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AudioBook information:
Author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman
Release date: December 14, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 11 h 44 min
Summary: “A smart, endlessly interesting exercise in connecting cultural dots to learn how we got here.”âKirkus Reviews, starred review
From the New York Times best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne, a revelatory history of white Christian womanhood in the United States.
In her âparadigm-influencingâ (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 todayâs 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 theologyâs 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 Altarâd 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 nowâand how it has brought us to our reactionary moment.
Reviews:
“Du Mez has wry wit, accessible prose, and a real feel for narrative. Itâs a page-turner.”
â Christianity Today
“Because of the way the book expanded my understanding of how I have been shaped, formed, and even manipulated at times as a White Christian woman in America, Iâm giving this book a âmust-read, 5-star ratingâ in this summerâs book list journal Iâve been keepingâŚDuMezâs book takes the reader on a thorough and fascinating exploration of this history⌠Live Laugh Love would be a great selection for a book club or a church reading group to work through and discuss together.”
â Reformed Journal
“This sprawling account from historian Kobes Du Mez (Jesus and John Wayne) explores how white women shaped and were shaped by conservative American ChristianityâŚMost strikingly, she details the mental anguish white Christian women experience when they feel unable to meet idealized feminine standards. Itâs an astute dissection of a repressive strain of American womanhood.”
â Publishers Weekly
“Moving skillfully through such seemingly disparate topics as purity rings, multilevel marketing schemes, contemporary Christian music, the second wave of feminism and the rise of trad wife influencers, Du Mez assembles a sprawling network of evidenceâŚCombining the critical lens of an academic with the deep sympathy of a someone who recognizes the many ways women in conservative religious cultures are denied access to traditional power, Live Laugh Love highlights their efforts to control their own narratives while shining a light on the systems that limit and diminish those efforts.”
â Bookpage
“A smart, endlessly interesting exercise in connecting cultural dots to learn how we got here.”
â Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Live Laugh Love is full of in-depth research, stories needing to be heard, and excellent writing. With a solid grasp of race and whiteness, Kristin Du Mez takes us through time, offering an understanding of the evangelical cultureâs view of women. I am grateful for her scholarship in this critical time.”
â Latasha Morrison, New York Times bestselling author of Be the Bridge
“Kristin Du Mezâs scholarship stuns. She weaves a mesmerizing narrative of how white evangelical women transformed biblical womanhood and made Christian nationalism palatable. They married capitalism with spirituality, harnessed the language of submission to broker their own networks of power, and refashioned right-wing authoritarianism into a romantic mythology of family values. Du Mez stands apart for how she centers the stories of womenâthose who were complicit and those who werenât. By honoring the courage, truth-telling, and resilience of women like Christa Brown and Rachel Held Evans, Du Mez shows us the real story of hope. It will captivate you.”
â Beth Allison Barr, New York Times bestselling author of Becoming the Pastorâs Wife
“Kristin Kobes du Mez isnât just one of our boldest historians; sheâs also one of our finest writers of non-fiction. Live Laugh Love connects so many âChristianâ beliefs that have nothing to do with Christ, and that have been used to control women for generations. A brilliant, infuriating, inspiring read for anyone who wants to understand modern Christianityâand how it got that way. I wish that all men would read this book.”
â John Fugelsang, New York Times bestselling author of Separation of Church and Hate
“Charting a path from 19th century New Thought to 21st century tradwives, with stops along the way at Little House on the Prairie and the bedroom of a mythical “Total Woman,” Kristin Kobes Du Mez transforms our understanding of money, sex, power, and gender in U.S. history. You simply cannot grasp the scale of Christian nationalism without this vivid and essential exploration of a distinctly American religion of white womanhood. Startling, heartbreaking and terrifying, Live Laugh Love is a key volume in the new history of how we come to this contested moment.”
â Jeff Sharlet, bestselling author of The Undertow and The Family
“Live Laugh Love is more than a family tree of fundamentalism tracing the lineage of cottage industries fashioned by bored Christian housewives; it exposes the iceberg beneath the placid surface of the sea we now find ourselves in as a nation. Kristin Kobes Du Mez reveals how American evangelicalism has been shaped by savvy, entrepreneurial women coping with their grief and pain, while trying to be âgoodâ and fit within a patriarchal world. This book is often laugh-out-loud funny for those whoâve lived the inside joke, but also horrifying and harrowing as she detangles the web of deceit and manipulation . . . A must-read for religious trauma survivors who want to know the reasoning behind our histories.”
â Tia Levings, New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy
About the Author:
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.