For God and Globe

Recent years have brought a wealth of scholarship tracing the manifold ways in which Christians allied themselves with the twentieth-century American state in areas ranging from foreign affairs to social policy. In this compelling study, Michael G. Thompson reclaims the history of a cohort of internationally focused Christians who did just the opposite: rather than saying “‘yes’ to the state,” they crafted a “movement animated by a ‘no’” (p. 4). Employing considerable original research and grounded in an impressive array of historiography and theory, Thompson’s volume chronicles a two-pronged Christian critique of nationalism that peaked during the interwar years. Thompson focuses on two sources, each of which developed a distinct but overlapping critique of the modern nation state. The World Tomorrow, a periodical with a self-described “evangelical radical” bent, spoke for Christians who adopted the view that World War I was a natural consequence of the militarism and imperialism spawned by nationalism. Through the efforts of its editor, Kirby Page, the journal countered the liberal internationalist endorsement of institutions such as the League of Nations. Page argued instead for the remaking of international affairs along the lines of Christian ethics, as embodied in the historical Jesus. At the same time, a group of Christian ecumenists sought to diminish the significance of national boundaries. The international ecumenical conference held at Oxford in 1937 provides Thompson’s second focal point. Participants, including Reinhold Niebuhr and John Foster Dulles, articulated a vision of “Christian universalism.” They offered a shared, transnational Christianity as the counterpoint to national distinctiveness.

Christianity · Foreign policy · Globe · Internationalism (politics) · Militarism · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Theology · Universalism · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies