What happened at McLean Bible Church is happening all over the evangelical world. For his part, Platt, speaking to his congregation, described an email that was circulated claiming, “MBC is no longer McLean Bible Church, that it’s now Melanin Bible Church.” Platt, who is theologically conservative, had been accused in the months before the vote by a small but zealous group within his church of “wokeness” and being “ left of center,” of pushing a “social justice” agenda and promoting critical race theory, and of attempting to “purge conservative members.” A Facebook page and a right-wing website have targeted Platt and his leadership. Members of the church filed a lawsuit, claiming that the conduct of the election violated the church’s constitution.
In a second vote on July 18, all three nominees cleared the threshold. Platt said church members had been misled, having been told, among other things, that the three individuals nominated to be elders would advocate selling the church building to Muslims, who would convert it into a mosque. “A small group of people, inside and outside this church, coordinated a divisive effort to use disinformation in order to persuade others to vote these men down as part of a broader effort to take control of this church,” David Platt, a 43-year-old minister at McLean Bible Church and a best-selling author, charged in a July 4 sermon. A trio of elders didn’t receive 75 percent of the vote, the threshold necessary to be installed. But this summer, at an influential megachurch in Northern Virginia, something went badly wrong. I was left unsatisfied and unconvinced - though I think there are some important parts to this book, and some of what du Mez says is correct.T he election of the elders of an evangelical church is usually an uncontroversial, even unifying event. In the introduction and conclusion she notes that what she says would not be universally true for evangelicals (given opposition to, e.g., war and patriarchy internal to evangelicalism) but her book essentially ignores this in every other chapter. du Mez ignores counterexamples and differences internal to evangelicalism that would complicate her analysis. In particular, du Mez wants to make a broad generalization about evangelicalism, and at the end of the book I found myself frustrated by those generalizations. But examples simply aren't arguments, and it is her arguments that seem to be lacking.
du Mez is certainly correct that there is a large, powerful strange of white evangelicalism that emphasizes masculinity and patriarchy. After listening to this audiobook, I'm not convinced. The substitle of this book implies that white evangelicals corrupted the Christian faith and lead to severe political consequences. Seems to be missing support for key conclusions
Evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes - mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of "Christian America." Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.Ī much-needed reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with enduring consequences for all of us. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism. How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate's staunchest supporters? These are among the questions acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John Wayne, which explains how white evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment.