Description
Book SynopsisExamines the influence of the Federal Council of Churches' Department of Race RelationsA Theology of Brotherhood explores how the national umbrella Christian organization, the Federal Council of Churches, acted as a crucial conduit and organizational force for the dissemination of progressive views on race in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on years of archival research, Curtis J. Evans shows that the Council's theological approach to race, and in particular its anti-lynching campaign, were responsible for meaningful progress in some white Protestant churches on racial issues. The book highlights the contributions that their religious vision made in expanding and propagating a civic nationalist tradition that was grounded in a universal brotherhood and belief in the equality of all human beings, over against a racial nationalist ideology that conceived of America in ethno-racial terms. Evans makes the case that this predominantly white religious organization contri
Trade ReviewAn important addition to the field, both for its scholarly significance and its contemporary relevance. This history has never been laid out in such a manner. . . . It’s a book the field has been waiting for, and that it needs. -- Matthew S. Hedstrom, University of Virginia
A unique examination of mainline Protestantism as a significant force in twentieth-century American history, one that should be examined not merely for its decline into irrelevancy but instead for its fundamental contribution to American ideas of diversity, equity, and justice. -- Paul Harvey, author of? Martin Luther King: A Religious Life
