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Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made
In her "paradigm-influencing" (Christianity Today) bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, which has changed how countless Americans understand...
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In her "paradigm-influencing" (Christianity Today) bestseller Jesus and John Wayne, which has changed how countless Americans understand their faith, historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez showed how evangelicals made Jesus into an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism. Now she uncovers the roots of today's glittering, Instagram-ready culture of white Christian femininity.
Live Laugh Love explores a world intimately familiar to millions of American women: Christian bookstores and radio, Hallmark movies, multilevel marketing companies, and contemporary lifestyle brands. This consumer culture may seem trivial, but Du Mez demonstrates that it has an unlikely and revealing history that stretches all the way back to the late nineteenth century and the emergence of New Thought, a movement that championed the power of the mind to shape reality. Du Mez shows how this idea drew together disparate traditions, including Mormonism, holiness evangelicalism, and holiness theology's charismatic offshoots. Usually seen as distinct, these creeds in fact overlapped, and in the process gave rise to prosperity theologies and to the gospel of positive thinking.
But positivity had a dark side. Du Mez introduces us to religious innovators who taught that positive thinking was the secret to spiritual and material success, and reveals how these notions gave rise to a new feminine ideal. As women read prairie fiction; bought and sold Tupperware containers and Mary Kay makeup; shopped at Hobby Lobby, Target, and Altar'd State; and decorated homes with shiplap, they moved freely between the religious and the secular. Marketed as empowering, these products were part of a consumer culture that elevated domesticity and vulnerability while exposing women to systems susceptible to manipulation.
Combining sweeping cultural history with intimate storytelling, Du Mez explains how theological exclusion led women to build their own brand of Christianity, rich in cultural influence if thin in formal doctrine. Ultimately, Live Laugh Love explains how a powerful yet elusive vision of womanhood has shaped lives, families, and politics for more than a century now--and how it has brought us to our reactionary moment.
Author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: 09/15/2026
Pages: 432
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9781324090977
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/20/2026
Library Journal 07/17/2026 pg. 1
Booklist 08/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2026
About the Author
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin: - Kristin Kobes Du Mez is professor of history at Calvin University. She is currently a senior democracy fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. She has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post and been interviewed on NPR, PBS, and the BBC, among others outlets. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Live Laugh Love explores a world intimately familiar to millions of American women: Christian bookstores and radio, Hallmark movies, multilevel marketing companies, and contemporary lifestyle brands. This consumer culture may seem trivial, but Du Mez demonstrates that it has an unlikely and revealing history that stretches all the way back to the late nineteenth century and the emergence of New Thought, a movement that championed the power of the mind to shape reality. Du Mez shows how this idea drew together disparate traditions, including Mormonism, holiness evangelicalism, and holiness theology's charismatic offshoots. Usually seen as distinct, these creeds in fact overlapped, and in the process gave rise to prosperity theologies and to the gospel of positive thinking.
But positivity had a dark side. Du Mez introduces us to religious innovators who taught that positive thinking was the secret to spiritual and material success, and reveals how these notions gave rise to a new feminine ideal. As women read prairie fiction; bought and sold Tupperware containers and Mary Kay makeup; shopped at Hobby Lobby, Target, and Altar'd State; and decorated homes with shiplap, they moved freely between the religious and the secular. Marketed as empowering, these products were part of a consumer culture that elevated domesticity and vulnerability while exposing women to systems susceptible to manipulation.
Combining sweeping cultural history with intimate storytelling, Du Mez explains how theological exclusion led women to build their own brand of Christianity, rich in cultural influence if thin in formal doctrine. Ultimately, Live Laugh Love explains how a powerful yet elusive vision of womanhood has shaped lives, families, and politics for more than a century now--and how it has brought us to our reactionary moment.
Author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: 09/15/2026
Pages: 432
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9781324090977
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/20/2026
Library Journal 07/17/2026 pg. 1
Booklist 08/01/2026
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2026
About the Author
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin: - Kristin Kobes Du Mez is professor of history at Calvin University. She is currently a senior democracy fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. She has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post and been interviewed on NPR, PBS, and the BBC, among others outlets. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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