In this episode Kristin Kobes Du Mez traces how holiness theology and New Thought merged into a faith that promised women power right where they stood, and taught them that naming what was wrong was itself the sin. We follow the thread from Hannah Whitall Smith to corporate campaigns against the New Deal, from a YMCA small group in 1910s China to postwar evangelical totalism, through MLMs and Christian bookstores to the blogosphere and Beth Moore. If confession can heal and confession can control, how do you know which one you're inside?

Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History at Calvin University. She is a Senior Democracy Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent books include Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020) and Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made (September 2026).

Kristin's Book:

Live Laugh Love

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