Book Review: Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The week of the 2016 election, I noticed an alarming statistic. Exit polling indicated that over 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. How could the vast majority of white Evangelicals turn out for a candidate with a documented history of marital infidelity, divorce, and misogyny?

As Kristin Kobes Du Mez explains in her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2020), the results of the 2016 election were readily predictable. Du Mez argues convincingly that America's Christian Right has long compromised its values and integrity in seeking to achieve and consolidate power. Trump's electoral win was simply the latest milestone in the Christian Right's decades-long quest for cultural power.

But this is not a book about the 2016 election, or Donald Trump. To Du Mez, these are symptoms, not causes. Du Mez's narrative traces the origins of the Christian Right all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt. But the book largely deals with Vietnam and the Cold War, and how they gave rise to a patriarchal, militant, and hardline conservative American Christian movement. The resentment that captured the White House for Trump largely emerged in response to the military defeats and cultural compromises of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

The scope of the narrative is impressive. Du Mez addresses over 100 years of American political and religious history, tracing compromises and clashes that formed the political juggernaut that the Christian Right has become. At the core of the narrative are detailed profiles of key figures who may be unfamiliar to those who have not explicitly studied this history: Phyllis Schlafly, Tim LaHaye, and Pat Robertson, among many others.

Stylistically, the book is likely to appeal to progressive Christians, while repelling white Evangelicals who most need to understand this history. Du Mez's frequent use of quotation marks, though perhaps grammatically accurate, implies a tone of condescension towards evangelical "leaders," "churches," and "movements." While the author's critiques are directed towards the leaders of the conservative Christian movement, the book at times reads like a polemic, with little empathy towards individuals and families compelled or coerced by political opportunists like Jerry Fallwell Jr.

The book makes clear that America's Christian history could have traveled a different path. The 1990s saw the emergence of movements like Promise Keepers, organizations that countered the Right's militant political tendencies with a call to approach relationships with compassion and even tenderness. Pivoting away from militarism, Promise Keepers adopted athletics as the prime metaphor for faithful Christian living. In the 1990s, then, white Evangelicals could have chosen for its values family, faith, and football instead of militant masculinity. Regrettably, hardline conservative pastors like Mark Driscoll emerged to push the objectives of the movement back towards growth, power, and cultural influence.

Nevertheless, these examples remind us that there is nothing inevitable about the trajectory of Christianity in America. While 2016 and 2020 represent a nadir in our nation's religious history, we have the choice to travel a different way. The expansion of Trumpism and Christian Nationalism may be predictable, but its victory is hardly inevitable.

If we are to choose a different way, we need to know our history. Progressives and conservatives alike would do well to carefully read "Jesus and John Wayne," to know the facts and to study the ideas of the movement's leaders. It is only by doing so that we might become more capable at differentiating the call of God from the unvarnished pursuit of relevance.

The emerging spiritual crisis: What is church even for anymore?

Has digital ministry generated an unintended spiritual crisis?

With a few taps of a button, I can watch the worship live stream of seemingly any church in the world. I can download podcasts featuring the most thoughtful and articulate theologians of our time. I can watch shows and series that prompt me to contemplate life's biggest questions. I can even chat or Zoom with a coach, mentor, or spiritual director who can help me to engage the questions unique to my faith journey.

As the life of faith becomes more accessible through digital media, some will inevitably ask the question: what is church even for anymore?

If I can derive the benefits of Chrisitan community with the convenience of apps, video, and podcasts, why bother committing to a church? If I can learn to live a full Christian life from influencers on my social media feed, why deal with the encumberments of membership? If I can read and explore the scriptures through a screen, why travel somewhere else to listen to a preacher? Why not just go it alone?

Searching for God with Google: Searches for the question "What is the Bible" have more than quadrupled since 2004.

These are difficult, if not impossible questions, for today's faith leader to address. So perhaps the best way for churches to address such a question is to avoid arriving at this point at all.

How, exactly, do we do that?

For starters, imagine that our churches, regardless of denomination or tradition, were divided into two broad categories: prescribing churches, and discerning churches.

A prescribing church is concerned with pre-empting real and relevant situations. Often drawing upon the scriptures, but at times integrating tradition, theology, and reason, a prescribing church concerns itself with proclaiming what the faithful ought to do under highly specific conditions. A prescribing church has detailed, yet sometimes nuanced, perspectives on a catalog of cultural questions and challenges: how do I lead my business? How do I act as a Christian father? What should I donate to the church each month? While a prescribing church is attuned to contemporary realities, its focus is on preparation: equipping members with a clear Christian playbook.

A discerning church is concerned with contemplation and action amidst present-day reality. Integrating spiritual practices of prayer and meditation along with the scriptures, tradition, and theology, a discerning church learns to consistently ask key questions. What is God up to in our world? And how are we called to be a part of God's work? A discerning church is Spirit-led and situationally aware. When encountering a new situation or challenge, the discerning church delves into its practices to interpret how to be the hands and feet of God in the world. A discerning church is thus concerned with habit and practice: equipping members with a versatile toolkit, but not necessarily a blueprint or instructional manual.

Searching apart from the church: The steady decline of church-related Google searches, 2004-present.

Prescribing and discerning churches exist in all denominations and across the ideological spectrum. It's just as likely to be a discerning conservative evangelical church as it is to be a prescribing liberal mainline congregation. And both approaches to Christian community are faithful responses to the Great Comission. It is possible to make disciples with playbooks just as it is possible to be the hands and feet of Christ with tool kits.

The advantage of the discerning church, then, is that it is less easily replaced by digital media. The teachings of the prescribing church are easily outsourced to savvy media developers. But there's no "3 Steps to Faithful Living" blog post that can substitute for a discerning spiritual community. There's no online course that can provide the sense of communal grounding in which practices are explored.

The advantage of the discerning church is that it provides a space for grappling with questions that defy easy answers. It provides practices in which we can hear God speaking a word of grace into our world. And in an age of Instagram Influencers and self-aggrandizing social media, the discerning church provides a community through which we can differentiate God's call from our own ego and self-interest.

What is church even for anymore? It's not a place to learn exactly how to live in highly specific situations. It's not a place we go to get the Biblical answer or the Christian perspective. Your podcast feed can provide that for you, without taking away your Sunday morning.

Rather, church is a place to discern what your Christian identity means in an ever-changing world. It is a place to hear the voice of God - a voice that comes to us not as an answer, but as a question, not as a lecture, but as an invitation. In a world of ceaseless change, it is time for church leaders to stop prescribing. It is time instead to initiate a communal journey of discernment.

Hybrid ministry: How to design a multi-site, multi-platform worship service

The most demanding role in any congregation may be that of the worship planner. Each week, the worship planner integrates unchanging aspects of the liturgy with a constantly changing and accelerating world, a task that was demanding enough before our churches went online.

Today, the worship planner is tasked not just with crafting a liturgy, but with balancing the needs of both in-person and online worship attendees. While there are many aspects of digital worship for the planning team to consider, three are particularly important for a multi-platform worship service attended simultaneously by online and in-person worshippers.

A multi-platform, hybrid service requires language that welcomes the online and in-person worshipper. The low-tech requirement of inclusive language is the easiest aspect of hybrid worship. Yet it is also the most critical. Without inclusive language, the online attendee will always feel like a second-tier attendee, one who has a back-row seat to an event taking place elsewhere. Each component of the liturgy provides an opportunity to extend hospitality to the virtual worship attendee. Everything from the greeting to the sermon to the prayers and announcements could include a word of acknowledgment and affirmation for those in physical and virtual space.

An inclusive greeting reminds all who are gathered that we are the church, wherever we find ourselves for the service. Inclusive and hospitable announcements include directions for connecting physically and virtually (Zoom links, URLs, QR codes, etc) to each aspect of the church's life together. Inclusive preaching and prayers specifically lift up the concerns of those who are gathered online, inviting virtual attendees to contribute prayer petitions.

The worship planner need not mention "digital" or "hybrid" in each piece of the liturgy. But the service necessitates a consistent thread of hospitable language. Each week, the worship planner should highlight where these threads will be most visible.

Hybrid worship also requires the creative use of transitional space. An in-person liturgy includes moments of stillness, waiting, and musical reflection. We pass the plates as we listen to special music. We process to the table for the Eucharist. In some denominations and traditions, we sit in revered silence until the liturgy begins. These moments may or may not transfer well to an online worship experience. But if we are seeking to do hybrid worship, where we build bridges between virtual and physical, we must address what these moments look like online.

The worship planner isn't so much tasked with eliminating these moments, so much as they are called to think about what they look like in cyberspace. Perhaps during the Eucharist, online attendees view a slideshow of images from the church's life together. Or during the offering, virtual worshippers could watch a video about the impact of tithes and offerings on the church's work in the community. Each week, the worship planner asks the question of what the transitional aspects of worship ought to look like online. Then, the planner considers how to adapt just one of these transitions to the needs and expectations of online worship.

Communion at the (pre-Covid) Episcopal National Cathedral. The YouTube stream includes beautiful shots of the cathedral's windows as music plays.

Lastly, a multi-platform, multi-site worship requires some meaningful involvement from the virtual body of Christ. If those who worship online are only offered the opportunity to passively watch a live stream, then they cannot contribute to the work of the people. Failing to involve online attendees creates a second-tier virtual worship experience. Those gathered face-to-face join together for liturgy, or the work of the people. Those gathered online sit and watch.

When planning virtual worship leadership, start with small acts of involvement before designing more complex leadership roles. Simple involvement might resemble a prayer request submitted via SMS or social messaging, or an invitation to respond to the sermon via Facebook or YouTube comments. Once the worship planner establishes a pattern of virtual involvement, they might create opportunities for virtual worship leadership roles: lectors, cantors, presiding ministers, even preachers. Not every service needs a lector who records their reading offsite, perhaps at a location that complements the reading. Not every Sunday needs the prayers of the people read via Zoom. Still, the extent to which the worship planner creates opportunities for involvement is the extent to which worship becomes a truly hybrid experience.

The questions confronting today's worship planner are seemingly innumerable. There are questions of resourcing and staffing, software and hardware, production and distribution. In such a chaotic environment, one might lose focus on the art of liturgical development. By prioritizing inclusivity, transitional space, and involvement each week, today's worship planner can maintain a focus on liturgy - while leading through a period of acceleration and re-invention.