In more recent years, some evangelicals come across as media-made characters. All of which eagerly broke the boundaries of being a strictly religious organization to channel their followers to follow them into political and social issues.Īnd who could forget the movement of teaching teens abstinence and holding “Purity Balls” – the latter a particularly weird event where fathers would “date” their daughters as they proclaimed in front of a large audience of friends, family, and gawkers that they would remain virgins until marriage. She also resurrects organizations like the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Promise Keepers, the Fellowship, and Promise Keepers. Take Marabel Morgan, whose 1973 book The Total Woman was a guide on how good Christian women should be submissive to their husbands, taking care of all of their needs unquestioningly, not to mention “keeping up your curb appeal” in the looks department, and offering advice like “If you’re stingy in bed, he’ll be stingy with you.” That many preaching of “family values” would be embroiled in sexual misconduct scandals, well….īut some of the more fascinating people she profiles are lesser known today. Names like James Dobson, Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schafly, Oliver North, Tim and Betty Lahayne, and the Holy Trinity of ‘80s sweating, screaming TV evangelists: Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jerry Falwell (with a cameo from Pat Robertson).
Throughout the book, Kobes du Mez parades a cast of real-life, right-wing characters including preachers, pastors, activists, authors, and politicians who all moved into different spheres of the religious world. But as a professor of history at Calvin University whose previous writings have focused on gender, religion, and politics, she sticks to the facts, damning as they are, with the ghost of a certain western movie star acting as a shadow overseer.
Book cover In this fascinating and fervent book, Kobes du Mez doesn’t exactly look at her topic objectively, nor refrain from letting the reader know her thoughts (your first hint might be the subtitle).
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