American Christians and Islam : Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism / Thomas S. Kidd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kidd, Thomas S., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Protestants--United States--Attitudes--History.

Protestants.

Public opinion--United States--History.

Public opinion.

Islam--Public opinion--History.

Islam.

Missions, American--History.

Missions, American.

Missions to Muslims--History.

Missions to Muslims.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (224 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America's Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a "demonic" and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world's Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today's evangelicals have deep roots in American history. Tracing Islam's role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat--while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith--since the nation's founding. He shows how accounts of "Mahometan" despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals' fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians' anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America's immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical "end-times" narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals' unwillingness to acknowledge Islam's theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an "evil" and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world. American Christians and Islam is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List Of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Early American Christians and Islam

Chapter 2: The Barbary Wars, the Last Days, and Islam in Early National America

Chapter 3: Foreign Missions to Muslims in Nineteenth-Century America

Chapter 4: Samuel Zwemer,World War I, and "The Evangelization of the Moslem World in This Generation"

Chapter 5: The New Missionary Overture to Muslims and the Arab-Israeli Crisis

Chapter 6: Christians Respond to Muslims in Modern America

Chapter 7: Maturing Evangelical Missions and War in the Middle East

Chapter 8: American Christians and Islam After September 11, 2001

Epilogue

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [171]-194) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691186191

0691186197

OCLC:

1132223265