Book SummaryJesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes du Mez

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Jesus and John Wayne

Following the 2016 US presidential election, pundits argued that the 81% of evangelical Christians who voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton viewed him as the lesser of two evils. But, according to historian Kristin Du Mez, this explanation is misguided. She argues that evangelicals endorsed Trump because he was the paradigm of militant masculinity that became orthodox among evangelicals in the last century. In Jesus and John Wayne (2020), Du Mez traces the development of evangelicals’ conception of masculinity since the 1900s, outlining how the genteel masculinity of Victorian era Christianity transformed into the militaristic masculinity that led evangelicals to embrace Trump wholeheartedly.

(Shortform note: Although Du Mez references Western and war movie star John Wayne as a symbol of the militant masculinity she says took hold over the last century, Wayne doesn’t play a major role in the book. Instead, as we’ll see, Du Mez focuses mostly on influential figures within the evangelical community.)

As a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, Du Mez brings academic rigor and comprehensive research to her arguments throughout Jesus and John Wayne—the book that catapulted Du Mez to the forefront of Christian scholarship. Moreover, having written editorials for outlets like The Washington Post and Christianity Today, Du Mez is an expert at distilling academic research into accessible prose for non-experts.

In this guide, we’ve organized Du Mez’s analysis into four historical eras of evangelical masculinity. We’ll discuss:

• How the first and second World Wars in the 1900s caused evangelicals to shift toward a militant view of masculinity to address severe international...

Jesus and John Wayne Summary Evangelical Masculinity During WWI and WWII

According to Du Mez, World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) significantly altered the trajectory of 20th- and 21st-century evangelicalism. In this section, we’ll outline the evolution of evangelical masculinity in the first half of the 20th century, highlighting how it changed between the Victorian era and the peak of WWII.

Victorian Era Christianity and Its Downfall Prior to WWI

Du Mez contends that, to understand the development of evangelicalism during the first and second World Wars, it’s helpful to first understand the state of evangelical Christianity during the preceding Victorian era—the time between the early 19th and early 20th century that roughly corresponds to Queen Victoria’s reign in England. She argues that Victorian era evangelicalism included a genteel notion of masculinity that eventually gave way to Teddy Roosevelt and the “muscular Christianity” movement.

Du Mez points out that throughout the 19th century, men mostly worked hands-on jobs such as farming or operating small businesses. Virtues like self-discipline were considered essential to masculinity, as those virtues were essential to thriving as a businessman or an agrarian...

Jesus and John Wayne Summary Evangelical Masculinity During the 1960s and 1970s

While the threat of communism during the Cold War sustained evangelicals’ militant masculinity in the wake of WWII, Du Mez explains that additional international and domestic threats strengthened this conception of masculinity throughout the 1960s and ’70s. In this section, we’ll first examine how the US military’s failure in the Vietnam War caused evangelicals to adopt a more hostile view of masculinity, then discuss how the perceived threat of feminism led evangelicals to double down on traditional gender roles in the home.

The Impact of the Vietnam War

According to Du Mez, US participation in the Vietnam War—in which the US faced guerrilla warfare from the communist Viet Cong, which controlled Northern Vietnam—further entrenched the militant evangelical conception of masculinity.

First, Du Mez argues that during the Vietnam War, evangelicals made excuses for atrocities perpetrated by US soldiers. For example, Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty of murdering 22 innocent Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre—an episode in which US soldiers murdered around 500 Vietnamese villagers during the war. However, Du Mez notes that Billy Graham,...

Jesus and John Wayne Summary Evangelical Masculinity During the 1980s and 1990s

While opposition to the feminist movement helped spur on evangelical political engagement in the 1970s, Du Mez maintains that evangelicals became especially involved politically throughout the ’80s and ’90s. In this section, we’ll first look at the 1980 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, which Du Mez claims was pivotal to the formation of the religious right, then examine how the lack of a concrete military opponent in the 1990s temporarily caused evangelicals to embrace a gentler masculinity devoid of its previous aggression.

The Reagan vs. Carter Election

Du Mez contends that a watershed moment for evangelical identity in the US occurred in the 1980 presidential election, which pitted Republican Ronald Reagan against incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. She argues that Reagan’s victory over Carter cemented the marriage between evangelicals and the political right: Even though Carter personally identified as an evangelical Christian—whereas Reagan was an infrequent churchgoer at best— evangelical voters embraced Reagan’s socially conservative policies and ruggedly masculine image.

Du Mez explains that Reagan intentionally built social capital...

Jesus and John Wayne Summary Evangelical Masculinity During the 21st Century

Although organizations like Promise Keepers seemed to signify a shift toward a less militant evangelical conception of masculinity, Du Mez suggests that this shift was short-lived in the 21st century. In this section, we’ll discuss Du Mez’s claim that 9/11 caused an immediate return to the militaristic masculinity of decades past, as well as her contention that this view of masculinity culminated in the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

The Immediate Impact of 9/11

Du Mez contends that the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11 caused evangelicals to return to an aggressive, militant masculinity to fend off perceived threats from Islamic terrorists. To show as much, she examines evangelical authors’ writings about masculinity and how to raise masculine boys in the wake of 9/11.

As Du Mez relates, evangelical author John Eldredge argued in 2001 that instead of being gentle leaders, evangelical men ought to emulate God—whom he took to be the ultimate warrior, not a meek noncombatant. According to Eldredge, violence was constitutive of masculinity, a message that resonated with evangelicals in the war against terror following 9/11.

(Shortform note: In the decades since 9/11, some...

Shortform Exercise: Reflect on the Evangelical Conception of Masculinity

Du Mez contends that the evangelical view of masculinity equates masculinity with virulence and militancy. In this exercise, reflect on the evangelical conception of masculinity and evaluate Du Mez’s arguments about it.

Before reading Jesus and John Wayne, what traits did you most strongly associate with the evangelical notion of masculinity? Did Du Mez’s arguments align with your expectations?