Eldredge reframed Jesus as a warrior rather than a pacifist

Evidence

Eldredge dismissed the charge that Jesus instructed his followers to turn the other cheek: “You cannot teach a boy to use his strength by stripping him of it.” Eldredge’s Jesus more closely resembled William Wallace than either Mother Teresa or Mister Rogers. Attempts to pacify men only emasculated them. “If you want a safer, quieter animal, there’s an easy solution: castrate him.” Sadly, “clingy mothers”—and the public-school system—effectively did just that. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 397

Categorization

• DEFINE: This crystallizes Du Mez’s central definitional move: within this evangelical strand, ‘Jesus’ denotes warrior-masculinity, not turn-the-other-cheek — theology redefined by culture rather than the reverse.
• QUESTION: When did the ‘warrior Jesus’ displace the ‘gentle Jesus’ as the operative evangelical image — and what cultural events drove each framing?
• XREF: connects to: Armed Christianity treats Jesus as a conqueror needing weapons — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 489