Evangelicals redirected their hero worship from clergy to the military

Evidence

Evangelicals revered North in part because he seemed so exceptional, a throwback to an earlier era when things were right with the world, an antidote to unscrupulous celebrities who were perhaps the inevitable products of a consumer-driven faith. Here was a Vietnam veteran who battled communists and chased terrorists around the globe, a man who would do whatever it took to serve God and country. At a time when religious leaders lacked the heroism that was so urgently needed, evangelicals found that heroism in a place where virtue and discipline still prevailed: the United States military. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 304

Categorization

• XREF: The military-as-hero locus is the core continuity thread Du Mez traces forward to Trump; links to the reader’s book purpose of exposing militant masculinity as the organizing center. — connects to: Evangelical churches fuse patriotic and military ritual with Christian worship to sacralize the nation — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 36