Disciples of White Jesus is HERE

An exclusive excerpt of my new book ...

Hi Readers,

After years of research, writing, editing, proofreading, and (perhaps the toughest part) marketing … Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood, my new book, is out into the world.

As I’ve been talking and writing more about this new book, it’s quickly become apparent to me that it really functions as a second volume of my first book, Red State Christians - particularly as we go through the second term of Donald Trump’s presidency.

You can see the ideological and cultural shift in the two titles.

Red State Christians, in intensive research and reporting, describes Christian Nationalism as mostly a nostalgic appeal to America’s past, a soft form of idolatry centered on flags and appeal to patriotism and memories of 20th Century America, particularly the post-WWII period (covering over nascent appeals to racism and white supremacy).

Disciples of White Jesus describes how that soft Christian Nationalism has shifted, especially in right-wing circles of influence, to idolize instead a specific kind of violent masculinity, rooted in a gender-based hierarchy taken from fundamentalism (specifically Christian fundamentalism and theology arising from a creation story that they claim blames Eve for the Fall of Mankind). You can use Disciples of White Jesus as a sort of shorthand for all the brash, angry, and insecure men who are dominating our airwaves and screens right now, from Trump to Musk to Bezos to Zuckerberg to Hegseth to Vance to Hawley … from Piper to Driscoll to Wilson to Peterson … from Tate to Gaines to Sneako to Fuentes … from Flynn to Tarrio to Jones to Spencer.

The lists go on and on and on and on. I kept going back and adding more names above, and I finally had to stop.

When you read Disciples of White Jesus, you’ll read recent history and research: you’ll follow the stories of boys who were radicalized into white supremacy and became mass shooters. You’ll meet their pastors.

You’ll read theology that explains how the Creation story has been weaponized to create gender hierarchy; biblical exegesis that shows how White Jesus was created out of a few flimsy New Testament passes that ignore Jesus’ own words.

You’ll read lots of studies and statistics about how white men and boys are both lashing out at others and also wrestling internally.

You’ll meet teachers, pastors, coaches, grandparents, all across America - in schools, in churches, at home, even online - trying to make a difference and showing masculine love, empathy, and understanding.

You’ll visit a town where a church building was purchased by a white supremacist group.

And finally, you’ll read two stories of boys and men who experienced violence and radicalization at the hands of Disciples of White Jesus in their own lives - some of them who were mentioned above. You’ll learn how those two individuals found their way out, with support, and love, and increased understanding.

That’s a lot. So let me leave with you an exclusive excerpt that works on answering that elusive, nagging question that always confronts us when we see the signs of the times.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Here you go. Exclusively for my Substack readers, an excerpt from

Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood …

**This excerpt has been lightly edited for publication here**

If I told you that boys and young men who’ve fallen victim to the seductive song of violent misogyny rooted in right-wing Christian rhetoric simply need generic love to pull them out, you would rightly tell me that care and compassion alone do not stop the bullets directed at the world from angry young men, and at angry young men and boys themselves.

On the other hand, if I told you that the solution to the problems and threat of young boys and men in America lies only in the pursuit of telling hard truths and seeking justice and pursuing punishment, you’d rightly tell me of the wisdom of recovery, which reminds us that change begins in love and trusting relationship, and that the truth spoken without love is rarely heard by those who need it most. You’d tell me that punishment, on its own, only leads to more anger and violence.

I believe that prescriptions and lists of cures might make us feel better for a brief moment, and statistical analysis that categorizes troubled people into a variety of numerical groups might make a catchy head- line. But have you ever told a loved one that they fit neatly into a statistical group of dangerous and troubled people? Have you ever found yourself in one of those groups? Did it lead to lasting personal or societal change, absent trusting and loving relationships in community?

And so I turn, instead, again, to the most powerful form of truth that exists in this world.

It is a form of truth that lodges itself in the most visceral part of your memory, the part that returns to you again and again when you can’t sleep at night and you’re thinking about that thing or that person who worries you the most. This is a form of truth that teaches us about God, as in the stories of the ancient Hebrews, who cared most that we knew God was gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love—and who cared little that we might understand the exact date of the creation of the world, or the (lack of) scientific evidence for humans being created alongside dinosaurs.

Only the stories can save us.

And so instead of telling you ten ways to stop worrying about the young men in your life, or ten ways to prevent another school shooting (a task that our legislators really ought to be taking on), I told you stories of the boys and men I met across America, and the ones who love them and want work with them toward a kinder, gentler, more honest masculinity.

I know as you read these stories, you are thinking also of yourself and the stories written on your heart, the sons and husbands and fathers and uncles and friends and students and even the ones you’ve read and heard about, the sermons that made the inside of your stomach curl into itself, feeling the bile rise in your throat. The videos that made you oddly interested and also afraid. The ones you read about in terrifying news stories, wearing black masks, carrying AR-15s. The social media accounts that say men must be this way, that sell protein powder and exercise routines next to heavily made-up women in dresses cinched at the waist, holding fat-cheeked baby boys, who are never crying.

The only thing I know how to do, as a journalist and a pastor and a wife and a parent, is to follow the stories where they lead. To heed the warnings and danger within them, and hold on fast, as tightly as I can, to the hope. It’s the stories that make us see ourselves in one another, that help us see God where we’d least expect God, and show us an unlikely path away from the madness and pain and death that is all violent masculinity has to offer. It’s not that I believe we’re beyond saving, beyond hope, resigned to a life of guarding ourselves at all times against those in the world whom we hate or who hate us. Instead, what I believe is that only the stories can save us. Only stories can make us reach for a common humanity far beyond the insecure, desperate, greedy, grasping hands of a fake White Jesus. These stories encourage us to extend our hands out to one another at a time when, especially for boys and young men, the more popular thing to do seems to be balling your hands into a tight fist. We can’t hold that fist forever. Aren’t your muscles tense and tired? What if we taught this instead to boys and young men? Maybe you recognize the song of a bygone era in America.

Shake another hand, shake a hand next to ya,

Shake another hand and sing along!
Shake another hand, shake a hand next to ya Shake another hand and sing . . . sing this song.
Ah la la la la la le lu ya, Ah la la la la la le lu ya! Ah la la la la la le lu ya, Ah la la la la la le alleluia.

Thanks for reading. Please let me know your thoughts on the book - and it would be so helpful if you could write a review for Amazon (you don’t have to purchase the book there!) or Goodreads. It’s immensely helpful!

Angela

P.S. …

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