All according to God's plan : Southern Baptist missions and race, 1945-1970 / Alan Scot Willis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Willis, Alan Scot, 1968-

Series:

Religion in the South

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Southern Baptist Convention--Missions--History--20th century.

Southern Baptist Convention.

Racism--Religious aspects--Southern Baptist Convention--History of doctrines--20th century.

Racism.

Racism--Religious aspects--Southern Baptist Convention.

Missions.

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 260 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, [2005]

Summary:

Having long considered themselves a missionary people, Southern Baptists dramatically expanded their missionary efforts after World War II, confronting headlong the problem of racism in America. Believing that racism hindered their evangelical efforts, the Southern Baptist Convention's full-time missionaries and mission board leaders attacked racism as unchristian. In doing so, however, they found themselves at odds with the pervasive racist and segregationist ideologies dominating the South. Thanks in part to this ideological conflict, a new, prophetic theology grounded in the belief that Christians should confront social issues slowly began to replace the traditional, provincial, and dogmatic theology prevalent among Southern Baptists.

In All According to God's Plan, author Alan Scot Willis explores the tension and gradual change the race issue brought to the church. After the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. The Board of Education, Baptist missionaries became increasingly concerned about the hypocrisy of southerners who continued to defend segregation yet claimed to be Christians. The civil rights movement further illuminated tensions between Christian beliefs and social practice in the South. As Baptist educational institutions moved closer toward integration, southern resistance to the progressive message continued.

Willis charts the development of these beliefs and the chasm they created within the Southern Baptist Convention. He examines the Baptist missionary leadership's belief that ignorance bred misunderstanding and racism and that education was a key factor in overcoming racism. Baptist leaders believed that racist attitudes were learned, and that if young people were taught acceptance and had positive interracial experiences, they were less likely to espouse racist beliefs.

Drawing from the literature of the Southern Baptist Convention's three main mission organizations, Willis describes how the most respected members of the convention publicly challenged the most dearly held ideologies of the white South. He explores the biblical mandates for missionary work and racial equality upon which the Southern Baptist missionaries based their views and shows how they put the American race question in an international context, first broadly and then by focusing on Africa. Willis also looks at other ethnic groups, including Latinos and Native Americans, demonstrating that the Baptists viewed the race issue in much the same way regardless of the ethnic group involved. Unwilling to be silenced, Baptist missionaries and mission organization leaders shook the foundations of the southern racial system, contributing greatly to the change of racial attitudes in the South.

Contents:

Introduction

"Go ye" : missions and race in Progressive Baptist theology

All nations in God's plan : peace, race, and missions in the postwar world

"Our preaching has caught up with us" : African missions and the race question

An American Amos : Baptist missionaries and postwar American culture

The Tower of Babel : language missions and the race question

"Living our Christianity" : Southern Baptist missions and Blacks in America.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-248) and index.

ISBN:

0813123410

OCLC:

54778493