Jeffress separated Jesus’ moral teachings from the strongman role of government

Evidence

Writing in the Baptist News, Alan Bean later reflected that Jeffress embraced a “Jesus/John Wayne dualism.” Trump’s biblical ignorance was boundless, but Jeffress wasn’t interested in a president who would govern according to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Nor did he think that the Bible had anything to say about governments needing to forgive or “turn the other cheek.” The role of government was “to be a strongman to protect its citizens against evildoers.” Sure, Trump was a notorious womanizer, married three times. So was John Wayne. Wayne was “an unapologetic racist,” Bean added, “and Trump stands proudly in that tradition.” Both men represented white manhood “in all its swaggering glory.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 582

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core articulation of the book’s central thesis — the split between Jesus’ ethics and the John Wayne strongman ideal. Connects to the book’s overarching argument and the reader’s goal of explaining militant masculinity as organizing center of white evangelical identity.
• SEED: Excerpt shows the key analytic move: evangelical leaders explicitly disavowed the Sermon on the Mount for national politics while remaining ‘biblical.’ Angle: the doctrinal rupture was openly avowed, not hidden.