Invitation to a private group discussion of Live, Laugh, Love by Kristin Kobe Du Mez

Faith & Science Conversation
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Please read and message me, if you are interested in participating in this book discussion.

“This was supposed to be the fun book.”

From Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made is the latest book by Kristin Kobe Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne.

" Opening in the late nineteenth century, Live Laugh Love traces how New Thought, a movement that championed the power of the mind to shape reality, combined with holiness evangelicalism to create the world inhabited by millions of Christian women. Du Mez introduces us to religious innovators who taught that positivity was the secret to spiritual and material success and reveals how they worked through consumer culture: mommy blogs and romance novels, Hobby Lobby aisles and pastel-scripted wall art. Marketed as empowerment, these products and slogans elevate vulnerability and domesticity, and in the process draw women into systems prone to manipulation and abuse. In this brilliant recasting of modern American Christianity, Du Mez unearths the hidden origins of our reactionary moment."
( from: Kristindumez.com )

This discussion will take place in a private thread according to a schedule, giving about 2 weeks per major section of the book. The reading and discussion schedule will be as follows:

October 3: We will discuss the introduction of the book and some of our own experiences, observations, concerns related to the world of white (American) Christian women as described by Du Mez. We will also discuss Du Mez’s description of this “world”, including the degree to which our own experiences and observations agree with or differ from her description.

October 10: We will begin discussion of Part 1 (Chapters 1-4) .

October 24: We will begin discussion of Part 2A(Chapters 5-7).

November 7: We will begin discussion of Part 2B (Chapters 8-11).

November 21: We will begin discussion of Part 3 (Chapters 12-Conclusion).

December 5: We will try to wrap up thoughts on the book.

Because the topic is specific to women in the church, and the discussion group is of mixed geners, there are a few ground rules.

Although there are individuals discussed in this book who are worthy of criticism, blanket statements about women or men are not welcome. We can talk about specific individuals, trends, patterns and the like.

This discussion is not a place for promoting ANY gender stereotypes or roles, even those dictated by some churches or theologies. Attempts to employ or enforce them will not be tolerated.

Women will not, on the basis of their gender, have to fight for the right to participate or to speak as authoritative voices. If anyone is interested in pushing a counter agenda, this is not the discussion group for them.

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Thanks for the link. Will read soon. Don’t mind me asking but this forum feels less Christian than it appears to be. Is this forum open for all faiths?

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Keep me posted.

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Yes, but it is a Christian forum with the purpose being how faith integrates science in various aspects of life, Please read the guidelines under the hamburger menu at the top right of the page for details.While we welcome comments from other faiths, it is not a place to attack Christian belief, and we the moderators will not hesitate to terminate those who fail to follow the guidelines. We give some grace, but unlike God, our grace is limited.

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You will have to explain what you mean by this.

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It is not very hospitable to (American) evangelical Christians at times.

Vinnie

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Do you mean the forum or the book, @Vinnie ?

I have always been right smack dab in the middle of evangelical American Christianity, which is quite broad. I also understand that evangelical American Christianity does not represent all of Christianity.

I don’t find the forum inhospitible to evangelism, and I welcome Du Mez’s valid, criticisms focused on problems within it. They need to be addressed.

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I thought @LightStorm was talking talking about the forum so I referenced that. I can’t comment on the book, having not read it. Curiosity did cause me to look into:

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

And by look into I only mean reading a reddit thread or two. One had a review by Wiley and a critique of that review in the comments down below.

I’m sure she highlights some genuine problems that deserve addressing within conservative evangelicalism but that title choice alone will keep me away. I don’t mind it not being very impassioned but “white” has become the liberal whipping boy epithet the last decade. Though the book you are having a private discussion on looks more interesting to me than the first. At any rate I think the name is Kristin not Kristen.

Vinnie

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A randomly selected review:
https://scribe.uccs.edu/jesus-and-john-wayne-book-exposes-evangelical-history/

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This ain’t my cup of tea and I’m not overly interested in tying up this thread. I was just affirming what I thought one poster was saying about this forum not feeling very Christian. I hope a book club is started and everyone who participates in it learns something from it.

But that review looks intellectually grotesque to me.

The book, published in 2020, opens with a detailed portrayal of how evangelicals are no longer characterized by their faith, but rather by their consumer culture that sells a variety of Christian-related products.

Painting with an excessively wide brush, much?

I’d be more interested in how the author would know how many evangelicals there were, what were her criteria for inclusion, how the groups were parsed, how she knows the nuance of what they believe, how she controls for other factors and how we deal with non-white examples of the same phenomenon. Without method, I would just see polemic.

The review also mentions this:

Starting with Wayne, Kobes Du Mez exposes the hypocrisy of this new culture in detailing the acceptance of the twice-divorced and thrice-married actor, which would traditionally deny the actor a space on moral ground.

I’ve seen her called out for this anachronism by other reviewers. The reality is the media did not highlight and go out of its way to feature the private lives of celebrities during the John Wayne era. There wasnt a show Keeping up with the Waynes. There is no hypocrisy because it was his persona on screen they were beholden to. I doubt many Christians were aware of his private life. And it’s certainly not difficult to find a plethora of positive aspects to his character nor to see how that might have helped countless men serve their country in the times of major wars.

I know it’s popular in some circles to bash and see as the root of all evil: whites, cisgender men and conservative Christians. Fight the patriarchy but certainly not Muslims though. We can’t say anything bad about them. By virtue of being minority in America they are automatically peaches and cream. But heaven forbid you are all three (a white cisgender male and Christian). Your voice couldn’t possibly even matter because you couldn’t possibly understand all the suffering your privileged, white, cisgendered male Christian nature has caused and the lives you’ve been ruining and destroying on a daily basis by merely existing.

Maybe this author and these books rise above that, but the reviews and titles are not leading me in that direction. What I do expect is that the author will raise some very good points and highlight some very specific abuses that are going to make us all rightfully angry. But the overall work looks more ideological than historical.

Vinnie

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Thanks. I’ll fixed the spelling. I think I got all the errors. I’ll check again.

I’m puzzled, though, in what ways you find the forum inhospitible to American evangelicals.

Regarding Du Mez’s books, I understand you concern about the term “white,” although I think criticism is well placed and deserved. A further discussion of the topic would probably require a private group setting.

I believe she does.

I appreciate your concern for “broad brush.” Being squarely in the camp she describes, I’ve looked around since I was a teen in the '80s wondering what the heck was going on, and I haven’t stopped.

Du Mez describes many different strands of influence I’ve observed in churches I’ve attended over many years. Individual interest in those influences varies among individuals and congregations, but over the long haul those influences have affected wider congregations and wider “evangelical culture.” In her books, Du Mez does focus on the specific influences, rather than saying that they describe the whole, but they have affected the whole, or nearly the whole. And a lot. She writes as a historian, though, and not a sociologist. So, her books lack data tables.

I don’t think hers is the only valuable analysis of what has been going on in American evangelicalism, but it describes much of what I have seen, am seeing, and does it very well. Whitehead and Perry’s Taking American Back for God (lots of data tables) and James Davidson Hunter’s much older Culture Wars among others provide strong backing for Du Mez’s concerns.

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