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1 week ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
I can’t remember exactly when I first heard the name Elon Musk, but I can remember how: my students thought he was cool. Not all my students, primarily just the young white men. When I asked them to tell me more about this guy and why they liked him so much, they had trouble pinpointing why. He was just cool. And rich. And clearly brilliant, because he was so rich. This crossed my mind when I read Michelle Goldberg’s scathing piece on Musk in today’s New York Times.
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1 week ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
There are plenty of heavy things to talk about (see our latest episode of the Convocation Unscripted for a dose of that), but today I didn’t feel like writing about them. Instead, I thought it might be time for some lighter fare. You know those online recipes where you have to scroll past all the pictures to get to the content? This is the opposite of that. I’ll start with a tiny bit of content and then let you scroll through the pictures.
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1 week ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
On this Memorial Day, I thought I’d share a recent conversation I had with Neal Rickner after our mutual friend Ken Harbaugh connected us. Ken produced my film For Our Daughters and hosts The Ken Harbaugh Show on MeidasTouch. A former Navy pilot, Ken advocates for veterans and works with veteran communities to promote civic engagement. Ken recently launched a new project, VALOR Media Network.
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2 weeks ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
While researching my next book, Live Laugh Love, I’ve been noticing a trend: the quiet influence of Canadian evangelical women on American evangelicalism. Ann Voskamp, one of the pioneers of the Christian women’s blogosphere, and Sarah Bessey, one of the prophets of the deconstruction movement, both hail from Canada. Many of their readers forget this, I think, but at times the (healthy) friction between Canadian and American evangelicalism is apparent in their writings.
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3 weeks ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
This past week, while discussing Jesus and John Wayne with a Swiss reporter, I described how the John Wayne in the title points to how Christians often base ideals of “Christian manhood” on secular models—on mythical warriors, cowboys, and soldiers. In doing so, they didn’t just shape conceptions of “Christian masculinity,” but they shaped (one might say distorted) conceptions of Christianity itself.
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3 weeks ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
I haven’t written much here about my next book, mostly because I’m frantically trying to finish said book. (1 1/2 chapters to go…) Also, I’m trying to avoid spoilers. That said, I’ll tip my hand just a bit today with a shoutout to Stephanie Jo Warren’s recent post “Why Evangelicals Don’t See Corruption—They See Divine Confirmation.” (Follow Stephanie Jo on Substack here.)That title grabbed me because it’s exactly what I’ve been tracing in my own research.
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3 weeks ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
I’d hoped to write this post sooner (sorry!), but let me start by thanking all of you who attended our Free to Be Faithful event last week either in-person or remotely. The response has been overwhelming, as has your enthusiasm for what’s next! Rest assured, we have been working behind-the-scenes to plot next steps. In fact we have so many things brewing, I’ll share just a couple of them here, with more to follow. First, many of you who weren’t able to attend requested a link to the video.
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1 month ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Robert Prevost, is the first (US) American and first Augustinian to become pope. Here are a few more things you may not know about him:Our new pope attended high school in Holland, Michigan, at St. Augustine Seminary High School, “a Catholic prep school for young men.” In the late 1970s, the property was purchased and used as a prison. Today, the former school functions as an event venue, museum, and community space and is open to self-guided tours.
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1 month ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
It started simply enough. With so much division, with Christianity being wielded as a weapon, churches becoming places of exclusion rather than invitation, denominations splintering, and people being pushed out, silenced, bullied…we started thinking: What if we decided to come together? What if we gather those in who are being pushed out? What if we remember that we’re not alone and borrow courage from one another?
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1 month ago | 
kristindumez.substack.com | Kristin Du Mez
Tomorrow marks the end of the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency. To assess where things stand, PRRI checked in with Americans to see what they think of what he’s done thus far. Their expansive survey and report releases this morning. Find the whole report here, but read on for a summary of some of the key takeaways:Consistent with other recent surveys, PRRI finds his approval ratings upside-down: 54% disapprove, with just 43% approving.