There’s a big difference between blaming and blame! “Blaming” is holding another person or group responsible for perceived faults real, imagined, or merely invented for pejorative purposes. It’s the kind of thing we see each day in politics, where regardless of what is happening, one side of the political aisle inventing faults for pejorative purposes the other side. No evidence or coherence needed.
Blame is another thing. Blame is assigning responsibility for a fault or wrong. As long as the universe is governed by cause and effect, there will always be space for legitimate blame. Accountability and consequences are key to a flourishing home, community, or family.
So, when my book club picked Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, I wondered, Is it blaming or blame? In short, Kobes du Mez argues that a particular form of patriarchy and toxic masculinity made the modern evangelical movement. She writes:
“In the end, Doug Wilson, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, James Dobson, Doug Phillips, and John Eldredge all preached a mutually reinforcing vision of Christian masculinity—of patriarchy and submission, sex and power. It was a vision that promised protection for women but left women without defense, one that worshiped power and turned a blind eye to justice, and one that transformed the Jesus of the Gospels into an image of their own making. Though rooted in different traditions and couched in different styles, their messages blended together to become the dominant chord in the cacophony of evangelical popular culture. And they had been right all along. The militant Christian masculinity they practiced and preached did indelibly shape both family and nation.”
At the same time Beth Allison Barr enters the scene with her book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, asking, “What if the reason that the fruit of patriarchy is so corrupt, even within the Christian church, is because patriarchy has always been a corrupted system?”
Both Kobes de Mez and Barr, argue that American Evangelicalism is shape by a malformed view of both Christ and masculinity and femininity. I’m wondering. Is this blaming or blame?
What do you think? Why?
This is giving me something to think about today. I’ve listened to the recap with Dr. Du Mez on the Holy Post podcast, but I need to read the whole thing. I think blame - but a 10-15 years ago, would I have said blaming because of what I believed at the time?
Sometimes I feel your questions could get me to write a novel response trying to work out the answer. :)