⬅️ Book: Jesus and John Wayne - Kristin Kobes Du Mez · Previous: Chapter 14 · Next: Chapter 16 · Source: Attachment (file not included in this release)
Chapter 15: A New High Priest
Chapter Objective
Du Mez explains white evangelical support for Donald Trump as the culmination—not the betrayal—of a half-century pursuit of militant Christian masculinity. Fear, status anxiety, Christian nationalism, and a desire for protection made Trump’s aggression, rule-breaking, sexual bravado, and disregard for political correctness evidence of fitness for many voters. The chapter contrasts this cultural logic with the “lesser of two evils” and economic-anxiety explanations.
The 2016 Field and the Demand for a Protector
- Hillary Clinton’s progressive Methodism, feminism, reproductive-rights position, global outlook, and authority as a woman placed her outside the boundaries of conservative white evangelical legitimacy. Benghazi, email, abortion, and Supreme Court fears cast her as an existential threat. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- Huckabee, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz each appealed to evangelical constituencies. Cruz spoke the movement’s language most fluently and won major leaders’ endorsements, but none performed aggressive masculinity as effectively as Trump.
- Decades of warnings about communism, secular humanism, feminism, Islam, demographic change, LGBTQ rights, and lost religious freedom had formed voters who wanted a champion unconstrained by niceness. Trump promised protection and national restoration in precisely those terms. Attachment (file not included in this release)
Grassroots Trumpism and Leadership Realignment
- Early polls showed Trump leading among Republican-leaning white evangelicals despite skepticism from national leaders. Pastors discovered a “reversal of the shepherd and the flock”: congregants threatened to leave churches whose leaders opposed him.
- Jerry Falwell Jr. and Robert Jeffress became early legitimators. Both invoked the Reagan-over-Carter precedent: voters needed a strong national leader, not a Sunday-school teacher. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- At Liberty University, Trump’s biblical errors mattered less than the promise “to protect Christianity,” rebuild the military, crush ISIS, strengthen borders, and end national weakness.
- Falwell had already described Trump’s revenge ethic as the “tough” side of Christianity. The businessman and the soldier shared command authority because success supposedly required daring, domination, and a capacity for violence.
Trump as the John Wayne Stand-In
- Jeffress argued that government needed a strongman against evildoers, not the Sermon on the Mount. Trump’s womanizing became no more disqualifying than John Wayne’s; both projected white masculine swagger. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- John Wayne’s daughter endorsed Trump at the Wayne museum, explicitly linking him to strength and power missing from contemporary America.
- Russell Moore, Michael Gerson, Denny Burk, and other conservative evangelicals condemned Trump’s racism, misogyny, religious discrimination, cruelty, and dominance. Their appeals to principle failed to overcome the movement’s desire for combative protection.
Elite Accommodation and War-Mentality Ethics
- Dobson called Trump a “baby Christian” who deserved slack. Wayne Grudem reframed him as a morally good choice despite egotism, vindictiveness, marital infidelity, and bombast. Mike Pence repeatedly praised Trump’s “broad-shouldered American strength.” Attachment (file not included in this release)
- Eric Metaxas moved from mockery to declaring Trump the last hope against national oblivion. His biography of Bonhoeffer did not generate an analogy between Trump and authoritarianism; instead he compared Clinton and Trump’s critics to Nazis.
- Metaxas’s explanation—“when you are in a war mentality”—captures the moral transformation. Conventional virtues such as humility and sexual restraint became less important than willingness to stand and fight.
- Phyllis Schlafly’s final endorsement tied Trump to fifty years of anti-feminist, Christian Republican activism and its longing for “John-Wayne-type men.” Attachment (file not included in this release)
The Access Hollywood Test
- Trump’s recorded boast about sexual assault briefly unsettled some supporters. Grudem withdrew his endorsement, then sought to restore it; Reed, Graham, Metaxas, Brody, and Jeffress minimized, universalized, or subordinated the conduct to the threat of Clinton.
- Russell Moore, John Piper, Ed Stetzer, Beth Moore, Jen Hatmaker, Julie Roys, and others rejected the bargain, warning that it compromised Christian witness and betrayed women. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- Exit polls reported 81 percent of white evangelical voters chose Trump. The result showed both that dissent existed and that it failed to redirect the movement.
Competing Explanations for the Vote
- “Fake evangelicals”: Establishment defenders blamed nominal or non-churchgoing Christians. Later surveys showed weekly churchgoers supporting Trump at least as strongly, undercutting that explanation.
- Economic distress: Du Mez cites research finding cultural displacement and threatened group status more predictive than hardship; support was strongest among those who believed whites, Christians, and men were losing standing. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- Lesser evil and the courts: Abortion, religious liberty, and judicial appointments mattered, but support remained strong after Clinton’s defeat and appointments were secure. Anti-Trump evangelicals, not supporters, became institutionally vulnerable.
- Hypocrisy: PRRI found a dramatic reversal in white evangelicals’ willingness to separate private immorality from ethical public leadership. Du Mez accepts the reversal but argues that “strong leader” values remained consistent.
- Militant-masculinity continuity: Trump’s aggression, bravado, vulgarity, and protection rhetoric matched virtues evangelical popular culture had cultivated. For many, he was not merely tolerated; he was what they had been taught to seek. Attachment (file not included in this release)
A Christian-Nationalist Spiritual Biography
- David Brody and Scott Lamb’s The Faith of Donald J. Trump built religious credibility from speculative Scottish warrior and Viking ancestry, “old school” discipline, military-school formation, Patton and MacArthur, and 1950s values.
- Their “John Wayne America” ideal fused machismo, provision, productive building, sacrifice, courage, and absolute confidence in national righteousness. Attachment (file not included in this release)
- The chapter’s concluding claim is explicit: Trump became the high priest of an evangelical cult of masculinity because he embodied a mythic protector who would restore a Christian past through power unrestrained by ordinary democratic or Christian virtue.
Key Concepts
- Ultimate fighting champion: A leader chosen to violate norms and defeat enemies on behalf of a fearful constituency.
- Shepherd-flock reversal: Grassroots political allegiance forcing religious leaders to accommodate their followers rather than direct them.
- Tough Christianity: A selective faith that assigns forgiveness and gentleness to private discipleship while giving domination and revenge to public leadership.
- War-mentality ethics: Moral reasoning in which emergency suspends ordinary character standards and makes combativeness the decisive virtue.
- Evangelical gerrymandering: Redefining “real evangelical” after an unwelcome result so the movement avoids self-examination.
- Status threat: Anxiety among historically dominant groups that cultural, racial, religious, or gender hierarchy is slipping away.
- Evangelical cult of masculinity: Du Mez’s name for the religious-political system that sacralizes militant male power and culminates in Trump’s authority.
Questions for Reflection
- Why did Trump outperform candidates who spoke evangelical theology and policy more fluently?
- What changed when grassroots enthusiasm forced religious elites to reverse or soften their judgments?
- Which evidence best supports—and which complicates—Du Mez’s claim that support reflected status threat more than economic distress?
- Did the Access Hollywood response represent hypocrisy, consistent militant-masculinity values, or both?
- How does the “John Wayne America” myth transform character flaws into qualifications for leadership?
Citations and References
Author’s complete endnotes
Chapter 15 endnotes 1–44: Attachment (file not included in this release) · Attachment (file not included in this release) · Attachment (file not included in this release).
- Candidates and evangelical fear (notes 1–9): campaign reporting, candidate statements, polling, and political analysis.
- Falwell, Jeffress, and John Wayne (notes 10–19): Liberty and Dordt appearances, endorsements, interviews, and John Wayne museum reporting.
- Anti-Trump dissent and elite accommodation (notes 20–28): Russell Moore, Michael Gerson, Wayne Grudem, Mike Pence, Eric Metaxas, and Phyllis Schlafly.
- The tape, election, and explanations (notes 29–39): public statements, exit polls, PRRI and Pew surveys, and political-science studies of economic and status anxiety.
- Trump’s evangelical biography (notes 40–44): David Brody and Scott Lamb, Michele Bachmann, and PRRI data on 1950s nostalgia.