
Show Notes
This is our unabridged interview with Kristin Kobes Du Mez.
That "Live, Laugh, Love" sign at Target isn't just decor. It's a theological statement, and it has a 150-year history most of us have never heard.
Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the New York Times bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, argues that American Christian women have been formed more by the gift aisle than by the seminary. In her new book, Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made, she traces a 19th-century promise, that submission and a positive attitude will be rewarded with blessing, as it merges with the secular philosophy of positive thinking and spreads through Christian romance novels, radio, home decor, and multi-level marketing. Lee and Kristin explore why doubt came to be treated as sin, and how a theology championed by a suffragist ended up demanding women's submission to men.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today: plant your first seed and see what God can grow.
Tickets to Nov 22nd NSE Live in Nashville:https://www.nashvillesymphony.org/nosmallendeavor
Join No Small Endeavor on Patreon and get:
Ad-free listening for both No Small Endeavor and The Subtext
Monthly bonus content including our ongoing Cardinal Virtue Series and more
Weekly reflections on a good life
Access to live show videos
Early access to live show tickets.
Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp
This is our unabridged interview with Alister McGrath.
Meryl Streep is the voice of Aslan in Greta Gerwig's Narnia adaptation. Is this a threat to Christian orthodoxy or another culture-war distraction?
Science can explain the world in an incredibly helpful way, but scientific facts alone can't tell us what our lives are for. In a world shaped by modernity, it can be wildly tempting to chuck religion altogether. But with science alone, we end up in what Max Weber called the iron cage: a world fully explained, but emptied of meaning.
This is our unabridged interview with Belle Tindall-Riley.
Is a $4,500 networking trip to Mar-a-Lago okay if it's for the kingdom? This week on The Subtext, Lee and Savannah unpack problematic Christian wealth seminars promising financial success for “kingdom impact." They explore the power of proximity, the dangers of “kingdom washing,” and what the early church might have to say about business, debt, and the pursuit of influence. Is Christian language transforming business, or simply baptizing capitalism?