According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a firestorm is “a raging fire of great intensity, as one fueled by oil or gas, that spreads rapidly.” That might be the best way to describe what Kristen Kobes Du Mez’s work around her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, has been doing for the last three years.

We last sat down with Du Mez a few months after the book’s release. The release of that episode, along with its subsequent transcript within our Fellowship! Magazine equally created a firestorm.

Du Mez, along with other folks like Beth Allison Barr and Anthea Butler, has spent the last several years putting American Evangelicalism under the eye of scrutiny. Through their research, many people are discovering the dark side of this movement and a legacy of toxic masculinity, militarism, misogyny, sexism, and sexual abuse among Evangelicals.

We sat down with Du Mez to catch up on the impact of her work and what she’s doing next.

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Andy Hale is the creator and host of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Podcast. Hale is the Associate Executive Coordinator of CBF North Carolina. He’s also served as CBF’s Church Start Specialist, the founding pastor of Mosaic Church of Clayton, and the senior pastor of University Baptist Church of Baton Rouge. Follow on Twitter @haleandy.