By Norah McLaughlin | FāVS News Reporter
Kristin Kobes Du Mez delivered the first public lecture on her upcoming book “Live Laugh Love: White Christian Women and the World They Made” at Whitworth University Wednesday afternoon, opening the Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning’s 2025-26 speaker series.
The book, set for publication in September 2026, examines how Christian romance novels, multi-level marketing and influencer culture have shaped American Christianity.
“Kristin is someone who possesses not only the intellectual virtues so obvious in her scholarship, but also the moral courage to carry out that work in public, something that very few scholars are comfortable doing,” said Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning Director David Henreckson. “And also the Christian charity needed to sustain different conversations amid deep differences.”
Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University whose research focuses on the intersection of gender, politics and religion, is best known for her bestselling book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” The book examined the role of authority and cultural products of evangelicalism beyond the church. Despite the book’s critical perspective, Du Mez said she receives almost no hate mail — instead, readers have shared their stories and connected their own experiences to her research.
Evangelicals read and responded
She said it opened up the opportunity for people to ask questions about evangelicalism.
“It wasn’t the first book to present a critical view of evangelicalism,” Du Mez said. “It was just the first one that evangelicals actually read.”
“Live Laugh Love” examines the influences of Christian, evangelical and Latter-day Saint women, as well as other secular belief systems.
“I just have to go back and figure out how all these things originate, and how they come together,” Du Mez said said during her presentation. “I had to do all that to tell the story of and to explain these phenomena, but then I also inadvertently ended up kind of rewriting our understanding of American Christianity in the 20th century.”
This book will look at how Christian romance, multi-level marketing, the effects of influencers and bloggers have influenced Christianity.
“I love this title because when I share [it] in a room full of women, they know exactly what is going to be in the book,” Du Mez said.
One of the many topics that “Live Laugh Love” examines is the effect of Christian women’s popular culture, especially books. An example in Du Mez’s book is Maribel Morgan’s “Total Woman,” which is a book that “teaches Christian women how to please God by pleasing men,” Du Mez said.
Du Mez also talked about the influence of LDS Helen B. Andelin’s “Fascinating Woman” and eight New Thought booklets published in the 1920s had on Morgan’s book and Christian woman culture, though Du Mez found herself surprised while doing her research about just how connected those books are.
Dan Meulenberg attended this event and found Du Mez’ understanding historically perceptive.
“It was very insightful and gave great insight to trends in the Christian church,” Meulenberg said.
The next speaker for the Weyerhaeuser Center for Christian Faith and Learning Speaker Series is Curt Thompson, M.D. on Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. in the Robinson Teaching Theater at Whitworth University.
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