Jesus and John Wayne How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

As a young man, Roosevelt had been ridiculed for his high voice, tight pants and fancy clothing, and derided as a weakling and a pumpkin lily. But Roosevelt wanted power, determined to reinvent himself.

He went west, rechristening himself the cowboy of the Dakotas. It was on the frontier that a new masculinity would be forged, a place where white men brought order to savagery, where men served as armed protectors and providers, where violence achieved a greater good.

If the Wild West could mold the exquisite Mr. Roosevelt into a rugged, masculine specimen, perhaps it could do the same for American manhood generally.

When the war came to a close, no amount of patriotism could obscure the fact that it had been fought at great cost and with little apparent gain. Roosevelt's model of masculinity had been found wanting.

The war, it seemed, had presented Americans with the horror of having myths about blood and fire and mutilation and blindness come true.

As a young man, Roosevelt had been ridiculed for his high voice, tight pants and fancy clothing, and derided as a weakling and a pumpkin lily.

But Roosevelt wanted power, determined to reinvent himself. He went west, rechristening himself the cowboy of the Dakotas.

It was on the frontier that a new masculinity would be forged, a place where white men brought order to savagery, where men served as armed protectors and providers, where violence achieved a greater good.

If the Wild West could mold the exquisite Mr. Roosevelt into a rugged, masculine specimen, perhaps it could do the same for American manhood generally.

When the war came to a close, no amount of patriotism could obscure the fact that it had been fought at great cost and with little apparent gain.

One thing that your listeners may not be aware of, at least if they don't travel in the evangelical world, there's an insight from a very good historian at Calvin University that I think has been on the podcast before Kristen DeMay.

And she wrote a book called Jesus and John Wayne.

And so she went through and she analyzed, studied the evangelical movement throughout the 20th century.

And basically what she discovers is what she argues is that in many ways Donald Trump was a personification of something that they were looking for, sort of perfect fighting machine.

And I think the answer is the grievances and resentments and anger or just pulsating on the American right.