Rubble Reads: Jesus and John Wayne
As someone who grew up in evangelical fundamentalism, Jesus and John Wayne has been a wild listen. Not because it’s shocking, but because of how clearly Kristin Kobes Du Mez connects the dots between culture, politics, and the version of faith many of us were raised with.
The book traces how white evangelicalism built itself around a tough, militant version of masculinity - one that valued power and control more than compassion. Du Mez shows how this mindset shaped families, churches, and eventually national politics.
Hearing it laid out this way has been both validating and uncomfortable. I recognized so many patterns from my own upbringing: the sermons about men as warriors, the pressure on women to submit, the way fear was often disguised as conviction.
For me, this book isn’t just history - it’s personal context. It explains a lot about the messages I absorbed growing up and the dissonance I still feel between the Jesus I met later and the one I was taught to follow as a child.
If you were raised in evangelical culture - or if you’re trying to understand how religion and nationalism got so tightly linked in America - this is worth reading. It’s a clear-eyed look at how we got here and an invitation to think about what still deserves to stand when the rest comes down.
“Evangelicalism did not merely reflect the culture around it; it helped to create it.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Did you grow up in this culture too? What parts of it still echo for you?