Description
Book SynopsisIlluminates how white American Protestant women embraced a racially specific version of social
inclusiveness that centered themselves as the norm
Amidst the global instability of the early twentieth century, white Christian American women embraced
the idea of an empire of Christ that was racially diverse, but which they believed they were uniquely
qualified to manage. America's burgeoning power, combined with women's rising roles within the
church, led to white Protestant women adopting a feminism rooted in religion and imperialism.
Gale L. Kenny examines this Christian imperial feminism from the women's missionary movement to
create a Christian world order. She shows that this Christian imperial feminism marked a break from an
earlier Protestant world view that focused on moral and racial purity and in which interactions among
races were inconceivable. This new approach actually prioritized issues like civil rights and racial
integr
Trade Review
Through close examinations of a wide range of practices from mission study to pageants to committee meetings to worship services, Christian Imperial Feminism reveals the ways that Protestant women embraced a Christian cosmopolitanism that simultaneously embraced diversity and sought to manage it…. A thoughtful exploration of Protestant churchwomen as full people with good intentions and deep flaws who took action in a world that they thought they understood far better than they actually did, with effects that they could not always predict. -- Emily Conroy Krutz, Christian Imperialism: Converting the World in the Early American Republic
Expertly written…. Will be of most interest to historians, particularly those working on missions, Christian women, and US Christianity in the twentieth century. -- Hillary Kaell, author of Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christians and Holy Land Pilgrimage
