The various moral failures of major figures in Evangelicalism are well documented. We could concede, for sake of argument, some aspects of her account.
White Evangelical politics are due for deconstruction.”Įnter Kristin Kobes Du Mez, whose book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, is cited by French as “a compelling and challenging argument.” Du Mez provides a historic account of “he path that ends with John Wayne” – contraposed to Christ – “as an icon of Christianity,” of “rugged, heroic masculinity embodied by cowboys, soldiers, and warriors to point the way forward.” It is the account of a church that has commodified Christianity, intertwined faith and right-wing politics, and “invoked a sense of peril in order to offer fearful followers their own brand of truth and protection” and stoke “vangelical militancy.” It is a church that has forgotten Christ. We should be in a constant process of interrogating our own beliefs and actions in light of the person and example of Jesus Christ. At its best it can represent an honest, critical re-examination of not just your personal faith, but also the theology and behavior of your faith community. “‘Deconstruction’ is a hot topic in elite Evangelicalism,” French says. The Evangelical writer David French has been in the thick of this conversation writing on the intersection of evangelical faith, politics, and corruption with such essays as: “Why Christians Bond With Corrupt Leaders,” “A Nation of Christians Is Not Necessarily a Christian Nation,” and “Deconstructing White Evangelical Politics.” They had no right to preach to others values they would not practice. These high and mighty moralizers, the Left said, were willing to abandon any principle in pursuit of political power. The Left never liked Evangelicals to begin with – too conservative, too anti-gay, too public in their objections to the prevailing secular creeds they would say – but Trump, whom Evangelicals supported in droves, gave their critics a new charge to level at them: hypocrisy.
It’s a popular message on the Left in the post-Trump era.
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