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1/ So it’s been probably a month since I finished @kkdumez’s Jesus and John Wayne.
I think we all should read it. She does a really good job of showing how much nationalism, racism, and sexism is in the cultural formula. There are some parts that made me so sad and others angry
I think we all should read it. She does a really good job of showing how much nationalism, racism, and sexism is in the cultural formula. There are some parts that made me so sad and others angry
2/ I don’t think evangelicals should be afraid of this book. Many seem to have written it off as just a progressive take down with a clever title.
It’s not that. While she is very critical of conservatives, by the end of the book it felt like I was reading a good faith critic.
It’s not that. While she is very critical of conservatives, by the end of the book it felt like I was reading a good faith critic.
3/ There are parts that I believe she overreaches with the narrative and there are fringe figures that she attempts to make more mainstream.
But she’s open and honest on how she wrestled with those decisions. And the research is excellent.
But she’s open and honest on how she wrestled with those decisions. And the research is excellent.
4/ That said, I think shows some very deeply troubling things that many of us knew in part, but the whole shows a deeper sickness and a necessity for some sober self reflection and repentance.
5/ If you have thoroughly read Marsden or Noll, most of this will not be new, she just does the extra step of connecting the dots to our current moment and that’s where it cuts a bit more deeply.
I think her narrative helps make sense of some of the crazy we are seeing.
I think her narrative helps make sense of some of the crazy we are seeing.
6/ But also, her narrative shows how the crazy might be in some of the bread and water we’ve been consuming without fully (maybe?) being consciously aware.
7/ The book was very challenging in that it showed some very real shadows in my spiritual family line and so much of the culture of evangelicalism is far more secular than we’d like to admit.
8/ nevertheless I walked away from the book with a surprising level of gratitude because despite the very dark and sinful parts (and the parts are bigger than I’d like to admit) there’s also been deep parts of the spiritual tradition of evangelicalism that taught me
9/ how to repent of these things when I see him. I have a legacy of dark sin and a theological legacy that taught me how to identity and repent of these same sins.
10/ So I’m hopeful that as we wrestle with this narrative (and there seems to be a lot of these books coming out or on their way) we will recognize sin and repent and reconcile and be renewed into Christlikeness. That is in our DNA. We should lean into that.
11/ It’s deeply conservative and evangelical (truly) to repent of racism, nationalistic idolatry, and sexism. We aren’t in danger of becoming progressive when we do that. We are following Christ instead. The danger is in ignoring it.
