The Radicalization of American Boyhood

Unnamed Speaker: They’re saying that all of college-age men are trending conservative. “Yeah, duh.” The left is so insane at this point, that if you’re a dude, especially if you are a straight dude, and put yourself in that category, you’re not only insane. It’s embarrassing. Imagine a man being, “Yeah, I’m a democrat.” It’s literally the most feminine, embarrassing thing to do.

Brad Onishi: There's a common wisdom about the 2024 election, that it was won and lost with young men. For the first time in years, young men, 18 to 25, 18 to 35, voted Republican. We've learned all about the manosphere, the ways that young men listen to podcasts and don't watch TV or news, the ways that they're influenced by popular YouTube channels rather than CNN or MSNBC. We've also seen the rise of religious-based hatred and violence.

One of the biggest questions we face today is how and why are our young men being radicalized into a retrograde masculinity and a sense of hatred, resentment and violence toward women and others.

Today, I speak with the Reverend Angela Denker, who is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church. She's the author of the new book, Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood. As a pastor and a journalist, she has extensive experience reporting on these things. Her first book, Red State Christians, was the silver winner in political and social sciences for the 2019 Forward Indies Book of the Year. She's written for the Washington Post, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and is now a columnist for The Minnesota Star Tribune.

We talk about how and why boys are radicalized in church, the ways they're taught to be men from sources outside of their families and their communities, and the ways that we can think about reintegrating a sense of masculinity that is not based on domination or control. I'm Brad Onishi, and this is Straight White American Jesus.

Brad: Angela, welcome to Straight White American Jesus. It's wonderful to be here with you on this Monday, and even better now that I'm joined by Angela Denker, who is a return guest and just an amazing person. So Angela, thanks for being here.

Angela Denker: Yeah, last time we talked about Christian nationalist sheriffs, and now our entire country is starting to look like that season of Fargo. So it's great.

Brad: Last time you were here, we did a special episode on Fargo. I made you watch Fargo, which I'm so grateful you did. I'm not gonna lie, folks, if you remember that episode, I was supposed to watch the Real Housewives of something. I don't know if it was Orange County or Salt Lake, but I have completely failed and I have not done that. So I need to uphold my end of the bargain so we can do that episode at some point. We need to find our religion angle and our Christian nationalism angle into the Real Housewives. Is there a way to do that? Is that possible?

Angela: There are so many ways to do that. And my proposal now is that you watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, season two, which is coming out in May, so we'll see all right, influencers and all the things we're going to talk about today too.

Brad: All right, we're here to talk about your brand new book, Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood. This is an incredible book, and I'm so grateful to have had a chance to read it.

I want to start in chapter three, because chapter three is not the first chapter of the book, but includes the beginning of the universe. So chapter three is a place where you examine the creation narrative, Genesis one, Genesis two. But you also examine the ways that prominent white male teachers about these passages, namely John Piper, who many people listening will be familiar with, and Mark Driscoll, that leads to some big takeaways about raising boys in the United States in this moment.

Would you just rehearse for us a little bit about like, if I'm not wanting to listen to John Piper or Mark Driscoll about Genesis, what might be some things they might say about those first stories of the Bible?

Angela: Yeah, well, one of the mind-blowing moments for me when I was studying to be a pastor and studying Genesis was realizing there's actually two different narratives about creation in the Bible, and Genesis one and two are very different.

You'll notice guys like Piper and Driscoll, they don't really talk about Genesis one very often. They really hone in on Genesis two, and they really hone in on what I would say is imported and put-in gender essentialism that they want to think exists in the Adam and Eve story. So what you'll notice and what you'll hear again and again is really this narrative about Eve being the purveyor of sin to sort of the dumb and kind of clueless Adam, that she is really the instrument of temptation, rather than the serpent.

And it sets up this—and they really go into the curse of Eve, this curse of childbirth, which certainly a lot of politicians in America are wanting childbirth to be cursed right now in this country, and pregnancy to be cursed without access to pregnancy care. But it's incredible, and as I was researching this chapter, that so much of it does go back to Genesis two, in contrast to Genesis 1:27, which for me is foundational to my entire faith. And I keep going back to in this time, which just reiterates that every human being was created in the image of God, that God's image was not inherently male, but that every human being is in that image of God—really a different message in these two creation stories.

Brad: One of the things that you quote Driscoll on is saying that Adam has this authority over Eve because in Genesis 2:23, he is the one who names her like all other creation. And there's, as you say, also this claim that woman, the woman sinned first.

I just have to say, it's amazing that Adam, in these tellings, goes from like, dumb and silent and being like, "Oh, he's just over there eating a sandwich. He doesn't know any better," and then, and it's all Eve's fault. And then the narrative switches really quickly, and it's like, "Well, men are in charge. They're the ones that were betrothed with this kind of gift from God, and women just don't..." I mean, it's amazing how the man in the story goes from "he's just in the background, he didn't do anything" to "he should have control over the entire earth."

How do you respond to that? And we're going to get to what this has to do with raising boys in a minute. But what is this idea of Adam having authority over Eve? How does that strike you as a pastor, as a theologian, as somebody trying to figure out these biblical texts?

Angela: Yeah, it really reveals that for such a wide swath of American Christianity, and specifically sort of this conservative evangelicalism represented by some of these guys, is that the foundation of their faith is based on a gender hierarchy. That it really has nothing to do with Jesus' life, death and resurrection, but this central truth for them that they're going to fight to defend, that they're going to institute and legislate and insist upon in their families, is really based on gender hierarchy. And it's such a reading into the Bible—you know, I guess we would call that eisegesis, and not exegesis. They're trying to read in what they already believe, then looking to the Bible text to take out of it what's there.

And I'll say too, on a personal level, as someone who grew up in the purity culture 90s and early 2000s, what you bring up about this sense where Adam goes from, "Oh, he's kind of this clueless, helpless, vulnerable guy," to all of a sudden "he's in charge of the world. He's naming all the beasts. He's the head of the family." It speaks to this double bind that women find themselves in, because we're considered to be somehow all-powerful sexually and yet without any kind of autonomy or choice in our lives. And it's really a tragic bind. My book investigates how this same sort of double bind is also really not great for men, but personally, it speaks to the bind that women find themselves in in these kind of worldviews.

Brad: You say on page 48: "This kind of teaching about creational gender roles disempowers, confuses and even abuses women. But what does it do to young men and boys told again and again that they are the dominant sex, that they are the dominant sex created to rule over and have dominion over, not just women, but the Earth, the land, its animals and all things on earth. It's often a rude awakening for young white Christian men when they enter the world and find that most created things are not interested in being ruled over by them."

I'd love to just ask that question to you: what is this kind of teaching and this kind of reading of Genesis do to young boys as they start to form an identity in the world?

Angela: Yeah, I mean, the more I talk about Disciples of White Jesus, it strikes me that it really functions, in many ways, as like a second volume to my first book, Red State Christians, and now that we're in the second phase of Trump's administration.

So what this speaks to for young men, it reminds me of what I talk about in Red State Christians, how Trumpism and Christian nationalism really diminishes the individuality of American military members, and it just sees them as an overarching group without opportunity or autonomy to have their own stories of military service. Now we see this expanded to white men and boys, where I think back to my and so many folks that would get married young.

Young women who were raised in this time of "girl power, you can do anything" coming out of college, and really sort of type A people that are also being told at the same time, "Well, you're supposed to be ruled by your husband." But because you can't have two people most of the time in a relationship that are both just super hard-charging, in charge all the time, a lot of these young evangelical women would hook up with men, many of them in engineering type fields, more introverted fields, who just weren't alpha type personalities. They weren't mature in their faith. They wanted to be sort of led by their wives. And yet both partners are being told, "Well, the man is supposed to be leading. The man is supposed to be doing this." And so regardless of whether it fits his specific personality type, nonetheless, "this is how you're supposed to be."

And as we know, if you're told you're supposed to be a certain way, and then you aren't fundamentally—I mean, we know this from the ways that LGBTQ people are treated in the church—you're fundamentally disconnected from your identity. And theologically, if we believe that Jesus' incarnation forever changed our own human identity, then if we're fundamentally disconnected from our identity, which I think happens for a lot of white men and boys who find this strict view of masculinity, know that they don't quite fit it, because really nobody does. They find themselves in a space where they know they're not that, and they're kind of lost when it comes to "who am I? What am I?" Which makes it really hard to build relationships with other people and also to have a genuine and important faith.

Brad: It strikes me reading your book that over and over again, we read about young men who are feeling isolated and looking for a story. "Hey, what's a story that I can play a part in, and what's a character in that story that I can be?" And what they're told repeatedly in these spaces is "Well, the only character we have available for you is a strong, quick to anger, sometimes violent, man who's based on image or a certain version of God that is read through the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. So that's your character, whether you like it or not, whether that fits your temperament or not, whether that's good for anybody. Sorry, that's the only story." And it's also a story that seems to naturally isolate anyone who lives it out, because you're basically playing the role of God or Yahweh in terms of the stories and theology you found in these kind of spaces.

Angela: Well, first of all, I love that analysis and idea of the book, because so often I think there's this tendency in a lot of times, more progressive spaces, that if there's a problem, we want to find a legislative or a policy prescription in order to solve it, and we sort of neglect the role of narrative. And so there is a dearth of narratives for white men and boys. So I love that you saw that. They are searching for stories. We all want to be the main character in our own story. And they are searching for alternative narratives, and I hope ultimately to offer some of those in the book.

But this narrative that they have—I keep returning to this when I'm thinking about this book out in the world, in our present moment. If you're looking towards men who have lived according to this ethos and who have sort of reached the pinnacle of what this looks like, these are not men who are well-adjusted or relationally savvy people. I don't know any other moms of boys, regardless of their political preferences, who look at Elon Musk or Donald Trump or Jeff Bezos or Mark Driscoll and say like, "Yeah, that's the life I want my son to have. I want him to have multiple marriages. I want him to have affairs. I want him to have strained relationships with his children."

This is—it's not a good deal for anybody, even for these people that are billionaires or people who've achieved great power and influence in this worldview. Their lives still—I mean, Jesus tells us to look at the fruit when it comes to evaluating false prophets. And you certainly see the fruit of this kind of worldview for men.

Brad: This was true for me. When I was in evangelical spaces and purity culture, on one level, I think people thought I fit in pretty well. I was a kid in high school who played sports. I like to go surfing. So there were some of those traditional, legible masculine signs in my identity. But by the time I was a junior and senior in high school at church camp, I remember all the older boys there would want to go play these war games and stuff. And I would ask the counselors if I could stay in the rec room and read Thomas Aquinas. And the counselors would just look at me like, "Dude, what are you—don't want to play Capture the Flag? Are you sure, man? You want to go—okay, yeah. I mean, I don't—it's fine. You can go read Thomas Aquinas. That's cool. We're not—you're not in trouble. That's okay."

And I'm like, "Okay, thanks so much. Yeah, that sounds great. I don't have to play the war game. This is good." But from there, going into ministry, it just turned me into this weird enigma, and not a real man, not a real husband, not a real guy, total weirdo all the time. People would buy me power tools for Christmas, hoping I would get it, and it's just me like, "Yeah, this is cool. Thanks, Jared. Yeah, that's great. I'm going to go over here and read Augustine, but I'll open that later and read the instructions. Probably return it, but thank you for giving it to me. I really thank you so much. Jesus loves you, too. Okay."

You have this great part in this chapter about Reverend Heather Roth Johnson, who introduces different gender language into the Trinity. And I just want to mention this because my colleague, Dan Miller on this show always says, "Hey, if God is beyond gender—God's pronouns don't matter—then should we refer to God, God the Father, God the Son, Holy Spirit, as 'they' or 'she'? And let's—that's cool, right? No big deal." And then, of course, John Piper and Mark Driscoll lose their minds and they go on a rage fit. She does this. Tell us what happens when she does this in her church.

Angela: Yeah, it triggers people, and she gets messages of people because it upends again—I think this speaks to the sense in which we have a dominant narrative of Christianity, specifically white American Christianity in this country, that is really grounded in gender hierarchy. And so people, and I want to emphasize, too, that for people who are reading the book, maybe who don't come from a faith background, or who would say, "Well, my family's not religious," I think the important point, and you understand this too, is that even for people who are not religious, we have an American culture that teaches us theological lessons about God nonetheless.

And so the overarching view of God, even for people, maybe even especially for people who have never read the Bible, don't go to church, is still a very masculine vision of God. And so when Pastor Heather would make those transitions, it really shook people's entire faith very similarly to like, maybe when you would suggest, "Oh, by the way, Jesus wasn't white and he didn't have blonde hair and he wasn't American." It's really revealing when you challenge these unspoken notions that Jesus is a European American Christian and a guy—well, Jesus was a guy, but God—it really is revealing that the most strongly held faith convictions of American Christianity are much more rooted in Christian nationalism than they are in the ancient story of Jesus.

Brad: There's so much there. I'm going to resist all my theological urges to turn to chapter one and elaborate and just ask you 10 more questions on that front, because we'll run out of time. But if we go from this sort of theological framework of God as an angry father, an angry spouse, the authority over women and the ways that young men are sort of taught to live that story, we see in chapter one what is just a harrowing chapter, if I'm honest with you. There were moments I had to put this chapter down. There's so much here, Angela, and you went right to the heart of it. You went to South Carolina. You went to Charleston, and you spoke to those who were involved in both churches in what happened in Charleston and Dylann Roof and the massacre that he perpetrated in the church there.

One of the things that just got me is when you started talking about Dylann Roof and his story as having elements that resonated with your own story and with your family. So can we start there? How did this become personal for you as you started to...

Angela: Yeah, I think this has really been a journey for me, as someone whose family is overwhelmingly German American, and watching really learning about the complicity of German Christians in the rise of Nazism, and then seeing some of those same tendencies happening in our own country, with the expectation of political loyalty of Christians to a political movement that grows increasingly authoritarian.

So I'm very—one of the themes of all of my work, and one of my central convictions is that I want people to see themselves in that which they might abhor or that which they might consider to be really evil and disgusting. And I think it's a really common tendency in white Christianity to distance ourselves from the ugly elements of our past and from the ways in which our faith has been complicit in abuse, in slavery, in mistreatment and dehumanization of so many people. And that goes for towards women as well.

So Dylann Roof—people might hear the story of how he becomes radicalized online. He becomes a white supremacist. He writes a manifesto, he goes and in one of the most tragic and despicable acts of white supremacy, he sits in a Bible study for over an hour at one of America's most storied Black churches, and then massacres nine people there. Now, what you might assume when you hear that story, you think, "Oh, well, this is somebody who grew up—he's in South Carolina. He's in the south. He must have been, if he had a faith background, he must have been evangelical, conservative."

The reality is, he was an ELCA Lutheran, which is the same denomination where I'm ordained. It's generally considered to be more of a progressive denomination, whatever that word means. I think 50% of our membership voted for Trump, so it's not overly...

Brad: Tim Walz. That's a Tim Walz denomination.

Angela: That's right, we're gonna claim Tim Walz. So anyway, when I found out that Dylann Roof was a member of an ELCA congregation, at first, too, I sensed this part of myself. And I write about this—wanting to distance myself from his story and to consider, "Well, maybe he was a member of the church, but he must not have been very involved."

He was involved. He was a part of the Lutheran infrastructure in South Carolina, he went to the Bible camps, and so I—and I still remember, as we're talking about this, just the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I woke up that morning after having been at Mother Emanuel the day before and driving that hour and a half, two hours from Charleston to Columbia, the State Capitol, which is where Dylann Roof's family is from, where the church that his family attended was.

I happened to be there on All Saints Sunday. And just as an underscoring of the interconnectedness of all of this, one of the people that was being remembered that day in the church was Dylann Roof's father. He was one of the people from the church who had died in the last year, and then I get this immense privilege of—and I was really nervous about it, but this immense privilege of spending an extended period of time with the longtime pastor of that congregation and just unpacking what happened.

And I'm so grateful for his vulnerability, his honesty, the ways in which he shared his sense of shame, his sense of guilt, and what I think is most important for people to sort of grapple with, is that he was really clear about saying, "I feel this responsibility, this guilt, this shame, for the fact that Dylann Roof came out of my congregation, and at the same time, I also have an immense grief," because this pastor also knew Clementa Pinckney, who was the pastor of Mother Emanuel, who was killed in the massacre, that not too long before Dylan went to Charleston and committed this white supremacist crime that Clementa Pinckney was at that same church making ashes for Ash Wednesday.

And the reason why this is so important to me is that the ways in which we avoid healing from the past, we avoid confronting the things that trouble our society most greatly, that torment us most deeply, are to distance ourselves from any connectedness to painful things. And it was just so important for me to show that you can't escape the guilt or the pain of white supremacy as certainly for Dylan's experience as well....with unflinching vision, and not looking away at any moment, and I was thinking to myself, I don't know if I could have done what you'd done and the way you did it. What did you come away thinking about how and why Dylann Roof was radicalized? What's the real story?

Angela: I think the real story is one of this fleeting sense of identity and this also powerful, all-powerful God-like power of the almighty algorithm. Because this is a person who was really radicalized online, a person who had close friends who were Black. So a lot of times, people always want to say, "Oh, some of my closest friends are Black," whether that's true or not. People want to think that that's simply the cure, and it's not.

There is such an attraction to online radicalization, and as we'll talk about, sort of the later story in the book, that's almost a reversal of Dylan's story. In his case as well, there was this radicalization that happened out of a search for belonging and community. And that's not to at all excuse the horrific crimes that were committed, but it is an attempt. And as I did this research, and I carried with me my own sons and my deep love for them, for my husband, and so it's an attempt—so if we can understand what may have happened, we can try to bring some alternative narratives, alternative sources of identity and community into the lives of men and boys.

Brad: You already alluded to chapter nine, and let's go there. There's a young man there, not so young anymore, named Caleb. And at first, has a very similar story, I think, to Dylann Roof, but as you say, it's a little bit of a mirror opposite in terms of the ending of that story. Tell us about Caleb and the ways he was radicalized, and then some of the chapters that have led him to a different place.

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All right, friends, thanks for listening. Thanks for being here on this Monday. We'll be back Wednesday with "It's in the Code," Friday with the weekly roundup. Be on the lookout for special programming and episodes dropping too. And other than that, we'll just say thanks for being here. Have a good day.