Kristin Kobes Du Mez on Christian Culture and the World We Inherited
John sits down with historian and author Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez to talk about her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. Their conversation wanders through Christian bookstores, Little House on the Prairie, purity culture, multi-level marketing, women in ministry, and the quiet ways faith, culture, and commerce have become tangled together over the last century.
Kristin invites us to become more curious. What has shaped us? What stories have we inherited without noticing? And what might it look like to hold onto faith while seeing our own history more honestly?
Quotables
You can still enjoy something as a work of fiction, or bring something into your home if you think it's attractive, if it if it makes you happy, but you can just do so in a little bit more critical way.
About Kristin Du Mez
Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History at Calvin University. She is a Senior Democracy Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent books include Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020) and Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made (September 2026). She is a Distinguished Associate at the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto) and recently served as a Fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion (2024-2025). She previously taught at Calvin Theological Seminary, Williams College, and the University of Notre Dame. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame.
Show Notes
Buy the Book Live Laugh Love
Kristin's Substack - kristindumez.substack.com
Check out The Convocation Unscripted Podcast
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Transcript
[Introduction]
Welcome to the Ministry Forum podcast, where we believe that you are not alone in your ministry journey. I'm the Reverend John Borthwick, your host, coming to you from the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College. Here we connect, encourage, and resource ministry leaders all across Canada, in the joys, the struggles, and everything in between. I love that I get to do this work, and most of all, that I get to share it with each and every one of you. So, thanks for giving us a listen today. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting out, this podcast is made with you in mind.
[John Borthwick]
Today on the Ministry Forum podcast, I'm honored and delighted to welcome a very special guest. I'm assuming that many of you already know her. Maybe some of you were introduced to her this past May when Knox College and Ministry Forum welcomed Dr. Kristin Du Mez to Toronto as our convocation speaker and keynote in partnership with our friends at the Institute for Christian Studies. For those of you who were in the room, you know what that day was like, and for those of you who were not, I have wanted to get this conversation recorded ever since, and I'm so grateful for Kristin to make some time for me today. Kristin is the professor of History at Calvin University, a senior democracy fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute, and a distinguished associate at ICS, earning her PhD under the celebratory arms of Touchdown Jesus. You will likely know her from her literary "Spiking the Ball: Jesus and John Wayne”. Sorry, I couldn't, I couldn't go without that. I just thought once I knew you were from Notre Dame, it seemed like…
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Beautiful, amazing.
[John Borthwick]
…You're welcome. This "Jesus and John Wayne" book certainly changed how a great many of us understand the faith that we grew up inside, and maybe for others had never really encountered in the same way, but had some suspicions along the way, and it certainly put a lot of language around something that people maybe couldn't name as well as they would like to have. Her new book is called "Live, Laugh, Love”, and the subtitle tells you that she's certainly not kidding around. This is the secret history of white Christian women and the world that they made. If “Jesus and John Wayne” followed a trail of rugged masculinity, this one seems to follow the trail of the wall art, prairie fiction, Amish romance, Christian bookstores, and Christian radio, Hallmark movies, Mary Kay, Tupperware, Hobby Lobby, Shiplap, mommy blogs, and a whole shimmering economy of Christian womanhood. She traces it back farther than you would actually guess to a 19th century movement called “New Thought” and its conviction that the mind shapes reality, braided together with holiness evangelicalism until it produced the gospel of positive thinking that we are still breathing in. Before mostly our mostly Canadian audience, we assume prepares themselves to simply sit back and enjoy the dare I say the Schadenfreude of our American neighbors. I would ask you to sit up and take listen and notice really well, you Canadians, because we've got several horses in this race as well. Most of this theology crossed the border long before Geordie Howe played hockey. The novels, the movies, the invitations that land in your inbox, the algorithm that keeps serving up a young woman baking bread in a linen apron while explaining that submission is freedom. It's all here; in our congregations, in the hands of the people we love, and underneath the sparkle is something ministry leaders know quite intimately: a theology of positivity with no room for lament, one that quietly teaches a suffering woman that her circumstances are a failure of her own faith, and it is made very hard for the church to hear people when they finally say out loud that they have been hurt. Now, for our regular listeners, you know this style of our podcast. But for any newcomers today, you should know that the way we do these book conversations. We always encourage you to read the books. That's what these are here for, but we're not here to hand you a summary just so you can skip the reading, because I would say it's worth every page to read the whole book. So, when I get the privilege of sitting down with an author, I like to go after some particulars that stood out to me. The things that I underlined and argued with, the things that I couldn't stop thinking about, and so consider this invitation to go and read, and maybe you'll have your own experience as well of what I had had when I read the book. So let me share just really briefly a couple things that were mine and then let's get into talking with Kristin because that's what we're all here about. Somewhere around the third chapter, I started saying out loud. “No, Kristin. No, not this one too. How is this possible?” Because there's my mother's bookshelf, and Catherine Marshall, and a copy of “A Man called Peter”, and the movie that my mom made me watch when I was ever so young. In fact, it may even been a part of my call to ministry story, at least for my mom, she always hoped I would be a minister. Maybe something like dear Peter Marshall. And then there was “Little House on the Prairie”, which I watched faithfully and have the trauma treasure trunk to this day of watching that show. There are the “Precious Moments” figurines that I must say I never liked, and now like considerably even less scrapbooking. Oh, my goodness! Even that, one after another, the pieces of my childhood turned up in the footnotes, and that's the fascinating and strange gift of this book. It does not describe somebody else's world. This is our world, and maybe we all had some part in making it, so Kristin, it's great to see you again. Welcome to the Ministry Forum podcast.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Thank you so much, and I just have to say that was such an incredible introduction. I would like to take you on the road with me because you just captured everything. So, I'm taking notes because I have to give a bunch of interviews in the media in the weeks ahead, and I'm just gonna like copy, paste your comments. So, thank you for that beautiful introduction.
[John Borthwick]
Appreciate you for sure. And if you want to use the Geordie Howe thing, you're most welcome. If you're ever talking to Canadians, something about him is coming up in the in the news feeds these days. But anyways, we love our neighbors. All right, let's dive in. Two pages into the book, I'm reading literally the second page, and I'm writing a note saying, "Oh my goodness, you have Erika Kirk, Hobby Lobby, Mary Kay, and the Calvinettes”. That's quite a range. What would you say that you're signaling to the reader by putting all those four things in the opening. What are you getting at there?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
This is a big book. It's bigger than I set out to write. It took me a couple extra years to write because of that. I had no idea when I started off where it was going to take me, and after “Jesus and John Wayne” published in the years since its release, I've received literally 1000s of messages from readers. And almost all of them say some version of the same thing, which is, "This is the story of my life, and I never understood how all these pieces fit together”. There are more pieces in “Live, Laugh, Love”. This is like that, but on steroids. So many more pieces, but when you put them all in the narrative, and when you trace back where these things came from, all of a sudden, you're going to see a new mapping of 20th century American religion and American religion which has spilled across borders, and have a much clearer understanding of how we got to where we are today, and then I couldn't resist including Calvinette’s in there. Calvinette’s for the uninitiated. It was the name of the girls' club in the Christian Reformed Church when I was growing up, and like I say in the intro, never once while I was a Calvinette, did I consider that name to be hilarious. This is like named after John Calvin himself. Calvinette’s, what did we do? Did we study the doctrine of predestination? No, we got our colours done to find out what colors were most flattering on us. We learned how to apply Mary Kay makeup, and we sang along to Sandy Patty, right? So, this is my kind of venturing into - in “Jesus and John Wayne” I had maybe a small foot in that world, but it was you know, I grew up in the Christian Reformed Church in a Dutch ethnic enclave, small town Iowa. I wasn't fully immersed in popular evangelicalism, but to the extent that I was, it was through the popular culture aimed at women and girls. So, I bring myself into this book a little bit more.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, I love that. I certainly wondered that as I was reading through. And thank you for the definition of Calvinette’s. I wasn't 100% sure, and I do wonder what John Calvin would have thought of the Calvinette’s. That would be, you know, maybe a singing troupe that he would take on tour with him as he went around. Who knew? Who knew? What I'll probably keep coming back to as we talk about the book is this - in the subtitle, you say it's the “world they made”, but and I think I already know the answer, but let's hear it from you. That's why you're here. What would you say came first? Was it patriarchy or the women choosing their place inside it? My assumption is, reading you, is that this was a world that women shaped within a system that constrained them. Is that the right kind of way of thinking about it, or is that me being too generous, or where would you go with that?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, you know, it's a bit of chicken and egg here. I don't actually know which came first because they are so intertwined. I actually start the book with a chapter on Hannah Whittle Smith, who is working only to a certain extent within the patriarchy, right? She has a lot of agency and really is working outside of the more patriarchal Christian spaces. But then what you see over time is her theology, her holiness theology of total submission to God, gets transformed almost effortlessly into well, for women that means totally a total submission to men because that's the authority God put over you, right? So, you kind of see how this happens, but it doesn't always start with the patriarchy and then women accommodating themselves to it. Women are acting creatively, and yes, increasingly as the book progresses within constraints, it's fair to say, or maybe all along within constraints, but they also have agency, and so this is a more complicated book in some ways than “Jesus and John Wayne”, because it is primarily about women who are exercising their agency and doing incredibly creative things outside of formal positions of institutional power, and for that reason too, it's theologically more complex. And I say this in the intro too that for men and kind of the standard narratives of American evangelicalism or American religion writ large, people like to use pretty neat categories. So, this is evangelical. This is fundamentalist. This is charismatic. This is mainline. This is secular. When you're looking at women's culture, where women are participating again, not primarily through positions of institutional authority, they are not on the payroll at major seminaries for the most part, and they are participating as consumers, and often as promiscuous consumers. That means we are looking at a culture that is not neatly defined by these categories, and we need to just set those aside and understand how the history of 20th-century religion is really one of exchange, and women are actively participating in that, even as they are also frequently constrained by it.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's fascinating, I have lots of lots of women in my life who ask this similar question that I was thinking as I was reading the book, because I think many of us are trying to figure out, you know, what's really going on. Like when you see what feels obvious to some as they look at the landscape out there in the church and in politics and everything else, why would women not merely like they're participating in it, and you might say, “well, they sort of have to; they have to, you know, get through and do whatever they can”. But, in some ways, they're escalating it or intensifying it, and many are doing it in the name of Jesus, of course. Is it about fear or power or devotion or money or something else? I mean, you've just lived inside. Yeah, all those things.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, all of those things, and with different characters in this book, kind of the ratio of those things shifts. You know, so for somebody like Elizabeth Elliot, I think I would say primarily about devotion, less about, certainly less about money for other figures, And, like, you know, they kind of - I think they're maybe selling out. But, and even if you're not selling out, right, when you get involved in this world and when your livelihood starts to depend on this, then you're going to be making some choices, or at least tempted to make choices that preserve your livelihood, rather than you know maybe push back against some of the more problematic elements of this culture. But what I would also say is that the vast majority of the women that I cover in this book, from Catherine Marshall and Elizabeth Elliot, or even back to Hannah Woodall Smith and Amy Semple McPherson, all the way up to women like Rachel Held Evans, Sarah Bessie, Nadia Boltswebber, Jen Hopmaker. These are incredibly gifted women, very, very smart, very capable. Or I mean, we could even include certainly Beth Moore, women like Dorothy Patterson, and they have, especially those who are raised or convert into conservative religious spaces, there are a limited number of ways in which they can exercise those gifts. Have a career outside of the home. No, that's generally frowned upon. Maybe you can get a job, but not a career, right? And only out of necessity. You know, be a writer. You know, use your words, the gifts that God has given you in that way. Well, it needs to be directed in this particular direction. Otherwise, it's going to be problematic. Be, you know, run a business, you know. Also, problematic. Your primary role is as a wife and mother, but you can be involved in multi-level marketing, right? In you know, scrapbooking, in all of these ways, like where you just see women move into the spaces where they are allowed, and really use and apply their gifts in those directions. I mean, let me put it this way: if I hadn't, if I had been married coming out of college, right? Given the culture I grew up in, many of my friends married right out of college. I did not - and like, what is a girl to do? I decided to go to graduate school and get a PhD in American history, instead. But after I graduated and when I wrote my first book, this was right around the time, like 2015 or so, when I started paying attention to this whole world of Christian women influencers, women like Rachel Held Evans and Sarah Bessie and Jen Hatmaker, and I saw how, first of all, you know, like way more people were reading their work than my, you know, excruciatingly researched first book on a Christian feminist, by the way. But rather than kind of resenting that, I saw what they were doing and I thought, good for you. And I actually remember thinking at the time, if I hadn't gone to grad school and had this avenue open for my intellectual kind of gifts and interests, and my writerly interests, I absolutely could see myself as doing what they were doing with those same skills, and I probably would have become a mommy blogger. And so, I hope that you know, there's not that kind of judgment in this book. I really genuinely, appreciate the giftedness of the women that were that created this culture and were constrained by it.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, I can certainly see there's a – definitely, a kindness for the individuals that you hold up, you're not. It's - you're not tenaciously, you know, tearing them down or denigrating them in any way. From the way I read the book, that wasn't that kind of thing. Again, you're a historian, so you're just, you're sharing the history. You know, very good. It's interesting, though. I wonder sometimes one of the things I wonder about when we talk about you know in the context of your book, looking at women and why did they do this and why are they making these choices and don't they see a different path? It's kind of interesting in the political landscape that we're in, and I know that you hang out in a podcast quite regularly and talk about the political landscape of our siblings to the south, and just a sort of notion of well, there's lots of people; men, women, persons in this world who are also making choices to not fight against or step away from or criticize for a variety of reasons. Some many of the same reasons that maybe some of these women, and have found themselves in a position, not that they wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they weren't in these positions, but it's easier to be in this position for all the reasons that, as you stated, right? Yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah. And what we have seen in recent years very clearly is that there's a price to be paid if you step out of line. You know, just look at somebody like Beth Moore, somebody like Karen Swallow Prior, right? These are women who were just deeply ensconced in conservative religious institutions like the Southern Baptist Convention. They were complementarians. They were devout Christians, pointing people to Jesus left and right. And when they spoke out against abuse inside churches, and when they spoke out against blind loyalty to Donald Trump, they were canceled ruthlessly so. And even before things got really political in the Trump era, if you go back to the 2010s and so on, as the country became more polarized, it was almost a truism that for a time in white Christian spaces you don't talk politics, you don't want to alienate your women and your followers, your audience, and there was also this sense of oh we're not political right and that's something that I push back against in this book. No, no, like the culture that you have embraced, the cultural values that you have embraced, that you have been discipled into for decades in many cases, have in fact profoundly shaped your political worldview. And that's what finds expression then at the ballot box.
[John Borthwick]
For sure. For sure. Well, to change gears just for something that curiously amused me, and maybe don't have a lot to say about it, but I really found “The Total Woman” and the “Miami Dolphins” connection fascinating. Are they the reason the total woman movement is the reason that the Miami Dolphins went unbeaten that year?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
You know, who’s to say. Maribel Morgan isn't going to deny that. Yes, Maribel Morgan wrote this book, “The Total Woman”. You may have heard of it if you know much about religious history and kind of an the anti-feminist side of things, she wrote The Total Woman in 1973 to tell women how to have a happy marriage, and the answer was by being silly, frilly, feminine, and submitting to your husband in every way, when it comes to sex, salad or sports. You adapt, you submit, you submit or give up your will and embrace whatever is that your husband wants. Satisfy him sexually. Very important. Buy the lingerie. Keep up your curb appeal, all those things you can see like super damaging teachings here that could be right at least have the potential to be extremely damaging in particular relationships. With the promise then that when you make your man happy, he's going to make you happy too. You're going to have all the things that you ever dreamed of, and all you have to do is adapt and submit. Never complain and keep up your attitude. Positivity, right? So, this is The Total Woman. Comes out in 1973. In 1974, it is the best-selling non-fiction book of in the country, and yes, part of its lore was that the wives of Miami Dolphins players took this seminar, read the book, took the seminar, and look what it did for them. Their men were so happy with their subservient and endlessly positive wives that they ended up going undefeated and winning the Super Bowl.
[John Borthwick]
Wow!
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Who’s to say?
[John Borthwick]
Who's to say? Who's to say? Fascinating, fascinating. Now, “Little House in the Prairie”, as I did with my opener. I was raised on that, and my gosh, what a traumatizing show for a little person! So many parts of the episodes were really intense, and then all the backstory that came out later, very, very disturbing. And now there's a reboot. I hope that's not going to cause any new troubles, but fascinating.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
I watched it. It's very fun, actually.
[John Borthwick]
Is it? Okay. I haven't yet. I haven't yet. But I had no idea that I was somehow being formed while I watched this, and I also had no idea that President Ronald Reagan thought it was the best show ever. Like, wow, way to go, Ronnie! What do you think that program? What did it do to me, Kristen? I'm just wondering. Like, I'm not 100% sure. I haven’t taken it to my therapist that much, but this book brought it all back to me in a fascinating way.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, yeah. You know, the first thing I'll say is, it's okay to just relax, right? Like it's okay to just be curious, and none of these things that I kind of dig into are all bad, right? I just approach these with curiosity, like you mentioned, “Precious Moments” that you never really liked them anyway. I loved precious moments, and I still like precious moments, right? That's okay. You can still free to disagree, right? Right. I hope you caught that. My speaking of precious moments. Quick aside: the critique of precious moments that I bring into this comes from Kel Searfeld of the Institute for Christian Studies because he came to Dort, my undergrad and gave a lecture back in the day in the 1990’s that so stuck with me. That was the first time that like my precious moments were - they felt like they were attacked. Like what? But I didn't. Like I pushed back. But then I also was like, tell me more, right? Help me understand. And I kept that memory and that curiosity with me. Same thing for Little House, you can love Little House but still figure out what were some of the values embedded within the narrative. And I talk in my chapter on Little House about first the books themselves, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Rose Wilder Lane, and here I'm drawing on existing scholarship on how libertarian ideals were just infused into the narratives. These are not non-fiction, right? Obviously, they're sold as fiction, but maybe not so obviously because both Laura and Rose really presented them to the world as true to life, as reality. They struck so many because of their meticulous details of life on the prairie. They struck people as well; this is just the truth. But the more they ended up writing and rewriting the actual history of what happened and writing libertarian ideals into the narratives, the more they insisted that they were totally true, and they just weren't. The television show kind of builds on that, and many people just when they think of Little House, it's some combination of the books and the television show. The television show was very sentimental, but also in some ways somewhat gritty. It was not based tightly on the books, but it still perpetuated this kind of prairie myth of independence and the kind of creating the myth of American identity and linking it to these underlying political and economic values, right? And then the last part of that chapter is, the second half of the chapter is, talk about a Canadian woman here. Is about Janet Oakes' "Love Comes Softly”, and how she offers a Christian variation of prairie fiction that is more explicit about the kind of devotional aspects and about the role of Jesus and all of that, the theology, but it maintains the emphasis on libertarian economics and a voluntary economy.
[John Borthwick]
For sure. Yeah, yeah. I'm treating it very lightly. I'm trying to be okay with it. You know, Little House. There was something escapist about it. But as it's always good to know, and this has been a theme of certainly your last two books, it's always good to know what's the what's going on behind the scenes here. What don't what aren't you aware of as you watch these things?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, you can enjoy these things, and then also be curious. How did they shape my imagination? How did they shape my theological and cultural imagination? And then what are kind of the payouts there? And once you have more clarity on the values embedded in these products, you have more power over them, and then you can say, "Is do these things actually align with my values, or you know, do I maybe need to shift? Do I just need to have a more astute understanding? And you can still enjoy something as a work of fiction or bring something into your home if you think it's attractive, if it makes you happy, but you can just do so in a little bit more critical way.
[John Borthwick]
For sure. You mentioned a Canadian a bit of Canadian content. We always love that on our Ministry Forum podcast. Amy Semple McPherson, Sarah Bessie is also highlighted. In what ways do you think has Canada influenced this, contributed into this world, or have we simply absorbed what came from the U.S. or is it our fault as well? We just need to know, and we're sorry, we're so sorry if it was us - we are.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
You know, I really don't think that Canadians are in a position where they need to be apologizing to Americans right now. So, you are absolved entirely of any complicity that you all have because we have taken it all and run with it. But yes, you're right. We have Amy Semple McPherson. We could also talk about the origins of the Latter Rain movement, and in terms of Pentecostalism and independent charismatic spaces, and yeah, Janet Oake revolutionizing Christian fiction. Her book comes out in 1979 and really sets the template for subsequent works of Christian fiction. And one of the points that I make in “Live, Laugh, Love” is that the values embedded in fiction really mirror those that in the nonfiction world of Maribel Morgan and others like her. Right, you're getting this consistent messaging across nonfiction and fiction coming out of Christian publishing in the 1970s and on, and then yes, absolutely. I mean, Sarah Bessie, love Sarah. I will say that some of the women, a number of the women who I kind of knew were going to be a part of this narrative, and I'd kind of followed them, and I had some opinions about them, but not really strong set opinions until I dove back into the history. I know I have a reputation for being rather critical, and you know critically engaging my historical subjects, and I do that throughout the book. But I will say that a number of these women came out looking extremely good on the other end of that historical scrutiny, and Sarah Bessie is absolutely one of those. I end up really structuring a whole chapter around her recollections because she was representative of so many things, and she is so, so smart. So, she was able to narrate her own story in the context of some of these Broader shifts, particularly, you know. So, she was Canadian but then went to college at Oral Roberts in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then spends sometime in the United States with her husband, right in Texas, and before leaving to come back to Canada. So, she has this perspective of Canadian evangelicalism and charismatic infused evangelicalism, in contrast to the more prosperity gospel infused charismatic tradition in the United States, and what happens when you move from Christianity and a particular brand of Christianity as a kind of minority subculture and make it the dominant culture, and just so many astute observations. So, a huge shout out to Sarah Bessie and for her willingness to give me a very long interview and give me eyes to see some of the more complex dynamics in the 2000’s.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, I really enjoy Sarah and her books. Sounds like she's taking some time off or has over the last couple of years as well. Just sort of we've talked about this when we've when we've talked, just the toll some of this takes on you, like when you publish a book, or you have opinions, or you participate in conference...
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
She’s kind stepped back from public speaking and travel. But she is still very active on Substack, and so she writes beautiful things all the time on Substack. And so that's, you know she kind of stepped back from the frenetic pace of being on the road and being in all of the conversations all of the time. And in this season of her life, she's doing more kind of spiritual contemplative writing over on Substack.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, and I think that's amazing. I think it's a part of what we talk about at Ministry Forum often is you know how do you take care of yourself? how do you regulate? And so, I think that's a beautiful thing to know about Sarah. I'm curious, you already highlighted it with the total woman, purity culture. It wasn't really a part of my upbringing. I was, yeah, I didn't, I didn't hang out in youth groups or camps or conferences for youth or whatever. I went to a little church that had. I was the youth group and a lot of old people, and they were very nice to me, as far as I could tell. But I do have some women in my life who live purity culture, and they describe it as something that still impacts them and infects their lives decades on. So, I'm curious, and you know, one of the labels that you can speak into or not is a book called "I Kiss Dating Goodbye”, but that kind of world is sort of - typifies that world of purity culture. What do you say it actually did to people, and is its influence still happening in people today?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, my age means that I missed out on the height of purity culture. I mean, I was certainly told don't have sex before marriage, right? But we didn't have all of the accouterments. We didn't have, you know, it wasn't, it didn't define our youth groups, it didn't, you know, I didn't have a purity ring. I didn't go to purity balls. All of those things. And “I Kiss Dating Goodbye” came out after I was, I think maybe the year I graduated from college, so my age kind of spared me from the getting the full dose. Yeah.
[John Borthwick]
I think me too. Yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Right. So, what did purity culture do? Well, studies - we have some studies on abstinence only sex education, just as an example, and that did nothing with respect to keeping kids from having sex who took the courses right, and so we know it didn't actually keep most people from having sex. What it did do very effectively is instill a deep, deep sense of shame, and it also contributed to really a particular, a broader understanding of Christianity. That's the point that I make. It didn't. These books didn't just teach kids how not to have sex, although there were many tips to that effect. You know, always - never horizontal. Keep the lights on. Like all these, are literally tips that are in Bibles, purity Bibles. You get a purity Bible, right? It's a very explicit, you know, holding hands, iffy, kissing before marriage. Absolutely not. Courtship, all the things. But it didn't just tell them how not to have sex. It taught them what it is to be Christian, right? Holiness about sin and salvation, and about what sins are unforgivable. And it also taught generations of young people how to discipline their bodies, discipline their spirit. And it used mechanisms, often these youth groups, small groups, accountability groups, to keep enforcing confession, shame, and discipline. And so, I would say the biggest takeaway from these groups was transforming the concept of faith itself, Christianity itself, along these lines of purity, the pure and the impure. The clean and the dirty, always the threat. Always be vigilant against the threat of evil, and instilling in so many people a sense of shame, and kind of hyped-up levels of control. At the end of the book, I have a number of stories, firsthand accounts of women who talk about what it did to them. For some, like even, they're in their middle age now, and they cannot wear a V-neck shirt without feeling like they are being immodest. There's one incredibly poignant story from a woman who shared her experience with me. She and her husband did everything according to the rules, first kiss at the wedding, they followed all the rules to a T, and then months after their wedding, she became pregnant with an ectopic pregnancy, and she was not able to have children after that. And the way they struggled with - they were promised, if you follow all these rules, God is going to bless you with a happy marriage and with a happy life. There were so many promises that came with this, right? There was the coercion, yes, but always also the promises. And then, what happens when those promises failed to come true? It is often devastating for people emotionally, sometimes physically, but also spiritually, because they have to wrestle with this was not just a version of Christianity they were handed. This was the version of Christianity, and when it doesn't hold true, that's where you get the deconstruction movement. Right, that's where you get people peeling things back. Some end up peeling back this like cultural packaging to find a more authentic understanding of the faith, and others just walk away from the faith entirely. And understandably so.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah. Just to bear witness to that, I found as I read the book, yeah, coming to the end of the book was not an easy journey to walk away from. There was it was a lot to bear witness to the ways in which, which is helpful, I think, for those who, I don't know if this was with intention, but is helpful in the sense of, you're not just reading history; you're reading the ways in which human life, human existence, has impacted people. People's decisions, what they shared, what they taught, what they what they did, how this has impacted real people in a real way. So, it was very profound. I really appreciated that.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, thank you. You know, when I was writing “Jesus and John Wayne”, as I was sitting in this office writing, you know, chapter by chapter, and watching things play out. Watching Russell Moore get attacked and pushed out of the Southern Baptist Convention, the same thing with Beth Moore, and you know, just watching these attacks, I kept thinking, "Oh, I can explain”. I wanted to like reach out to them at that time. I had no contact with them. They said you discovered the book and said this helps explain so many things, right? But that's how I was feeling. When I was writing “Live, Laugh, Love” I kept hearing the voices of those in the deconstructing community in my head, those who were struggling to understand what had been taught to them, and what they had been complicit in. Some of the most poignant responses from early readers are women who were both, you know, harmfully shaped by some of the dynamics I described, but who also own that they also inflicted this on other women. They were again agents and recipients of this, and so when I was writing this book so many times I just thought, oh, and I should say, you know, and I hope that those readers are able to give themselves grace in this story too by placing themselves in in a broader context. But while I was writing this one, I kept thinking of those in the deconstructing community, including those who just struggle to leave, and then once they leave, struggle to comprehend the price that they had to pay, the severed relationships, the friends they thought were friends, the people they were doing life with who don't want anything to do with them anymore and also to even kind of deconstruct their entire way of viewing the world. Their bodies, their relationships, all of these things - it is an excruciating process for so many, and there is a reason for that. And one of the things that “Live, Laugh Love” does, I think, very powerfully is it describes why it is so hard to leave these spaces, to leave these cultural systems, because they were designed to be excruciatingly difficult to leave.
[John Borthwick]
As with so many things that are embedded in our culture, right? Yeah. Now, for many of our leader, for many of our listeners, they're serving in denominations that may have ordained women for decades. We've seen some changes to the south again a little bit, and has impacted maybe even some in the north, just around women's ordination and whether or not that's a possibility. Sometimes those who are a part of denominations that have, you know, have said, "Oh, we've opened all the doors. It's all great, everything's super now”, does that actually dismantle the kinds of things that you're describing in “Live, Laugh, Love”, or can these same concepts that you're unpacking there live under a different kind of roof with the, you know, a nice bit of shiplap that says, you know, inclusion or welcoming or you know, ordination for all. You know that kind of thing.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yes. First, I will say that denominations that do ordain women and do support women in leadership, because the two are not always synonymous. That's not nothing, right? That is significant, and it does dismantle some of the pieces of this broader system. Particularly, you know, I write in the book, I look at kind of history of the doctrine of inerrancy and how it's selectively applied, and how in fundamentalists and evangelical spaces it's particularly applied to a small set of verses around women's authority, and and so on. So, by bringing a different interpretive lens to the scriptures, that alone is a different starting point, and it's not insignificant. And having a woman standing behind the pulpit sends a very different message about religious authority, as well, and about possibilities, options again for women to use their gifts. That said, this culture does not stop at denominational boundaries, and you know, look at women - and I can't speak to the Canadian context with specificity, but I can look at the American mainline context and say that a huge swath of mainline Christian women are reading books that are put out by Christian publishers, evangelical publishers, I should say, are listening to Christian radio. You have a whole chapter on Christian radio and what that means, what value system is embedded there, which things are allowed there, and which things are absolutely not allowed. And so, even if you are a woman preaching in a church that supports women in ministry, chances are you have still been shaped by this cultural value system and what you feel like you need to explain or apologize for, how you need to look, how you need to present yourself, or how you think other people expect you to look or present yourself. But it's also likely that women in the pews have been shaped by this cultural value system as well, so it's just not that simple. But it's also, you know, it does change things to be in spaces where women's religious authority is affirmed.
[John Borthwick]
For sure. And yes, I've heard have a lot of colleagues in ministry who are women and speak of a very different experience of being in that space than I ever had to experience as a congregational minister, and have worked in partnership with women clergy along the way, and just kind of the things that they have to endure as a part of that, and like I think you're as you're suggesting, I think part of that is influenced by the women, and it's particularly women, cometimes men, men is a whole other story of what kind of they get from men, but from women themselves in the pews, like you say. I think they're heavily influenced by a projection of what you should be like if you're if you're going to be in the pulpit as a woman, you have to be this, that, or the other around how you dress, what you say, how you speak, how you, yeah, very much so. Um, multi-level marketing is mentioned a lot. Had no idea that all these things were a part of this, but if a minister maybe is listening in today and they're sitting with someone who's really deeply embedded in one of those MLMs, and they're describing it as a ministry. Sometimes that's the frame it's used. I wonder what the history might help them understand about how that person got there. So, in that generous spirit of how that person got there, and I'll confess that when I was in congregational ministry, I remember encouraging a member of the church to host a pampered chef party and have her pampered chef parties at the church. I didn't see pampered chef, I don't think, in the book, but it's probably it's probably…
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
I don't think it's named, but I think somewhere in a list I do talk about like cooking, spices and things like that. So, so that's what I'm talking about. Yes, you know, I have my share of pampered chef spice kits from friends and family who are selling.
[John Borthwick]
So, there you go. Yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah. So MLMs, what where does that come from, and how do women get drawn into them? And here I will say too that when uh when I first came up with the title "Live, Laugh, Love”, and shared it with women, you know, with whom this title instantly resonates, and they knew immediately that there was going to be a chapter on multi-level marketing, right? Minimum a chapter on multi-level marketing, right? We just kind of know it's part of this world, but where did it come from? And so, I had a lot of fun researching that chapter, and it goes back to kind of start with Tupperware and with Amway, plays a very important role, it's Amway headquarters just down the road from where I live here in Grand Rapids. They gave me a lovely, personalized tour of headquarters, and I, you know, really started paying attention to Facebook groups, and I had been invited to different groups and had friends and so on who were in multi-level marketing. I mean, I don't know any woman who hasn't gotten the, you know, “hey girl, I miss you. How are you doing?” I'm like, “oh my gosh, we haven't talked since college”. And then the next one is like, so “I'm selling Norwex”, or you know. So, I started studying that culture and came to see that it wasn't even primarily about selling products, and it was about indoctrinating millions of women into an ideology of sales. It was selling the idea of success and how to get there. And recruitment looked like telling women that there is a way for you to support your family. You can still keep your primary role as wife and mom, you can be there for your kids. Don't do the whole career thing, right? That doesn't work out. And God wants you to do this, and God is going to bless you with success. All you have to do is work hard, and it's easy. It is a ministries. Many of these are sold to women as ministries, like 31 gifts, right? They use the language of ministry and sales interchangeably. Evangelism, sales. It's kind of the same thing, right? That's a theme that comes over and over again through this book too. What are you actually selling? And you can just hang out with your girlfriends and make a ton of money. Well, you know we have all the statistics on multi-level marketing. The vast majority make almost nothing or lose money on this. It's a tiny, tiny percent that make it. This is this is the pyramid structure of multi-level marketing. The profits of the very small number on the top at the at the peak of the pyramid come from those underneath, right? This is the multi-level aspect of it, but women who are brought in are indoctrinated and literally pay for their indoctrination. They're paying to attend the sales conferences where they get taught these truths. They're buying the books, they're buying the cassette tapes, and listening to the indoctrination, which tells them nothing negative, doubt, question-that's negativity. Questioning your lack of profits - that's on you, right? You have the power within yourself to be successful, and also you need to be feminine, and you need to do like all these things, and you need to defer to your upline; they have your best interests in heart. And as you move up that line, you need to discipline those underneath you and understand that when they do their thing, it's good for you. And you need to tell them that they benefit from whatever's good for you as well. Right? This is the whole structure. And I will say, it took me a long time to get kind of inside that space and to trace the history, but at a certain point when I was writing that chapter, I had this aha moment: the upline, the downline, the insider, outsider, no negativity, follow the rules, the coercive atmosphere. But it's sold as blessing and opportunity. I thought, oh my gosh, this isn't just multi level marketing. This is American evangelicalism. This is, and so that ended up like costing me about a year or more. Where I went back, I kept adding chapters on the front end of this book to try to figure out where did this come from. Not just the ideology, but the whole structure of essentially manipulation and control.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, and you'll have to read the book to find out more about where that all comes from because that is a fascinating, fascinating journey. Kristin, “Jesus and John Wayne” essentially made you a public figure, maybe more so than anything else. Many historians don't reach this level of status, I guess. Not that you were looking for it, but what would you say that that this journey and now “Live, Laugh, Love” is coming out, and I'm sure you're getting a lot of attention for it. And once it's fully out, it's going to be a lot more, I'm sure. What would you say it's cost you in this journey? And as that as you consider that cost, what's kind of sustained you or buoyed you up during this journey?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
The costs. I mean, the hours of my days. So much time has been - that feels so urgent has just been devoted to research and writing and conversing to try to figure out what is going on and to try to add the piece that I have to contribute to a much bigger but extremely urgent conversation. So, you know what it has cost me - and then yes, the stress, right? The stress of - my normal is giving several interviews to the national/international media every week, and everything has to be perfect, always right. Everything has to be, and not just perfect, like error free. Also, just as accurate as I can get it. I don't want to overstate things. I don't want to understate things. I certainly don't want to mischaracterize anything or anybody. And so, it's been relentless. And if I had known before “Jesus and John Wayne” published that this was the future, that it would open up for me I think I would have been absolutely horrified and terrified. I didn't want to go on television. I didn't want to do any of this. If I could have published even my first book anonymously and just like let it do its thing in the world, that was my preference. And so, I'm really glad I didn't know what was around the corner when I published “Jesus and John Wayne”, and but I've just felt a real obligation to shepherd the conversation that I've helped spark, and to continue to shine a light on the political and cultural dynamics that are potentially poised to undermine American democracy and destabilize the global order. And I put that in future tense, but it maybe past tense is more appropriate there. Right? It may already be done. It is to a certain extent. Can it be turned around? Huge questions there. So, so I guess I don't know. It's cost me a lot, no more than its cost many, many people who have lost their jobs, their livelihood. I have not, right? I sell books and I get speaking invitations, so I don't want to over - like I'm exhausted. But also, I've received so much affirmation and I receive so many letters of gratitude from evangelical readers themselves, and so I get that kind of support that many people who are paying costs inside these spaces do not get, and so I just always try to put that out there because I'm really fortunate to receive that kind of support. So, what sustains me? Those voices. 100%. And watching other people, often quietly or in spaces without the spotlight, doing extraordinary things, making decisions that are incredibly courageous and that cost them friends, family, jobs, communities, and then seeing them on the other side. No regrets. I mean, sadness, absolutely grief, but I have not yet met one person who has paid a great price in kind of speaking truth in this moment, who regrets doing so. And so those people and those stories buoy me. And one thing I will say is, when you do start speaking into these fraught conversations, yes, you will lose friends, and it will be painful in many ways. And sometimes in this country, increasingly, it might not be safe to do so in in various senses of that word, but you will also find incredible people when you do speak publicly or boldly, and it's in that community that I think you find your strength, and there's just so much goodness in those spaces.
[John Borthwick]
Thank you so much for that. Yeah, yeah. I think what I would say is that you have a unique lens on this whole story, this whole reality we find ourselves in as a historian because for some people, you could just say you could you could be a person who just says a whole bunch of stuff about this reality we're living in, but you back it up with some - here's history, here's facts. I remember giving this book. I remember giving “Jesus and John Wayne” to my partner, and I said to her, "Now I'm about. I'm going to give you this book, but just so you know, it's probably going to really unsettle a lot”. She was already unsettled with some of the stuff, many of the things that were going on that were adjacent or connected to Christianity, and sure enough, the litany as she read the book was this consistent. “I knew it, I knew it”, and so I think there's that sort of that sense of the uncovering in a way that you do as a part of this writing can inspire people to sort of see the world differently. It's been kind of a theme of our conversation. You know, you can still watch “Little House on the Prairie”, but it's sometimes just to be curious about what's going on behind the scenes there. Where's the money coming from, or where's the money going? Or, you know, could it be possible that all of this was done with intention? No. Yes! And I think that can be inspiring to people who then maybe want to make a change or want to have be confirmed that they're not alone in this thinking. Like, there's something not quite right here, or surely there's another way to live, or another way to be, or another way to exist, and I think that's what you bring to the world through your writing. And I think that's such a gift, and your speaking, and everywhere else you turn up. So, thank you for that. Yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Thank you, thank you. I think that - sometimes I'll be asked by some defensive folks - you know, once on a radio interview, I was asked around “Jesus and John Wayne”, two hosts. One host was very gracious, and the other I could tell was just like pushing back gently, but you know, kind of could tell he was frustrated. And then after we went off air, the second host like came to me and said, and he was angry at that point, right? He had really restrained himself. He was like, "Why would anybody become a Christian after reading this book”. Right? And I, you know, I answered like, well, like “I don't think that honesty or dishonesty is the way forward”, right? You know, if you want to present a better public face as a Christian, like you need to be doing that and not blame the historian for you know, giving the honest account, but I will say that I think that my work, where a lot of people do say it transformed their life, it changed their life, it did all these things, just like with your partner. My work tends to speak powerfully to people who already have that sense, this isn't right, right? Something's going on here. Then just this unsettled, and then and then the book, you know, comes into their hands, and like, oh, I knew it, right? This, oh my gosh, I had no idea about this, but now this makes so much sense of what I experienced, of what I saw, of what I felt, right? And I think that that's what the books, as I write them, are the same process of discovery for me. I had so many “aha” moments writing this book, and so many of those moments where I was like, "You have got to be kidding me!” Okay, I have to re - you know rework this whole thing because now I see more clearly, and that's where the subtitle comes from. There are surprises. There are secrets. There's plagiarism. There's you know these stunning things like these people are not supposed to be in this room together, and yet here they are, right? So, there it is-the secret history of white Christian women in the world they made.
[John Borthwick]
Absolutely, yeah. Well done. Well done. Well, is there anything that that you were hoping I would ask that I hadn't - that you'd want to share or any sort of parting words for our folks? You offer a very pastoral lens or a very pastoral heart in your book as well. Not only by featuring or centering stories of real people's lives and how they're impacted by it, but there's also a sense of as I hear you talk, and I've heard you speak in other settings as well, there's just that sense of yeah, you're not, you're not wishing for people's faith or Christian belief to be destroyed by its own living - into its own history or owning it. But there is a sense of you know that sense of real grief that folks are holding in the midst of this unveiling or uncovering. Any you'd want to add as a closer there?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Yeah, I think that I do. In the beginning of the book, throughout, scattered throughout, and then also in the conclusion, I do offer kind of a reminder is that there are alternative ways to be Christian. There are alternative - yes, confession is a Christian practice, and ideas of sanctification and holiness, yes. But there are different ways to approach that perfectionism. You know the ongoing sinfulness. You know, how much do we trust our own goodness and holiness? How much, you know, how comfortable are we demonizing and damning others? Christian theology is going to offer different answers depending on where you look to these questions and so many more. And so, I do try to regularly throughout the book and up front, and then at the end provide reminders of that there are alternative ways to be a Christian, and particularly in the book's conclusion, where I talk about the ways in which some of this theology and these cultural ideals that I've just spent 300 some pages detailing, how they are in this current moment fueling American authoritarianism. And I also bring in theologians to examine that and to contest that. And one of the key takeaways there is the reminder, and here speaking as a Calvinist, I can say this boldly, that you know, kind of to quote Nadia Boltz Weber, “we're always 100% sinner and saint”, and as soon as you start dividing, oh no, we're the pure ones, and the other, however you want to define that other, is not just impure, but they are dangerous. They are a threat to the purity. You can see what that what that does theologically and inside denominations. But what happens when you take that model and then you apply it politically, and you demonize the other? And that is exactly what you see happening right now in American politics. And as a historian whose outside field is 20th century Germany, who has taught courses on genocide and the Holocaust, I will just say that historians with that background experience, right, raising the alarm when we see the kind of language of dehumanization and this language of purity and threat, and I do believe that while Christianity has within it the teachings to kind of fuel that antagonism, it also has within it the antidote to that. And so, I think it is incumbent on those of us who are practicing Christians to get into this fight, to not watch this all play out silently, or staying within our comfortable spaces, and to contest for the public uses of Christianity, and to at least instill some questions and doubts in the minds of devout Christians who are being told, "Oh, this way over here is the only way to be Christian”, and only Christians can really do that effectively.
[John Borthwick]
Thanks so much, Kristin. You are a joy to be in your company. It's always a joy to be in your company to learn from you and to listen. And I was - It was a certainly, it's a beefy book, but when I start, I said page two. I'm like, “oh my gosh, you've hooked me. I'm. I'm in. I'm in for the long haul”. And I have passed it on to my partner. It's not released quite yet when - we're by our recording time, but we have pre-ordered it. She's an audible, she likes to listen audibly, so she'll be listening to the audible in September. So, “Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made” will be out by the time this podcast is released, and we'll put a link in our show notes along with Kristin's Substack, which is the way of the world these days. Everyone's got a Substack. It's beautiful, Demay connections. It's certainly worth turning up in your inbox on a regular basis. If you want to hear Kristin, and do you do you record weekly or every other week?
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Mostly weekly, unless we're all out of town, or you know - often a couple of us are on the road, so we're taking I think yeah, a short break, but we're pretty much weekly “The Convocation Unscripted”. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms, and we is myself with Diana Butler Bass, Jamar Tisby, and Robbie Jones.
[John Borthwick]
Such an amazing collection of friends. Maybe, I don't know if these are new friends to you as a part of - as you became “Jesus and John Wayney”, or yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Tamar and I go way back, but Robbie and I met after “Jesus and John Wayne” came out, and he's such a generous person, and he brought in Diana, and she and I had connected a little bit before, but Robbie was kind of the ringleader and brought us all together, and it's a very fun space. And it's just where we meet up every Thursday. I guess record Thursdays. It usually comes out Fridays, unless it's our live day, then it's Thursday, and we just check in with each other. And it's been a way for us to keep our sanity and to kind of pool our resources. What are you seeing? How are you making sense of things, and we started, we did that once just privately, and I was the one who I swore I would never ever have a podcast, never. And I was the one who said, "You guys, this is so good, just to do this with you. We should just invite other people to listen in when we do a weekly check in”. And that was the origin of “The Convocation Unscripted”.
[John Borthwick]
It's amazing, yeah, and it truly is unscripted, yeah. Like you guys are not, you guys are just going off in all directions, yeah.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Oh yeah, I mean, well, what we do is we log on and we check in, like, “hey, how's it going? What are you up to”? And well, what should we talk about today? So, we kind of give we put Jamar in charge because he's the best at it, and to kind of bring us through, but we bring up anything that comes to mind during it. But we do try to give him like a couple of things “Hey, I want to talk about this”, or “should we”? You know, “does anybody have the expertise to describe this thing that just happened”? But it's very - it's unscripted because yeah, we take maybe 30 seconds to like figure out what we're going to be talking about, but then no rules. We say whatever we want.
[John Borthwick]
I love it. Yeah, it's quite something. So yeah, I encourage you to check it out if you're looking for a podcast. And what a commitment on your part, the four of you. But what a beautiful thing to turn in your own - your own grounding check in and sharing it with the world. That's a wonderful thing, and our thanks again to the Institute for Christian Studies. They partnered with us to bring Kristin to Knox this past May, and that partnership has been truly a gift. And certainly, this conversation is a bit of the fruits of that gift. So, I'm so pleased that you're connected with them so well and continue to encourage them in the ways in which they're witnessing here in Canada and around North America as well in their in their ways and means that they're doing that.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Absolutely, yep, they're my people. I love; I love my connection to ICS.
[John Borthwick]
Awesome, thanks so much, Kristin. You have a good rest of your day. We'll talk to you again sometime in the future.
[Kristin Kobes Du Mez]
Wonderful, thank you so much.
[John Borthwick]
Thanks for joining us on the Ministry Forum podcast. We hope today's episode encouraged you and reminded you that you are not alone in ministry. If this episode resonated, tell someone. Please don't keep us a secret. And if you can, subscribe, rate, or leave a review wherever you listen. It helps us reach more ministry leaders just like you, and honestly, it reminds us that we're not alone either. Find more resources and ways to connect at ministryforum.ca and follow us on social media at Ministry Forum. Until next time, may God's strength and courage be yours. May you be fearless, not reckless. May you be well in body, mind, and spirit, and may you be at peace.