The Progressive Soul of American Prohibition

Traditional prohibition histories make a big to-do about evangelical Christianity. But as Chapter 14 explores, the evangelism of the Progressive Era was not about Bible thumping, or otherworldly damnation. Rather the social gospel—most famously pioneered by the Baptist Walter Rauschenbusch—was about uplifting the poor and downtrodden as per Jesus’s example. Social justice meant doing right by your fellow man, not getting him addicted for profit. Rauschenbusch’s evangelism was socialism with a Christian moral compass. This chapter examines the social gospel, including Henry George’s famed “single tax” on unearned income as a way to remedy the vast inequalities of wealth and power. Neither temperance nor evangelism was antithetical to new medical-science and social-science approaches the liquor question. The chapter traces the effects of this evangelism on the antiliquor progressivism of Theodore Roosevelt in New York politics.

Linhas de uma fé-para-o-mundo: Cinco décadas entre “Uma teologia para o Evangelho Social”, de Walter Rauschenbusch, e “A Cidade do Homem”, de Harvey Cox.

A pesquisa está centrada na identificação de linhas que articulam o pensamento teológico europeu e estadunidense nas décadas que compreendem a publicação de duas obras que, em certo sentido, representam a visão de uma teologia para o mundo, ou de uma perspectiva teológica secularizada. Trata-se das conhecidas obras de dois teólogos batistas estadunidenses: Uma teologia para o Evangelho Social, de Walter Rauschenbusch, publicada em 1917, e A Cidade do Homem, de Harvey Cox, de 1965. O objetivo é descrever fios condutores que atravessam a Teologia Liberal na virada para o século 20, da qual Rauschenbusch é um dos representantes, e chegam na formação do que se chamou Teologia da Secularização, de Harvey Cox e outros expoentes, com vistas à melhor compreensão do debate entre teologia e secularidade.

American Evangelicalism in Black and White (1750–Present)

This chapter begins with an examination of the evangelical movement among African Americans, including the testimonies of ex-slaves and the spiritual autobiographies of George White and Jarena Lee. It then considers the role of conversion in the Second Great Awakening. Although there was no overarching unity to this awakening, the revival profoundly shaped an emerging generic Protestant evangelicalism. However, not all were pleased with this age of revivalism. John Williamson Nevin and Horace Bushnell, two products of the revival, eventually became its most vociferous critics and questioned the notion of instantaneous conversions. In the industrial age, Walter Rauschenbusch articulated a view of conversion as social reconstruction, and in the twentieth century, Billy Graham appeared as the charismatic champion of “born-again” religion. The chapter concludes with a discussion of young evangelicals who questioned the individualistic emphasis of evangelical conversion and of others who left the evangelical fold and converted to Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

The Theological Origins of White Supremacy

Chapter 2 offers a historical and theological account of the theological elements that contributed to the development of white supremacy. It highlights crucial historical moments in the emergence of white supremacy and demonstrates the way white, European theology created and sustained its dominance. The chapter then analyzes the continuing malformative aspects of white Christian theology. To demonstrate that all of white theology is contaminated with racism, it investigates the ways elements of white supremacy show up in the work of two of America’s most influential theologians, Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr. The text demonstrates the theological origins of white supremacy and identifies its continuing presence in corrupting even the most well-intentioned white theology.