Kristin Kobes Du Mez - The Making of Modern Christian Womanhood
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Kristin Kobes Du Mez joins Theology Lab for a conversation on evangelicalism, Christian women, Christianity and gender, women and Christianity, and biblical inerrancy, drawing from her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. This is a conversation that looks at, why are people leaving Christianity? Why do some stay? What does theology and the Bible say about women? And how do these topics connect to gender roles in Christianity?
YouTube link, Kristin Kobes Du Mez image with episode title
Description
Kristin Kobes Du Mez joins Theology Lab for a conversation on evangelicalism, Christian women, Christianity and gender, women and Christianity, and biblical inerrancy, drawing from her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. This is a conversation that looks at, why are people leaving Christianity? Why do some stay? What does theology and the Bible say about women? And how do these topics connect to gender roles in Christianity?
Longer description: In this wide-ranging interview, Du Mez explores the history of American evangelicalism, Christian women, holiness theology, New Thought, positive thinking, biblical inerrancy, gender roles, and the culture of Christian femininity. She explains how ideas about perfection, positivity, obedience, and doubt have shaped white Christian womanhood and American Christianity—and how these theological traditions continue to influence the church today. We also discuss Christian women influencers, the rise of blogs and social media, evangelical women's ministries, and the changing landscape of Christian culture. Du Mez asks listeners to reconsider what we assume is timeless Christian teaching and asks how history can lead to greater discernment, wisdom, and compassion.
Resource
Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made: https://kristindumez.com/books/live-laugh-love/
On inerrancy: https://defendinginerrancy.com/chicago-statements/
Generated Transcript
Scott Rice (00:00)
Yeah, this is a book even more so than Jesus and John Wayne, where once you see how all these pieces start to fit together, like you just cannot unsee it. And you're going to see the world around you through an entirely different lens.
Kristen, we got to talk to Kristen Cobes Dumay about her new book, Live, Laugh, Love. It follows her hugely popular book, Jesus and John Wayne, that was about rugged masculinity. And it's about the secret history of how a culture of white Christian femininity emerged. I think a lot of folks are gonna recognize features of this book as soon as they hear it being discussed. The story, as folks are gonna see in our conversation with Kristen, takes us to a whole bunch of different places. We're gonna talk about biblical inerrancy, we're gonna talk about social media from
Logs to Substack and how they've amplified some voices and made it almost like inevitable that we're part of these wider conversations, but also put a limit on other conversations and voices, and then a whole bunch more. Yeah, Scott, as someone who loves history myself, I was struck by what Kristen says right off the bat about history being disruptive and why it's so important for us to understand our history as the American church and bring that into conversation with our religious traditions and our theology.
For some of us, that word disruptive could be intriguing and welcome. But for others of us who are more comfortable with the status quo, it may raise eyebrows. So I want to reassure listeners that Kristen's research is not meant to lead us to despair or to nihilism, but it's really to empower us to be more faithful Christians who can recognize when influential systems cause harm. Yes, yes, yes. And for that reason, listen to the end. That is where Kristen Cobus Dumas shares this beautiful vision of the
Positive reasons that she wrote this book. I think we we both found it, I think, pretty pretty moving. If you like this episode, pay attention to your feed over the next few weeks. We're gonna be releasing another short episode with Kristen Cobes Dumay for our Beyond Simple Answer series. And it looks at just one theological story in this book that has to do with the author of Passion and Purity, Elizabeth Elliott. Take a moment, if you would, to subscribe to the channel for videos as soon as they're released and give the video a like. Here's our conversation with Kristen Cobes Dumay.
Kristen Covestume, thank you so much for being a guest at Theology Lab. Thank you for having me back again. Kristen, the subtitle of your book is The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. For Christians who might not really understand why it's important to know and understand history, can you explain to us why you think it's so important that we understand the history behind American theological thinking and especially how it's shaped.
White Christian womanhood as you describe in the book. Yeah, that little word secret is it carries a lot. There were so many surprises that I encountered. As somebody who studied American religion for more than 20 years, I there were just so many points in the research where I thought, you have got to be kidding me. So so I just wanted to bring some of those surprises to readers.
And I think that history is so important because history is often disruptive, particularly when we bring history and historical research into conversation with religious traditions and religious traditions that like to present a lot of things as say God ordained, as timeless, as eternal, as you know, non-negotiables. What history will do.
More often than not, is show you actually this wasn't handed down directly from God. And that in the case of Christianity, in the case of evangelicalism, Christi Christians in different times and places have understood these issues in very different ways, which doesn't on its own.
Answer the question, okay, what is the right approach to masculinity, to femininity, to sanctification, to all of these things? Not at all. But it does make it a lot more difficult to pretend that one particular packaging of or branding or you know understanding of any issue is the only acceptable one handed down from heaven. And then as soon as you understand that, no, actually.
People, usually men, but not always, but often men, like made decisions and they silenced some voices and elevated others for particular purposes with these implications, repercussions that, you know, I kind of show. Then that brings us to a point where we can say, okay, is this where we want to be? What is the fruit?
Of these theologies of these teachings. And for people of faith, maybe let's go back to the scriptures and go back to Christian tradition and reconsider some of these. Because if these teachings haven't gotten us to a place that seems healthy and faithful, you know, maybe we need to find a new path forward. There's a couple concepts that are introduced at the beginning of the book. I'm thinking about holiness theology, but particularly this philosophy of.
Positivity or the philosophy of new thought that plays a huge role in the book. It illuminates so much of the history that follows. But I don't know if like listeners and viewers will immediately know what it is. So can you just tell us a little bit about like what is this philosophy of new thought? And then just maybe something about the huge role that it plays in the history that follows. Yeah, you know, I actually worried about this. In the book promo, we talk about new thought. And I told my editor, like,
Can't say new thought right up front. Nobody knows what that is. They're not gonna want to read a book about something they don't know about. And he's like, Kristen, you're a historian, like lean into it, you know, like go with the historical term. so we do we talk about new thought in even just in the promo. New thought is a philosophy of evolves out of a movement called mind cure, essentially in the 19th century.
All sorts of things are going on in society, like new scientific advances, new new technologies, a new, a new economic system. This is really the the rise of consumer capitalism, industrialization, all these things. So life is transforming really rapidly. And so in the spiritual realm, people start asking, well, you know, are there new ways of understanding the spirit? Are there new ways of understanding how the mind and the spirit interact?
Or the mind and the body interact. And so they have these theories that are just bubbling up, drawing on things like hypnot hypnot hypnotism, mesmerism, right? Can you actually control physical reality by your the way you think? And then it it evolves into new thought. This idea, again, the mind shapes reality. And
By the early 20th century, that evolves into what is a familiar term to most of us, the philosophy of positive thinking. And so think Norman Vincent Peel here. But all of it is really centering the will, centering belief that if you believe something, you can make it happen. This is this is like the what runs through much of the get rich quick genre of the 20th century. books like think and grow rich, you know, put a
tape a hundred dollar bill to your bedroom ceiling. So the first thing you see when you wake up is that, and you think those rich thoughts and good things, and you're gonna get money. So if you think about it, this philosophy seeps into so many aspects of American society. And and this is one of the ingredients of this positivity that I grapple with over the course of Live Laugh Love.
This is one of those areas where I think you just do a little bit of explanation in the history of the book and all of a sudden I'm like, yes, I see this. Not only like do I understand a little bit of the history of this, but I see it everywhere. Like I'm now walking around and I'm seeing signs in specific context. And I'm like, there it is. It's on the wall telling me to believe and give thanks. would you like they're finding themselves, but like I now I understand a little bit of where the culture of where they're coming from and the theology behind them.
Absolutely. Yeah. This is a book, even more so than Jesus and John Wayne, where once you see how all these pieces start to fit together, like you just cannot unsee it. And you're going to see the world around you through an entirely different lens. Dovetailing from that a little bit. many of our listeners identify as Christians. And as Christians, we do believe that we're called to love God and love others. And that
produces a hopefully high standard of behavior that some might classically call holiness. but you mentioned in the book that Christian women have become held to impossible standards of behavior that it is different from this classical Christian view of, you know, holy and upright living. So can you describe where those impossible standards came from and how maybe an example of how they operate today?
Yeah, so another thing that I do in this book is I do talk a lot about evangelicalism, but not just, you know, evangelicalism in a generic way. I I get granular and I by following clues, the popular books that I was reading that were published in the sixties and seventies, I kept running across Christian women writing about Hannah Whittlesmith, a Christian woman from the nineteenth century, a holiness preacher.
And once, twice, okay, but over and over again, I thought, why? Why do they keep pointing us back to Hannah Smith? She was the author of the best-selling religious book, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life. She was a pioneering holiness preacher and really helped popularize the movement. Dwight Moody published her work, so that puts her in kind of the centers of evangelical revivalism. And holiness theology is like New Thought.
Part of a wider societal rebellion against Calvinism. And so Calvinism, there was no human agency. It was so negative. People are always sinful, total depravity, all that stuff. It was just not the right theology for an optimistic age. So inter-uh holiness theology, drawing on Wesleyan roots, like Phoebe Palmer is really a critical figure here as well. And she appears in the book.
But holiness theology, like New Thought, centers the power of the will. Belief. Belief is everything. And it also, like New Thought, stipulates that God or in New Thought, the universe, work according to very reliable laws, universal laws. So if you totally submit your will to God's will.
Through this act of belief, an act of the will, then good things are bound to follow. They must, because God works under these rules. What follows? Holiness. Like it's this, it's perfectionism, sanctification. You are, you can be, you can achieve perfect holiness. The Bible promises, right? And it starts with an act of the will. And when you are, when you achieve this holiness, you're also gonna be happy. And there's the secret of a happy life.
And so it puts the power in the hands of every individual believer. Circumstances don't matter. Every believer has within themselves the power to be holy and happy. Now, I'm a Calvinist. I teach at Calvin University. We are much more pessimistic about human nature. And so it was kind of easy for me to start to see some of the downsides of this theology of.
perfectionism, particularly then the the ideals to which it held believers, to which they could only ever fall short, which then spawns a kind of soul searching, agonizing soul searching. And it's great for the budding consumer economy, selling religious devotionals. You like read another book, get holier. Like you can do this, believe harder. And it also we can see how it can set up
a kind of crisis of faith for people who actually follow all those rules, are highly disciplined, and still have terrible things happen to them, which was in fact the case for Hannah Smith herself. Kristen, I a question here, and I I just can't avoid the fact that this question is gonna ask you to speak in a like a a constructive, maybe kind of theological way. But but I but I think it but
Let's let's just see where goes. All right. There there's I and I think, you know, I think Kristen Lee would also identify like there's parts of the story and this history that we have seen in our own past. And so they say like there's there's aspects of it really identify. And that you talk at various points in the book about how this key aspect of American Christianity formed that that is about thought-terminating cliches that resists.
moral complexity that I I just kept thinking like, you know, in this way that will is elevated, critical reflection and doubt, especially doubt, like are not okay. So okay, I'm just I want you to just think about me as the reader and other readers who read this and just say like, yes, I I have been, whatever this tradition is, I know it has, it shaped me, maybe long ago in ways I've come to realize a bit, but it really shaped me.
When you see that reader, like what what do what do you care about? Why write a history that brings attention to this, but also in a in a way out of of concern for that group of people? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're you're right. This doubt is of the devil in this theology. And same is true in New Thought, negativity, doubt, clear, clear all your doubts. And anybody who who makes you doubt who questions.
and your own questions, all of that is the voice of the devil. Now you can see how this theology and this philosophy, then with that framework, can be used to manipulate and control groups and populations, even right. Because as soon as you start questioning the system, like, are we sure? that's of the devil. That's a voice of the devil, right? And if you become a questioner vocally, you become one of those negative forces that has to be removed from this system, right?
so yes, the book then goes into some pretty dark places and some pretty shocking historical spaces. so I'll say that much. So why? Why do I do this to readers? first of all, confession. I don't think of my readers initially when I'm writing this stuff. I am just trying to figure out the story. I'm trying to figure out what.
I am even looking at in the historical sources. And so I confess that the thought that I give to the people who actually read this usually comes much later. and and then I just have a high level of trust in my readers that that truth is worth knowing. And that it can be disturbing, it can be disruptive, it can be painful.
But I would always rather know the truth than be living part of a lie. And certainly if those lies perpetuate harm. And so yeah, I guess that's that's kind of how I didn't really think about reception until later in the game. But then when I was writing on thought-terminating cliches, when I was
writing on the parallels and even some connections between practices that we see in evangelical parachurch organizations and small groups, evangelical small groups, and their use of confession and their the way that they discipline and even punish members, the way that they draw people in and make it so hard to leave. Connections between that and
Practices in Chinese communist prison camps, right? To just go there. And if that seems like a bridge too far, I totally get it. but read the book and you'll see how we how we how we make that very small leap. I would just rather that we, you know, we follow where the evidence leads and we start asking questions without fear. and without fear of being denounced of
being deemed unfaithful because we want to figure out how this all works and what theology has to do with it. I wanted to ask just very briefly, we interact with the idea of biblical inerrancy at various times and the stuff we do a theology lab. You spent some time in this book talking about how that concept arises around some conversations around gender and restrictions on gender within the church. Can you just help
make that link a little bit more clear for our listeners, give them taste of what you talk about in the book. Yeah, this always gets me in in trouble because I I ventured into this territory in Jesus and John Wayne just a bit as well. And first I need to give a credit where credit is due.
My work on inerrancy relies heavily on the work of other scholars who are experts in this. And so with Jesus and John Wade, like one of the many misunderstandings I think it's fair to say is that I got way more credit for that book than I deserve and more blame from people who didn't read the footnotes and realized that many of the stunning insights were in fact.
Me citing the work of other scholars. And so read the footnotes. So the scholarship of people like Betsy Flowers, Elizabeth Flowers, and Seth Dowland. And so all which is to say this is not Kristen's view on inerrancy, that there is a long overdue kind of blossoming of scholarship around inerrancy. I touch on inerrancy in a couple of different places in the book. initially I don't link it at well, I do link it to g gender there, but to other things that
Interestingly, in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century, when inerrancy first kind of emerges in evangelical spaces, starting in Presbyterian spaces, it is both a reaction to, you know, kind of modernism, but also a reaction to Pentecostalism.
And the idea that when you empower believers and say, hey, we all, you know, we believe in the plain reading of the scripture and that every believer can approach the scripture on equal terms and that God speaks to them, things can get really out of hand very quickly. And that's what we see happening like all over the place. If you're interested in control, if you're interested in orthodoxy. And
and control isn't always a bad thing. That's something that people will probably, you know, misread me with here. But you know, to what extent it can be used for good, and then when it becomes a problem, right? That's open for debate. but inerrancy was one of the tools developed or at least used for the purposes of containing the power of individual believers to interpret scripture.
Like, yes, yes, yes, the plain reading of the text, but we will tell you what that reading is. If it's so plain, why do we need it? But no, the authorities are going to tell you which way to interpret these key passages, and they're going to uphold particular passages that get the inerrancy treatment and completely neglect a whole lot of other ones that just, I mean, that that doesn't apply to today, or it's very complicated, right? That certainly resurfaces in the 1970s.
particularly inside the Southern Baptist Convention when inerrancy is because they hadn't really bought into the inerrancy, kind of the popularity of inerrancy earlier in the century, because they didn't really have the threat of modernism in in the American South in the same way and inside the SBC. So they kind of come upon it in the seventies as a very handy tool. in that
At that time, particularly to push back against evangelical feminism that was really gaining traction and to defend a hierarchical understanding of society. and gender hierarchy was a key piece of that. And so they use inerrancy as a weapon.
To define orthodoxy and define anybody who disagrees on how we interpret an array of passages around women's religious authority in the scriptures to define them outside of the fold. Not just, I disagree with that. That's a different interpretation, but we're all one body, right? As there's a lot of verses in the Bible that suggest we are. Nope.
Like you are you are outside of the fold, you will not be in our churches, you will not be in our organizations, right? We have the Chicago statement of inerrancy, and you can see how that is consistently wielded to make anybody espousing egalitarianism like unwelcome. They are defined outside of the fold of orthodoxy. And it can be wielded so powerfully because hey, it's just scriptural. You have a problem with the Bible.
But there are so many other passages that do not get the inerrancy treatment. And what I loved writing this time around on inerrancy and how it's used is I brought in some voices of conservative evangelicals at that time who also very much upheld the authority of the scriptures and the infallibility of the scriptures. But they said this inerrancy idea.
You are using a measure that is not, in fact, in the Bible itself to define who is and is not a believer. And that is profoundly unbiblical. And I just think that is a voice that we need to resurface. That those voices, because they have so effectively, the pro-inercy folks who have wielded it as this weapon have so effectively shut.
Down any conversation inside huge swaths of American Christianity around how inerrancy is in fact wielded to divide the body of Christ. Speaking of shutting down the conversation, women have often been shut out of the conversation in these Christian conversations. but you describe in the book how, especially in the last few decades with the rise of the internet.
The way women have been able to shape the church has really shifted. So initially, with bloggers like Rachel Halda Evans, Jen Hatmaker, these were really unsanctioned voices who didn't have formal theological training or official platforms, but they were able to build huge followings and and really influence people. But then you also mention, even more recently, with the rise of Instagram, there's a whole different
segment, maybe overlapping somewhat of people, influencers who cultivate this kind of aesthetic of Christian femininity that's maybe more conservative, centered on motherhood, for example. so as women continue to face barriers to formal ordination, or not being received by churches and seminaries that really elevate their voices, where do you see Christian women's influence playing out most effectively going forward?
Yeah, it was very fun to write the chapter on bloggers and to see how I mean here is kind of Evangelicals' fault, not just Evangelicals, but mostly Evangelicals' fault for emphasizing gender difference to such a degree that they really needed different ministries entirely to women and men because God was telling them very different things. And so you have the whole rise of the women's ministry industrial complex.
And for decades this is going on largely outside the view of most men in churches. And and wild stuff is happening in those spaces. And in those spaces too, you have like l fewer distinctions theologically, because you could have a a charismatic preacher on stage with a Baptist or
And certainly on the consumer side of the things, women could, you know, buy a book by Joyce Meyer and a book by Beth Moore. And, you know, like you can just mix it up. And that's that's one of the the arguments of this book. Like if we're talking about American women's religious experience, you gotta lose those really sharp categories. They're they're not holding up. but by segmenting the religious market to such a degree, and and we've created this vibrant women's ministry world.
There were still gatekeepers in those spaces because many of them were denominational ministries and the gatekeepers were still like major Christian publishers, right? So there were still some mechanisms of of containment. And then the blogosphere starts up. And I start that chapter with Anne Voskamp because she doesn't initially or she doesn't come in to like disrupt everything and to seize power. She is simply, you know, kind of spiritual journaling on a blog.
And many of the earlier evangelical women who are blogging are doing that. And they are trying to foster faith in other women. And then they start asking questions. And they start asking more questions. And then we also, with the rise of social media that happens a few years later, that makes these women and by that time their massive followings.
Visible to religious gatekeepers. And all of a sudden we see the problems. You see, you know, Elle Moller and Doug Wilson going toe-to-toe with Rachel Hall Devons. just in recent years, we saw Bethmore, you know, such a beloved Southern Baptist Bible teacher, had influenced millions and millions of women, deeply influenced these women, really shaped their understanding of God and themselves.
And then all of a sudden, you know, these Theo Bros on Twitter see she has almost a million followers, right? She needs to be silenced. She needs to be controlled. And you see this kind of change over time. I loved writing that chapter, partly because I lived it and watched it, but also because you can see how changing technologies also shape the history. Like the blog does certain things, the blog role creates a certain culture and it's very like.
writing dependent. And in those writing spaces, the women who rise to the top are really smart and really great writers. But that's also a format that allows you to ask these questions and to like go where the questions lead you. And then social media changes that and slowly makes it more visual. And certainly now the influencer phase that we're in very visual. So that kind of writing and questioning, just at the time that it's becoming
Noticed and then problematic in certain spaces. Also, like things shift again. and the ad revenue changes. And like for for a brief window, it was really only like five years or so, you could make a ton of money as a blocker. They were getting these like six figure book deals just on the their follower count alone. It was it was wild. And then
The algorithm algorithms change, it's social media, and it's we're getting into Instagram and TikTok, and all of a sudden it's a visual format again. And that ends up playing into the hands of the kind of conservative ideals of femininity that I describe throughout the book. This visual, perfect kitchen, perfect hair, perfect children.
And then we we move into the influencer and then ultimately the trad wife culture. So it was just so much fun to write about that. And there is certainly agency. All of these women exercise agency, but they also do so as a part of broader religious trends and broader societal trends. And and it was just fascinating to kind of tease that all out. To close us off, Scott and I were both reflecting. We both
come out of this world that you describe in Live Laugh Love. And even if we may no longer strongly resonate with all parts of it, it's still all around us. So what do you hope that people like us take away from the stories that you tell, especially as people who care about the future of the church and its direction? Yeah. First of all, not everything that I write about in this book is a bad thing. it's it is a
complex narrative. And I think it is is more complicated, the story that I tell than Jesus and John Wayne in ways I've already suggested, but also in this way. Right. Jesus and John Wayne, because it had a much narrower focus. And I was really looking at militant conception of Christian manhood as intertwined with Christian nationalism. And then where that brings us. And it brings us to some really dark places politically and in terms of abuse and so on.
Which is to say there were some clear good guys and bad guys in that narrative. Live Life Love is is different. In some ways, like even as I was writing about these theologies and theological views that I could see led to some harmful results, I can see where you you take that from the scripture, right? I can see where that is a
legitimate interpretation of a particular passage, even if it, you know, sets us up for things that undermine other portions of the scriptures and create great harm. so it is it the products too. I got to write about some of my favorite products, things like Janet Oak's Love Comes Softly, that novel that really jump starts a new era of Christian fiction.
I loved rereading that and and writing that chapter. I first read that book as a teenager. I write about cr precious moments figurines. I write about Hobby Lobby, an altered state. And I I understand that my rest reputation precedes me to a certain extent and that people are bracing themselves like, I now I have to hate precious moments figurines. Like, no, no, you don't. I still have mine and I still like them. And they are in fact precious to me for sentimental reasons.
But it's also okay to like to acknowledge that these things shaped me. And some of some of this was really beautiful. And there were beautiful things encapsulated in this culture. There were biblical things that were part of it. And some of those things also created great harm. And it's okay. It's okay like to just have greater discernment.
And to understand that very few things are all one thing or the other. And what I can say is that the harmful systems that I describe throughout Live, Laugh, Love and the manipulative systems that have caused great harm personally and politically could not have been perpetuated without a whole lot of good mixed in with the harm. That's how this works. And so I think it's incumbent upon all of us to sift through.
what were the good things? What were the things that felt good to us? What were the things that, you know, maybe gave us power over others, gave us a profound sense of belonging while excluding others? maybe some of the things that we thought were so beautiful, right? Maybe they they're a little more problematic than they felt at the time. But also to to give grace even to yourself as you realize some early readers have have expressed
How much this book resonates with them, but also how they feel so complicit in it. Women who taught these teachings in Bible studies to younger generations, and they have to grapple with that. And what I told them is, you know, give yourself grace too. We are all always part of cultural systems. We are all always seeking to be obedient and seeking to be faithful Christians in a broken context and with limited capacities ourselves. But that's part of the problem with these teachings.
Is that they ignore that. And they teach Christians with power that it is possible to be perfect. And that they happen to be those who just happen to have all the things right. And anybody who challenges them must then be against all that is good and true and lovely because that's what they represent, right? That's the certainty and the good versus evil simplicity that I would like to push back against.
And if I, you know, am deeply troubled about all the things, I just hope to also trouble a few more people. And that need not lead to despair. Ideally, it leads to discernment and wisdom and compassion. It's beautiful. Yeah, that that is a remarkable reflection. Kristen, thank you so much for being a guest at Theology Lab. I think that Live, Laugh, Love is a really impressive book.
I think as we've discussed here for both Kristen Lee and myself, it is a book that illuminates how we understand, like where we are in the present in the church. And as I told you before we logged on, I'm just really excited about the conversations that this book is going to initiate for us and for others. So thank you for your service. Thank you for your work. Thank you to both of you. I really appreciate it.
