nawersand.blogg.se - Jesus and john wayne the arenos

#JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE THE ARENOS HOW TO#
#JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE THE ARENOS SERIES#

I think that last option is the healthiest, even if it hurts.

Agree whole-heartedly as they leave the evangelical world for good.

Dismiss it as an elitist, feminist rant and yet another threat to “our way of life.”.

#JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE THE ARENOS HOW TO#

How to respond?Ĭhristians have responded to Jesus and John Wayne in several ways. Still, J&JW should bother us because the elements of the church presented here don’t look much like Jesus - and it’s obvious to everyone except those caught up in them. Taken this way, the book bothers me less because it’s a cautionary tale we can learn from. They try to learn how we got here from there, and what it means. Historians focus on trends, movements, leaders and watershed moments. To be fair, a complete picture is not what the author set out to paint. (This is why we need to be telling those stories, by the way.) The book doesn’t give much time to millions of transformed lives, gospel mission both local and global … and the much longer list of pastors and leaders who did not abuse their positions but served their congregations faithfully and humbly. An unfamiliar reader would be left with the opinion that evangelical churches are brimming with predators, misogynists and power-hungry jerks. This is not a complete picture of evangelical America, today or ever. It gets even darker toward the end, as she builds a long list of spiritual and sexual abuses committed by noteworthy evangelical leaders - and in which the victims, mostly women, were often vilified. She does connect dots to build a case that much of American evangelical culture is far more cultural than Christian. She doesn’t condemn it all, though it’s possible to read the book that way.

Du Mez proceeds through a litany of evangelical strongholds - megachurches, Focus on the Family, the Left Behind books, Promise Keepers, militant masculinity, Christian bookstores, the purity culture, celebrity pastors and yes, John Wayne and his imitators. But that doesn’t render her research untrue, or less relevant.

Du Mez writes with a definite point of view that you or I may not always like. The book traces the entanglement of politics, culture and evangelical Christianity over the past century. It’s important to know that J&JW is not a memoir it’s an academically researched thesis by a historian who happens to be a Christian and who knows her subject deeply. The author of Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, is a history professor at Calvin University, which is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church. Maybe it’s worth listening to voices trying to sort out what has happened. Accurate or not, those sentiments undeniably exist, and they are keeping people from Jesus - people I love and people you love. Within our families and our church family, as in almost every family these days, there’s disagreement and tension. High on their list of reasons: An hour or two per week in church can’t compete with the discipling people receive from cable news and social media.Īt least a couple of the things I just mentioned probably raised your blood pressure a little.

Pastors are leaving their profession in high numbers, profoundly discouraged.

Other committed Christians are leaving evangelical churches, or keeping their distance for now, because they say their church has been hijacked by political beliefs and allegiances that look nothing like Jesus.

People whom I love dearly have no interest in Christianity because of what they perceive among believers: anger, fear, hypocrisy and willful disregard of verifiable truth.

#JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE THE ARENOS SERIES#

Our just-concluded sermon series about fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control - has helped me to consider those nine characteristics and then hold a mirror not only to my own life, but also to American evangelical church culture.

When was the last time that happened? When chances are good that I’ll be asked about this book, I’d like to have something to say.

The book became a best-seller, read and talked about by Christians and non-Christians alike.

Here’s why I chose to read it this summer: I knew it might take me to a dark place, and 2020 was already dark enough. I didn’t want to read Jesus and John Wayne last year.