It was just months after Jesus and John Wayne published in 2020 that I decided to write another book. This book, too, would look at popular religious culture and politics—but this time it would be about the world of women.

I knew exactly what it would be called: Live Laugh Love.

Live Laugh Love is about exactly what you think it is. It is about prairie fiction and Amish romance, Amy Grant, Jen Hatmaker, and Joanna Gaines. It is about multilevel marketing (from Amway and Mary Kay to R+F and LuLaRoe). It is about Christian bookstores and Hobby Lobby and Altar’d State, about beauty and bloggers, about purity culture (of course) and about Elisabeth Elliot—but not exactly the Elliot you might expect. (Elliot became one of my favorite people in the book—not the missionary Elliot or the Passion & Purity Elliot, but the woman she was in between.)

The book is also about power. It is about systems of manipulation and control. (That’s partly where the “secret” in the subtitle comes in.) For people who have been immersed in these worlds and for those who have left or tried to leave, it will make so much sense of so many things. I had no idea…

Early praise for Live Laugh Love:

“Live Love Laugh is full of in-depth research, stories needing to be heard, and excellent writing. With a solid grasp of race and whiteness, Kristin Du Mez takes us through time, offering an understanding of the evangelical culture’s view of women. I am grateful for her scholarship in this critical time.”
― Latasha Morrison, New York Times bestselling author of Be the Bridge

“Kristin Du Mez’s scholarship stuns. She weaves a mesmerizing narrative of how white evangelical women transformed biblical womanhood and made Christian nationalism palatable. They married capitalism with spirituality, harnessed the language of submission to broker their own networks of power, and refashioned right-wing authoritarianism into a romantic mythology of family values. Du Mez stands apart for how she centers the stories of women―those who were complicit and those who weren’t. By honoring the courage, truth-telling, and resilience of women like Christa Brown and Rachel Held Evans, Du Mez shows us the real story of hope. It will captivate you.”
― Beth Allison Barr, New York Times bestselling author of Becoming the Pastor’s Wife

“Kristin Kobes du Mez isn’t just one of our boldest historians; she’s also one of our finest writers of non-fiction. Live Laugh Love connects so many ‘Christian’ beliefs that have nothing to do with Christ, and that have been used to control women for generations. A brilliant, infuriating, inspiring read for anyone who wants to understand modern Christianity―and how it got that way. I wish that all men would read this book.”
― John Fugelsang, New York Times bestselling author of Separation of Church and Hate

I first started exploring evangelical masculinity and militarism nearly a decade ago, not knowing that the presidency of Donald Trump would be its culminating chapter. It was in October 2016 that things clicked for me. Even after the Access Hollywood tape, white evangelicals continued to support Trump. How could they embrace a man who made a mockery of their deeply held “family values”? But then I realized that popular evangelical literature on masculinity had prepared evangelicals for a man like Trump. Trump didn’t represent the betrayal of American evangelicalism, he was its fulfillment. Or so I argued at Religion & Politics the week of Trump’s inauguration. I then set out to tell the whole story in Jesus and John Wayne. It’s been a wild ride.

Early praise for Jesus and John Wayne:  

“The well-researched narrative is reasoned and dispassionate…. Readers not on the fringe right will find it difficult to take issue with her arguments. An evangelical-focused anti-Trump book that carries academic weight.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“Jesus and John Wayne demolishes the myth that Christian nationalists simply held their noses to form a pragmatic alliance with Donald Trump. With brilliant analysis and detailed scholarship, Kristin Kobes Du Mez shows how conservative evangelical leaders have promoted the authoritarian, patriarchal values that have achieved their finest representative in Trump. A stunning exploration of the relationship between modern evangelicalism, militarism, and American masculinity.”
– Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism

“Politically, Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s new book, Jesus and John Wayne, offers an extremely important―and underrated―insight into why white evangelicals have fallen so deeply in love with Donald Trump. Personally, and for all of us who lived through this history, the book surfaces deep continuities between different people, events, movements, and trends that we may not have noticed. It is a scholarly work of history, but it is so well written that it promises to be popular with a wide audience. Highly recommended, especially at this critical moment in religious, cultural, and political history.”
– Brian D. McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith

“This deeply perceptive book establishes Kristin Kobes Du Mez as the Christian critic of this crisis moment. She demonstrates how a certain warrior fantasy saturated white evangelicalism and decided American elections. Along the way, we discover how our political life became defined by the conjunction of religion and popular culture. Required reading.”
– Kathryn Lofton, Yale University, author of Consuming Religion

“Wielding supreme command of evangelical theology, popular culture, history and politics, as well as rare skill with the pen, Kristin Kobes Du Mez explodes the myth that evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in spite of his crude machismo. It turns out that the opposite is true: for generations, white male evangelical leaders and their supportive wives have been building a movement of brazen masculinity and patriarchal authority, with hopes of finding a warrior who could extend their power to the White House. In Trump they found their man. This is a searing and sobering book, one that should be read by anyone who wants to grasp our political moment and the religious movement that helped get us here.”
– Darren Dochuk, author of Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America

“I endorse Kristin Du Mez’s lively and readable account of evangelical political history, having personally seen it from the inside during nearly three decades with the National Association of Evangelicals. Those who legitimately ask “How can evangelicals support Donald Trump?” need to read this book to understand why. An extraordinary work.”
– Reverend Richard Cizik, President of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good

My first book is about Katharine Bushnell. Not exactly a household name, but that was kind of the point. Once an internationally-known anti-trafficking activist and feminist theologian, Bushnell had all but disappeared from the historical record. Her story tells us a lot about the relationship between Christianity and feminism in America. And, once you read about her remarkable, radical-yet-orthodox revision of the Christian scriptures, you’ll never read the Bible the same way again. Is it possible to be a Christian and a feminist? After this book, you might wonder if it’s possible not to be.

For a preview of Bushnell’s theology and why it matters today, here’s a recent blog post that pulls everything together: Hey, John MacArthur. You have a culture. It’s called white (Christian) patriarchy.