Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Jesus and Ronald Reagan

Jesus and Ronald Reagan

Last updated on: May 18, 2022 at 7:43 am by Roger E. Olson

Jesus and Ronald Reagan 2022-05-18T07:43:42-05:00 Roger E. Olson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

*Why no picture: I have tried to find a picture of Ronald Reagan that would fit here but none will be allowed due to limitations of size (number of pixels).*

*Note: If you comment, do not include any links or photos. Also, please keep it calm. Thank you.*

*Note: Kristin du Mez is annoyed that some men are reviewing her book without reading it—as she should be. But, as I have here before, with other books, I am reviewing it as I read it. I earlier responded to an interview with Du Mez, but I did not there say I was responding to the book. My immediately preceding post, “Jesus and Roy Rogers,” was the beginning of my review series. What follows here is the second part of the review and I am reading the book.*

I am continuing a series about the background to white American evangelicals’ love affair with Donald Trump and the Trumpist Republican Party using Kristin Kobe Du Mez’s book “Jesus and John Wayne.” However, you don’t have to read the book to understand what I say here and in this series generally. However, it would help. I highly recommend a critical reading of the book. It is an insightful, if somewhat biased (IMHO), perspective on the subject.

The first post in this series was the most recent one: “Jesus and Roy Rogers.” You might want to begin by reading that one. Here I am responding to Chapter Two: “John Wayne Will Save Your Ass.” (That’s part of a quote; the longer version is “Jesus will save your soul, but John Wayne will save your ass.”)

In Chapter Two Du Mez (or is it Kobe Du Mez?) tells her story, based on her research, of white American evangelicalism and politics in the 1950s through the 1980s. I’m sure there is more of the story yet to come in the book.

Du Mez knows the facts, the events, from her research; I lived through the events she recounts as facts. I won’t quarrel with her facts. All I want to say is that it is one thing to study them and something else to live through them.

One of my earliest memories is of seeing President Eisenhower. My family and I were watching a parade through downtown—from the third floor of a large parking garage. President and Mrs. Eisenhower rode in an open car below us. I could tell that my parents were excited. I was only about seven or eight, so I didn’t understand why.

My parents and probably most of our church members (like most white American evangelicals) supported Nixon in all of the elections in which he ran for president. They also supported Goldwater versus Johnson. Why? Du Mez thinks white American evangelicals’ support for Goldwater and Nixon and later Reagan had something to do with John Wayne—indirectly, of course. That is, it had something to do with the rise of militant masculinity as a guiding norm among white American evangelicals.

It’s worth considering, although it doesn’t explain why most white American evangelicals supported Jimmy Carter. She acknowledges that but skims over it. To me, the turn away from Carter to Reagan was an enormous “sea change” in white American evangelicals’ political posture. It’s possible that Carter was perceived as too soft on Iran or just too soft. Who can say for sure?

Frankly, this chapter embarrassed me. Reading it was like reading someone writing about my family and dragging all the skeletons out of our family closet. I won’t deny for a moment that something changed in white American evangelicalism during the time period under consideration. I felt it. Whatever it was, for me, it went too far—especially when my fellow evangelicals supported Reagan against Carter. By that time I was in seminary and joining what Du Mez (and others) call “the evangelical left.” I don’t think any of us were then or are now really “leftists” in a full ideological sense. Our political posture, however, leaned more toward the socialist side than the unfettered capitalist side and we saw enemies besides communism and “the evil empire” of the Soviet Union.

I will save my comments about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the New Religious Right tribe for later. Du Mez hasn’t really gotten there yet.

Back to the 1960s. We, white American evangelicals, like many others, were terrified of communism. I well remember in the late 1950s and into the 1960s having nuclear “fall out” drills in schools and learning where the nearest fall out shelters were located. We half expected a nuclear war with the Soviet Union at any time. Du Mez acknowledges that terror but I don’t think she quite understands what it was like and why so many Americans became petrified about the Soviet Union and China. As the terror grew, many of us looked for a leader who would really stand up to the communists. Jimmy Carter just didn’t seem like that guy. (However, I voted for him—against Reagan.)

Somehow or other, our anti-communism became blended with our evangelicalism and I think that is what led to white American nationalism even among evangelicals. Alongside that was our horror at the sexual revolution of the 1960s and other rapid changes taking place in American culture, society, and the world generally.

I do not recall that in “my evangelicalism” John Wayne held any special place of honor or respect. But Ronald Reagan did. Maybe there was some connection, but the 1970s and 1980s evangelicals I knew and rubbed shoulders with did not consider John Wayne anyone special. Most of them did consider Ronald Reagan someone special. And that because he stood up to “the evil empire.”

I know the story Du Mez tells very well, but her book is showing me a somewhat different angle on it—the angle that toxic, militant masculinity played a bigger role in the changes I experienced than I thought. I am pondering that as I read.

After about 1980 I could no longer consider myself “at one” with the majority of white Americans who called themselves evangelicals. When I taught at Bethel College and Seminary (now Bethel University) in Minnesota from 1984 to 1999 I functioned as something of a subversive—doing my best, without risking getting fired, to undermine students’ prejudices. I probably didn’t do a very good job of that because I really didn’t want to rock the boat too much; I saw what happened when my friend and colleague Greg Boyd did that (unintentionally). And there were others before him.

My evangelical heroes during the 1980s and 1990s were Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Tom Skinner, and Don Dayton. Don did his best to teach white American evangelicals about their spiritual ancestors in the 19th century who were in the forefront of social reforms. (See his book Discovering an Evangelical Heritage.) But I “adopted” other heroes who weren’t identified by themselves or others as evangelicals—Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Juergen Moltmann, Gustavo Gutierrez, Justo Gonzalez, Elaine Starkey, and, yes, even James Cone (although critically). I smuggled liberation theology into my classes and eventually taught elective seminars on the subject, especially at Truett Seminary. All through that time I lobbied in favor of egalitarianism, against racism, and for a modified kind of socialism. In presidential primaries I voted for Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson and other left-wing candidates. Later I voted for Ralph Nader for president.

All that means I am NOT a white American evangelical, right? Some would say “Right!” And they would say it very loudly. I wonder what Du Mez would say?

Through all that time I served on the editorial board of “Christianity Today” and wrote numerous articles for CT (and also for “Christian Century!”) I served as chief editor of “Christian Scholar’s Review” and wrote books about evangelical theology published by leading evangelical publishers. I became part of the white American “evangelical establishment,” I guess.

The story Du Mez tells grieves me deeply because, even if I don’t entirely agree with her main thesis, I agree with her argument that sometime, somehow during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s white American evangelicalism went off the rails—if by “evangelicalism” we mean a movement.

I have argued here, and I wish Du Mez and others like her would “get it,” that there is a difference between the evangelical ethos and any evangelical movement. When I identify as evangelical I mean that I seek to embody and live according to the evangelical ethos, but I do not mean I identify with any particular evangelical movement. I once did, but it left me more than I left it.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 15, 2022

Jesus and Roy Rogers

Next Post

May 20, 2022 Jesus and the 20 Percent

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In Revelation, what is the correct sequence of events in the End Times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, false prophet rises from earth, mark of the beast given False prophet rises, dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, mark of the beast given Mark of the beast given, dragon cast to earth, beast rises, false prophet rises Beast rises from sea, dragon cast to earth, mark of the beast given, false prophet rises