Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

9 reviews

lisettemarie's review

challenging informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Racial slurs, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, Racism, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Bullying, Gaslighting, and Child abuse

pearlisarobot's review

challenging dark informative tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Colonisation, Sexism, Xenophobia, Islamophobia, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Homophobia, Misogyny, Cultural appropriation, Religious bigotry, Classism, and Racism

Minor: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Trafficking, War, Violence, Hate crime, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Antisemitism, Rape, Child abuse, Colonisation, Genocide, and Mental illness

madscientistcat's review against another edition

challenging dark informative medium-paced

4.75

Incredibly informative and impeccably researched. If you want to understand what evangelicals really are and how the community got to where they are now and why they’ve had their outsized impact on the US government, this is it. You will leave this book understanding that and also probably depressed and anxious. The definition of “thanks, I hate it.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Gun violence, Racism, Xenophobia, Bullying, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Misogyny, and Islamophobia

Moderate: Child abuse, Sexual violence, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Rape, Slavery, War, Infidelity, Incest, Hate crime, and Deportation

elnelson's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Islamophobia, and Sexism

Moderate: Xenophobia, Transphobia, Infidelity, Rape, Homophobia, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Fatphobia, Sexual assault, Outing, Sexual harassment, War, Physical abuse, Incest, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Deportation

burdasnest's review

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

 At times nauseating, I ultimately think this is a must-read for understanding the United States today. This treatise establishes facts and presents a comprehensive explanation of how masculinity has been especially twisted over the past century to the point of electing Donald Trump. It's tough to swallow, but it feels like a large chunk of the population are living in a completely different established reality, even in my own backyard. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Slavery, Sexism, War, Xenophobia, Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Abortion, Sexual violence, and Physical abuse

Minor: Pedophilia, Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Fatphobia, Ableism, Genocide, Gaslighting, and Sexual content

tamara_joy's review against another edition

informative sad tense

4.0

This explains so much. Sometimes hard to read, especially with the most recent stuff, but so well laid out.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Homophobia, Islamophobia, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Colonisation, War, Classism, Incest, Rape, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Pedophilia

abutler's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Infidelity, Islamophobia, Pedophilia, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual assault, Slavery, Transphobia, Violence, War, and Xenophobia

elly29's review

challenging informative sad slow-paced

3.25

There was a deluge of information, and I'm unsure I processed or retained a lot of it. I listened, and had to go back again to catch a lot of what Du Mez said. Notably, there were a lot of players -- both individuals and organizations -- that contributed to the coalescence of white conservative evangelicalism and christian nationalism, and it was difficult sometimes to get a picture of how they all fit together. It starts with Billy Graham, and John Wayne, and moves to Oliver North and James Dobson and Jerry Falwell. I think Du Mez did the best she could to make a cohesive narrative out of it, but I'm still reeling and can't express the things I learned from it.

At times, I wanted to breathe fire. For example, with Marabel Morgan's "Total Woman," which set women back by a century, or the purity circles, or Chapters 16 which was on how Christian evangelical patriarchy self-justified abuse (major content warning on that, about victim-blaming). A lot of the tools that crystallized the cultural movement were the same through 1960, 1980, and 2010: a focus on a (fragile! They emphasized that the male ego was fragile and needed assuaging!!) male ego, with a docile/submissive femininity that needed protection (but who will protect women from self-aggrandizing, power-hungry patriarchs?).

Some of it hit close to home, as Du Mez mentioned Mormonism on occasion, and the same scandals in evangelicalism and Catholicism have occurred.

I... I have so much less sympathy for the culture of evangelicalism. It is divorced from any sense of religion. And, it drives home the point that Trump's election was a litmus test of our political and cultural climate: that a swathe of white males are frantic about losing their position in society. (It really is all about racism -- which Du Mez acknowledged briefly, but not enough). Very interesting to read this on the heels of Wilkerson's "Caste" and Haidt's "The Righteous Mind": definitely evangelicals/conservatism appeals to Authority/Order, Sacredness (ish?). 

Like, I still don't know what to do with this book, y'all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Racism, Violence, War, and Islamophobia

Minor: Homophobia and Abortion

It's a cultural-polticial-historical analysis, so it discusses and analyzes sexism, misogyny, homophobia, abortion, etc, not necessarily graphic detail. However, Chapter 16 was rough on the sheer volume of evidence of sexual abuse, and conservative christians' dismissal of sexual abuse. If you're sensitive to discussion like that, steer clear!

katyallred's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Racism, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Misogyny

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Transphobia, Sexual harassment, Rape, Islamophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Ableism, Abortion, Pedophilia, and Adult/minor relationship