In a thoughtful Twitter response to Carlson, Du Mez persuasively argues that her citation practices are the norm for crossover academic books.

But Jesus and John Wayne is not a comprehensive history of a movement or all of its key figures-it is a story about important dimensions of evangelical culture related to gender and patriotism.Ĭarlson suggests that Du Mez makes unsubstantiated claims and fails to cite “trustworthy sources.” This critique goes to the core of the academic craft, and Du Mez takes it seriously. I had similar impressions reading the book. Sanders notes, for instance, that Du Mez omits large swaths of white evangelicalism and suggests that Du Mez’s narrative assumes a great deal of causation. Lucas believes that Du Mez persuasively “connects the dots.” Carlson and Sanders both find Du Mez’s account less compelling. Jesus and John Wayne’s subtitle makes clear that Du Mez takes us into contentious territory: “How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” She makes a strong argument about the influences of toxic masculinity and unchecked patriotism on white evangelicalism. The symposium included a laudatory review by Sean Michael Lucas and critical ones by Kirsten Sanders and Jamie Carlson. So I was pleasantly surprised by a recent Mere Orthodoxy symposium on Calvin University’s Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s new book, Jesus and John Wayne.

I like less the reviews and tweets about those books, which too often feel like fans cheering on opposing sides of a high-stakes sporting event, one rooting effusively and the other critiquing relentlessly. I like well-written and well-argued controversial books.

Jesus and john wayne responses