Corruption and Corrosion

the first time. Kristin Dumay, who is the author of the book Jesus and John Wayne, How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation in our supersize in depth conversation that Kristin and I have, we talk about the rise of the far right and how it has connected with and grown deep roots inside of the white evangelical Christian movement, and what it means to also have this skewed or I would say, a corrupted, corroded version of religion layered on top of misogyny, layered on top

of anti LGBT sentiments, layered on top of white supremacy, and really understand the core tenants of this I will use air quotes quote unquote faith and how it has begun to corrode and erode our sense of values around equity and justice for all. And you know what, Kristen's book, which came out in twenty twenty and is accessible everywhere, So if you have not gotten an opportunity to read it.

This is my full throated endorsement of that book. Is you know, I am not interested in any of kind of the bullshit, you know, segments that have been done since Trump came onto the political scene. Let me get inside of the hump voters mind and all of those things. I think that that's bullshit. We know that they're racist,

we know that they're misogynist. However, what I do think is interesting is how faith has become a recurring player, a recurring actor in uprisings in this country that come at the hands of violent white Americans, from the KKK to the Tea Party to now Trumpism and before right, faith quote unquote has been a large part of creating oppression,

creating and sustaining patriarchy, and upholding white supremacy. And so if we understand what drives people to be connected to faith in that way, then maybe we can figure out how to counter message. Right. This is not about oh, I don't want to hurt your feeling. It's that I want to understand why you choose to be a part of a religion that is based in suppression, What does it offer to you? And so Kristin and I get

into a really great conversation on today's episode. I would love to hear from all of you, so do send out tweets, Do put in the comment section what comes up for you as you listen to this episode. Coming up next, my conversation with author Kristin Dumey, Folks, I am very excited to welcome to Woke f Daily for the very first time, author, historian, and just all around just insightful where it's in on how we are weaponizing

religion in this country and around the world. Kristin Cobez Dumey, who is the author of Jesus and John Wayne, How White Evangelical corrupted a faith and fractured a nation. Kristen, I don't think that anyone's book is more I know that it came out in twenty twenty, but it's just more on the mark with what is happening right now in this country and what we are seeing happen around

the world. You know, I know that it's not new right that religion is used as a tool for politics, for the advancement of cruelty, for the justification of violence in many ways, but I kind of want to open up with asking you, you know, when you wrote your book, did you think that you would be in this space, in this global space that we find ourselves right now, or do you see yourself as a soothsayer that you know you're like you were reading the Tea Leaves, you know,

as I was writing Jesus and John Wayne, I did have this feeling of urgency. I you know, I was sitting in my home office and looking at the historical documents and putting all these pieces together, and also just watching what was unfolding two seventeen, two and eighteen, and I was just thinking, over and over again, I can make sense of this, right, I think I can explain this.

And so honestly, as I was writing, I did have a sense that this book was explanatory and that it could just describe how all of these pieces were kind of coming together. That said, I could not foresee the future. I could not foresee where we have found ourselves post January sixth, post Stop the Stealer. We're not even posts. We're in that moment, and we're in that moment globally. And so I think it's fair to say I thought

it was an important book. I did not have a clear sense for just how much it was going to speak into the urgency of our global moment. You know, let's let's unpack um the kind of the the connection of white evangelical Christians with the far right. How does how does this marriage of sorts come about? Kristen like And again I say, this is not anything that is new.

I understood learning as a child about the clue Klux Klan and their cross you know, on their white robes, that Christianity and organized Christianity has its roots in white supremist ideology, or it has been co opted i'll say, by white supremists m rather to advance their ideology. And so tell us about this, this this relationship and how it has kind of grown and shifted, but it's still

very strong. Yeah. I think first it's important to draw some distinctions, which is actually a really hard thing to do because it's not even clear to some of us very careful observers exactly where the lines can be drawn. But we're talking kind of far right, and then we're talking mainstream conservative white evangelicals, and you know, what kind of overlap is there, And it is a really difficult question to get to the bottom of. And really throughout my book, I was kind of asking this, what is

mainstream and what is fringe? What is extremist here? And are we in fact seeing a shift between fringe and mainstream or maybe it was always that way and we

didn't fully understand it. So but it's important for me to say that clearly because right now what I see happening within some conservative white evangelical spaces is the weaponizing even of this kind of conversation that they'll be very quick to say, see the other side they are, they are just tarring all of us as extremists, and so of course we have to stick together, right, And so

that's a dynamic at play here. In fact, there are many conservative white evangelicals who hold to family values politics and still firmly support our democracy, right, And that's kind of a distinction that I think is important to draw.

And then there are some who are very clear that democracy is less important than carrying out God's law and are supremely confident that they have within themselves the power to interpret what God's law is and to impose that on America, because they believe that God has a special role for America, America as a Christian nation, and that

they personally have a job to sustain that. Now, how they interpret Christianity and how they imagine this Christian nation, that's where we can talk about things like race and gender and power. But there are many Christians that will hold to similar values and be okay with democracy, even be supportive of democracy. And then there are some who are ready to just throw that aside. And it's often hard to perceive within conservative evangelical spaces where people are

drawing that line. And even now I'm watching in day to day conversations and the people who will step out and say, yes, you know, we want to promote conservative gender roles, or yes, we want to organize against abortion and we want to see that become the law of the land. There are some who say, and we're doing that through democratic processes, And there are others who are who are very comfortable saying the ends will justify the means. I mean, I guess what is wild for me, Kristen,

is that I don't see the distinctions. And the reason I say that is because you have voices like Marjorie Tailor Green, for instance, who has become the face of the New Republican Party, who has been in interviews talking about America as a Christian as a white Christian nation. You have you know, actors who have been on the political stage for quite some time, you know, like a

Mitch McConnell, who again they want to force there. They look for every excuse to have religious quote unquote exemptions in what would normally be just the advancement of equity for people who were left out of the constitution and

the creation of this country. And so when you look at and you and you think about these religious exemptions, have they allowed us to get to this place where religion has continued to be reapanized and those on the left have continued to tiptoe around what they have given

space and rise too. Yeah, I think if we look at conversations around religious liberty, for example, can see how some of the conservative conservative organizations that have been the strongest proponents of religious liberty often you know, are far more invested in protecting the religious liberty of conservative Christians and not Also, there's going to be a smaller number who are working across different faith traditions and in deciding

that note to protect this constitutional right, we need to protect it for all. But at the core of Christian nationalism is the idea of privileging Christianity and a certain type of Christianity. And so then it makes perfect sense if for them, you know, the whole country in their mind has been established on Christian principles, divinely established, and so to be blessed by God, you need to align your laws with God's will, and if you don't, your

country is going to be cursed. Our country is going to be cursed. Right, and so there's this logic that to actually and then you'll get teachings of you know, the Constitution was divinely inspired, and that's somewhat of a fringe, but not as far fringe as you might think that kind of rhetoric. And so certainly the interpretation of some of these constitutional rights absolutely privilege their own kind right.

And this is a very kind of us versus them, real Americans versus the rest, and if you are not with us, you are against us kind of rhetoric which at its core is anti democratic. I mean, how did they move their God from being a benevolent I'm bringing in and taking in the poor. I am about creating community and love and acceptance in all of these things, and turn their God into this gun toting like caricature of Christianity. How is that? How have people taken hold

to that? So, I mean, it really is about power, and there's a lot that can be justified in the name of really seizing power and grasping power and so that you have the power to shape your realities, that you have the power to control your world. And you just see that as a theme over and over again in recent history of just this grasping for power but covering it in language of righteousness, of you know, we're

doing this for the good of all of you. Right, trust us, and again God will bless us if you follow these laws. But that God is not just a benevolent deity. There is an understanding that this is also a God of judgment, of wrath, and that you will come under the punishment if you are disobedient, and that we as a country have this divine calling and if we as a country are disobedient, then we also will

suffer this punishment. And so but you do see a lot of kind of picking and choosing when you look at the Christian scriptures. You're right, there are a lot of passages that are about love. God is love and it's about the heart of the Christian Gospel traditionally has been understood as you know, Jesus Christ divesting himself of power, offering himself as a sacrifice for the redemption of all things. Love your neighbor as yourself, Love your enemies, turn the

other cheek, put the sword away, right. My kingdom is not of this earth kind of thing. That is not what we're seeing here. And in many cases they are very explicitly rejecting that, even mocking some of that language that you know, my kingdom is not of this earth like this. These are the words of Jesus Christ. But I've seen in just recent days Christian nationalists who are just ridiculing that language. That's the language of like softness.

You can't trust those, you know, fake Christians who are who are who are talking about loving your enemies right now. The idea is that this time is so desperate it requires all at war, really a kind of spiritual war, but also political, and so you have to be all in. It's this kind of warrior mentality. Now. The trick is, if you look historically, leaders in within this movement could always identify a dire threat right there. There's a long

history of conservative evangelicals situating themselves as embattled. You know, anti communism was just core to their emerging political identity in the mid century, and then opposition to the civil rights movement, especially in the American South, opposition to feminism, to the anti war movement, and the enemies of secular humanism,

and then later radical Islam or either. There's always a threat, and once you identify that threat, then it's so easy to fall into this ends justify the means mentality where you don't need to just go to war but actually preemptive war. You want to take them down before they take you down. This is terrifying. And what's even more and like I mean, I don't even like it's terrifying in so many ways because I'm trying to understand, you know, not in the not in the segments that we've seen.

You know, I want to understand the Trump voter. It's

not it's not from that vein. It's like I need to we need to understand what these people are preparing for and if what you just said is this place of desperation that they are looking in America right now as a religious battle field and a political battle field and if they are willing literally and I mean literally, to lock and load because they believe that they are divinely anointed in doing so, in holding in holding, standing their ground against the liberals that are coming to, you know,

turn this nation that they believe to be Christian into this secular den of evil, then they will literally do anything, in everything in order to keep that what they believe to be this righteous order. How do you think that that then the opposition deals with that reality. It's hard because if you try to meet it had on and call this out, you're just kind of proving their point that,

you know, everybody's against them and everybody's attacking them. And some of the leaders within this movement are very skilled at a spinning things in that way. We have some statistics that show that I think it's around sixty percent of evangelicals believe white evangelicals believe the election is stolen, and around a quarter of white evangelicals believe that it might be necessary to use violence right to restore this order.

And so that's not the majority, but it's really important to look at again this connection between the more extreme elements and the more mainstream, if you will, and what we do see is a lot of sense of cultural displacement. And some of this is real, right, We do have real demographic change happening in this country, as Robbie Jones has called it, the end of white Christian America, right,

that has been getting a lot of attention. We see some declining attendance and declining loyalty among younger evangelicals, and so this is causing some alarm. But then we have these broader cultural changes, really going back to the Obama presidents and the sea change on LGBTQ rights with the Obergophile decision, And at that point you kind of see

things shifting. The whole combination of and they've been using rhetoric of embattlement for a very long time and using it effectively, but it was taking hold in a new way against the backdrop of these demographic changes, and with the realization all of a sudden that not only were they not going to be in the majority, but they also might not have the religious liberty that they thought

they needed to live faithful lives. Now, for them to live faithful lives isn't just a private devotional matter, it's also a kind of culture shaping, shaping the rest of society and shaping the nation's laws. But all of these things really kind of came together to intensify things in the two thousands and to really position many, even seemingly moderate people to say, yeah, things have changed, we might

need to try some new tactics. And of course this is what they were being told over and over again by right wing radio, religious or otherwise by Fox News, and so this has just been a narrative that they have been absorbing now for a very long time. And we're seeing the fruits of that, that real desperation and since even among some of the more moderates of yeah, maybe we are, maybe we are under some kind of threat our values, right, and we need to stand up

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fact that you will love this show. Listen to Indisputable with Doctor Rashad Ricci on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode. Tell me how this line of thinking is different than what the Islamic Republic is doing in Iran and has

done over the last forty years. Tell me how there is not this very like obvious correlation, except for a different interpretation, a different a different manuscript for the religion. Because this isn't. Yes, America was founded by or I don't even know. I don't even know how to how to frame it anymore. Yes, religious zealots came here because they no longer wanted to pay taxes to the king, and then they destroy an indigenous population and you know, build a country off of the backs and labor of

indigenous people and black enslaved people. At that same time, it was supposed to be a secular nation, right like where this melting pot that allows other religions to come here, other people to be able to exist inside of their faith with how without having to subscribe to one religion or the other. Well, now they've said, no, no, no,

we want prayer back in school. We want God. We want the rules that are followed to not be the rules that are created by man, but that which we follow that God has has intended for us to follow. How is that different than what we are seeing right now? And frankly, should that should we be looking out at these countries that we are seeing that we've always looked down on, that are making these hard pivots. You look

at Iran, what happened over the last forty years. You look at what just happened recently with the election in Italy and they the rise of Christio fascism there. You look at what is happening and has happened in Hungary, like, is this not an alarm Kristin for the rest of us? Yeah, So I'm I'm I'm an Americanist by trading. I don't do comparative work. So my observations here are going to be, you know, that of a lave person really, and they're

trying to keep up with what's happening. But uh, you know, there there is a sense of what this is is a battle over identity and that people are finding identity in certain communities and certain value systems. And there's a lot in flux right now. I mean, we're living through a global pandemic and uh, you know, we're coming out of in the two thousands of economic downturn, downturn? Have we really come out of it? That seems very precarious.

We're in what may be the end of neoliberalism, not that neoliberalism was all that great, right there, there are a lot of really big issues happening right now that that have a powerful kind of destabilizing effect, and people are looking for meaning and they're looking for something solid and right now, we do have a very powerful movement through media, through religious networks that that's offering certain people, certain people a strong sense of identity, a sense of

who they are, and a sense of their own righteousness. Right That's that it's really um. It's it's meeting a lot of needs, I think, And so that is um is what we're seeing in this country, and I think that you can see other examples of that in other countries as well. Now the form that this is taking in many Western countries, we're seeing a rise of global um right wing populism, and there is a kind of

common playbook here. It is elevating quote unquote traditional values, you know, traditional gender roles, patriarchy, and patriarchy is is seen. It's not just male leadership, but really kind of a dominating male leadership. In many cases, it's very muscular um masculinity that is necessary to defend faith, family, and nation against all of these threats. And then women have to kind of pop up that masculinity, that masculine strength through

their own subservience and by being mothers to many children. Right, this is kind of this ideal family system that's seen as the foundation of the social order. And there's a long history of that. Now, everybody who holds to those or at least two kind of traditional family values is

not a fascist by any stretch. But what you see right now as I'm watching, not really what's happening in Italy, so I'm not an expert there, but I am watching very closely today in American Christian spaces, how are they responding to this news. And what I'm seeing is a whole lot of celebration, have a lot of excitement, and a whole lot of taking this clip where she's talking about traditional family and traditional gender and you know, this is who I am as a woman, and and they

are saying, you know, amen to this. Finally somebody is saying these things. And then they're saying, oh, and look at all of the media calling them, calling her a far right or fascists, right, and saying this is these are just common human values. These are just you know, virtues, and they are out to get all of us who

hold these right. And so they're really kind of whitewashing the fact that this this is uh, you know what post fascist, some stage of fascism, pre fascists, you know, different kind of terminology here of what we're looking at, but certainly there is a strong connection to historical tradition of fascism that she represents. All of that is just being kind of pooh pooed, and instead they're celebrating these

are our values too. And I actually see that as very dangerous, very dangerous, because these are influential figures in Christian spaces who are putting themselves out. They are saying this is good, this is right, and anybody who says otherwise, right, don't trust them. I mean, I just I don't know what does the disruption of this narrative look like. Because to me, all I see, Kristen is that this is

our future. I don't see. I don't see America, which is for the first time in our history in twenty twenty one, been labeled as a backsliding democracy. I don't see America not continuing to collapse under the pressure and the rhetoric and the media exacerbation of Christope white nationalism in this country. And so I like, what does if anything to you, what does disruption look like. It's hard

to envision successful disruption at this point. What some disruption has looked like is people inside these communities saying no. So, you know, this is dangerous, calling people out inside their traditions. Unfortunately, what happens more often than not is those voices of resistance are the ones who end up losing their jobs. They're the ones who are no longer in power. They're

the ones who are voted out of office. Right, And so we see that happening and then adding to the difficulty as a scholar who is diagnosing this condition, right, I'm kind of caught up in a predicament because the clearer I can describe what is actually happening and articulate the dangers, the anti democratic impulses that I see here just building over time. The clearer I articulate that, the more it kind of plays into the hands of those

who are trying to convince those moderates. There's there are some moderates that are up for grabs here, right, are they going to if push comes to shove, which side are they going to choose? Right? And the tactics that you know, to just call out what this is what we're seeing. That's my job as a scholar, right that takes it. You have to be direct, and you just have to be you have to be blunt. Those may not, in fact be the best tactics to win people over

right there. You need to come alongside. You may need

to make people not feel demonized. You need to make people feel affirmed in their identity and not necessarily called out for being racists or bigots, or being aligned with racists and bigots, right, and so it's a kind of delicate process, and I think that there's a lot of people paying a lot of attention to calling this out, and I think we would probably benefit from bringing some more social psychologists into our conversations, particularly those in with

political influence or in media and messaging those for whom fighting, you know, this anti democratic rise of Christian nationalism. Those folks should be very smart about which strategies they pursue.

And those may not be the same people as those of us who are diagnosing this situation and just kind of providing the evidence, but those who are actually trying to address this in their communities and in the media and in the nation at large, I think that they need to be much more sensitive to how to combat this resentment that is so easily stoked in field and

so easily turned against fellow citizens. Yeah, I just you know, I'm definitely no one's social psychologist because my work is about calling out fascism to try and wake those people up who are not acknowledging what's happening. So it's not for those that are embracing you know this, or trying

to call moderates back in. It's really trying to wake up the people that are asleep at the wheel and think that what they are witnessing abroad or what they have heard about or read about in their history books is something that can't possibly ever happen here. And what we're saying is that it is happening here. We are, you know, we're we're two elections away from you know, the loss of everything that we've ever come to understand

about about democracy. Um, you know, and and yes, we have all of these acknowledgements around and God we trust and bless our troops and all of these things that

have always been a part of American rhetoric. But at the same time, you have been the beauty of America has always been about the freedom of other people to worship or not worship if that is their choice, and if we are in moving to a place where this is going to be mandatory and the subservient you know of women, people of color, you know, queer people, is going to be what is necessary in order to sustain in this country. I just don't see how violence doesn't

become the only answer, one way or another. And I think, to me, that is what becomes really terrifying. I'm just not sure where we go. Yeah. Now, I you know, as a historian, my outside field of back way back when I was in graduate school was in twentieth century Germany, with a focus on the Holocaust and the German Christian movement. And so I confess that for a long time I've kind of had my eye on some of those those questions. And it was not lost on me that some of

the rhetoric that I was reading this goes back. I started this research almost twenty years ago, so I've been following this for a long time, and some of the rhetoric I was reading in these conservative evangelic popular books and you know, Christian radio and so on, was not dissimilar from the rhetoric that I was familiar with in the German Christian movement, right the Nazi Christian movement, of this kind of traditional masculinity, traditional femininity as just being

absolutely central to the strength of the nation. It needs to be defended against enemies, and we know who those were, and and so I've been attuned to this for a long time. But I think but it was, honestly, it was hard to speak to that without just you know, getting a lot of eye rolls or being called an extremist myself. That has changed now we are now in a place where we can talk about some of these things.

I remember back in November of twenty sixteen, I was chair of the History department at the time, and I actually told my colleagues, you know, we need to offer a class on the history of fascism. And it looked at me like I was joking, and I said, you know, I'm not saying that we are now in a fascist America, but I can see that we are going to have to train people to have this conversation, because this is going to be the conversation we're going to be having.

And so we have to understand our history, we have to understand our language, we have to understand our categories so that we can be responsible citizens. In a democracy, we have to be able to have those conversations. And the fact is, for a very long time we haven't really been able to have these conversations. And there are a number of people, powerful people who are very invested on the other side to make it impossible to have

these conversations. You know how that goes, right? You know, for all the talk of cancel culture on the right, you know, the attacks come fast and furious if you're trying to surface some of these issues and the way that words can get twisted and just misrepresented, and in a democracy is so absolutely critical that we can have honest conversations because we will not all agree, right we are all We're going to have differences, in deep seated

and perhaps even reconcilable differences among ourselves. But somehow in this society we have to find a way to use

our words and our ideas to convince each other. And once we lose that ability or feel like we've lost that ability, and the democratic norms and institutions have eroded to the point that we feel like our words are no longer effective, that's when it brings us to a place of potential violence, and honestly, as a historian, I'm still shocked that we are finding ourselves here, that even you and I are having this conversation right now, six

years ago, I could not have imagined this. Yeah, I am and remain terrified of what the future of this country and the world looks like. I think that we are entering some extraordinarily dark times, and I don't think that America or Americans are prepared for that reality. And I think that, in all honesty, Kristen, that by the time that everyone does wake up, I do think that it will be too late that this new world order

will have found itself strengthened and legitimized. And you know, the coming out of that is you know, we may not actually see the coming out in our in our lifetime. Is what I'm beginning to wrap my mind around. Um, Kristen dumay, please please please do come back to woke f I don't know if we'll ever have something good to talk about. But nonetheless, hey, it's always very very dark, and neither of us the other up. No, always God, it's always bad. But I really do enjoy our conversation

it's like I believe me, folks. The book is Jesus and John Wayne, how white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured and nation. Do pick it up. And Kristen please do come back to Woke f We appreciate, thank you, thank you so much. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke f As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and

stay woke as fuck. Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and

why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday.