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This podcast is an avenue to dialogue about the totality of the food experience. Everything from gardening, to preparing, to eating, to hospitality, to the Lord’s Table, with an eye toward how this act that we all have to engage in helps us experience the transformative power of God’s love and what it means to be human.
Episode 74 (Kristin Du Mez)
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[00:00:00]
Kristin Du Mez Origins
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Andrew Camp: Hello, and welcome to another episode of "The Biggest Table." I am your host, Andrew Camp. In this podcast, we explore the table, food, eating, and hospitality as an arena for experiencing God's love and our love for one another.
And today, I'm joined by Kristin Du Mez.
Kristin is a New York Times bestselling author and professor of history at Calvin University. She is also a senior democracy fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. Her most recent books include "Jesus and John Wayne" and the forthcoming "Live, Laugh, Love," soon to be published in September of this year. She is a distinguished associate at the Institute for Christian Studies, and recently served as a fellow at the University of Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion.
So thanks for joining me today, Kristin. It's, it's an honor to just talk to you, yeah, 'cause I've really loved your books and, uh, so yeah, excited to talk.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Oh, thanks for having me.
Andrew Camp: Um, so I'm, I'm curious beyond the bio, like, what's your-- [00:01:00] briefly, what's your history with evangelicalism and w- you know, where and how did you begin to- take this deep dive into this history.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah, I don't, I, I did not grow up identifying as an Evangelical. I have never actually personally identified as an Evangelical. Um, but, uh, depending on other people's definitions, I could be put in that category at various times. Um, because I grew up in a small town in Iowa, uh, in the Christian Reformed Church, and so it's a small, um, primarily Dutch ethnic congregation, a Reformed congregation.
My, my mom immigrated from the Netherlands. And so, uh, growing up in the '80s and '90s, I wasn't, um, really immersed in Evangelical culture. And as a cultural historian, that's really how I, um, examine Evangelicalism. So, um, I- for instance, in my home, you [00:02:00] know, Billy Graham was never mentioned. It, he just wasn't on our radar.
And we talked instead about, you know, Abraham Kuyper. So that said, I did listen to Amy Grant and Sandi Patty, and, uh, y- you know, I, I bought, uh, Jesus sweatshirts from a catalog, and we only had one bookstore in my small town, and it was a Christian bookstore. And so I had maybe a foot in that world, but it was never my primary religious identity, and I, I think that's really held thr- h- held true throughout my, uh, career.
I did go to Notre Dame, so a Catholic school, but to study with one of the preeminent scholars of Evangelicalism, George Marsden. And, um, it was in that space that I first met real Evangelicals. Like, my classmates- Hmm ... were coming from Moody Bible Institute, from Wheaton College, right? Bob Jones IV was briefly a student there while I [00:03:00] was- Oh, wow
right, so Evangelical fundamentalist, right? And that's where I first really learned about this whole Evangelical subculture that I had only been on the very edges of. '
Trump and Evangelical Values
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Andrew Camp: Cause you mention then in, in, in the beginning of Jesus and John Wayne where, you know, um, Donald Trump is standing in the university which, which you attended, where you met your husband, where your dad taught.
And so what was that moment like when you- Yeah ... see that with, like, that feels like it's a turning point for you or an inflection point that, like, something- registers in your mind that, like, this doesn't feel right?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah, yeah, because, um, so that was, uh, where, uh, Trump gave his infamous, uh, uh, f- "I could shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue" speech-
Andrew Camp: Wow
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: right? And not lose any supporters. And the whole speech, like, I was tuning in on live stream. I wasn't there in person. Um, but I remember, you know, hearing that he was going to [00:04:00] give a, a, a speech there, which was not in and of itself all that unusual, because Iowa is, you know, first caucus state- Yeah ... and it w- w- I just grew up always having all the presidential candidates come through, and then in, in the last decade or two it's been only Republican candidates that bother.
But, you know, uh, it, it's kind of a thing. And so when, when I tuned into Trump's speech and I heard where he was going with it, and he brought, I, I think it was Jeffress that was there with him, if I remember, uh, you know, the opening prayer, and it was so kind of right-wing, um, what we might call Christian nationalist.
And I thought in the moment, "Oh, he doesn't know where he is," right? That- Hmm ... he is getting this all wrong. Um, his advance team didn't do the work. This isn't Liberty University, right? Yeah. This is Dordt, where we, we do things differently here. And it is true that there were protesters, including Dordt students and faculty, a, a small number outside holding signs that, you know, [00:05:00] pro-immigrant and so on.
But as I watched that and as I listened to the applause, and as I heard, you know, what he was saying and how he was appealing to Christians, to privilege them, to quote unquote "protect them," and, and, you know, he brought his bombast to the stage and his crassness and, and I saw how it was going over, um, and it was going over well with those in attendance.
And so in the book I say, which is exactly what I was thinking this time, at, at the time, "I don't recognize these people." Mm-hmm. And, and, and that kind of cuts both ways. Like, I, I literally was trying to, like, look at people's faces. Like, who is there? And it wasn't just people from, from the college community, right?
It was from the- Yeah ... surrounding area. Um, so I, I didn't actually recognize most people there, but I also just thought, again, "I don't even recognize what's happening here," because I did not think something like this would fly in the space in which I was raised. And so I had to kind of recalibrate and, um, [00:06:00] understand that his appeal was much more, um, widespread than I think many people anticipated, myself included at that time.
Andrew Camp: 'Cause in the book then you draw the, you know- The line through that this isn't an aberration, this is actually a... This is just who we were discipled to be-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yes ...
Andrew Camp: um, as white evangelicals, you know? And I grew up in the evangelical world, grew up in Fullerton at Chuck Swindoll's church, went to Biola, went to Talbot, went overseas, like- Yes
you know. Wow.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Yeah, so like worked at Forest Home where Henrietta Mears is, you know, like-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Oh my goodness, we need to talk. Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Right. So like, yeah, like there, like it is a through line for me, and then like- Yep ... I, like you, am looking at this, I'm like, "There's no way Donald Trump sh- like should be what we aspire to.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Right.
Andrew Camp: A- and yet here we are today where-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: it's still a convoluted mess. Um-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah, and it, [00:07:00] it's one thing, you know, back in 2015, 2016, to have people ask the question, how could white evangelicals betray their values to vote for a man like Trump, right? That was a fair question. Yeah. Uh, more than a decade on, no.
No, no, we, we, we have to... We, we need a different framework, right? Y- this is not a, quote-unquote, "betrayal" of their values. Mm-hmm. And this is something I saw early on. We need a better understanding of what those values actually are- Mm ... to understand what it is about Trump and his policies and his persona that appeal to his white evangelical base, like they appeal to no other religious demographic in this country, right?
Andrew Camp: Right.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: It, it, by orders of magnitude, right? Yeah. It, it, like, look at every survey on any political issue and you're gonna see, like, top of the charts, you know, in terms of alignment with Trump and his agenda, that white evangelical, uh, demographic.
Andrew Camp: [00:08:00] Right, 'cause at, in 2016, my wife and I were living in Park City, Utah, and so we were following this, you know...
It, and Park City's a weird town in Utah.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Camp: But, um, like, the, I remember in 2016 that, like, people w- began to say, like, Utah might be in play because the LDS church-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: wasn't- Yeah ... willing to throw their support behind Trump, and they have, and they did. Um, but there was that key moment where y- it's like, wait, like, could Utah go-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah
Andrew Camp: Democratic- I remember ... because of, of Trump? And it was this weird moment. Um, yeah, so it's just, it's super fascinating. But you've mentioned that, like, it's not a betrayal of our values, because growing up evangelical, you know, and we have those four distinctives that everybody wants to talk about, you know, that, you know, it's the Bible's ultimate authority, centrality of Christ's atonement, specifically penal substitution, born-again conversion experience, and to spread the Good News.
Yeah. You know, and that's what I was [00:09:00] always told were like- Yeah ... our central values.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: But if those were our central values, those don't lead to Trump. So then what-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: would you describe as evangelical central values that would point us towards Tru- Trump.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. You know, well, first of all, I would want to, um, um, be a little bit more particular about what we mean by those things.
Yeah. And, um, and not just take at face value what evangelicals say they mean about those things. Um, because there's truth to, you know, each of those four distinctives. Um- Right ... but, um, but I also wanna take a closer look. So, you know, the authority of the Bible, Biblicism.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Like, okay, um, you know, what hermeneutic, and, uh, which issues, uh, for instance, get the inerrancy treatment- Mm-hmm
and which ones suddenly become very complicated and you need to understand [00:10:00] context? So for instance, you know, if you're having, um, uh, looking at Bible verses that appear to, um, support women's submission to masculine authority, um, anti-LGBTQ, and so on, you know, and, and yes, you will find verses in the Bible, um, that can be interpreted in that way.
And then you'll hear a lot about the plain reading of the scripture and the inerrancy of the word, and the, you know, any number of issues can be a litmus test for if you are Christian at all.
Andrew Camp: Right.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And then you get passages on welcoming the foreigner- Yeah ... on loving your enemy, on loving your neighbor, on turning the other cheek, on, you know, caring for the poor.
My goodness, how many verses in the Bible are there about, um, you know, justice and caring for the poor and compassion and, um... And all of those, right, g- get suddenly very complicated. Yeah. Well, you have to understand what the eye of the needle meant. Yes, [00:11:00] yes. You know? Right. Like this dubious theory or, well, you know, this doesn't apply to government, it's only individuals, and it has to be voluntary, caring for the poor, or otherwise it's anti-biblical.
And it's like, "Wait a minute," you know? Yeah. "Where is this coming from?" So all of a sudden you have all these layers of interpretation. Yeah. Um, right. So, so that's where I would problematize, okay, which ones are allowed in evangelicalism? These, you know, wh- when is this, you know, interpretive, uh, process allowed, and when is it not allowed?
And, and that's where we have to, um, you know, look too. I talk a lot about evangelism in Live, Laugh, Love- And yes, evangelism is a hallmark that in, in many cases, a kind of frenetic evangelism. Mm-hmm. In fact, I look at the, the Keswick tradition that claims that if you are not actively evangelizing in any moment, you are sinning, right?
Wow. I, I come from a Calvinist, um, background. We don't do that. No. Right. Yeah. Like, we [00:12:00] have, we have other attributes. Like, we tend to be very critical intellectually, and you can kind of see how I'm a product of that tradition. Yeah. But we don't go out there and like, you know, we're not handing out tracts on the corner because of, you know, God's sovereignty and predestination and all those things.
Yeah. We just kind of let that, let that be and let God decide. Um, you know, so, so you've got truth to these things, but then they've got particular styles and how they're carried out, um, conversionism too, and-
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm ...
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: um, crucicentrism, right? So you already kind of qualified that a little bit as, um, penal substitutionary atonement.
And what I find when we look at those four categories is that if we just keep them in their kind of, um, generic form, they don't actually tell us much about evangelicalism, and they don't actually help us distinguish many other Christians from those who would identify as evangelical from those who attend evangel- evangelical churches and, um, you know, those [00:13:00] that social scientists would categor- categorize as evangelical.
And the key example here is Black Christians. Yeah. So the vast majority of Black Protestants in the United States would check all of those boxes, and the vast majority of those who check those boxes absolutely do not identify as evangelical, because it is very clear to them that there's a lot more to evangelical than checking off those boxes.
And that's where I come in as a cultural historian. I want to look at what is that more, what is that that really defines whether or not people, um, identify with the movement and whether or not people are in fact immersed within the movement.
Andrew Camp: Hmm. Because you point out too then that, like, what evang- what sets evangelicalism apart is more of what they sell post-Sunday-
in this consumer culture, um, which does play into, you know, the, y- your new book. Um- Yeah ... you know, and so, like- What [00:14:00] has influenced evangelicalism more, you, you seem to point throughout, um, is a sort of a consumer capitalism approach to the world-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah.
Andrew Camp: Yeah ... um, versus a set of ideological beliefs.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. And, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, let me make clear, too, that I don't offer this, uh, emphasis on, uh, consumerism and a consumer culture, and I also talk about a, a series of networks and alliances, to describe evangelicalism as a movement.
I don't offer that as a substitute definition, right? Right. I'm not actually trying to distill whatever we call evangelicalism down to static categories- No ... theological or otherwise. I'm, I'm kind of after a different project. Um, but yes, I am, um, uh... So that's why I talk about people being immersed within the culture of evangelicalism to varying degrees, rather than you are one or you aren't one.
Um- [00:15:00] Yeah ... and so you can have Black Christians, certainly, who are- Yeah ... uh, you know, immersed in this culture, a small number. Um, and you can have, uh, mainline Christians, uh, a, a larger number I would say, who are immersed in this culture because they shop at Christian bookstores and they listen to Christian radio.
You can have people who aren't Christian at all, who do not attend a church, immersed in this culture, right? And so, um, I- I'm, as a cultural historian, I'm just approaching this in a different way. And then when you do focus on, uh, on the consumer culture of evangelicalism- That brings us into spaces, uh, that really shape the values of, uh, ordinary kind of lay Christians.
Andrew Camp: Right.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Um, so Christian radio, right, Christian music, what is sold at Christian bookstores, the whole Christian public- publishing industry. And it is not either culture or theology. Hmm. But I [00:16:00] wanna look at the underlying theological, um, convictions, teachings that are embedded within this world of popular evangelicalism.
And sometimes they align with the stuff that you hear preached from the pulpit, and sometimes they do not. Right. And, right, that's where I'm doing my work- Mm-hmm ... is understanding the values that are embedded in these popular religious products, particularly in the case of Live Laugh Love, um, in those products that are marketed and, and, and created, fashioned for white Christian women in particular.
And so that's, that's really where I spend my time in Live Laugh Love, and- Yeah ... I found it was deeply illuminating, um, to look at, you know, not just what they say they believe, but the, the values that are embedded and called biblical. You know- Yeah ... ideas that are called, quote, quote, "biblical womanhood," right?
End of conversation, because we believe in the authority of the Bible. [00:17:00] Well, okay, let's look at where those ideas actually came from
Andrew Camp: Right. And, and that is fascinating.
Live Laugh Love and New Thought
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Andrew Camp: And you, y- your new book, Live, Laugh, Love, it's great, and you said at the beginning you wanted to write a fun book- ... you know, to sort of juxtapose it to Jesus and John Wayne, and yet it never, it didn't end up fun.
So like, what, what hap- like what went wrong? Like...
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Right. Research. Research. Res- yeah. You know, I just, I started the book with an idea of, let me talk about, uh, it's not ex- it's not the direct flip side to Jesus and John Wayne- Right ... because I knew, um, I wanna talk about the culture of white Christian womanhood, and I knew that it was a bigger story than just white evangelicalism- Yeah
right off the, the, the bat. And if you hear the topic or the title Live, Laugh, Love for any, any women out there in particular are likely to have a pretty clear sense of at least some of the things that are gonna be included. Like, yes, we're gonna have Christian romance novels, and we're gonna have multi-level marketing, [00:18:00] right?
Mary Kay, LuLaRoe, absolutely. Joanna Gaines is in there. Mm-hmm. Jen Hatmaker, the mommy bloggers, right? All those things, yes.
Andrew Camp: Yeah.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Um, but if you, if you think about all of those things for, like, more than half a second, you realize this is not just a story about evangelicalism. It's also a story about Mormon women.
Mm-hmm. It's a story about charismatic tradition. It's a story about the secular philosophy of New Thought, which is more commonly known as positive thinking, that, and just infuses the, the wellness industry and so on. So I knew it was going to be about all of those things. So it is a more complicated story.
Um, but w- I still thought it would be a lighter story than Jesus and John Wayne, and in part for that reason, right? It, it is more complicated. Um, and then, um, not too long into my research, it was actually when I was, uh, researching the chapter on multi-level marketing and understanding how those systems worked.
You have your upline, and you have your downline, and you, um... There's no negativity [00:19:00] allowed, so you cannot question the system. You have to always affirm that your upline has your best interest in mind, and you need to discipline your downline. And any- anybody from the outside who questions, they are negative, and you need to cut negativity out of your life.
Any doubts of your own, negative, cut them out of your life.
Andrew Camp: Huh.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And if you follow the rules, you're going to be rewarded, or at least you're promised rewards, and if you do not, you're going to be shunned and shamed and, right, ultimately kicked out. Um, and then you become negative, and those on the inside separate from you.
Anyway, like, that's, that's multi-level marketing. If you've, if you've been in these spaces, it will resonate, if you've studied it at all. But for me, the kind of aha moment was when I was deeply immersed in understanding the culture of, um, MLMs, it suddenly dawned on me, "This reminds me so much of the culture of discipline and reward, insider, outsider, lines of deference and authority that [00:20:00] permeate evangelical, um, organizations and institutions as well."
And so that was the question, then, of, of, like, what am I looking at here? What are the connections between these kind of systems of authority, manipulation, and control? And that brought me into some very unexpected spaces and into some, some darker spaces, I think it's fair to say. So the book ended up becoming much longer- Yeah
and darker than I anticipated. Um, but at a certain point, pieces just began to click into place and, um, and I understood what the story was that I was actually writing.
Andrew Camp: So, so much there. Um, but wanna go back 'cause you mentioned the idea of New Thought, and it's sort of the through line of y- a lot of the book.
Mm-hmm. Um, and it was a new ideas to me. I'm not, I wasn't familiar- Yeah ... with, um, so why, why is it so important when we think about [00:21:00] women, um, in the history of religion with women and, uh, in, in, in this moment?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. So New Thought is, um, also, it goes, it, it, it came from the idea, um, in the early 19th century of mind power or mind cure, the, uh, theory that you can control reality, you can con- control your circumstances, shape your circumstances, uh, merely through the power of the mind.
Mm. So, um, through belief, through thinking, through having the right attitude, you can then draw good things to you. Like part of this is the law of attraction. Think positive thoughts, positive things will come to you. Be attractive, you're gonna attract good things to you. And this was a theory of how the world worked.
Uh, and it was, it was all the rage in the 19th century, and it shaped transcendentalism, it shaped, uh, religious traditions like Christian science. And, uh, it also, by the early 20th century, was one of the key ingredients of [00:22:00] kind of get rich quick manuals. It makes a lot of sense, titles like Think and Grow Rich.
Think about being wealthy, like clear all negative thoughts, all neg- of all thoughts of poverty, and the universe will bless you with riches, right? This is the kind of formula. Uh, one of the things that I show in this book is how closely that system of mind power, excuse me, mind power worked or, or aligned with a variant of evangelicalism that was gaining popularity at the time, holiness evangelicalism, that similarly prioritized the will.
Um, trust and obey, this act of belief, and then blessings will follow, and those blessings would be spiritual, and then over time that morphs to also material. Mm-hmm. And this is, uh, one of the offshoots of this holiness theology is the charismatic tradition and particularly prosperity gospel teachings, right?
Yeah. And so you can see... and faith healing, and, and, and you can see then the [00:23:00] kind of the Christian versions of get rich quick and all success is gonna come if only you trust and obey, right? So these are two strands in particular, we could throw in Mormonism as well, but we'll leave that, uh, uh- ... aside for a moment, right?
That, that emerge in tandem, in conversation with each other, and the boundaries are often porous. Mm-hmm. So Pentecostalism ends up incorporating new thought categories. Um, and Christian churches are very receptive to new thought. We see, um, new thought evolves into the philosophy of positive thinking. So think Norman Vincent Peale, he becomes a really critical, um, figure in mainline Christianity, just embracing new thought and- Mm-hmm
incorporating it into his Christian categories. And, uh, we also see it infusing again the charismatic tradition in, in people like Oral Roberts and prosperity gospel, um, teachers. So what we have then in the 20th century in terms of the religious landscape [00:24:00] is, uh, rather than thinking in, in distinct categories, like either you're evangelical or, you know, fundamentalist or- Yeah
mainline or charismatic or secular, we need to understand how these certain values of prioritizing the will, the mind can shape reality. It's very individualistic, and it always comes with a promise that if you obey these spiritual metaphysical laws, success will follow. And, and that is the kind of uh, philosophy, the underlying in- ideology behind live, laugh, love, this popular Christian women's culture, and then you can see how it finds expression in various religious spaces and also in the secular wellness industry and so on.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And then I also show how a, how a particular ideal of femininity took root in the early 20th century, first in new thought spaces, and then [00:25:00] from there traveled into Mormon and Evangelical spaces, and eventually it, you know, went under the guise of, quote-unquote, "Biblical womanhood," uh, when in fact its roots run deep into this, um, you know, arguably very non-Christian, uh, philosophy of life '
Andrew Camp: Cause as you're describing it, you know, I can harken back to my evangelical upbringing of like, you know, we would dismiss that, that, you know, like we dismissed- Yes
prosperity teaching, but-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yes ...
Andrew Camp: our romance/sexual side was, "Hey, if you obey and follow these rules, you will be blessed with a great marriage, and-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yes ...
Andrew Camp: everything will fall into place for you."
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Exactly. Uh- Exactly. So you have, uh, yes, you have, uh, you know, preachers, uh, religious leaders who draw sharp distinctions, "No, no, no, we don't do that," and even condemning prosperity gospel, and yet you see the logic of prosperity gospel teachings absolutely infusing things [00:26:00] like purity culture, uh, which, y- you know, speaking as a Calvinist here, I would say is, you know, unbiblical, uh, at least in terms of the way that, you know, many Calvinists would interpret the scriptures, and yet you see even these ideals infusing Calvinist spaces, and, um, especially those shaped by the tradition of Christian Reconstructionism, the Rushdoony's ideas.
And here we're looking at, uh, people like Bill Gothard and Doug Wilson, right? This idea that if you obey, and you must obey, then you will be blessed. If you disobey, if you are a feminist, if you do not properly submit to your husband, if you have sex before marriage, if you seduce a man, uh, right- Yeah
because you did not dress modestly enough, then, well, you deserve what you get. Uh, y- if you're unhappy, if you're in an unhappy marriage, if you're in an abusive marriage, if things do not go well for you in your life, that's on you. All right, then the flip side is what this [00:27:00] ends up perpetuating is the idea, if you are successful, if you are powerful, if you are wealthy, well, clearly you are obedient- Yeah
because look how lavishly God has blessed you. And if you look at, uh, uh, uh, American evangelicalism and beyond, you can see how prevalent this teaching is, even though arguably there's a lot of scriptural passages that would offer a different, um, formula for understanding good and evil and, um, and success in the Christian life.
Andrew Camp: Right, 'cause we always look at Job and be like, "Okay, see, you know- Uh, Job is our case point example, and yet-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: I, I always wagered that, you know, maybe our resistance and hatred of Joel Osteen as evangelicals wasn't because he was wrong, but maybe because he hit too close to home. Right. That, you know, like we, we see a little- [00:28:00] A little
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: too brazen.
Andrew Camp: Yeah, like we see a little too much truth, you know? Yeah. And, like, we're not too far from Joel Osteen as we might- Yeah ... want ourselves to be.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Right.
Women’s Christian Media World
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Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Well, and also, one of the points that I make in this book is when you center Christian women's experience, and when you- Mm-hmm ... center the, uh, cultural, um, products that were designed to appeal to Christian women, which is, by the way, the vast majority of Christian products, right?
The Christian products- Yeah ... industry is really tailored around middle class, suburban, and small town white Christian women, right? Women who are already Christians. Like, they have- Mm-hmm ... this demographic totally figured out. They've had it figured out since at least the '60s, right? These are the women who are buying the products, so we want to a- appeal to them.
When you center these women and the products fashioned for them, that's where you can see it doesn't matter what their pastor may or may not be saying about Joel Osteen or about the prosperity [00:29:00] gospel, because they can go into a Christian bookstore and, I mean, essentially, if the book has a pink cover and it's in a Christian bookstore, it's fair game.
And so they're reading Joyce Meyer and tuning into Joyce Meyer online or on television. They're reading Beth Moore. Mm-hmm. They're reading, like, all the things in between. And, um, and that's where by starting with what is the, the world that white Christian women inhabit, the cultural world, that's where I saw very early on that these neat and tidy boxes that scholars like to use, and religious leaders themselves like to, you know, kind of control and contain and observe, because their paychecks depend on doing so, they just don't hold up when we look at the religious experience and religious formation of the vast majority of Christian women in this country.
Andrew Camp: And explain more, like how don't they hold up, or where, you know... I think Elizabeth Elliot is a fascinating key point- Yeah ... [00:30:00] because, like, I remember growing up and, you know, re- one of my textbooks was, you know, Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by Piper and Grudem. And Elizabeth Elliot had a chapter in there, and she was the beacon of what biblical womanhood looked like.
Yeah. And yet her journey's not so neat and tidy, and it was like a surprise to
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: me,
Andrew Camp: you know?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth Elliot’s Complicated Legacy
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Kristin Kobes Du Mez: The Elizabeth Elliot, uh, narrative in this book was, uh, absolutely my favorite, uh, uh, one to write, and I- she appears in several chapters. And, and originally, when I started this book, I thought, "Oh, of course I've got to include Eliz- Elizabeth Elliot.
What more is there to say?" And then very quickly, I became obsessed with Elizabeth Elliot because her story is so much more complicated and illuminating than, um, almost anybody knows. Those who cannot stand her and those who absolutely adore her, [00:31:00] right, they do not have the, the whole story. And frankly, I still don't have the whole story.
Right. I still have some big questions. Okay. Um, but while I was researching this book, a, a couple of books, uh, biographies came out on her, which really, um, uh, illuminated the path for me. Um, Ellen Vaughn's two volume, and especially Lucy S. R. Austin's biography- Hmm ... um, published, interestingly enough, with Crossway.
And, uh, uh, what I... That, that really made clear to me, oh, there's so much more going on here. And so then I went to the archives, spent several days, um, immersing myself in the written w- record, and pieced together this much more complicated story, which, you know, essentially most, most people who've heard of Elisabeth Elliot know two parts of her story.
They know she starts off as this, you know, intrepid missionary- Mm-hmm ... and her husband, Jim, is martyred. Um, and then she ends up going back to the very tribe that, that killed her [00:32:00] husband, and she becomes just this epitome of sacrificial obedience in, within evangelicalism. And then later in her life, she writes, um, Passion and Purity, the book that really sparks the modern purity movement.
So it's not like she was the first Christian to talk about, um, you know, sexual purity. Right. But it really sparked this whole purity culture, which is a whole thing. Um, in between was Elisabeth Elliot in her deconstruction era, we might think of her. Where she starts questioning all of the pat answers she had been given growing up inside holiness Christianity, growing up told that if you obey and if you, um, sacrifice, and the most sacrificial obedience that she could imagine was becoming a missionary, and so she became a missionary, and she just believed that God was going to bless her faithfulness everything that happened on the mission [00:33:00] field was just, um, failure.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And even before her husband was killed, uh, she was already at a loss. Like, what was- Hmm ... God doing here? She'd done her part. Where was God showing up? Yeah. Um, and the missionaries themselves seemed corrupt, and the whole missionary project, she just saw it wasn't even working. There was so much in the way of cultural trappings around the, quote-unquote, "gospel message."
She was like, "What are we even doing here?" Hmm. And, and she, um, started meeting non-Christians, who were lovely people. So she has these, you know, Christian missionaries, who are supposed to be the most faithful Christians in the world, who are corrupt and um, uh, you know, very difficult people, and she's meeting non-Christians who are lovely, generous, kind people.
All of this leads her into her deconstruction era. She does not deconstruct from her faith in Jesus. She does not abandon her love of the scriptures or her belief, uh, of, in scriptural [00:34:00] authority. She just allows things to be complicated. Mm-hmm. And in that mystery and in that complexity, she finds truth, and she offers some devastating critiques of mainstream evangelical culture.
She offers a scathing critique of the Christian publishing industry. She says, "Much that goes by the name of Christian literatu- literature is neither Christian nor literature. It's propaganda, because it starts off with its answers." Yeah. "And that is not literature, and that is not genuine Christianity. We have to follow where our questions lead."
And, um, i- you know, just, just absolute incredible perception, um, and critique of the whole, um, of evangelical gobbledygook, of the- Yeah ... the, the, the jargon, the lingo, and how that just masks complicated reality and how it masks truth. Mm-hmm. And she says, "I know Christian readers want the pat answers. I know the [00:35:00] Christian publishing industry, um, makes a ton of money.
That's, that's the lucrative approach." But she said, "The hero of my tale is truth." Hmm. So part of the story is how we get from that Elizabeth Elliot to the Elizabeth Elliot that writes, um, anti-feminist and purity culture literature really for the rest of her career. And it really is a, a, a devastating story and a tragic one, not just for the lives that she shapes, um, and, and the repercussions of these teachings in those lives, but also for her own life, because she spends the last 35 years of her life with a, um, very difficult husband- Mm-hmm
um, arguably an, an abusive husband, um, that she believes is absolutely her duty to submit to without complaint.
Andrew Camp: Oh, yeah. I think just reading about Elizabeth Elliot [00:36:00] in your book is worth, you know, your whole book is obviously worth it. But like learning a little bit more of Elizabeth Elliot, 'cause I remember, you know, when we got the book and my, you know, you have a quote from Elizabeth Elliot on the front page, you know- Yes
on the first few pages, and I'm like, "I don't think Kristen's gonna be nice to Elizabeth." Like, you know- Yeah ... like I have a mind already made up, like- Yeah, yeah ... I know the... And my wife Claire starts reading the book, and she's like, "It's more complicated, Andrew." Yes. And I'm like, "What?" Like- Yes ... and so it was a s- s- total shock and surprise, but- Yeah
beautiful and sad at the same time- Yeah ... of like, okay, like this quest for purity seems, you know, whether it's sexual purity, ideological purity-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yes ...
Andrew Camp: just encapsulates so much of what American evangel- white evangelicalism has been about. And I'm, and so I'm curious 'cause you even say at the end of your book that the bedrock of MAGA thinking is purity, black and white thinking.
Yeah. But I think it, it goes back to evangelicalism. And so as we think about like domesticity and [00:37:00] purity, like how has, how have those two intertwined? 'Cause like the home, I remember, you know, like the home is where like this bastion of like- Yeah ... safety and purity was supposed to reign. And so like how did that shape women- In, in some ways.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. Uh, first of all, I, I love that you shared your wife's observation because that's a- already what I'm hearing from, uh, people who've read, uh, early copies.
Andrew Camp: Yeah.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Um, understandably, you know, uh, I have a certain reputation, and, um, so I think the expectation was that I'm just gonna, you know, come out guns blazing and- Yeah
you know, destroy all of their, you know, their favorite things and their favorite people, and, um, and then they're like, "Oh, oh, that's not what this book is." Yeah. Not at all. No. Um, and I'm so glad that that is the way it's being perceived, and my editor absolutely saw that right up front too, right? This is, this is a very different book, and it must be.
It really must be- Mm-hmm ... because [00:38:00] of the subject matter.
Purity Politics and Hope
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Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Um, but yes, the connection between domesticity and purity. So, um, you know, w- women are told to be faithful, um, and to be obedient. They must submit to a man's authority and inhabit the space of, um, uh, the roles of wife and mother. That is their God-ordained roles, and to do so in a kind of 1950s housewa- housewife kind of way.
Um, and so no career. Um, you just find your, your full identity in this space, and gender difference is just fundamental to the whole worldview, theological worldview, and social order alike. And, um, part of gender difference is that men are aggressive, powerful, right? This is the Jesus and John Wayne stuff.
Yep. God filled men with testosterone so they can lead and protect and defend. Women are defenseless. [00:39:00] Women are vulnerable, and women are pure, and they must maintain that purity because men, you know, boys will be boys, right? Yeah. And that's the way God made them, right? So women have to defend purity a- through their own purity.
But they also have to entice men with all their sexual needs and drives, right, into God-honoring heterosexual marriages, and then they need to keep seducing them to keep men inside those, you know, a- and keep their, their sexual drive contained within that, um, marriage, right? This is kind of the... This is in all the books.
Yeah. And, um, and i- so this is the way that God has ordained society, and it starts to have a Christian nation- You have to start in the household. Mm-hmm. And households have to be structured in this way. [00:40:00] And if you obey, um, and this is where we, we have a kind of injection of, um, perfectionism, perfectionist theology, right?
If you follow these rules, and every person, every individual is fully capable of following these rules. If you follow these rules, good things are gonna happen to you, and right, you are on God's side. And anybody else who struggles to follow these rules, or even those who follow these rules and then things fall apart, you know, they're in abusive, um, marriages or, um, y- you know, bad things happen to them.
Well, clearly they did something wrong because God has promised to bless those who obey. Trust and obey- Yep ... you're gonna be happy in Jesus, right? So this is the kind of, um, underlying, um, kind of gender difference, and then purity go hand-in-hand. And by the end of the book, I, um, draw on the work of others to talk about the political [00:41:00] implications, not just of these ideas of gender, which are, I think, are pretty clear as, as they surface in, um- um, right-wing populism these days, but also very much that idea of there are pure and there are impure, and those who are pure and things that are pure must be protected and defended against any threat.
And everything that is not inside this pure and good circle is, by definition, a threat. Mm-hmm. And that defense needs to be preemptive and violent if necessary, right? And this is how you can see it extrapolated into the kind of purity politics that we don't just see surfacing in MAGA spaces these days, but really for any scholars of authoritarianism generally, this is just part of the authoritarian playbook.
Separate the [00:42:00] world between the pure and the impure. Identify, invent a sense of threat, and then justify violence to protect the good and the pure. Um, and so I draw on the work actually of a South African theologian- Mm-hmm ... who identifies e- exactly that, um, as the theological underpinnings of the apartheid system, and then he has also identified it in watching what is happening in the United States today, and particularly around the rhetoric and dehuman- dehumanizing rhetoric around immigration and immigration enforcement.
And he says, like there is a Christian theology of purity, a virus of purity, he says, underneath what we are seeing happening. And what, what, what that means is that Christian morality can get turned on its head. No, no, you do not have to love your neighbor if we have already deemed your neighbor a threat.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: [00:43:00] They are not your neighbor. You, you do not have to show empathy for the other. They are on the outside. No, no, no, it is actually sin to show empathy to the other. You need to protect what is good and pure, right? And so that's- Yeah ... that's where the book really, um, uh, ends up, um, tracing these things that, you know, don't necessarily seem all that political, um, that then bear, um, political fruit in our current historical moment, which get us past any language of, you know, how could evangelicals betray their values, and why are we seeing all this survey data on all of these issues from, you know, political violence to views on immigration and racism and all of these things, uh, and Christian nationalism all aligning in a way.
It's because they're all expressions of this underlying theological and political worldview.
Andrew Camp: Uh, and I'm curious, uh, because, you know, y- you mentioned that [00:44:00] evangelicalism has always needed a threat to s- to survive. And so with the collapse of communism, is that where, like, we, the, the uptick in religious nationalism begins?
Or like, because in the '50s, '60, you know, post-World War II- Yeah ... communism was the great enemy, you know- Yeah ... that needed to be defeated. And now with no communism, w- is that, d- did Christian nationalism step into that void left by communism?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah. Um, one thing I would say, I don't know that evangelicalism-
Andrew Camp: Right
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: per se always needs a threat, but this high control version of- True, yes ... evangelicalism, the, the militant expression of conservative evangelicalism I describe in Jesus and John Wayne, and then return to in certain respects in Live, Laugh, Love, yes, there is a version of evangelicalism that requires a threat, and it is this us versus them, um, version of evangelicalism [00:45:00] that fuels militancy, that drives Christian nationalism.
Yeah. So I would say in the post-World War II era, um, we know ... We could call, um, we, we can use the term Christian nationalism there if we want. Again, historians- Yeah ... um, uh, kind of approach this with nuance, and it's, it's kind of hard to distill this down into- Yeah ... you know, now that it's become a, a popular term-
Andrew Camp: Right
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: in, in more broadly. Um, but certainly historians have used the term Christian nationalism to talk about not just evangelicals, but many white mainline Christians as well. Yeah. In fact, you can talk about it, um, at different points in history and, and, and apply it to, um, the, you know, Black Christians in the civil rights movement and so on.
But the form that Christian nationalism takes changes over time, and what we're talking about today when we talk Christian nationalism is a particular variant, um, that is, uh, that really emerges in the Christian right- Mm-hmm ... in the post-World War II [00:46:00] era, right? And, and evangelicals are at the center. So sorry, I just needed to- Yeah
you know, that, that- No, I- ... term gets thrown around a lot and, and, um, and the, it, it's complicated. Right. But yes, to your, your broader question, um, we have, um, uh, for in the post-war era communism is the greatest threat, and this unifies a lot of mainline Christians, just not non-Christian Americans and conservative evangelicals alike.
But evangelicals really lean in, and they believe that they have the answer to the communist threat, because they understand that communism is a totalizing system. Mm-hmm. It draws people in with promises and coercion, and it provides an entire Marxist worldview to make sense of the world, and values get realigned according to that worldview.
Now, if you listen to any Billy Graham sermon from the f- the, the late '40s and '50s, right? It's all anti-communism. Pretty much you listen to any evangel- you know, public [00:47:00] intellectual or public evangelical, right, you're gonna run up against communism, anti-communism, anti-communism. So I just took a little, a bit of a closer look at what they said is the remedy.
Evangelicalism is the remedy, but not just evangelicalism in a generic sense- Evangelicalism was the only system that could combat the allure of communist totalism, because it provided a totalism of its own. And so they go for, right, providing a totalizing system-
Andrew Camp: Yep ...
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: that draws people in and holds them in, and you can see this totalizing system find expression in the evangelical para-church world, in organizations like Campus Crusade, right?
Bill Bright, and I- Mm-hmm ... I trace his origin story. Billy Graham, right? You can see that. Yeah. And, and so what is this evangelical totalism [00:48:00] that they are going for, and how does it function? And so it took at least a year to tease out that. This is why the book ended up being like two or three years late.
Yeah. Um, I just, you know, blew past all those deadlines, and my editor was extremely gracious each time. He's like, "Do what you need to do, Kristin." Wow. This, this took at least a year- Yeah ... to figure out this particular evangelical variant of totalism, and how, once we understand their motivation, how it helps us understand where we are today.
But yes, a key ingredient for that whole system is always identifying an enemy. Yeah. Having a doctrine against which you can fall short, using small group confession- Mm-hmm ... shunning, shaming- Yep ... and forgiveness to maintain loyalty, um, and keeping that sharp distinction between insider and outsider. Once the Soviet Union falls, and once communism ceases to be a threat, [00:49:00] you can see the bubbling up of all sorts of threats.
And in fact, even before the fall of communism, you had internal threats identified as well. Yeah. Secular humanism- Yep ... and communism, right? Um, feminism, uh, liberalism, and then you see fall of the Soviet Union, uh, you still have those threats internal. And then you have Islam, radical Islam- Yeah ... and you have the Democratic Party, and you, then you have woke, and you have all the things.
But the nature of the threat is less important than the existence of a threat to maintain this system of high-control religion.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. And so h- here we are in this moment, and neither book of yours ends well, ends happy. And which is fine, you know, and I think there's, there's, there's goodness in sitting with the, the depth and the, the depravity of our situation.
But is there a way forward? I know you're a historian, so you're looking back at data, you [00:50:00] know, and-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: I, you know, but where, what gives you hope in the midst of this?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Uh, you know, I do believe that books change lives. Um, you know, I've experienced that personally myself, and I've heard from so many readers, um, who also, you know, tell me that Even though this is the story of their life, they never understood how all the pieces fit together.
And once you see that bigger picture, that in and of itself is liberating. Yeah. Right? Some of these things, um, and systems, uh, and practices and values lose a lot of their control over you when you have the clarity to see what they are, where they came from, what they were intended to do, and, and, and what their fruits actually are.
Yeah. So I do very much believe in the power of knowledge.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: That said, yeah, it doesn't end in a super, um, optimistic place, and I think that's very appropriate, um, for the moment we find ourselves [00:51:00] in. Because if you look at some of the ingredients that I identify, um, the idea of a closed system is really important, of controlling the knowledge, controlling what counts for knowledge in a particular space.
Do not trust those on the outside. Do not read secular books on psychology, on child rearing, on gender, on science, on anything. Do not trust those voices, right? We have the truth- Yeah ... and the truth is inside, and anybody who challenges, uh, us is clearly on the side of the devil, right? You just see that.
Well, that's one thing when you're looking at how that can play out inside an evangelical subculture. But right now, we're kind of seeing this writ large with algorithms- Mm-hmm ... with media echo chambers, with conspiracy theories, and with so much power being amassed in the hands of so few, um, whose [00:52:00] interest is only ever enhancing their own wealth and power.
And these are the folks who control the media platforms, the social media platforms, the algorithms, and that scares me. 'Cause I can identify historically kind of the, the factors that led to political extremism and radicalization and what makes it so hard to break free, but I see those things accelerating- Right
uh, by the day right now. And I don't know if Just having the right information is enough to break the hold.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: I think not, but... So what hope do I have? Um, okay, there's always the religious hope. We can say that, right? Yeah. Right. That, um, our hope comes from outside of history. It doesn't come from, you know, trusting that, "Oh, we've got this on our own."
As a historian, I'll also say, [00:53:00] and this one's maybe a little less powerful, um, but one thing that is clear from history is, uh, you never know what's right around the corner.
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And so even when things feel most hopeless, you don't know the shocking thing that's gonna happen tomorrow.
Andrew Camp: For sure.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And sometimes that shocking thing, like, makes things so much worse, and it's terrifying.
And then sometimes it just completely re-scrambles everything. Mm-hmm. And so I guess that's, um, that's as, uh, the best I can do f- as a historian, is, uh, nothing is inevitable.
Andrew Camp: Hmm.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And you don't know what the thing is that is going to disrupt what seems inevitable.
Andrew Camp: I love that word. Um, yeah, 'cause we never know what's right around the corner, and- Mm
the resiliency of people, um, is beautiful and shocking. And, um, s- so yeah, to, to believe that there's something better and that, you know, around the table when we come to the Eucharist, that we can dismantle [00:54:00] power and-
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: Yeah ...
Andrew Camp: be united in the centrality of, of who- Yeah ... Jesus is. Yeah. Like, is- Yeah ... is where maybe something can change, or
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: a surprise.
And, and here's the other thing. Um, God doesn't ask us to win-
Andrew Camp: Mm-hmm ...
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: on His behalf.
Andrew Camp: Right.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: All right? And this is something that, um, isn't, you know... y- you won't hear often in Christian nationalist spaces, let me- Yeah ... let me put it that way. Um, and so, you know, we are called to be faithful, not to win.
Andrew Camp: Yeah.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: And, um, there's great comfort in that, I think, that, and I think there's a real sense of hope.
And then the other thing I will say is sometimes, and y- historically speaking, sometimes a very small group of people, uh, rooted in a deep sense of justice and love and calling can actually change the [00:55:00] course of history. Mm. And we've seen that in the past, and there's no reason that that can't also happen in the future.
Um, but yeah, honestly, my, my greatest sense of comfort, um, these days is just to keep reminding myself that we are called to testify to what is true, and we are not, uh, called to win. And as soon as you think that it is on each of us or on us, you know, collectively, however you define your group, that, that it is on us to win this fight or that God needs us to fight God's battles- Yeah
or to protect Christianity or Christian America or Christian civilization, that's not biblical, and it is, um, uh, going to lead to, um, theological error very qu- Yeah ... I mean, it starts in theological error. And, um, historically speaking, looking at world history, uh, it often leads to atrocities- Yeah ... um, done in the name of Christ, in the [00:56:00] name of protecting Christianity, um, which is ultimately anti-Christ.
Andrew Camp: Yeah. So much more I would love to talk with you about, but um, we're running out of time. Um, and so Kristen, if... Really appreciate your work. If people want, obviously, pre-order Live, Laugh, Love, it's coming out in September. Um, but where else could they find you and your work?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez: I'm on most social media platforms @kkdumez, K-K-D-U-M-E-Z, and I write fairly regularly on Substack @DumezConnections.
Andrew Camp: Great, and we'll make sure to include those in the show notes. So if you've enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or sharing it with others. Thanks for joining us on this episode of The Biggest Table, where we explore what it means to be transformed by God's love around the table and through food.
Until next time.