{"id":1450342,"date":"2022-04-22T13:01:10","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T17:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1450342"},"modified":"2022-04-22T13:01:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T17:01:21","slug":"how-to-smear-christianity-without-really-trying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-to-smear-christianity-without-really-trying\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Smear Christianity Without Really Trying"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-to-smear-christianity-without-really-trying%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1450342&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DuMez.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><em>Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation<\/em>, by Kristen Kobes du Mez, takes two approaches to begging one very large question. The first approach is to handle Christian theology with selective dexterity. The second is to represent white evangelicals as bigots.<\/p>\n<p>As a practical matter, younger readers struggling with the John Wayne conceit might switch in Dwayne Johnson (n\u00e9 The Rock) as a dynamic equivalent, but the conceit itself is of negligible concern. The question begged is, who fractured a nation?<\/p>\n<h2>Corrupting a Faith<\/h2>\n<p><em>J&#038;JW<\/em> acknowledges that Christian theology includes tensions commensurate with reality:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>The Christian Scriptures contain stories of a violent warrior God, and of a savior who summons followers to care for \u2018the least of these.\u2019 The Bible ends in a bloody battle, but it also entreats believers to act with love and peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To be clear, Christian theology understands the \u201cviolent warrior God\u201d and \u201ca savior who summons followers to care for \u2018the least of these\u2019\u201d to be the same guy. But the bigger problem is that after making room for the broad foundation of a complex theology, <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> makes a habit of offhandedly presenting debated interpretations as settled facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Evangelicals, we\u2019re told, \u201creplaced the Jesus of the Gospels with a vengeful warrior Christ.\u201d The author clearly disagrees with the aspects of the character and work of Jesus Christ which evangelicals choose to emphasize, but <em>replace<\/em> is a loaded assertion.<\/p>\n<p>Later, we read,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n[S]outhern culture of master and honor seemed to conflict with the egalitarian impulses of evangelical Christianity. (In Christ there was neither slave nor free, male nor female, according to the Apostle Paul.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The parenthetical remark is emblematic of the author\u2019s hermeneutic: nothing in Scripture is to be taken at face value unless the phrase would be acceptable in a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion oath. The literalist interpretation applied here to Galatians 3:28 would, presumably, be quite unacceptable for <a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/1-timothy\/2\/15\">1 Timothy 2:15<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These examples show the author\u2019s familiarity with Christian theology insofar as she has a capacity for leveraging it. James Dobson \u201csaw children as naturally sinful creatures, inclined toward defiance and rebellion.\u201d The reader must supply the knowledge that a Christian who did not believe this would be schismatic at best, departing from the catholic doctrine of original sin.<\/p>\n<p>The same technique is deployed against independent Reformed pastor Doug Wilson: \u201cAccording to Wilson, marriage had three purposes: companionship, producing godly children, and the avoidance of sexual immorality.\u201d Wilsonian nuttiness is thus established for readers unfamiliar with standard Reformation formulations of the theology of marriage. These differ from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas only on the predictable sticking point of what everyone means by <em>sacrament<\/em>. Wilson\u2019s position on marriage is downright ecumenical.<\/p>\n<p>Yet another breezy line informs readers, \u201cThe Bible didn\u2019t offer specific advice on the topic.\u201d The topic she refers to is abortion. If only du Mez had informed a half-century of combatants, the sad disputes between PCA and PCUSA, LCMS and ELCA, Episcopalians and Continuing Anglicans regarding what the Bible says about the beginning of human life could have been avoided.<\/p>\n<p>This \u201ctopic\u201d gives du Mez ample opportunity for obfuscation. Francis Schaeffer is a key figure of evangelicalism in the decade that gave us not only Roe v. Wade, but also Time magazine\u2019s <em>Year of the Evangelical and Jimmy Carter<\/em>. Schaeffer\u2019s hefty contributions to evangelical thought included leading his coreligionists to repentance and a faithful understanding of abortion as contrary to their sixth commandment.<\/p>\n<p>But his name appears once in <em>J&#038;JW<\/em>, tossed into a paragraph alongside R.J. Rushdooney (an actual racist Baptist) and Tim LaHaye (who made the tough choice to rapture the Pope), both of whom are studied at length. Apposition is a tricky critter, and readers are owed good lighting to distinguish among fringier and more mainstream figures. Marabel Morgan, Elisabeth Eliot, and Phyllis Schlafly, grouped in chapter 3, are a deeply funky lunch bunch.<\/p>\n<p><em>J&#038;JW<\/em>\u2019s point is that white evangelicals (should we just call them whitevangelicals?) are not very good Christians. They prefer America to other countries, a horrifying inclination akin to liking your own dad better than other people\u2019s dads. <\/p>\n<p>A conservative Baptist seminary seeks out faculty members who oppose women\u2019s ordination, making them closed-minded and sexist. People who think having children is good and important show interest in the act by which children are conceived, believing that it may also be affected by questions of goodness and importance are the real perverts.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the forward-thinking <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> stands with the crowd of stodgy experts in traditional and abstruse Trinitarian theology <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/ngrams\/graph?content=eternal+subordination+of+the+Son&#038;year_start=1600&#038;year_end=2019&#038;corpus=26&#038;smoothing=3&#038;case_insensitive=true&#038;direct_url=t4%3B%2Ceternal%20subordination%20of%20the%20Son%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Beternal%20subordination%20of%20the%20Son%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BEternal%20Subordination%20of%20the%20Son%3B%2Cc0\">lately sprung up in America<\/a>. So you just never know what evangelicals will get wrong. Once again, the evangelicals come in for special criticism at a point where they are at their most ecumenical, agreeing with a billion daffy Catholics on the question of girlboss pastors.<\/p>\n<h2>Fracturing a Nation<\/h2>\n<p>White Evangelicals can be as hard to like as anybody. They would be easier to get along with if, like other religious adherents, they were rigorous, lifelong catechumens of their carefully chosen doctrinal systems. But <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> is especially troubled by the fact that the evangelicals it dissects are very white, though their exposed hearts bear no resemblance to the driven snow.<\/p>\n<p>This is empirically argued by pointing out the lack of racial diversity in evangelical churches. Additionally, many black Christians who affirm the four distinctives of evangelicalism (authority of Scripture, centrality of Christ\u2019s redemptive sacrifice, conversion as rebirth, and evangelism by mission and reform) do not identify as evangelicals.<\/p>\n<p>To be fair, church isn\u2019t the only place <a href=\"https:\/\/uproxx.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/5n7zpu.jpg\">voluntary segregation<\/a> happens. Neither is it racially unique to generally affirm the four distinctives without using the word \u201cevangelical\u201d \u2013 the historically black American churches that share some evangelical theology aren\u2019t the only Christians who prefer different terminology. And to be not only fair, but rational, this is not something that evangelical people, not-white people, or anyone else can square up. Joe Carter of The Gospel Coalition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/article\/why-increasing-racial-diversity-in-denominations-is-a-math-problem\/\">asks<\/a>,<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n[W]hat happens when we try to make\u00a0<em>all\u00a0<\/em>Christian denominations more diverse by increasing their percentage of black members? Eventually we\u2019d need to lure away members from the groups that have the most black members to \u2018spare\u2019: the Church of God in Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the National Baptist Convention.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The real nature of the problem surfaces in the study of Promise Keepers, a movement that encouraged evangelical men to get in touch with their feelings, be nice to their wives, pray and sacrifice for their children, and weep a lot in the 1990s. (Notably, their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/archive\/opinions\/1997\/09\/07\/a-look-at-promise-keepers\/71d8854a-1bed-4163-a406-8374bc3b502f\/\">sinister moment<\/a> seems not so bad to <em>J&#038;JW<\/em>, compared to the subsequent regimes of testosteronians like John Eldredge and Mark Driscoll.) Promise Keepers\u2019 decline corresponds with the addition of \u201cracial reconciliation\u201d to their program. Readers are supposed to understand that this is because the Promise Keepers were racists.<\/p>\n<p>The real story is that these gentle, innocent dove-men didn\u2019t realize the game was rigged. The only way not to be a racist is on leftist terms, and the only way to meet leftist terms is to support leftist policies. To be a conservative \u2013 and to live as one and vote as one \u2013 is to be a racist. Face it, evangelicals: with all the racism you\u2019ve done, you\u2019re like chewed gum or an unstickified piece of tape. Why go to Promise Keepers for this intel when it was available free from every school and broadcaster in the country?<\/p>\n<p>Even if they were relatively mild, Promise Keepers stood opposed to American conventional wisdom, and every idea has its pathologies. It\u2019s easy to disdain Bill Gothard, granddaddy of the evangelical domestic ethic that can look borderline even to other conservative Christians (and insane to everyone else). The internet hits its stride when it spotlights abuses of already gauche ideas like Gothard\u2019s. <\/p>\n<p>But there is a world of people for whom progressive prescriptions for family life are culturally impossible. Gothard\u2019s lucid exposition of the ancient Christian household codes (See Ephesians 5, Colossians 3) helped these people live the way they wanted to live. There are happy and stable families who appreciate and order their lives by his work to this day, and there is evidence that the general outlook serves <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/09\/magazine\/does-a-more-equal-marriage-mean-less-sex.html?src=recg\">many<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/red-families-vs-blue-families-which-are-happier\">households<\/a>. Moscow, Idaho is home to a lot of happy women and children who are Gothard adjacent, maybe, if not Gothardite, and are as capable as anyone of knowing their own minds.<\/p>\n<p>But in <em>J&#038;JW, <\/em>evangelical culture is thoroughly villainous<em>, <\/em>and this hermeneutic of suspicion saps the book\u2019s reliability. The real problem, it turns out, is not that evangelicals have a complex history that is difficult for outsiders to understand, but that evangelicals exist. <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> ends up sounding like Rush Limbaugh (PBUH) railing against the liberal agenda in public school curriculum, and explaining in the next commercial that his children\u2019s books are just plain history.<\/p>\n<p>Whereas evangelicals do exist, it\u2019s not clear why <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> is so bent out of shape about their opting into political life. A prophet of our own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BH5-rSxilxo\">recently reminded us<\/a> that in the United States, even stupid people get to vote. Moreover, du Mez distorts their influence well past reality. <\/p>\n<p>White evangelicals have poured themselves out as a drink offering for the GOP, which may be annoying, but the actual harms to progressive values demand little of the cipherer: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney-Barrett. You don\u2019t have to get out your second set of fingers to count the rewards the Republican component of the swamp has given evangelicals for decades of astonishing energy and loyalty.<\/p>\n<p>Even less reasonable than being bent out of shape for evangelicals\u2019 political action is acting surprised or confused that it\u2019s happening at all. <em>J&#038;JW<\/em> refers repeatedly to evangelicals\u2019 sense of embattlement, initially referring to it as \u201creal or imagined.\u201d Allow me: it\u2019s real. All this out of nowhere stuff about men only marrying women, heading their households, being strong and beating up bad guys, sex, sex, sex, and sex, is the horns. That is, it\u2019s what you get when you mess with the bull.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s what you get when you displace the church, and make its pastors and members look first feeble-minded, then evil-minded. It\u2019s what you get when you turn public opinion against the military, which is not only a normal thing for a state to maintain, but the family business of a whole lot of families. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s what you get when you sneer at women who wish they spent their days picking flowers with their kids instead of paying minimum wage to the female subordinate who toilet trains them, hears their first words, and teaches them to walk while Mommy is at work. It\u2019s what you get when you make a joke of marriage, and heroes of the sexually deviant. It\u2019s what you get when you rub everyone\u2019s noses in sex, sex, sex, and sex while howling that not doing so would violate the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s what you get if you say dogs are cats, and force everyone else to say it too.\u00a0 It\u2019s how you drive people who think cats are cats to vote for a guy who will fight for their space to keep thinking that, though he himself thinks of women as cats. It\u2019s how you fracture a nation.<\/p>\n<p><em>J&#038;JW<\/em> concludes its demonstration of evangelicals\u2019 irredeemability with gruesome accounts of sex scandals. Holding human nature as a constant that includes utter corruption (pardon my Christianity), there is only one takeaway here, it applies to everyone and every institution, and no one is denying that it can be an excruciating thing to do. <\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, for the love of all things literally holy, report crimes <em>immediately<\/em> to the police. Not the head pastor, church leadership team, or bishop. <em>The police<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But none of these inchoate critiques changes the fact that evangelicals are hunted reactionaries, not aggressors. They are responding with opposite force to the action of leftist moral colonialism. But from this moment in history, that opposite force is not looking equal. Alas for evangelicals: nobody likes them, everybody hates them, and what worms do they have to eat when they\u2019ve lost so much ground?<\/p>\n<p>Kristen Kobes Du Mez, who used to be on the praise team, shrewdly saved herself the headache of marketing by writing a book the fourth estate <a href=\"https:\/\/kristindumez.com\/topics\/resources\/in-the-media\/\">was happy to sell for her pro bono<\/a>: a turbocharged insider punching down on a low-status group. The result isn\u2019t convincing \u2013 it\u2019s an exquisite variety of bullying.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Rebekah Curtis is a housewife with a writing and indexing hobby. She has written for Babble, Touchstone, Modern Reformation (forthcoming), and is co-author of LadyLike, a collection of essays from Concordia Publishing House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristen Kobes du Mez, takes two approaches to begging one very large question. The first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}