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When I wrote JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE, I had a list of people I most wanted to read the book. @DavidAFrench was on that list. And so I'm especially grateful for this generous and serious engagement. Hard to choose, but I'll share a few highlights & then respond below. 1/ https://twitter.com/DavidAFrench/status/1381248204931481600
The assertion that culture defines evangelicals as much as theology he finds "spot-on": "Evangelicals are kidding themselves if they think their culture is always the result of their theology rather than their theology often following their culture." 2/
French also sees that "the John Wayne archetype"-- "an unhealthy attachment to a particularly aggressive vision of masculinity...modeled less on Christ than on secular warrior-figures..." where men defend faith & nation--correctly describes a strong strand of ev culture. 3/
Then, as a complementarian himself, French engages my critique of evangelical patriarchy, including complementarianism, with considerable humility and candor. On connections to abuse: "This is hard stuff. Yet Du mez meticulously documents how--time and again-- 4/
...Chr institutes have indulged and often valorized aggressive hyper-masculine male leaders who proved to be corrupt, exploitive, & abusive. They weren't protectors. They were predators....There were Chr mini-Trumps long before there was Trump." Exactly this. 5/
Now to the careful critiques French offers. First, Piper. I took pains to call out those in the book who dissented from the full manifestation of this ideology in terms of Trumpian politics, esp those who surprised me. (Looking at you, pre-2020 Al Mohler). 6/
Piper, too. BUT...steep price though he may be paying, it is critical that those who have been complicit in propping up the ideologies that have brought us to this place honestly & rigorously interrogate their own complicity. This is what leadership requires. 7/
Dissenting from the most egregious expressions while leaving in tact the systems and ideologies that led us directly to this place will get us nowhere. 8/
Finally, I have nothing against courageous Christian men. We could do with a few more of them. But it's when we start to define virtues as either masculine or feminine, & define masculinity & femininity as opposites, that we risk the corruption of Christianity itself. 9/
I think evangelicals in particular would do well to spend a lot more time thinking about what it means to follow Christ, and perhaps a little less time about what it means to be a Christian man or woman. The latter will flow out of the former. 10/10
