Download or read book American Protestants and the Debate over the Vietnam War written by George Bogaski and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As American soldiers fought overseas in Vietnam, American churchmen debated the legitimacy and impact of the war at home. While the justness of the war was the primary issue, they also argued over conscientious objection, the legitimacy of protests, the weapons of war, and other related topics. Divided into three primary groups—mainline, conservative evangelical, and African American—and including fourteen denominations, this book uses the churchmen’s publications and proceedings to better understand how American religion responded to and was impacted by the Vietnam War. In the various debates, churchmen brought their theological convictions and reading of the Bible to bear on their political perspectives. Convictions about sin, the nature of man, the fate of the world, violence and benevolence had direct impact upon the foreign policy perspectives of these churches. Rather than result in static political positions, these convictions adapted as the nature of the war and the likelihood of American success changed over time. The positions taken by American denominations brought about attitudes of support, opposition, and ambivalence toward the war, but also impacted the vibrancy of many churches. Some groups were rent asunder by the fractious, debilitating debate. Other churches, due to their greater ideological clarity and unanimity, saw the war provide an impetus for growth. Regardless of the individual consequences, the debate over the Vietnam War provides a concrete study of the intersection of religion and politics.
Download or read book Faith and War written by David E. Settje and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout American history, Christianity has shaped public opinion, guided leaders in their decision making, and stood at the center of countless issues. To gain complete knowledge of an era, historians must investigate the religious context of what transpired, why it happened, and how. Yet too little is known about American Christianity's foreign policy opinions during the Cold and Vietnam Wars. To gain a deeper understanding of this period (1964-75), David E. Settje explores the diversity of American Christian responses to the Cold and Vietnam Wars to determine how Americans engaged in debates about foreign policy based on their theological convictions. Settje uncovers how specific Christian theologies and histories influenced American religious responses to international affairs, which varied considerably. Scrutinizing such sources as the evangelical "Christianity Today," the mainline Protestant, "Christian Century," a sampling of Catholic periodicals, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Church of Christ, "Faith and War" explores these entities' commingling of religion, politics, and foreign policy, illuminating the roles that Christianity attempted to play in both reflecting and shaping American foreign policy opinions during a decade in which global matters affected Americans daily and profoundly.
Download or read book Swords and Plowshares written by George Albert Bogaski and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 850 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theological commitments and contemporary pressures shaped the response of American Protestants to the Vietnam War. Mainline denominations experienced extreme dissension. Opponents of the war, centered on clergy and leadership, challenged the war based upon its consequences. Supporters of the war, overwhelmingly laity, supported it as a just cause. The extreme levels of discord and disconnect between leadership and laity found expression in the debates over attendant issues of the war. Frustrated, conservatives within mainline denominations provided an alternative vision for the church that rejected a focus on social issues. The world view and eschatology of conservative evangelicals made war and the Vietnam War less troublesome. Conservative evangelical denominations saw in Vietnam an evangelistic opportunity and generally portrayed soldiers as front line missionaries. African-American denominations had connections to both mainline and conservative evangelical approaches. Martin Luther King, Jr., the foremost African-American of the time, religious or otherwise, strongly opposed the war and sought to lead fellow blacks on the issue. However, church members were very resistant to joining King in this particular struggle. African-American denominations did not so much support the Vietnam War as were unwilling to criticize Lyndon Johnson publically out of recognition of his great efforts on their behalf. With the election of Richard Nixon, a Republican with a very different political agenda, African-American denominations became more outspoken against the war as it began to draw attention and resources away from the economic and civic concerns of blacks.
Download or read book A Documentary History of Religion in America written by Edwin S. Gaustad and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Up-to-date one-volume edition of a standard text For decades students and scholars have turned to the two-volume Documentary History of Religion in America for access to the most significant primary sources relating to American religious history from the sixteenth century to the present. This fourth edition—published in a single volume for the first time—has been updated and condensed, allowing instructors to more easily cover the material in a single semester. With more than a hundred illustrations and a rich array of primary documents ranging from the letters and accounts of early colonists to tweets and transcripts from the 2016 presidential election, this volume remains an essential text for readers who want to encounter firsthand the astonishing scope of religious belief and practice in American history.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to American Protestantism written by Jason E. Vickers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-26 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide-from both chronological and a topical perspective-to a broad, diverse, deeply rooted, and influential religious tradition.
Download or read book The Vietnam Debate written by John Norton Moore and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Morality of Vietnam written by John C. Bennett and published by . This book was released on 1966 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Religion and War written by Timothy J. Demy and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at topics across the spectrum of America's wars, religious groups, personalities, and ideas, this volume shows that even in an increasingly secular society, religious roots and values run deep throughout American society and are elevated in times of war. There is a long and deep relationship between religion, politics, and war in U.S. history. While there is a constitutional and legal separation of religion and the state in American society, religion has been and remains a potent force in American culture and politics affecting many aspects of life, including perspectives on war and peace and the experience of war in U.S. history. From the American Revolution to the wars of the 21st century, religious values have informed and influenced American attitudes toward war and peace and have provided rationale for support and non-support of American participation in conflicts. An overview essay surveys the background and significance of religion in American culture and provides historical context for discussions of contemporary topics. A timeline highlights key events related to wars and conflicts. The volume then includes more than 50 topical essays that discuss specific wars as well as religious themes within culture and politics, ultimately providing a detailed overview of the intersection of religion, war, and politics in contemporary America.
Download or read book A Church Militant written by Michael Snape and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-28 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the relationship between Anglicans and the armed forces, of the military heritage and history of the Anglican Communion, and the changing nature of this relationship between the mid-Victorian period and the 1970s. This era spanned a period of imperial expansion and colonial conflict round the turn of the twentieth century, the two World Wars, the Cold War, wars of decolonisation, and Vietnam. In terms of armed conflict, it was the bloodiest period in the history of humanity and marked the advent of weaponry that had the capacity to extinguish human civilization. This book assesses the contribution of an expansive Anglican Communion to the armed forces of the English-speaking world, examines the ways in which this has been remembered, and explores its challenging legacy for the twenty-first century Church of England.
Download or read book Enduring Vietnam written by James Wright and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the American War in Vietnam that provides a rich overview of that war and an evocative reminder of the human faces of the generation who served. The Vietnam War is largely recalled as a mistake, either in the decision to engage there or in the nature of the engagement. Or both. Veterans of the war remain largely anonymous figures, accomplices in the mistake. Critically recounting the steps that led to the war, this book does not excuse the mistakes, but it brings those who served out of the shadows. Enduring Vietnam recounts the experiences of the young Americans who fought in Vietnam and of families who grieved those who did not return. By 1969 nearly half of the junior enlisted men who died in Vietnam were draftees. And their median age was 21—among the non-draftees it was only 20. The book describes the “baby boomers” growing up in the 1950s, why they went into the military, what they thought of the war, and what it was like to serve in “Nam.” And to come home. With a rich narrative of the Battle for “Hamburger Hill,” and through substantial interviews with those who served, the book depicts the cruelty of this war, and its quiet acts of courage. James Wright's Enduring Vietnam provides an important dimension to the profile of an American generation—and a rich account of an American War.
Download or read book American Crusade written by Benjamin J. Wetzel and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When is a war a holy crusade? And when does theology cause Christians to condemn violence? In American Crusade, Benjamin Wetzel argues that the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I shared a cultural meaning for white Protestant ministers in the United States, who considered each conflict to be a modern-day crusade. American Crusade examines the "holy war" mentality prevalent between 1860 and 1920, juxtaposing mainline Protestant support for these wars with more hesitant religious voices: Catholics, German-speaking Lutherans, and African American Methodists. The specific theologies and social locations of these more marginal denominations made their ministries highly critical of the crusading mentality. Religious understandings of the nation, both in support of and opposed to armed conflict, played a major role in such ideological contestation. Wetzel's book questions traditional periodizations and suggests that these three wars should be understood as a unit. Grappling with the views of America's religious leaders, supplemented by those of ordinary people, American Crusade provides a fresh way of understanding the three major American wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Download or read book An Historical Study of United States Religious Responses to the Vietnam War written by Rick Nutt and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the chronological span of military engagement, beginning before the Tonkin Gulf resolution and continuing through the evacuation of U.S. troops from Vietnam and treats the mainline and evangelical Protestant groups, as well as Roman Catholic responses, and Jewish reaction to American foreign policy in Vietnam.
Download or read book God and War written by Raymond Haberski, Jr. and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-23 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans have long considered their country to be good—a nation "under God" with a profound role to play in the world. Yet nothing tests that proposition like war. Raymond Haberski argues that since 1945 the common moral assumptions expressed in an American civil religion have become increasingly defined by the nation's experience with war. God and War traces how three great postwar “trials”—the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror—have revealed the promise and perils of an American civil religion. Throughout the Cold War, Americans combined faith in God and faith in the nation to struggle against not only communism but their own internal demons. The Vietnam War tested whether America remained a nation "under God," inspiring, somewhat ironically, an awakening among a group of religious, intellectual and political leaders to save the nation's soul. With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 behind us and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, Americans might now explore whether civil religion can exist apart from the power of war to affirm the value of the nation to its people and the world.
Download or read book The Wars of America written by Ronald Wells and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the appropriate Christian attitude toward war? According to Ron Wells, there are three possible answers to this question: that of the pacifist, who condemns war itself as un-Christian; that of the crusader, who views any war fought by a Christian as a war fought in defense of Christianity; and that of the just-war theorist, who evaluates each war on the merits of its case.
Download or read book The Gospel of Freedom and Power written by Sarah E. Ruble and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-09-17 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades after World War II, Protestant missionaries abroad were a topic of vigorous public debate. From religious periodicals and Sunday sermons to novels and anthropological monographs, public conversations about missionaries followed a powerful yet paradoxical line of reasoning, namely that people abroad needed greater autonomy from U.S. power and that Americans could best tell others how to use their freedom. In The Gospel of Freedom and Power, Sarah E. Ruble traces and analyzes these public discussions about what it meant for Americans abroad to be good world citizens, placing them firmly in the context of the United States' postwar global dominance. Bringing together a wide range of sources, Ruble seeks to understand how discussions about a relatively small group of Americans working abroad became part of a much larger cultural conversation. She concludes that whether viewed as champions of nationalist revolutions or propagators of the gospel of capitalism, missionaries--along with their supporters, interpreters, and critics--ultimately both challenged and reinforced a rhetoric of exceptionalism that made Americans the judges of what was good for the rest of the world.
Download or read book The Strangers in Our Midst written by Ulrike Elisabeth Stockhausen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evangelical Christians in the United States today are known for their hard-line, restrictive approach to immigration and refugees. This book shows that this has not always been the case and is, in fact, a relatively new position. The history of evangelical involvement with refugees and immigrants has been overlooked in the current debate. Since the early 1960s, evangelical Christians have been integral players in US immigration and refugee policy. Motivated by biblical teachings to "welcome the stranger," they have helped tens of thousands of newcomers by acting as refugee sponsors or providing legalization assistance to undocumented immigrants. Until the 1990s, many evangelicals did not distinguish between documented and undocumented newcomers all were to be loved and welcomed. In the last decade of the twentieth century, however, a growing anti-immigrant consensus in American society grew alongside evangelicals' political alignment with the Republican Party, leading to a rethinking of their theology. Following the GOP's lead, evangelicals increasingly emphasized the need to obey American law, which many argued undocumented immigrants failed to do. Today, the evangelical movement is more divided than ever about immigration policy. While conservative evangelicals are often immigration hard-liners, many progressive and Latinx evangelicals hope to convince their fellow evangelicals to take a more welcoming approach. The Strangers in Our Midst argues that the key to understanding evangelicals' divided approaches to immigration is to look at both their theology and their politics. Both of which have shaped howand especially to whomthey extend their biblical values of hospitality.
Download or read book Is There a Culture War written by James Davison Hunter and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wake of a bitter presidential campaign and in the face of numerous divisive policy questions, many Americans wonder if their country has split in two. Is America divided so clearly? Two of America's leading authorities on political culture lead a provocative and thoughtful investigation of this question and its ramifications.
