lost contact with Jesus, the head. They have lost hold. Russell Moore, another example, probably the most powerful man inside the SBC. He got pushed out, landed on his feet. He's now the editor at Christianity Today, but he's still taking the hits. Somebody like David French, conservative legal commentator, columnist at the New York Times, he is routinely pilloried, ruthlessly so. These are figures who

are attacked because they are seen to be disloyal and because they still have loyal followings inside some of these evangelical spaces. So they must be discredited. They're not real Christians. They're not real evangelicals. You can't trust them. They've sold out. Their faith isn't authentic. They're on the side of the devil. This is the kind of language that they'll have thrown at them every day. But it's not just those big figures. It's really lesser lights as well. Ordinary pastors are facing this all the time. I get this all the time on Twitter as well.

And so if you're intervening in these spaces at all, you have to have a very thick skin. And how's that going for you? Fortunately, it turns out I have a very thick skin. But it also is important. I studied this system before I became enmeshed in these conversations. I knew their tactics. I knew exactly what they were doing. And so it was just impossible for me to take anything personally.

You know, when they started coming for me, I thought, oh, I guess I'm doing some good work here. I guess my work is getting into the hands of the people who I most want to read it. And it's disrupting things. And so now I'm targeted. This is exactly how it works. So just having that intellectual framing was freeing. And then the other thing is you just have to, if you're working at a Christian organization

or institution, you just have to be willing to lose your job. And if you set that fear aside and you don't worry about trying to walk that line that many of us walk in Christian institutions, then that also takes some pressure off and it helps you to say what you need to say. A while back, I spoke to a large group of evangelical pastors. Now, having written the book Jesus and John Wayne, I never take for granted when I get to speak in front of evangelical pastors. It was not a given. And when I spoke to them, I started off by affirming just how hard it is to be a pastor right now. now. Any pastors in the room? It's pretty rough. Many pastors are at a loss. They like to think of themselves as leaders, but what they've discovered in the last few years is the cruel

realization that they exert very little leadership over their flaws. 2016 was a humbling time for a lot of evangelical pastors. Pastors often like to blame the secular media. In the United States, we're talking Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson, and they blame them for discipling the flock. These guys get their parishioners far more hours of the week than they do on a Sunday morning. And they are absolutely right. But it's not just out there. It's also inside popular Christian culture, Christian radio, Christian publishing, organizations that platform preachers and sell products. A lot of things are marketed and sold, and a lot of money changes hands under the guise of ministry. Now, pastors aren't just up against an invisible hand of the market.

If you push back against the status quo, which in white evangelicalism means against conservative politics and against an alignment with the Republican Party, and there is a long history here, you are going up against extremely well-funded and well-organized political networks. Good-hearted evangelical pastors may think that the answers to our toughest questions are to be found in opening the scriptures and reading theology, seeking truth in community and in light of tradition. But that is not how this game is being played. When I spoke to that lecture hall filled with evangelical pastors, I told them, if you are feeling like you are up against a lot

right now, you are. And also, you did this to yourselves. And then I explained how, over the past century, white evangelicals had shaped their movement through exclusion and coercion, had shaped their movement through exclusion and coercion, such that by 2016, the voices that they needed to listen to were nowhere to be found. I was struck by a moment in Waterloo and by the final paragraph of your acknowledgements section. You talked about people telling you that your book might have gotten into the hands of certain people,

if, you know, it could be a little nicer, you know, which is a funny thing to say about a very well-researched history book that's been clearly very carefully written. And in the acknowledgements you write that, I'm quoting you now, but the analysis and conclusions found in these pages do not necessarily represent the views of many who contributed to this project, including friends, family, and my place of employment. And I guess the question that comes to mind for me is what is it like to write a carefully researched history and to have to countenance an idea of being nicer or to deal with people whose views don't align with what you understand as history? people whose views don't align with what you understand as history.

Yeah, that pressure to be nice. So you're allowed to critique a little bit here or there, as long as you keep it on the edges and as long as you kind of center the good guys, the heroes, and you give Christians the starring role, then you're okay. This is not a book where I did that. I was trying to get the story right. But here's the thing. The vast majority of books about evangelicals are written by evangelicals. And their primary goal is to make evangelicalism look good because they want to recruit. They call it evangelize. And so every work is a work of apologetics, a work of evangelism at its heart, whether it's history, whether it's a devotional, whether it's, you know, child rearing guide,

all of the above. And that's just, that's not my training. my training. That's not what I do. And it never occurred to me to do so. I was trying to get the story correct and then let the chips fall where they may. I didn't want to make them look worse than they are. I didn't want to make them look better than they are. But let's just look at it, sit with it, and understand it. And that's really the goal. When you began writing this book, were you aware that you were embarking on such a sweeping history of power in the modern American? I felt like so many times I was reading this book, I started out reading, I'm like, okay, I'm reading a book about a very specific community topic, but it just kept zapping through into the main, this big narrative.

Yes. That is such an astute comment because here's a little backstory that most people aren't aware of. We had a lot of interest from a lot of different publishers and I loved all the editors I talked with except this one. And I liked him as a person just fine, but I didn't feel like we shared the same vision for the project because he told me, you know what you have here, Kristen? This is a new history of American Christianity. And I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm doing something much, much smaller. I'm pulling the thread of evangelical masculinity and militarism. I'm not trying to rewrite the history of American evangelicalism or of American Christianity. I'm doing something far more modest.

He's like, no, you're not. Yes, I am. And so I decided not to go with him. And I landed with a fabulous publisher. No regrets there. However, let me say, about two or three months after that conversation, after we had signed with a different publisher and I was writing, I don't know where I was, chapter three or four at that point, and I was overwhelmed. And I was like, how do I make all these pieces fit together? And

exactly what you saw, it just like kept getting bigger, and it kept touching more things. And all of a sudden, his words came back to me. Kristen, you're writing a new history of American Christianity. And I thought, I'm writing a new history of American Christianity. And I thought, I'm writing a new history of American Christianity or American evangelicalism, certainly. You find one thread and you start pulling it through and you start just doing the research, doing the research. And I started to see, wow, these evangelicals, I'm just trying to understand what they're saying about masculinity.

And then it's about gender and it's about authority and it's about power. And at a certain point, I thought, wow, I mean, if I didn't know any better, this sounds almost authoritarian. And this is just, and I was initially focused on foreign policy as it intersected with this militancy. And then I thought, oh, this is very much a story of domestic politics. And it just grew. And by the time I finished it, I felt like, I think I can explain it all. So it definitely didn't start that way, but it ended that way because of where my research brought me. Yeah, I feel like I went on that journey with you. And I don't know whether that moment where

you realized that that publisher was right in his comment, whether that was one of those moments of fear and trembling in a deeper sense? Absolutely. Absolutely. I was scared because that's not what I set out to do. It was so much more ambitious, and I was on a very tight timeline. I was so, you know, because I knew critics were going to come after the book. I didn't know quite how many.

you know, because I knew critics were going to come after the book. I didn't know quite how many. So I just knew it had to be absolutely perfect, airtight, because I knew my credibility would otherwise, you know, be in question. A dozen other scholars were incredibly generous with their time and critique. That was my focus. I didn't actually give much thought to its reception until it was out in the Christianity. Jesus and John Wayne, how white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation. My book's subtitle is admittedly a bit provocative, but I wasn't aware of just how provocative it was. I thought the problem might be with the whole corrupted of faith thing, or even the fractured a nation part,

but no, it was just one word. White. White. It was triggering to some, and I've been accused more than once of being racist simply for including white in my subtitle. It was not meant to be pejorative, merely descriptive, precise. This points us to a foundational question. What is evangelicalism? Who are evangelicals?

Now, if we insist on a pure theological definition, it can be really difficult to see what whiteness has to do with anything. But if we think of evangelicalism as a historical and cultural movement, whiteness becomes visible if you know where to look. Did you know that when the fundamentals were published, this is a series of pamphlets, booklets in the 1910s, right, that gave pamphlets, booklets in the 1910s, right, that gave fundamentalism its name. These books were sent out only to white pastors and not to any black pastors, even though the majority of black pastors in the United States aligned with these doctrinal stances. Did you know that when the National Association of Evangelicals was formed, black denominations were excluded from the association? Did you know that when racial justice surfaced in its early years

and in conversations among the founders of Christianity today, it was deemed too divisive to engage directly? Now, those with openly racist and segregationist views, they were kept inside the fold. Black pastors were kept at arm's length. Now, historian Jesse Curtis has shown us how the myth of colorblind Christians came to dominate white evangelical understandings of race and foster in them a benevolent understanding of themselves, a belief in their own righteousness and innocence. And people of color who bolstered this myth were welcomed and platformed, and those who challenged it were ushered out the door. Now, we've noted the marginalization and erasure with respect to Black evangelicals, But we also see that around

the issue of gender. There is a long history of evangelical feminism going back more than a century before Betty Friedan discovered that problem that has no name. And I know because I wrote a book on it. Christian women, evangelical women, white evangelical women were among the leading proponents of women's suffrage and women's rights more broadly in the late 19th century. And they pointed out the dangers of the sexual double standard, of an overemphasis on female purity, which they called out as unbiblical. They offered sophisticated theological critiques of Christian patriarchy, and they were thoroughly evangelical. But they have been forgotten, or rather, they have been disappeared, because there is agency here. Now, the result of this erasure means that patriarchy remains

normative, biblical, and traditional, instead of contested as it was historically and theologically. So you see how this works. If we erase this history, it's much easier to erase feminist evangelicals today. They cannot be true evangelicals, and since for many evangelicals, evangelical equals true Christian, you see where this goes. The history of American evangelicalism as one of gatekeeping is in many ways the story that I tell in Jesus and John Wayne. Kristen Dumais, professor of history at Calvin University and author of Jesus and John Wayne, How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. She spoke in April 2024 in Waterloo, Ontario,

at a conference called Beyond Culture Wars. You're listening to Ideas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also find us on the CBC News app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love

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or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. The book Jesus and John Wayne traces a history of white evangelical power and influence on wars and legal battles, on domestic and international affairs, and on American culture itself. The same history has taken a profound toll on the lives of individuals, on women, on families, and on marginalized communities. Ideas producer Sean Foley spoke with the author, Kristen Dume. I just want to focus on the matter of gender for a moment. It is really a powerful thread in your book, this idea of gender dynamics in evangelicalism, because to me it seems like they go way beyond exclusion.

How would you describe the way evangelicalism has organized itself along gender lines? So if you go back deeper into evangelical history and into Christian history, you can certainly find expressions of patriarchy, but you can also find expressions of egalitarianism. In the 19th century, you had a lot of evangelical women who were also prominent women's rights activists. You had evangelical women who were preaching. And in the early 20th century, that starts to change. And it doesn't change entirely, but increasingly you see that kind of fundamentalists define biblical fidelity in terms of excluding women from positions of religious authority from preaching. But it's never complete, so much so that it's not until the 1970s that the Southern Baptist Convention feels a need in the late 70s actually to start cracking down on all these female pastors inside the SBC.

This was not all members of the SBC by any means, but it was a powerful faction. And so they end up squeezing out not just the women who are preaching, but any, quote unquote, moderates who supported women preaching. And this is known as the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC or conservative takeover, or as conservatives like to call it, the conservative resurgence of the SBC, right? You know, pick your terminology there. And so what we see happening then is this is linked with the idea of inerrancy, the way to approach scriptures, the only way to approach scriptures. And this also comes out in the late 70s, and it really takes hold during the 1980s.

Now, inerrancy means taking every word of the Scripture as the literal truth, except it doesn't. It means that when applied to select passages. It's a question of authority. I think that's what makes everybody nervous. But the Apostle Paul makes that argument. I forbid a woman to have authority over a man. That's not some theologian sitting out on a horse staring at a sunset coming up with this.

That's the Holy Spirit speaking to the church through the Apostle Paul. So women should be silent. Women should submit to husbands. Oh, absolutely. And we're going to interpret it in very rigid ways as we apply it to our current situation. You know, the story of the rich man being told to sell all of his possessions. No, no, that gets explained away. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Welcome the stranger. There's a lot of pretty direct commands. Those don't get the literal treatment. Let's look at the context.

Let's look at the biblical languages here. Oh, no, no, no, you got that wrong. You don't understand. Biblical literalism and inerrancy is used to enforce this new orthodoxy where you are outside of the Christian fold if you do not support patriarchal authority. Then they kind of rebrand it as complementarianism. Then we have the growth of really influential organizations like the Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition was never a gospel coalition. It did not invite everybody in who believed the gospel message. It was a complementarian club. You were only allowed in those spaces if you were a complementarian, and you were only allowed a position of power, certainly, if you were a complementarian man, right?

And to be clear, complementarianism is this idea that men and women are created in a very specific way. They complement each other in a very specific way. Yes. So gender difference is key there, right? Men and women are different. But what that means then is men like sports, women like watching on the sidelines. Men are gifted with leadership. Women shouldn't lead. You have people like John Piper who are parsing this out. Paul says in Ephesians 5, Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Men take their cues from Christ as the head, Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from the church called to admire and stand in allegiance to Christ. Could a woman be a police officer? Oh, that's problematic. Could a woman give a man directions? Well, let's look, you know, that's a little sketchy too, right? Let's see. So, so complementarianism, you knowism presents itself as gender difference and that we

complement each other, but obscure the fact that this is also a hierarchical relationship. And then they extend it out to women's role in all of society and extrapolate from that this whole set of rules of what is and is not permissible. And complementarianism has had an incredibly strong hold across evangelical churches, organizations, and institutions. Yes. And I think the thing that struck me also about the book was the depth of that order of of things, how it permeates women's lives in their very homes, families, relationships, identities. So much so. And the degree to which or the ways in which it does that will vary depending on where

you're situated within the evangelical community. So in the more conservative extremes than the homeschool networks, for example, or an independent fundamental Baptist spaces, those influenced by the teachings of Bill Gothard, for example. I love that definition of witnessing is taking your spiritual finger and rubbing it along the edge of a person's soul, feeling for the cracks. Are there things you wish never happened? Is there guilt there? And it isn't long before they say yes. You're going to get some pretty extreme versions of this sort of thing, even to the point of having

then a kind of stay-at-home daughter movement where a woman, a girl is under her dad's authority until she marries. And if the right guy doesn't come along that the dad approves of, she stays at home, does not go to college and is under the direct authority and control of her dad, even if she's in her twenties or, you know. So those are more extreme versions. But then in more moderate or mainstream spaces, you'll still have a lot of echoes of this. And so a woman's primary role is as a wife and a mom. Women who have careers can tell stories about how they're, you know, well, who's watching your kids? Well, you know, what is your husband do? And, you know, this kind of sense of judgment, the idea that a man has to have leadership. So what Eve does, she seeks control.

If Adam is not going to lead, I will. she seeks control. If Adam is not going to lead, I will. Mark Driscoll, founder of Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, and co-founder of the now-defunct Mars Hill Church. She has the argument with Satan. She gets confused. She sins. She gives something to her husband. He participates. She's the leader. He's the follower. And the truth is, men, hear me in this, if you don't lead your family, Satan will. This hierarchy of authority and submission applies to the bedroom as well. The idea that God filled men with testosterone to make them good leaders, to make them aggressive, right? You need that for leadership, they say. But then you don't have the same kind of self-restraint. That's not how God made men. So it's up to women to step in.

God made women to kind of be the moral figures. So it's very, very important that women not tempt men who are not their husbands. Very important because boys will be boys here. And women who are married have to do everything they possibly can to meet their husband's sexual needs, whatever they may be. thing they possibly can to meet their husband's sexual needs, whatever they may be. What that means then, in the case, for example, of sexual assault, there is quite literally always a woman to blame. Even a young girl can be blamed if her dad abuses her because she somehow seduced him. A wife can be blamed in that situation, even if she knew nothing because she clearly wasn't

meeting her husband's sexual needs, right? This rhetoric is abhorrent, and yet it is not uncommon inside these spaces. It's kind of the logical conclusion of these teachings that are, in fact, quite mainstream. There is a deep theology here, a deep set of cultural practices, and a strong sense of community within these spaces, so it's very hard to break out and it's very hard to critique from the inside. What are the power dynamics inside organizations, inside denominations? Who is considered inside the fold? Who is cast outside the gates? Which shortcomings are quickly forgiven and excused? Blatant racism? Misogyny? Abuse of power? Sexual abuse? Covering for sexual abuse? Well, at least he gets the gospel right.

Well, at least he gets the gospel right. At least he gets the gospel right. I have only ever heard that sentence with the masculine pronoun. I have not heard it applied to Beth Moore, did not hear it with respect to Rachel Held Evans. I have never once heard any of my conservative evangelical detractors, and I do have a few, apply that to me. I have never once seen a conservative evangelical apply that to an LGBTQ Christian struggling to live faithfully, but one who has drawn different conclusions often after years of careful study of the scriptures for how to do so. often after years of careful study of the scriptures for how to do so.

When I talk to conservative evangelical leaders, I ask them, who is in your gospel coalition? Who was never welcome? Who was actively purged? And on what terms? On the basis of the gospel or something else? And if you're not sure, historians can lend a hand. One of the unfortunate side effects of researching and writing Jesus and John Wayne is that the phrase, brother in Christ, has lost its luster for me. And I saw too many times the harm done by misplaced deference. Now, in evangelical circles, there is so much deference shown to people with power, to men with power. And it comes across,

if you don't know any better, as humility on the part of the one showing deference, as humility on the part of the one showing deference, as righteous, as noble. But it often masks one's own grasp for power, because there are rules you need to follow if you want to get that book deal, if you want to get that blogging slot, if you want to get invited to the main platform at that big conference. Anytime I showed a strong individual desire, then that was shut down. So I had to be quiet and weak just to survive. For Our Daughters is a film that is inspired by the last chapter of Jesus and John Wayne,

the chapter that explores sex abuse inside of evangelical churches as part of this larger theological, cultural, and political framework. My whole goal in life was to grow up, get married, and have children. And we didn't believe in things like birth control. So the expectation was that we'd have as many children as possible. And our parents would use us to bring about this change in the country. We would make the country a Christian country. It draws a direct link between evangelical masculinity and masculine authority patriarchy and Christian nationalism.

Both of those center a particular understanding of power as power over others, in which then the ends always justifies the means. And we see the effects of that in the lives of women who live under the authority of these men. And we see what happens when things go wrong. So in 2018, I finally got the courage to decide to come forward. And I looked up Andy Savage, who was now one of the leading pastors at a megachurch in Tennessee. And I decided to write him an email. And I signed off hashtag Me Too.

Two days later was a Sunday, and the head of the church announces to the congregation that Pastor Savage has something he needs to tell them. What happened next was so enraging, I wanted the world to see it. I regretfully had a sexual incident with a female high school senior in the church. He tells the world that it had occurred and that he was sorry. And everybody stands and they give him a standing ovation.

And what we see is faith communities invariably, repeatedly rallying around the perpetrators, the abusers, protecting them, giving cover to the man of God, trying to, as they say, protect the witness of the church. cover to the man of God, trying to, as they say, protect the witness of the church. And it's the victim who is maligned, who is blamed, who is silenced, and who is often pushed out of those communities. And so For Our Daughters features the stories of several survivors who had this experience sometimes even decades ago and came to see it in a new light, often when they had daughters of their own, I wanted to give them a powerful platform to speak their truth. And it is true. Their stories

are true. They are legally vetted. They are speaking truth. And to bring these stories to faith communities so that they can take a critical look at their own practices and also challenge them to look at the broader political scene of how this ideology is linked to Christian nationalism and how some of the very men depicted in this film are connected to networks that are working to essentially achieve a Christian nationalist takeover, which could in fact be upon us in this next election. The lines are direct. And so this is an issue that affects evangelical women inside churches, absolutely. But we're making the case that we need to listen to the warnings from some of these evangelical women who have seen the dark side of this ideology, because it matters for

all American women. Now, when Jesus and John Wayne released, I, within about two, three days, started getting letters from readers. I have gotten thousands of letters, most of which say some version of the same thing. This is the story of my life. But it's also somehow shocking. I never understood how all these pieces fit together. How can readers both be so intimately familiar with the book, so much so that some actually send me pictures of their bookshelves that are lined with all the things that I talk about, or they tell me their

life stories, and it could have just been a through line of Jesus and John Wayne. And yet, it's shocking to see it all come together. How can this be? And I came to realize just how much evangelicals had controlled their own narrative. They had told the stories about themselves in a particular way, including some details and omitting others. They have written their own histories so that facts can seem like attacks, especially when there are organized efforts to tell people that legitimate histories are attacks on their faith. For generations, we've been told the enemy is post-modernism, the post-truth world, you know, we are the moral majority, all that stuff thrown out the window now. And instead, it's whatever it takes. I mean,

I've even seen very recently some guy on Twitter from the right came on and said, I don't know, somebody was lying about me. It happens a lot. I've been misrepresented so many times. I just saw somebody post, you know, somebody jumped in and said, you're lying. You know, you can't, that's not what she said. Why do you do this? And the response, I appreciated the honesty there, was essentially, she's an enemy. We can say whatever we want about her and do whatever we want to her. And I thought, wow, that is starkly presented. It is chilling, but I think it encapsulates well kind of the spirit within this movement when pushed to extremes. And the leaders of this movement are doing everything they can to push followers to those extremes.

And they use this language of threat to do so. Just thinking about you, about you being you and reading something like that, you know. about you being you and reading something like that, you know? Yeah, my internal response was very clarifying, given the interactions I've had with people on social media. Not just random people, this was a random person, but more respectable folks, including some pretty powerful leaders inside evangelical organizations and institutions. This kind of describes the way I am treated

in some of those spaces. And it's not just me at all. And actually, I was showing it to a friend, a couple of friends who were kind of scholars working in these areas. And it wasn't actually until one of them said to me, Kristen, this is really frightening. This is actually a threat. And I just saw it as, of course, this makes so much sense of what I have been experiencing. And I didn't see it as the threat that it actually is or could entail. So I guess you work in these spaces long enough, you kind of get used to this. I didn't feel personally threatened by that tweet. I do feel personally disquieted by this kind of rhetoric and the dehumanizing rhetoric that I see in these spaces. I try to call it out whenever I see it,

but it's always spiritualized. So you can call people demonic. You can call people a wolf. You know, the first time I was called a wolf, I oh that's silly and then i realized no no that actually has a deep meaning inside these spaces a theological meaning right you're an enemy of the church an enemy of christ but it also in terms of authoritarian movements it also dehumanizes it others and we see a lot of that kind of language used now towards immigrants, right, to people on the margins, and high levels of comfort in some of these conservative Christian spaces with extremely dehumanizing language, which, you know, to my mind goes against poor teachings of the faith. Evangelicals do like to talk about leadership, and evangelicals do need leaders, courageous leaders, leaders who will break these chains of influence and deference. But doing so

will come at a cost. For too long, evangelical gatekeepers failed to denounce and expunge extremists. Too many evangelical leaders turned a blind eye to white supremacy, nationalism, and abusive cultures in their own midst how many of those even those who have taken courageous stands have genuinely reckoned with their own complicity in bringing us where we are now so often when i speak i'm asked to end on a hopeful note. But the truth is, when I look at this history, and when I see so little courage and so much pursuit of comfort and protection of power, I am not optimistic for change. There is no quick fix here. And when evangelical leaders ask me what can be done, I tell them with great appreciation for those willing to ask this

question that until they have a clearer understanding of how we got here, they are not going to be able to make a dent in it. And until they reckon with that history, any effort to rebuild will likely produce more of the same. So what can the rest of us do? This keeps me up at night. In the U.S. right now, we need to call out the idolatry of Christian nationalism, but also give patriotic Christians an off-ramp. We have to distinguish between views we disagree with and those intent on actively undermining our democracy. We need to mobilize, we need to vote, and we need to build

coalitions across difference. And frankly, this is where I would like to see some of the Canadian influence cross the border into U.S. evangelicalism. And so as I close, I'd like to suggest that instead of a gospel coalition that is nothing of the sort, I wonder what it would look like to have a true gospel coalition in the spirit of John 17. Remember the passage before Jesus ascended to heaven? He prayed for us, for all those who would come to believe through him. His prayer was for us to be one as he and his father were one so that we too may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. So I'd like to leave us today on both sides of the border with the challenge of living into this prayer, this call for unity, witnessing to this love, a John 17 coalition, a true gospel coalition. Thank you. and Fractured a Nation in April 2024 and in conversation with Ideas producer Sean Foley. Special thanks to John Melloy and Hector Acero-Ferrer at Martin Luther University College. And to Hugh Donnelly, Jotham Sinema, and Tristan de Oliveira

at Knox Presbyterian Church in Waterloo. Our technical producer is Danielle Duval, with help from Marco Luciano. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.