The American Presidents Are Reading “Jesus and John Wayne” (Part 2: Van Buren to Tyler)

Martin Van Buren is (Seriously) Reading Jesus and John Wayne

I went in search of Martin Van Buren and found him on a sidewalk bench holding some papers in his lap. He, too, had a copy of Jesus and John Wayne beside him. His mood seemed quite serious, even brooding. It was clear that he had read enough and it was time to chew on it for a while.

“Good day, Mr. President” I said calmly, unsure of what to expect.

“Good day, young lad,” he said before letting out a long sigh. As if channeling my thoughts, he confirmed our brief audience on the street, executed a solid man-spread, and then began waxing eloquent over some of the content of the book, his administrative experience, and the evolution of his thinking.

“You know,” he began ruminating in a relaxed yet firm tone, “I grew up thinking slavery was the most natural thing in the world. It’s been around for thousands of years, it’s found in both Testaments in the Bible, and my own experiences of Ham’s descendants have not been pleasant enough to warrant any kind of special attention. But I can’t say my thoughts about the six servants I grew up with were purely animalistic, as those in the South are so fond of portraying. Throughout my whole life and business, being surrounded by slaves, it was undeniable: these aren’t exotic animals from Africa, these are people.” 

He solemnly turned to me. “This means that, morally and politically speaking, slavery is a moral evil.”

He turned his head back towards the horizon and continued.

“And now, in reading this evidently brilliant historian from my own kin,” he finally reflected, “I’m starting to wonder the same about our rule—male rule—over the feminine species, especially within a religious context.

“Our Reformed tradition makes clear that all people are images of God, and that God being sovereign as king over all summons people to accomplish His will. The problem is this deep depravity, the pathology of sin that gets in the way of this goal. In skimming the last portions of this book, the bitter fruits of male conquest for the sake of manliness—all in the name of Jesus and the Bible—are abundantly clear.”

I was sorely tempted to quote from Herman Bavinck just to get his juices flowing even more, but I doubted he had any idea who he was. Bavinck was less than 8 years old at this time. But then again, “Why not?” I thought. “I might not get to speak to Van Buren until next Tuesday.”

“You know what, President Van Buren, there is a particular Dutch reformed theologian who has, well, will soon be, extending some of these thoughts from within your own theological framework.”

“Is that right?” he said curiously. “And?”

“Well, his name is Herman Bavinck, and allow me to share just a few quotations to illustrate perhaps what I mean. Here is one from his book Our Reasonable Faith, in his commentary on Genesis:

The woman is not merely created alongside of him but out of him (1 Cor. 11:8). Just as the stuff for making Adam’s body was taken from the earth, so the side of Adam is the basis of the life of Eve. But just as out of the dust of the earth the first man became a living being through the breath of life which came from above, so out of Adam’s side the first woman first became a human being by the creative omnipotence of God. She is out of Adam and yet is another than Adam. She is related to him and yet is different from him. She belongs to the same kind and yet in that kind she occupies her own unique position. She is dependent and yet she is free. She is after Adam and out of Adam, but owes her existence to God alone. And so she serves to help the man, to make his vocation of subduing the earth possible. She is his helper, not as mistress and much less as slave, but as an individual, independent, and free being, who received her existence not from the man but from God, who is responsible to God, and who was added to man as a free and unearned gift.

And here is another on 1 Corinthians 11:

Paul is there not speaking of man and woman considered apart from each other but about their relationship in marriage. And then he says that it is the man and not the woman who is the head. And he deduces this from the fact that the man is not from the woman, but the woman from the man. The man was created first, was first made in the image of God, and to him God first revealed His glory. And if the woman shares in all this, this takes place mediately, from and through the man. She received the image of God, but after man, in dependence upon him, by way of his mediation. Hence man is the image and glory of God directly and originally; the woman is the image and glory of God in a derived way in that his is the glory of man. What we read of this matter in Genesis 2 must be added to what we read of it in Genesis 1. The way in which woman is created in Genesis 2 is the way along which she receives the image of God as well as the man (Gen. 1:27). In this is contained the further truth that the image of God rests in a number of people, with differentiation of race, talent, and powers — in short in mankind — and further that this image will achieve its full unfolding in the new humanity which is the church of Christ.

“This is exactly the kind of thoughts I have been having! Who is this chap again?” the President inquired.

“You won’t get to know him, but you may have heard of his boss and predecessor, Abraham Kuyper. He’s currently in his early 20s studying at the University of Leiden, and his father Jan Kuyper is a minister in your tradition.”

“No, I haven’t heard of either, though I am certainly familiar with Kuypers. But no mind. The point is clear enough: Women truly are independent free beings and mustn’t be slaves to men.”

Then he sighed and shifted gears once again. “But it also seems that DuMez’s analysis is coming from a more radical shift. This is evident enough in the fact that she’s writing these words as a woman and bringing the whole church to account—including, well, wealthy and influential Christian men like myself. This is nothing short of revolutionary.”

“Yes, I think so. These quotes from Bavinck indicate his loyalty to scriptural tradition, but also reach forward to this new world of modernity; he’s transitioning, sort of like you.”

“Ah yes,” said Van Buren. “… But transitioning to what?”

“Well,” I began, “presumably to a world that isn’t so tense and, to be frank, contradictory, where women are finally recognized as fully human.”

“What do you mean?”

“The tension is right there in Bavinck’s prose: ‘dependent yet free,’ and woman is fully God’s image and yet derivative, secondary. Or in the language where I come from, ‘equal in being, different [that is, subordinate] in role.’ This tension need not and cannot be maintained, anymore than black people in the U.S. are worth ‘three-fifths’ of a white person. All of this is simply extending the leash of power, not untying it altogether.”

Van Buren’s face contorted and he even looked slightly alarmed, though he retained his composure after remembering that this thought was precisely what gave him pause while reading the book.

“I don’t mean to spoil it, Mr. President, but Kuyper won’t be favoring women’s suffrage in Holland; Bavinck, however, will. And that’s just the beginning,” I emphasized. “So the practical and political implications of this theological transition will soon be coming home to roost for the Dutch reformed—the ‘frozen chosen’, as some call it. … And though Bavinck’s thoughts are still not developed and contradictory, he does realize that there is indeed a greater shift happening—something existential and serious. In his words:

“The soul of the woman has awoken and no power in this world will bring it back to its former state of unconsciousness” (Bavinck, Die Vrau, 1918)

Van Buren rubbed his beard briskly with one hand, inhaled deeply and remarked, “Yes, yes, so it is; besides all these theological problems, there is indeed a bigger picture, and I’m starting to think Abigail Adams and the others are right, right about this tilted plane on which we all live and walk that forces women into subordination at every turn—in law, in property, in labor, in church, in religion, at the university, in politics—that this slant is not, in fact, ‘natural’ at all, or at least not fixed in natural law, but is perhaps indeed a kind of slavery of our own making, no different than that plantation system that has benefited my family for so long. What say you?” he asked.

I honestly had nothing to say, and the question seemed rhetorical anyway. It was.

He continued, “DuMez could be entirely wrong. In fact, I have quite a few reservations about her somewhat dramatic claims on political conservatism and the like. And if she believes all masculinity is bad, she might study the history of this nation’s founding a bit closer (they are, after all, founding fathers). But, again, what if she’s right? What if it’s possible that I have participated in an entire system of enslavement under the guise of male ‘chivalry’ and virtuous ‘duty’ and ‘true religion’? And what if I have done so from a confused theological framework that itself is stained by this pathology?”

I could tell this conversation wasn’t going to end soon, and the tired old President had enough to think about without me standing around.

“Well,” I offered, sympathizing in this dramatic moment, “it certainly is a frightening possibility.” I was just beginning to walk away when Van Buren provided a specific example of what he had just mentioned.

“I truly am starting to wonder if the scriptures themselves suffer from this disease,” he said, a bit exasperated. “This seems like the worst of heresies given our—the Reformed—confession. Remember what it says?

And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God. (WCF 1.5)

In other words, the Bible is perfect in every way. It cannot be stained by such prejudices and systemic problems, related to the sexes, politics, or not. But it is precisely this orientation that Martin Luther himself—the Reformer of Reformers!—rejected outright! He writes:

“Holy Scripture possesses no external glory, attracts no attention, lacks all beauty and adornment. You can scarcely imagine that anyone would attach faith to such a divine Word, because it is without any glory or charm. Yet faith comes from this divine Word, through its inner power without any external loveliness.”

“Hell,” the President chuckled, “if Calvin, Luther, and the Westminster Divines were in the same room, they couldn’t even agree on which books should be in the Bible!”

“Yes, that’s quite right,” I affirmed with raised eyebrows, as I watched a dead President deconstruct his faith. “So then, as you say, why force the scriptures to speak authoritatively about such matters as the sexes and patriarchy and all that stuff?”

“Precisely!” the President exclaimed. “But if this is the case, and again, it’s possible that it is, then there is a lot more to be reconsidered than whether women should be allowed to wear trousers in public or not.”

With that hearty conclusion, I left the President to this thoughts.

William Henry Harrison is Reading Jesus and John Wayne

President William Harrison was sitting on a nearby concrete pillar. (Don’t ask me why; I guess that’s just what men did back then). I didn’t have to ask if he heard of Jesus and John Wayne since a copy was tucked between his arm and hat right then and there.

“Good day, Mr. President!”

“Good day, young sir” he replied. “Say, I need to go soon, but could you do me a favor and tell Anna that I changed my mind about buying that Bourbon downtown. In fact, I’m thinking I’m done with whiskey altogether.” He sighed heavily. “She’ll know what you mean.”

“…uhh, yeah, sure. I uh…”

“And be careful as she’s quite sickly and might be perturbed by strangers. You’ll find her in the back lobby of the Holiday Inn near the Civic Center Plaza.”

“Right! Well, farewell!” I splurted out as I left for this unexpected task.

John Tyler is Playing Jesus and John Wayne

On my way to the hotel, I stumbled across John Tyler—and wouldn’t you know it, a copy of Jesus and John Wayne was attached to his violin.

He caught my eye and said, “I’m sure you’ve heard about this book by now. And by ‘heard,’ I mean of course, the metaphorical sense of read. But have you actually heard Jesus and John Wayne, played to a C Major?”

“No, I haven’t. In fact, I honestly never would have imagined someone, much less a U.S. President, playing on a copy of Jesus and John Wayne.

“So here goes!” He flipped up the book to his ear and began strumming for a jig to which he danced. I thought about joining for this original tune and rather unusual performance, but those Baptist roots stretched longer than I realized, and I found myself walking (not dancing!) in another direction. …