Prophetic encounters : religion and the American radical tradition / Dan McKanan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McKanan, Dan, 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion and politics--United States--History.

Religion and politics.

Ideology--Religious aspects.

History.

United States.

Ideology--Religious aspects--History.

Ideology.

Physical Description:

326 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston, Mass. : Beacon Press, [2011]

Summary:

This history of radicalism in the United States explores the relationships between faith and activism and argues that rather than being an exclusive feature of conservatism, as so often demonstrated in the poplar media, faith and spiritualism figured prominently in the thinking of many radicals, and that it is in fact an integral part of an unbroken heritage of motivation for the American left. The work discusses the lives and beliefs of figures such as John Brown, Frederick Douglas, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King Jr. and provides a unified narrative of the relationship between spiritualism and activism from the nineteenth century to the present. McKanan is a professor at Harvard Divinity School. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

Introduction

The faith of the working men

African identity and Black radicalism

Encounters with William Lloyd Garrison

Personifying radical abolitionism

Radicals fight and unite

Confronting the slave power

New religions for radicalism

Women's rights, women ministers, and a woman's Bible

The Jesus of labor

Encountering the city

The religion of socialism

The radical depression

The Gandhian moment

Mentors of a new left

New encounters in the South

Expanding circles of encounter

From encounter to confrontation

Rebuilding the left

A women's decade

Resisting the right

The future of radicalism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780807013151

0807013153

OCLC:

701810418