Prophetic politics : Christian social movements and American democracy / David S. Gutterman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gutterman, David S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity and politics--United States.

Christianity and politics.

United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 222 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2005.

Summary:

What are the relationships among religion, politics, and narratives? What makes prophetic political narratives congenial or hostile to democratic political life? David S. Gutterman explores the prophetic politics of four twentieth- and twenty-first-century American Christian social movements: the Reverend Billy Sunday and his vision of "muscular Christianity"; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement; the conservative Christian male organization Promise Keepers; and the progressive antipoverty organization Call to Renewal.

Gutterman develops a theory based on the work of Hannah Arendt and others and employs this framework to analyze expressions of the prophetic impulse in the political narrative of the United States. In the process, he examines timely issues about the tense and intricate relationship between religion and politics.

Even before George W. Bush's "faith-based initiative," debates about abortion, family values, welfare reform, and environmental degradation were informed by religious language and ideas. In an interdisciplinary and accessible manner, Gutterman translates the narratives employed by American Christian social movements to define both the crises in the land and the path to resolving these crises. The book also explores the engagement of these prophetic social movements in contentious political issues concerned with sex, gender, sexuality, race, and class, as well as broader questions of American identity.

Contents:

1 Prophetic Politics in the United States 1

2 Narratives and Politics 20

3 Twentieth-Century American Prophets 49

4 Promise Keepers: Delivering Brothers from Democracy 94

5 Call to Renewal: Demanding Democracy from Exile 129

6 Politics in the Wilderness 161.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [173]-215) and index.

ISBN:

0801441382

OCLC:

57392886