- Wednesday, November 18, 2020
- 4:00 PM–5:00 PM
- Virtual Event (Zoom)
Join us on Wednesday, November 18 at 4:00 PM for a virtual book talk with Prof. Kristin Kobes Du Mez on her new book Jesus & John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism. Historian Darren Dochuck describes the book as “A searing and sobering book, one that should be read by anyone who wants to grasp our political moment and the religious movement that helped get us here,” while Publishers Weekly calls it “[an] engaging history of the shifting ideal of Christian masculinity…. This lucid, potent history adds a much needed religious dimension to understanding the current American right and the rise of Trump.”
In this book talk, Prof. Du Mez will provide a brief overview of the book followed by a discussion about her research and findings, as well as the response to the book since its publication in June 2020. This virtual event will be hosted online and is open to all in the Calvin community. We also have 10 copies of the book to give away to Calvin students who attend. Sponsored by the Calvin department of Historical Studies, the Gender Studies program, and the Sexuality Series.
Update: Click here to watch a video recording of this event on YouTube.
About the speaker
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for the Washington Post, Religion News Service, Christianity Today, Christian Century, and Religion & Politics, and has been interviewed on NPR, CTV, the CBC, and by CNN, the New York Times, the Economist, the Christian Post, PBS News Hour, and the AP, among other outlets, and she blogs at Patheos’s Anxious Bench.
