Like John Wayne, the heroes who best embodied militant Christian masculinity were those unencumbered

by real traditional Christian values and virtues.

In this way, militant Christian masculinity linked religious leaders and secular

conservatism helping to secure an alliance with profound political ramifications.

For many evangelicals, these militant heroes would come to define not only Christian manhood, but Christianity

itself. So those are the words of Kristen Cobes-Dumay, who is a professor of history and

gender studies at Calvin University. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame, and her research

focuses on the intersection

of gender, religion, and politics, which has probably kept her quite busy over the last couple

years.

She has written for the Washington Post, NBC News, Religion, News, Service, Christianity

Today and the Daily Beast, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and BBC, amongst countless other outlets.

So her book, Jesus and John Wayne, which is in itself just a wildly fascinating title,

is one of the reasons why I wanted to have her on the show.

I have been wanting to have a conversation about the sort of intersection between masculinity, fundamental Christianity, or evangelical

Christianity, and politics. Because over the last several years, I have noticed this sort

of quagmire, this enigma that has come up in our culture, that for a long time, I was

trying to digest. I really didn't

understand it. And as a man who works with men, I've worked with thousands and thousands and

thousands of men now. There was, you know, a sort of type of man that I really had a tough

time understanding. And it was the man who had, who sort of taken Jesus Christ

and turned him into this, what Kristen calls the warrior Christ. You know, the, the version of

...