Lee Camp
[00:00:00] I am Lee C. Camp, and this is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
For years, when I've lectured outside the Southeast, I tell audiences that religion is a contact sport in the South. I kid you not, local church decisions still make the front page, for example, of The Tennesseean here in Nashville.
The controversy sells - people love it, so it seems. And then, add politics to the mix, and you have quite an intoxicating brew. So here is one of our most controversial episodes of all time, on, you guessed it, religion and politics, with two high profile public figures talking about the controversies around American Christianity and politics.
When the episode was originally released, it got something like three times the typical number of downloads, and the social media engagement was just brutal. Even though in the [00:01:00] interview we had discussed the manner of hostility both guests were regularly receiving, I was taken by surprise at the viciousness of it.
Not sure how you'll experience this interview. You may love it, you may hate it. But this is undoubtedly an episode worthy of inclusion in our 'Best Of' episode series. Let us know what you think. You can reach me at lee@nosmallendeavor.com.
Kristin Du Mez
What we're talking about, at its heart is white Christian nationalism.
Lee Camp
That's Professor Kristin Du Mez, author of the New York Times Bestseller 'Jesus and John Wayne'. She's a public critic of white male conservatism within American Christianity.
David French
Triggering a fight became kind of a business model, and so I don't want to feed that.
Lee Camp
And that's David French, who many of you may know as well, a white, male, Christian conservative.
We asked both of them to sit down together, [00:02:00] and Kristin said to David:
Kristin Du Mez
Honestly, when you first invited me onto your podcast, I was like, okay, I don't know if I can trust this guy...
Lee Camp
But I was more interested in hearing what they might agree on. Our conversation, coming right up.
I'm Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor - exploring what it means to live a good life.
Kristin and David have joined us before, but never together, and I'm quite delighted to have you together here in person in the studio here in Nashville. Welcome to you both.
David French
Well, thanks so much for hosting us.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Lee Camp
I would love to hear Kristin and David talk some.
The obvious reason is that you both write about a lot of similar issues. You both are confessionally Christian. You're both, as far as I know, would see yourselves, I presume, as orthodox Christians. And for those of you listening, they're both nodding yes.
[David and Kristin laugh]
David French
Smaller [00:03:00] orthodox.
Lee Camp
Yeah, smaller, smaller orthodox.
Yeah. In in the great Christian, the great classic Christian tradition, since. And yet you both are writing in such a way that you are doing hard-hitting heavy critiques of the American practice of Christianity, and thus you are both getting pushback from a lot of people in the American Christian world.
David French
On occasion.
[Kristin laughs]
Lee Camp
David French
Like every day.
[Kristin laughs]
Lee Camp
I thought this would be, would be interesting to see how you, uh, two are experiencing that and, uh, see kind of, what kind of notes you might share, uh, and what kind of things we might could learn from you about how you're experiencing that. So, so I guess first let me ask this question, in light of all that I just said:
What, these days, are you seeing in light of the dynamic of you doing your critiques and the kind of pushback that you're getting? What--
David French
Kristin, you wanna go first?
Kristin Du Mez
Sure. Yeah, I don't think I get it quite as bad as David. Uh, I, I think there's probably a bit more of a sense of betrayal, uh, people feel on, uh, whereas for me, I was largely [00:04:00] unknown and then came out of nowhere and, and wrote 'Jesus and John Wayne,' and so-- Honestly at, at first, the book was, uh, did not meet a lot of pushback, mostly because I think people were, who didn't like it, thought it was best to ignore it, and they were probably right.
And then at a certain point it became impossible to ignore. But, uh, what that meant is that I had several months of really just enthusiastic responses from evangelicals themselves. And so, maybe it was about a year ago that more, the attacks started coming a bit more. And, you know, I treated them, I'm a historian and I'm very comfortable with scholarly engagement, and so, uh, these were not really scholarly critiques...
David French
[Lee and David laugh]
Right.
Kristin Du Mez
But I, I responded to them as though they were. And so I just kept clarifying, talking about evidence, talking about historical methodology. When they would ask me questions about my faith, I would answer honestly. And I, [00:05:00] you know, I thought there's something to be just modeled there, that you don't have to play games, you don't have to, you know, meet fire with fire and, and so that's what I've been trying to model.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
I will say things have gotten more vicious in the last six months or so.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
I've got some theories. Um, I, I'd like to hear David first, uh, give some of his theories and we can compare notes.
David French
Yeah. You know, I, I do think things have gotten more vicious across the board, and I've seen things get more vicious towards you--
Kristin Du Mez
David French
--in the last six months. It's funny, the way the algorithm works is once you've been lumped together with another person in enough times, you all of a sudden start seeing when they're under fire.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
It's, it's kind of funny how that works. But, um, I have noticed things getting more vicious. I would strongly recommend that anyone who's not done it yet, read Tim Alberta's long exten-- extended piece in The Atlantic about the fracturing of the evangelical church. And there was a thought that after the Trump years, that some of the intensity, just the raw, primal, angry [00:06:00] intensity of evangelical engagement would ease.
And if anything, I think that the opposite has occurred. If anything, while there are many millions of evangelicals who've sort of seen what politics has become and they kind of pull back and they don't want anything to do with it - that would be a lot of my friends, for example, who are not terribly political, they've just pulled back - the real, deep engagement in the culture war has intensified.
And the interesting thing is, it has intensified even as scandal after scandal has sort of blasted apart major Christian institutions. And I think those things are related. I think that when your own institutions are in a, sort of in a state of collapse, one of the ways that you respond is by rallying against the other, rallying against the, those on the outside who are seeking to do harm to these institutions.
And so, this should be a moment, in my view, of an enormous [00:07:00] amount of repentance, enormous amount of reflection, as to-- 'Cause you can't say that any single strand of evangelicalism has been left untouched. You know, you go to the sort of Pentecostal megachurch of Hillsong, to the Ravi Zacharias Christian intellectual apologetic, to the largest Protestant denomination in America, to the largest Christian camp in America, to the largest Christian university in America.... And each one of these has been wracked by massive scandal. And in a weird way, I think it's caused some folks to double down.
Lee Camp
Hmm. How does that fit your observations, Kristin?
Kristin Du Mez
Yeah, that does make sense. I think that, you know, for me as a historian, this hasn't really caught me off guard, because I wrote a book essentially on the abuse of power.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
And so I watched how these patterns have existed for generations now. And, [00:08:00] surface level, things looked more peaceful, um, but underneath, I mean, particularly when you start looking at, uh, you know, these are long histories of abuse.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Uh, abuse of power, sexual abuse, cover-ups in these organizations, in these institutions.
And so, listening to survivors' stories over the years, I already had a pretty clear sense that there's some ugliness here and that exposing that doesn't make it go away.
I'm caught between, on the one hand, being surprised to see it so blatant, out in the open, and on the other hand, not surprised. What I do see happening now, that I'm trying to try to figure out-- I'm in the strange place, for me at least, as a historian, of being both participant and observer now. You know, I, I, I'm more comfortable in the observer mode.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Usually my historical subjects have been dead, [Lee and David laugh] and so I just tell about them. And now, they're interacting with me, and I've become a character in the story. So that's strange. [00:09:00]
But, you know, what I'm watching is this kind of, I'm always looking for networks' alliances. And I'm watching some interesting alliances here, between conservative evangelicals, some of them, and more secular conservatives.
David French
Extremely secular conservatives.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Uh, and, and maybe that's where some of this viciousness comes out, because in evangelical spaces, you can go so far and then you've gotta kind of pull back.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Whereas now, I'm seeing a lot of conservative-- or some conservative evangelicals, kind of seem to cheer on, from a safe distance, some of this ruthless, you know, more secular conservatism, as they are, very clearly it seems, it seems to be a strategy here, going after people like you, people like me, right? Orthodox Christians, faithful practicing Christians in these spaces, who are trying to hold our communities to [00:10:00] account. And I think that does seem to be a very clear strategy.
David French
You know, if you have built a movement around the notion that we are fundamentally good guys, we're, we are fundamentally good people, we're nice people, we are beset by bad people. So it-- we are good people, not perfect - no Christian would say, you know, even the most hardcore religious Right person would say perfect. There's gonna be bad apples in the orchard. But, fundamentally good people being beset by really bad people.
Well, and then when there are things that occur that can call into question that fundamental goodness of the movement, there's a couple of ways to go with that. One is to sort of say, my goodness, we have sinned. We have fallen short, and we need to repent of this. Another one is to say, well, no matter how bad we are, they're worse.
And it seems to be, people have walked through that door number two - no matter how bad we are, they're much worse. [00:11:00] And so there're, that's what I mean by the 'rally effect'. And, you know, we're talking about a movement.
I was just, I just had lunch today with someone in the SBC, and we were talking about the upcoming convention and everything. We're talking about a movement that there's a pretty strong argument has been the most toxic force in American politics and culture in the last few years.
When you're talking about the nearness, the near death experience the American Republic had in the 'Stop the Steal' effort, that was a heavily evangelical driven effort, and nobody can, there's no credible argument otherwise. If you're talking about the more than a quarter million unnecessary deaths of unvaccinated Americans - again, heavily evan-- white evangelical influenced.
A lot of their resistance to prudent health-- Now, I fully acknowledge that there are people who went too far on the safety side of things in the COVID era, but an enormous amount of the resistance to even common [00:12:00] sense public health measures came from the evangelical community.
If you're looking at things like mortal consequences of a movement, consequences to our democracy of a movement, a lawlessness within a movement, you are gonna locate a lot in white evangelicalism right now, and it's a horrifying thing to contemplate, if you sort of remove the log from your eye and stare clearly into their mirror. It's a horrible thing to contemplate. But, if everyone else is worse, then you can kind of live with yourself.
Lee Camp
You're listening to No Small Endeavor, and our conversation with Kristin Du Mez and David French.
I love hearing from you. Tell us what you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at [00:13:00] lee@nosmallendeavor.com.
You can get show notes for this episode in your podcast app or wherever you listen. These notes include links to resources mentioned in this episode, and a PDF of my complete interview notes, including material not found in any given episode, as well as a transcript.
Coming up, Kristin and David continue to discuss the American church's political influence, as well as what it has been like to critique and receive criticism in the midst of such polarized times.
David French
We're talking about a movement that there's a pretty strong argument has been the most toxic force in American politics and culture in the last few years.
Lee Camp
So let me, let me ask a question then. So you, you're-- David, you're pointing to one, perhaps, root cause that's leading to a lot of the fruit that we're seeing, is this sort [00:14:00] of demonization. "We're the good guys, they're the bad guys," and, and thus the conflict.
What other sorts of root causes would you all point to, in what is now in early flower, full flower in American Christian culture?
Kristin Du Mez
I mean, that's core. And then you can kind of build out from that, right? "We're the good guys, you're the bad guys." it's very pliable.
And uh, and, and what we're talking about, at its heart is, you know, to use the ever popular phrase right now, white Christian nationalism. But, I was just reading for research, a book on Christian America. I won't mention the author right now, that'll be in my next book. But, um, you're just, just steeped in this idea that America is God's special country and America has been so richly, richly blessed by God, but only when we are obedient.
And so there's this, just, extensive mythical notion of, of, [00:15:00] you know, our original faithfulness, uh, in the colonial era, and really all the way up to the 1930s when the Marxists and the Socialists and so started taking over, and then the hippies made it all worse. And now, now, you know, we're in this place, and if we wanna restore God's blessings, we need to restore our faithfulness.
And therefore, anybody who is deemed a threat, or against us there, they have to be defeated, for even their own good, for the good of the country. And, and this is, in this particular book, there is an explicit argument - America is not a democracy, right? It's a constitutional republic. It's not a democracy.
And what I came to see in my research more broadly, is that all of these impulses of holding up authority, but not just government authority, only God-ordained authorities, right. So if God establishes, you know, the, the presidency or, or you know, if God's will is done, then you owe, you owe obedience. If God's [00:16:00] will is not done, then it's your duty to resist that authority, to overthrow that authority, right, and to restore God's order.
And, and you can see where this goes. As I was researching this, I just kept thinking, oh, am I really seeing what I'm seeing? Because this sure looks authoritarian here, deeply anti-democratic. And that is, in fact, what we're seeing. All the things David was talking about, the 'Stop the Steal,' uh, looking at voting rights and, and just the rhetoric out there. It's, it's almost apocalyptic, but it's always justified. The ends always justify the means here.
David French
You know, one thread I'd also pull on is the role of prophecy. And I think this is a very underappreciated reality, uh, an, an underappreciated phenomenon in sort of the larger media.
There were an awful lot of prophets, people who proclaimed to have prophetic giftings, who declared Donald Trump, not just that, oh, he's going to be president, [00:17:00] but he has a special anointing upon his life, that there is a unique God-ordained purpose for him. And so therefore, the opposition to Donald Trump became not just a political disagreement, but a matter of a demonic assault on God's purposes.
And you don't see this as much on Twitter.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Because the prophecy world isn't on Twitter.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
You'll see it a lot more on Facebook. You'll see it a lot more in YouTube. You'll see it a lot in sermons or messages that are kind of forwarded around. But it is quite common.
And I remember when I debated Eric Metaxas about support for Donald Trump, it was very clear to me very quickly that, if not actually operating under the influence of explicit prophecies, he had adopted that prophetic mindset about Donald Trump.
Lee Camp
David French
And so at that point, what do you debate?
Lee Camp
Right. Yeah, 'cause I'm sitting here thinking, I mean, you know, that's a [00:18:00] non-falsifiable truth claim, right?
David French
Lee Camp
And it seems like that trend of non-falsifiable truth claims seems to be very prevalent, even for those who are not claiming the gift of prophecy.
David French
Lee Camp
You know, they just, they have a feeling that such and so is the case, and then it's like, how, how do you, how do you go about doing that?
Do you see broader or deeper trends leading to this sort of ease of people making non-falsifiable truth claims in, uh, American experience these days?
David French
You know, I, I, again, to sort of circle back to the, the phenomenon we've seen with prophecy in these non-falsifiable truth claims, part of it is a consequence of-- and, and look, I come, I have a, a kind of an interesting faith journey.
I grew up Church of Christ. Left the Church of Christ in law school and joined the Assemblies of God. My wife became a Christian at Times Square Church, David Wilkerson's Church in, in Times Square in New York. Very Pentecostal. Spent a lot of years in Pentecostal world. You can even [00:19:00] find an old profile of me in Charisma Magazine [all laugh] before I became a Presbyter-- PCA Presbyterian.
So I called myself Presbycostal. [All laugh] So I am not at all dismissive of Pentecostalism.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
But there has been something that has occurred within Pentecostalism that combines prophecy with lack of accountability...
Lee Camp
David French
...and a strong gravitation towards authority, that is becoming particularly toxic. There's this phenomenon known as the New Apostolic Reformation, for example, which essentially says the, the office of prophet, you know, just like pastor or elder, should be an office of the church.
And they often can be very authoritarian, and they also can be very dominionist - that God is granting dominion to Christians over, you know, there's this phrase called the 'Seven Mountain Mandate,' the seven mountains of culture. God is granting Christian dominion over those seven [00:20:00] mountains of culture. And so--
Lee Camp
I'm not familiar with that seven mountains thing. What, so what are the seven mountains?
David French
Uh, I can't list them all off the top of my head.
Kristin Du Mez
It's like education, government, um...
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Culture, like Hollywood kind of, kind of thing.
David French
Lee Camp
So that's like, is that, that's a fairly common, widespread--
David French
So Paula White, who was Donald Trump's Chief Religion-- Spiritual Advisor, is a Seven Mountain Mandate--
Lee Camp
David French
--Pentecostal believer. And, you know, so that, that kind of dominionism-- uh, you know, there are millions of people who, that you, if you say 'Seven Mountain Mandate' to 'em, they'd be like, what are you talking about? But it is the ideas of it.
Lee Camp
David French
The concepts of it have really started to work their way through Pentecostal Christianity and leaking outside of it.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
That's a good way of describing it. And, and you're right, this prophecy tradition exists off the radar of, certainly the secular media.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
[00:21:00] Um, but also, you know, many Christians. So I grew up in the Reformed community and you know, even as I was writing 'Jesus and John Wayne,' I was thinking, uh, you know, an eye on that world, but man, do I have to watch all those videos to-- you know, like, it's, it's not-- But, but, um, if you know where to look, too, uh, you know, these books are not making the New York Times Bestseller list, simply because the New York Times curates that list.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
But if you go to Amazon, and I know this because my book gets grouped with some of these prophecy books regularly, [all laugh] and their sales put mine to shame.
David French
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Right? These just, I, I call 'em random prophecy books. I'm sure if you're in that world, you know more, you know who's who. But this is pervasive. And then, the way that... I like to see evangelicalism as, well, many things, but one, one is a consumer culture.
Evangelical consumers are very promiscuous, right? So we scholars tend to like to categorize. And so you've got the [00:22:00] Baptists, then you've got, you know, you've got Charismatics, you've got Pentecostalism. We can talk about Dominionism and Seven Mountains. But then on the receiving end, you have people who are reading their aunt's Facebook post that's direct out of, you know, Seven Mountains Dominionism, and then they're, they're attending a Joyce Meyer seminar, and their, uh, their pastor's preaching from, you know, he just attended a John Piper conference, right? This is how that world works.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
And so we can kind of see there are many different sources, but what happens when they come together in this formulation?
And then, we're looking at, again, networks and alliances here. And so who is perceived - oh yeah, they're one of us. They're on our side. Even if they get a little crazy over there, they're one of ours.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
And so we're gonna defend them and we're going-- their enemies are then our enemies too.
Lee Camp
So, lemme, lemme ask you this question. So David, you're, you pointed a couple times to this notion of you, you've kind of got door one and door two there. When you see [00:23:00] the sick data before us, you know, door one is leaning into repentance and longing for constructive change door, two is denial and or minimization and seeing the other guys worse.
David French
Lee Camp
And in your, both of your writing work, you've, you've in effect chosen door one, because you're taking the posture of critique, right?
David French
Well, and, and, what, if-- let me just be transparent for me.
Lee Camp
David French
For me, because I, I-- My goodness, I come out of the religious right. Like I was a, I ran the largest litigation team at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was probably the largest Christian litigation team in America at the time when I was running it.
And so for me, two things are happening at once. One is this kind of shock. Like, it's not that we were all in meetings in 2006 and 7, going, "character doesn't really matter", you know. [All laugh] "It's all the ends justify the means." No, we were in meetings in, you know, the early two [00:24:00] thousands and the mid two thousands and before that saying, you know, "man, character matters."
And, then all of a sudden, wait, wait, I was there. I remember. And, and so part of it's shock. And then part of it for me is quite frankly, you know, I just have to confess, I was just wrong about some stuff, you know? I was just wrong.
So I don't want to posture myself as saying I'm on the outside critiquing those people. I wanna say, look, I've walked with you guys through every second of the culture wars, through the moment when I started the first pro-life group at Harvard Law School back in 1991. And there are things that I, I missed or contributed to the problem, right? By focusing excessively on the left. Or things that I missed and didn't understand about race, for example, until our lives changed, and my family.
So I don't wanna [00:25:00] position myself and say, I'm this guy who's sort of dis-- the dispassionate critique.
Lee Camp
David French
It's, I'm working through this with you, and this is what I see, and this is where I've been, and this is what I think we got wrong, and here's some of the things I think we got right. So I really, I, I wanna, I don't wanna place myself--
Lee Camp
So what would you, yeah, what would you-- Thank you for that. So what, what would you say, let's say somebody's listening and they're, they kind of find themselves being pulled between knowing whether they're gonna lean towards door one or door two.
David French
Lee Camp
What sorts of things would you say, in what sorts of ways would you encourage, what sorts of considerations would you put out there to be considered that might help someone choose door one as opposed to battening down the hatches and door two?
David French
So, here-- I, I, I was, uh, speaking at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary a few weeks ago, and I was asked, what am I reading right now to sort of [00:26:00] get me through this moment?
And I gave like the most stereotypical evangelical answer ever - the Bible. [All laugh] But what I said was, but with this lens, this lens - I'm reading every single syllable of the New Testament, knowing that the pe-- the foll-- of Christ and the followers of Christ had no power, and were confronting a world that was infinitely more hostile and persecuting of them than the world that we confront today.
And if you read through that lens, and you realize how much of Christ's words are directed to the people of God, calling them to repentance, how much Paul is writing to the early churches, and he's not giving them 6,000 words creeds against the most common Roman philosophies.
Lee Camp
David French
He's saying, turn to Jesus. And calling out the sin in these really small, persecuted, embattled churches. And saying, I'm hearing some bad stuff about you [00:27:00] guys. You, you need to straighten up.
Very little time is spent sort of saying, you know what, we really, I know it's bad that, you know, like a, a man is sleeping with his daughter-in-law, but... have you--
Lee Camp
But that's not as bad as...
[All laugh]
David French
--have you heard about the Romans?
[All laugh]
You know? And so, when you realize that there's actually precedent for the door number one...
Lee Camp
David French
...and the precedent is set by Christ himself and by the, the early church, I feel like it makes door number one a lot more compelling.
Lee Camp
Yeah. Yeah. Very helpful.
Kristin, what about you?
Kristin Du Mez
Lee Camp
People, people in-- torn. Um, what would you, how would you encourage them?
Kristin Du Mez
I mean, door number one isn't fun, necessarily, upfront, right? It's, it's easier to be angry than to grieve, and it's more fun, to be honest. And there's a lot of rewards right now out there for being angry. And in taking stock of your own complicity, I mean, as David has, [00:28:00] has done, and I will say--
I mean, honestly, when you first invited me onto your podcast, I was like, okay, I dunno if I can trust this guy. [All laugh] I, I know things about him, and, you know. But, but your voice is so important because while there are many evangelicals who are saying, "what has happened, this is terrible," there are far fewer who are really interrogating their own complicity in that, very carefully and honestly.
And, so I'm a Calvinist, that's my faith background, and, so I'm, I'm very comfortable with human fallenness. And it's, it's all of us. And so it, it's within my tradition, it's, it's cool to say, what have I done? And I, I messed up again and again. I think for a lot of evangelicals that doesn't actually come naturally. Even though, you know, as a Calvinist, I would say, it's so scriptural and these are Bible-believing Christians.
But there's been such an emphasis on this kind of positivity. God has blessed me, I'm a really nice person. And yes, locating the evil 'out there'.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
And [00:29:00] so, it really is asking a lot of people to take a close look at their own actions and then their own hearts. And, and then there's outside forces too that are making this difficult, because, you know, you will see people, again, these kind of targeted attacks against people like you, against people like me.
So if you, if you model this, you're gonna be called, you know, a, a wimp, or you're gonna be called, um, you know, you're gonna be ridiculed.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Um, mocked. And, um, there's a lot of projection then. You're gonna be, you're gonna be attacked. And for me, you know, you, you mentioned a reading the New Testament with an understanding of, of power.
So I get a lot of criticism, really manufactured criticism, from certain conservative spaces for being post-modernist. For being a deconstructionist. For, you know, all of a sudden-- most of this is entirely made up. You know, I can say, okay, indirectly, yes. I'm a gender historian, so Foucault is lurking in the background there, and, [00:30:00] and we have an analysis of power that we're dealing with. But I've always said that I came to that as a Calvinist.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Right, who is religiously wired to see sin everywhere, not just in individual hearts, but in structures.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
In societies. And that sin is really the abuse of power. Usurping God's power and disrupting shalom. Right, so this is, this is my, my religious angle, and yet, our kind of religious posture is under attack very directly.
You know, so people are actively trying to dissuade people from even looking behind door number one.
Lee Camp
You're listening to No Small Endeavor. This is our interview with Kristin Du Mez, author of The New York Times Bestseller, 'Jesus and John Wayne,' and David French, political commentator and contributing writer for The Atlantic.[00:31:00]
When we left for the break, Kristin and David were discussing some of the contemporary critiques of evangelicalism and its political power, as well as some of the reactions to such critiques.
Kristin Du Mez
It's easier to be angry than to grieve, and it's more fun, to be honest. And there's a lot of rewards right now out there for being angry.
Lee Camp
How do both of you best deal with ridicule?
David French
When I figure that out, I'll tell you.
[Lee and Kristin laugh]
Kristin Du Mez
Honestly, I think a lot of it's really funny. Um.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Uh, it, it's, I don't know what's wrong with me. Um, it just, very little gets to me. Uh, and I think, I think it's here, my, uh, these aren't my people in the same way as they were your people, you know, and none of these people are former friends.
I didn't share in this value system in the same way. [00:32:00] And so for me, it is not personal. For me, I first kind of observed this world as scholar and as critic, and I observed these patterns. And now that some of these patterns are, you know, happening to me, of course, they, they ought to. If I got the story right, this is exactly what should happen.
I, I should say, I, I shouldn't say I don't take them seriously, because when you get called the devil, you know, this many times...
David French
Kristin Du Mez
...every once in a while you think, ooh, you know, let me think about this. Or, uh, when you just see the, the vitriol. I, I worry about, you know, what is it-- I'm not trying to provoke that, but I'm also not going to, I'm not gonna let it stand, right?
And so there's always, I don't know if you, I'm sure you have this, this question, when do you engage, when do you ignore, when do you kind of hold up a, a mirror and, and when do you just say, that's only gonna feed this? And that's a question that I have a lot of times. And I worry sometimes that when people are seeing what's coming at me, even though I [00:33:00] personally don't feel affected by it, except for it's time consuming to monitor this, I do worry that, you know, one of the intentions, I think is to send a, a signal to others, that this is what's gonna happen to you if you venture into this territory.
Lee Camp
The critique is sending a signal to others - you don't want this to happen to you.
Kristin Du Mez
Uh, yeah. The, you know, this viciousness.
Lee Camp
David French
You know, for me it's very, it's been very complicated because when I have been the center of a lot of fire, it usually is also accompanied by escalating threats.
Lee Camp
David French
So, being doxed by white nationalists, people coming by our house, very direct death threats. So for me, if I en-- I have a, there, there's a couple of things going on.
One, if I engage on Twitter, I have a real concern that-- so I, in 2019, uh, there was this essay written in First Things Magazine called 'Against David Frenchism.' And-- by Sohrab Ahmari, uh, who was then the editorial page [00:34:00] editor of the New York Post. And it became a thing in conservative circles. And so, there's sort of got to be this kind of idea that, wait, if I can get, if I can take David French down a peg or two, it's--
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Which is a super weird thing to say, 'cause I mean, who am I, right? I mean, like, just this guy. But triggering a fight became kind of a--
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And so I don't wanna participate in that business model.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
I don't wanna feed that. But then what ends up happening is you have just this wall of disinformation--
Kristin Du Mez
David French
--that is just flung at you.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And you don't know what to do about it, because you can't-- if you try to dive in and rebut it, often you're giving the liar exactly what the liar wants...
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Lee Camp
David French
Attention. But if you don't rebut it, the lie still travels around.
So, again, I was having, uh, lunch with this SBC friend of mine and he was just talking about the sheer [00:35:00] number of flat out wrong things he hears about me.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And that grieves me. I, I-- the idea that there's lots of people who just believe fundamentally false things about me is grievous to me. But the weird thing is the effort to address it could perversely do more harm than good.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Especially in a Twitter space.
Lee Camp
David French
And so that's why I said if I've got it, once I figure it all out, I--
Lee Camp
David French
Lee Camp
David French
But, I think the most hurtful thing actually, when the, when the threats really came rolling in, in 2015 and 2016 for the first time, our very close friends were very grieved with us and very hurt with us that this happened.
But you move one layer outta that close friendship--
Kristin Du Mez
David French
--and the next response was, well, don't let that turn you against Trump.
Lee Camp
David French
And you're thinking, wait a minute, there's a human being here, who's going through a really traumatic [00:36:00] time with just a family, and whatever I've written, it's not my kid's fault.
Lee Camp
David French
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And your, one of your main responses is, well, oh, I can see that's gonna turn you against Trump.
Lee Camp
David French
That's not how you interact with a human being in a, in a morally healthy way.
Lee Camp
David French
That's when you, that's when you've elevated politics to such in a position that all other considerations start to fall away.
Lee Camp
Yeah.
I'm really fascinated, Kristin, with your-- you said this at the very top and then you just reiterated again a moment ago, about taking the posture of scholarship, that is, you're, you actually engage--
Kristin Du Mez
Lee Camp
--When you do choose to engage, you're engaging with that sort of discipline--
Kristin Du Mez
Lee Camp
--of taking questions seriously, which means they also have to be willing to take a critique, or, or not.
Kristin Du Mez
Lee Camp
You know? Um, are there other inner resources, communal resources, that continue to help sustain you in doing this sort of work?
Kristin Du Mez
So I have not had the same level of threats against my [00:37:00] family. And so, you know, we're really talking about two different things here. I, I'm talking about, you know, Twitter threads for the most part.
Uh, I've also taken a number of precautions, uh, as any of us in these spaces do and, and have a lot of boundaries. And I even [laughs], you know, don't even wanna say more about any of that, because you don't wanna draw, draw things to you.
So from what I've experienced, I mean, yeah, humor does-- it's hard for me to take some of these things seriously even though I know that they are serious.
But particularly-- and, and I have noticed a real difference - when some of my work gets out of the more religious conservative spaces and brought over, you know, via The Daily Wire, or some other, um, sites, into a broader, uh, white nationalist space, that's when things can get ugly.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Exactly.
Most of my engagement stays within the Christian spaces, [00:38:00] and that's where-- and much of it is coming from people with higher degrees. And so I can, you know, the, the scholarship kind of works, but it feels to me very one-sided. [Laughs] Uh, you know, the personal attacks come and then I'm like, let's define our terms, shall we?
[All laugh]
Uh, but I'm a teacher at heart, so I really love that.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
This is, uh, uh, this is, this is what I'm here for. Uh, let's talk historical methodology. I really enjoy that. But in terms of like, kind of, the, the resources that I draw on, I like Schitt's Creek GIFs [all laugh] as a way of just holding up the, the absurdity, right?
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
The absurdity, sometimes, of this, and lighten up.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
And kind of truth to power, uh, in these spaces. I like being a woman in these spaces that are male dominated, and being able to, to push back. And I do that on behalf of women who can't.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
And so, what strengthens me is hearing from other people.
I get a [00:39:00] lot of public support. I know you do too. I get a lot of private support.
David French
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
And I get a lot of support from women in conservative spaces who say, we see what you're doing, please don't stop.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
We can't do this ourselves.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
And so, that's the kind of, you know, support-- for, for any of the hits that I take, I get so many more, you know, just notes of gratitude.
Lee Camp
Yeah.
So you mentioning you like being a woman in this space. Uh, why don't both of you share with us a little bit about, what are you just seeing in the last six months with regard to gender, sex, women? Lots, lots going on. [Kristin laughs] Right?
David French
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Oh, let's see, do we wanna start with abortion?
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Or should we start with trans rights, or--
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
Yeah. It just, it feels like... like a moving target. And I don't know if it feels this way to you, it just feels like the news cycle is speeding up, just exponentially.
And so, [00:40:00] oh, okay, today I've gotta give an interview on sex abuse, and, oh, now we've got a shooting and we've gotta talk about gun violence and white nationalism. And now, oh, now we've got, uh, you know, Dobbs and let's, and, and protests and, and now it's, it's, you know, it's CRT, but that's so last year, and now we're into, um, you know, the trans, um, the great threat of, of trans rights.
And it's, it's honestly dizzying just to keep up with all of it. And I think that part of this is strategy of throw things at the wall and see what sticks.
Lee Camp
Kristin Du Mez
And, and kind of testing things out. And when something gets traction, you lean into that until something else bubbles up. Uh, I'm actually really concerned about, not any, uh, I mean yes, particular issues, but the whole constellation here and how it seems to be, well, certainly exacerbating kind of the social distrust and enhancing polarization.[00:41:00]
The stakes just keep getting raised every single day, and I worry very much about our, not just civility, but our, mutual now, commitment to democracy as a way of working through this. I think the escalation of rhetoric against trans people is very frightening, against the LGBTQ community in general.
I think the escalating rhetoric and hardening stances even within the pro-life movement, right? And the demonization of people who are not deemed quite sufficiently pro-life. And that, that, that, that line just keeps moving. Um, uh, I think it's deeply disturbing. I don't know where it ends, to be honest.
David French
I agree with that. And I, I'd say, what we're in the middle of now is, so you have a nation of 320, 330 million people.
You have basically instant access to the worst person in the world on the other side of the aisle every day, right? So you have infinity distractions [00:42:00] that you can mount. So it's remarkable to me how quickly the story of an extraordinary record of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, not just burying sex abuse claims, but deeply, uh, treating, treating sex abuse victims just horribly. How quickly that goes away because a drag queen did something outrageous somewhere.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And so what you have is this constant avalanche, and an entire industry dedicated to putting right in front of your face the absolute most outrageous stuff you can find on the other side of the aisle.
And then they'll sit there and demand, well, you say you're a conservative Christian, you're, you're an orthodox - small orthodox Christian. Why aren't you out there on this?
Kristin Du Mez
David French
So, constant-- it is constant like that. And of course in a big country you can find crazy stuff every day. I mean, if [00:43:00] I wanted to respond, I could-- you know, for every Libs of TikTok video, there's a PatriotTakes video that's got something incredible happening in a church, and you could flop it right back at 'em and say, where are you on this?
And so a lot of the struggle here is to be able to maintain attention on important things and screen out those things that, they may be bad, but, okay, I'm not going to talk about the corruption in the largest Protestant denomination in the United States because of that? Really?
So a lot of what I try to do is try to keep people thinking about big and important things and screening out sort of the day-to-day noise that is really driving us apart. Because if you dive down that rabbit hole-- if you're somebody on the left and all you're looking at is PatriotTakes videos, you're gonna think everyone on the right has lost their [00:44:00] mind.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
But if you're on the right and you're watching that Libs of TikTok feed, you're gonna think everyone on the left has just lost their mind, and it's exacerbating this divide and making everyone so angry all the time.
Kristin Du Mez
But of course, this isn't just, like, individual choices. This is how it's a business model, right?
David French
Kristin Du Mez
For these platforms, for, uh, you know, with the, the decline of traditional media and local media, everything's a competition for clicks.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
And it's very clear which of these articles are gonna get shared.
And so, you know, again, to think structurally here just a bit, it's not just that we're all making really bad choices, but the system is now rigged to reward those bad choices. And so individually we can push back against that. You know, it's, it's hard individually to, to push back against this, you know, I, I kind of have my own policies and [00:45:00] practices. I try to never share things for the sake of outrage.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Um, now, you know, every once in a while I will share some really goofy things if it's a very on brand ;Jesus and John Wayne' thing, right. You know, like, I kinda have a collection, I curate this, and people send them to me.
And so, you know, exception there, but that's, that's holding it up with a bit of levity.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Not just outrage. You know, I really try to, in my social media presence, always bring something to the table from my research to ideally elevate the conversation, you know, and then also the Schitt's Creek GIFs or, you know, anything else-- but, but to try to not just stoke outrage. And, and so there are many things I don't comment on.
David French
Kristin Du Mez
Many fights I, I sit out, and I'm, I'm quite careful about what I comment on and how, and then, and what I bring to the table.
David French
I really try to avoid nutpicking.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Which is the business model of a lot of social media. So nutpicking is when you take somebody who is a fringe character on the other side of the political spectrum and [00:46:00] elevate them as emblematic.
So, you know, this is the whole Libs of TikTok versus, you know, like PatriotTakes thing, where somebody takes somebody who's on the far, far fringe and says, see, this is what 'they're' like. So for me, before I'm gonna write about something or comment about something, it has to cross a threshold of importance.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
So if I hear that there was some event at some church somewhere where someone shouted out to hang the Secretary of State, of the State for-- I'm not as interested in that.
When I find out that there are, oh, major elected officials were there, or oh, it was thousands of people there, or oh, and also, there is a Reawaken America tour going on where Michael Flynn, who called for martial law is packing churches from coast to coast.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
And it's sponsored by Charisma Magazine.
Kristin Du Mez
David French
Then you're like, that's important enough to talk about.
So you have to, you have to really screen, okay, what's the [00:47:00] fringe thing that's just going to contribute to this endless churn of outrage versus what's the important thing that we actually need to focus on and and be alarmed about.
Lee Camp
You've been listening to No Small Endeavor and our interview with New York Times bestselling author, Kristin Du Mez, and David French, political commentator and opinion columnist for the New York Times.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of community development, education, and religion, and the support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this show possible. Christie Bragg, Jakob Lewis, Sophie Byard, Tom Anderson, Kate Hays, Mary Eveleen Brown, Cariad Harmon, Ellis Osburn, Jason [00:48:00] Sheesley, and Tim Lauer.
Thanks for listening and let's keep exploring what it means to live a good life together.
No Small Endeavor is a production of Tokens Media, LLC, and Great Feeling Studios.