JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE SERIES

Personally, I did not realize just how much this militarized theology had so easily been integrated into my own faith experience. You mention that fear leads many Christians to adopt pugilistic and militaristic worldviews. The book points out numerous instances of military terminology and tactics, as well as several individuals themselves, who brought a militaristic mindset into their theology. themвЂќ mentality is rooted in this mindset of fear. A culture of fear stokes that fire to war against the вЂњother.вЂќ Fear of outside influences, fear of communism, fear of Muslims, fear of foreign powers, fear of losing influence, and fear of losing their way of life and the culture they hold tightly to.ДЇear is a catalyst for the militarized thinking that has dominated evangelical culture. One theme throughout the book is how so many white evangelicals live in a constant state of fear. What was a dominant theme that stuck out to you as you were reading the book? At the time of his rise, I simply could not understand why Donald Trump appealed to so many evangelicals The rise of Donald Trump, and the fervent backing of evangelicals to his movement of white grievance politics, chauvinism, and harsh rhetoric so at odds with so much Christian language and religious teachings as the catalyst to my further exploring of the deep roots of Christian nationalism and the evangelical support for a вЂњJohn WayneвЂќ type savior. The second, being Asian American, is that I have always felt a sense of unease at the patriarchal, Republican, and white-dominated culture I have seen fostered in the Church. As I originally come from the West Coast via Corvallis, Oregon, this was a particularly sharp culture shock to me when I moved about 10 years ago and this book helped with identifying and portraying what makes this unique Christian movement or subculture tick. I currently live in the heart of the Bible Belt in Branson, Missouri, a town that is a major tourist destination with the motto вЂњfun, faith, family, and flag. It provides a historical roadmap of how we got to 2016 where evangelicals did not simply choose a man like Trump out of last resort, but rather because he was the ideal person to represent the virile, Christian warrior who вЂњfightsвЂќ for the ideals of Christian nationalism, patriarchy, and cultural dominance. Jesus and John Wayne is a history of the white-majority evangelical movement and its stances towards gender roles, the meshing of militarism into the language of the church, its marriage to Republican/Conservative political ideals, and the power this fusion brought to certain leaders in evangelical circles. For those who may not be familiar with the book, how would you summarize it in a few sentences? Thank you David for your time today in discussing Jesus and John Wayne (J&JW). The conversation below is lightly edited for length.

JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE SERIES

To start our series to move us from the margins into the conversation on gender in the Church, I talked with David Law to discuss his reactions to the New York Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne by Dr. And so, for the next few weeks, Reclaim will be running articles focused on this conversation. While we are all but ignored in this story, we can nonetheless respond to and must engage with these stories and conversations. To that end, we cannot ignore this conversation but must consider how these debates and controversies impact us.

We necessarily and invariably borrow and adapt white evangelical theologies and ideas into our specific AAPI contexts and communities, either directly through denominational directives or indirectly through popular evangelical media.

We attend white-majority or white-led churches, and so, these are not distant debates but conversations happening with and relevant to people we sit with in the pews.Д«ut for those of us who attend Asian-majority churches, our theologies, and practices are also significantly shaped by macro trends and transformations in white evangelical spaces. For some of us, the effects are immediately obvious. As AAPI Christians, our first response may be a collective shrug after all, if weвЂ™re not part of these conversations, why should we care? But what is being discussed and debated by white evangelicals do, in fact, affect our church culture and faith journeys.

Jesus and john wayne