JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Live, laugh, love - that phrase is ubiquitous in American culture, plastered across the walls of Airbnbs, decorating coffee mugs and car bumpers. But its origin story is far more complex than one might think and operates as a sort of portal into the world of white Christian women. It's a world Kristin Kobes Du Mez experienced parts of growing up.
KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: The Christian romance novels - I read all of these things as a young person. I bought Precious Moments figurines. You know, this was my world, but I didn't really understand the values that were embedded in these products that shaped me and millions of other Christian women.
SUMMERS: In her new book titled, appropriately, "Live Laugh Love," Kobes Du Mez digs into that secret history. She traces it all the way back to 1875 and a book called "The Christian's Secret Of A Happy Life."
DU MEZ: The secret for Hannah Whitall Smith, an evangelical holiness preacher, was that the will is at the center of everything. And if you align your will with God's will, if you just believe and do not doubt and keep that positive attitude, then you will tap enormous spiritual power, you will become holy, even perfect, and happiness will follow. So it really relies on this idea that the mind has the power to control reality.
And over decades, we can see how this idea of totally submitting your will to God's becomes transformed for women into totally submitting your will to the will of the men in authority over you - to your husband, to your pastor - and that that is ultimately the path to happiness. It doesn't always work that way for women. It didn't even work that way for Hannah, herself. And she comes to terms with this, ultimately, by redefining happiness. Happiness must not be a feeling, an emotion. Happiness itself must be an act of the will. I will myself to be happy, therefore, I am.
SUMMERS: You write that a book about Christian women would not be complete without accounting for the abuse that occurs, that happens to Christian women. What is it that allowed evangelical theory and structures to enable that abuse that happened, particularly by those with authority?
DU MEZ: Within evangelicalism, you have millions of women who are taught that they need to submit to the men and the male authorities in their lives, and that they need to set aside their own desires, their own will, and simply trust and obey, sacrifice their own well-being, even. And they are told that that is what God requires of them and that they will be blessed for it.
And so you have so many tragic stories where not only women themselves have a hard time of even identifying abuse and certainly speaking out against it, but members of the community, too, have been taught to defend the authority of those that God has placed in power over them. And time and again, it's victims who end up being pushed out of those communities. And so there are many tragic stories, including among some of the key women who were promoting this ideology of conservative evangelical femininity and submission.
SUMMERS: I want to pivot now to contemporary politics. What did writing "Live Laugh Love" allow you to see about American power in this moment that other histories might not see or that they might miss?
DU MEZ: One of the things that became very clear is that women, and Christian women are, in fact, playing key roles in American politics today in ways that are quite distinctive and in ways that, in some ways, contribute to the rise of authoritarian power structures. Because inside these Christian spaces, for generations, women have been taught to submit to authority and that that is their duty, but that always also comes with a promise. When you do submit to the power that God has ordained over you, you will be blessed.
But often there's a sense that women, certainly, and women who are immersed in this culture of love and positivity - how could they possibly, you know, vote for authoritarian politics or particular candidates? And in a way, there is a logic that what is good and pure must be protected. American innocence, feminine innocence must be protected from the evil out there, and that may require violence, but it will be righteous violence.
SUMMERS: When you think about it, how do you explain the evolution from what we know as compassionate conservatism to the white Christian nationalism that we see today?
DU MEZ: It really is quite a shift that we see taking place from the early 2000s, and even the 1990s, to the present, where you had, under compassionate conservatism, the idea that Christians and even conservative evangelicals should lead with love. But in the last 10 to 15 years, we've seen a real change there, and it's signaled by popular books like "Toxic Empathy" from Christian influencer Allie Beth Stuckey. The idea that love or empathy or compassion is not always good, not when it is directed towards those who are somehow disobedient, who are not part of the Christian project, the American project, then that love can turn toxic. Whether it's for LGBTQ Americans or for immigrants, you need to contain your love, your empathy and channel it only in what they would call God-ordained directions.
SUMMERS: So many of the women in this book - they operate behind the scenes, guiding fellow Christian women to make their men happy and successful. But then there are women like President Trump's spiritual adviser Paula White, Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schlafly, and those women seem to break that mold. But in what ways are they still subject to the expectations of the culture?
DU MEZ: Yeah. This system is not perpetuated without women being at the forefront. It sounds a lot better for a woman to mentor other women and to teach them that what is required of them is submitting to masculine power and then testifying to them, assuring them that they will be happy. And so you'll have women who are out there promoting, you know, the God-ordained role is to not have a career, to stay home, to be a wife and a mother of many children and to find your meaning and purpose in those spaces.
Now, of course, the women who are promoting this idea are out in public and often involved in politics or even given considerable religious authority as long as they stay in line with this ideology. I think one of the most poignant examples of this is Anita Bryant, who was a superstar in the 1970s inside conservative spaces and conservative evangelical spaces, in particular. And she becomes an activist against LGBTQ rights. And she is seen as the person who can raise the most money for conservative politics at that moment.
And then she divorces her husband. And she finds out that she remains under his authority, the authority of her pastor, because they controlled the ministry. They cancel all of her events, and she is left with nothing. And on the other side of this, she realizes that maybe she got things wrong, that her anti-feminism was actually harmful and that feminists were actually onto something - that when women's power depends on pleasing the men in their lives, it isn't power at all.
SUMMERS: Kristin Kobes Du Mez - her new book is "Live Laugh Love: The Secret History Of White Christian Women And The World They Made." Kristin, thank you.
DU MEZ: Thank you so much for having me.
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