Masculinity and "Christian" nationalism
You're losing me.
Saturday night I attended a screening of God & Country and interview with
, author of Jesus and John Wayne and expert on the history of masculinity and militarism within Christian evangelicalism.The documentary is about the power structure behind Christian nationalism and the ways this movement (which is—hear me—not Christian) is finding larger and larger bully pulpits across the nation.
I expected to watch the documentary, listen to the post-doc Q&A, and then quietly go home. But something jumped out at me that has refused to leave: all the men—white and evangelical—who looked like me throughout the documentary.
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Earlier that day, I noticed John Fea—another Christian historian—wrote a review of God & Country for Christianity Today. He writes that, by and large, the documentary is just preaching to the choir. It is not going to change anyone’s minds, and it is not nearly nuanced enough.
He writes,
Also unanswered is whether evangelicals who want to bring our faith to bear on public life are necessarily Christian nationalists…. There are multiple places in God & Country—footage of Jerry Falwell Sr. preaching against abortion and George H. W. Bush proclaiming he is pro-life and opposed to partial-birth abortion, to name just two—where the storytelling conflates politically active evangelicalism with Christian nationalism.
Is Jerry Falwell Sr. preaching against abortion really an example of Christian nationalism?
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On February 7th, Fea wrote another article, this one for the Atlantic, lamenting the way that evangelicalism, and specifically evangelical masculinity, has been portrayed in books like Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne and
’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood. Fea writes of his own father and the way his father’s life changed when he became a born-again Christian and followed James Dobson’s teachings via Dobson’s radio show.Fea writes,
“Yet for all their value, books such as Du Mez’s and Barr’s, as works of evangelical history, are woefully flat and do not explain historically the story of my father and, I imagine, millions of other men and women who learned from Dobson how to love their families as Jesus loves his church.”
And,
“Journalists don’t sufficiently distinguish Christian nationalists from conservative evangelicals who simply and reasonably want to bring their faith to bear on public life.”
Are people like
and being unnecessarily cruel towards people like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, conflating them with actual Christian nationalists? What about the “millions of other men and women” who have been positively changed by men like them?—
Anytime I see Jerry Falwell, I can’t help but think of one specific interview. It was with Pat Robertson, and it was September 13th, 2001. TVs sat behind him showing news footage of the burning towers. Processing what just happened, Falwell proclaimed,
“I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians…all of them who tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”
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Originally campaigning against Donald Trump, Dr. James Dobson ended up being one of Trump’s evangelical advisors. By the time of Trump’s impeachment, Dobson was calling for a day of prayer and fasting to protect the president from his enemies. He said, “This country will be in serious trouble if they're successful in impeaching this man.”
In 2017, Dr. Dobson did a two-part interview with an author who claimed God’s hand was on the 2016 election to get Trump into the White House. Further, Dobson’s Family Institute continues to post articles defending Donald Trump in alarmist, Christian nationalist tones.
In fact, his Family Institute released their own review of God & Country, in which they specifically label themselves as Christian nationalists:
“Virtually every week there is a new attack on Christians who love Jesus and love America. Left-wing commentators and politicians have come up with an odd name for these folks. We are now labeled ‘Christian nationalists.’”
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Jerry Falwell preaching against abortion may not be an example of Christian nationalism, but it’s not hard to recognize him as a Christian nationalist. The same with Dr. James Dobson.
Good things can happen because of their ministries, but that does not mean they should be exonerated from judgment.
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I am a part of a generation of young men looking for scripts of healthy masculinity. Further, I am a committed Christian looking for a way to be a Christian man in the world, one not reliant on baptizing the American flag. And for those reasons I am incredibly grateful for
and and their work, bringing difficult histories to light. I am still evangelical, and I need to know my own history before I begin looking for men I can follow and learn masculinity from.This group of us—men searching for Christian masculinity—all too often can’t find it because of the nationalistic fat getting in the way, and by continuing to make excuses for problematic men and castigating the women bringing their problems to light, you are only losing us further.
A Postscript
After writing this, I had someone share a book with me that meant a lot to his spiritual life. It was a book by a pastor who has since been let go of his position because of systemic moral failures.
I don’t know if this person knows about the moral failures; I doubt he does. For him, this person and this book helped him get closer to Jesus.
Which brought me to this thought: if someone, like Fea’s father, comes across Dobson’s radio show and—through it—comes closer to Christ, praise God! My critique is not about the “millions of other men and women who learned from Dobson how to love their families as Jesus loves his church.” To the extent that people grew closer to Jesus, I am grateful.
However, this is not reason enough to continue pedestaling people like Dr. Dobson. Martin Luther is attributed the line, “God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.” That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t notice the crookedness of the stick.
That last line.
I always find the ratio of male to female likes on these posts interesting to glance at. I think you have your finger on the pulse of a demographic, but I don’t think it’s the one you think it is.