Chap 6 HST

• - Effects of WWII: America as
• a world leader (politics and morality) and widespread revival.

• - 80s and Reagan: Attempt to
• go return to WWII ideals, partially successful but impossible due widespread
• change that had already occurred.

• American Tri-faith melting pot
• (pluralism): Jews, Protestants, Catholics.
• Secularism fourth big part of American culture.

• - WWI: Protestant leaders
• became pro-war, later realized that they had been influenced by pro-war propaganda. They then took anti-war stances,
• Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, 15 nations renounced warfare as national policy.

• - Pearl Harbor: December
• 1941, changed stance of religious leaders to pro-war in the name of
• survival. America may have been flawed,
• but it was better than the alternatives and must be defended.

• - Christian Republican Heritage:
• Freedom and the American way of life were a great success of the
• Judeo-Christian ways and must be defended.

• - “Just War”: America’s
• motives in WWII began to come into question.
• Though they entered into the war for good reasons, the Japanese
• internment camps, indiscriminate bombing of German cities (Dresden), and atomic
• bombs led many to either renounce the war effort or accept terrorism against
• civilians as part of war.

• - American Idealism and
• Anti-Communism: America as a world leader must be concerned with spreading
• democracy and the Christian way of life.
• Senator McCarthy and the Red Scare and the Cold War introduced militant
• anti-communism, supported by Conservatives and Fundamentalists.

• 1952 work by Reinhold Niebuhr, similarities between USA and Soviet
• Union: achievement through technology and economic system, humanity defined in
• terms of property, propaganda to “expose” other country as corrupt and to
• portray itself as virtuous. Attempted to
• create policy to stand up to Soviet Union and also to criticize America for
• materialistic justification.

• - Widespread but possible shallow (60% attended church, but over 50%
• could not name a gospel)

- Eisenhower: national symbol of spiritual values.

- 1954: Under God added to Pledge of Allegiance.

• - Religion and faith in general good, not necessarily
• Christianity. Promoted optimism,
• individualism, democracy, tolerance, and humanitarianism.

• - 1930s-40s: Fundamentalism widespread but not popular in media,
• heavily criticized.

• - 1945, established Youth for Christ, named Billy Graham as first full-time
• evangelist.

• - Caught attention for portraying America as Babylon rather than
• Israel, wanted old-time American values.

• - In 1957, accepted sponsorship of a group of liberal Protestants. Due to this, fundamentalist leaders John R.
• Rice and Bob Jones Sr. broke Graham from fundamentalism.

• - Fundamentalists broke from other conservative Protestant
• conservatives, now called evangelicals (or neo-evangelicals.)

• - Oral Roberts: healed by tuberculosis young, hidden knowledge of
• people and treatment of illnesses.
• Stressed positive thinking and prosperity.

- Secularization of American Judaism.

• - American Anti-Semitism after the war, like Ford’s Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
• falsified documents that proclaimed a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. Protestant churches prevented Jews from
• buying homes, getting jobs, and getting into colleges.

• - Jews found acceptance in the Democratic party, as well as stage and
• comedy shows (Marx brothers).

• - Holocaust and establishment of Israel caused great Jewish pride among
• American Jews, caused an identity conflict.

- Protestants equated Catholicism with totalitarianism.

• - Catholicism flourished after the war, becoming a large part of
• American religion.

• - Election of Kennedy in 1960 caused outrage among some, but large
• acceptance of Catholicism among others.

- Second Vatican council, great reforms in Catholic Church.

- Blacks shifted from Republican to Democratic.

• - Black churches greatly supported institutions like NAACP, great
• source of power.

- Christian in tone and prophecy.

- Taught at Northern, liberal Protestant schools.

• - Believed and preached social gospel, combined American Protestant
• ideals with African-American religious heritage, power of love, tolerance, and
• anti-violence.

• - Became Baptist preacher, supported Montgomery bus boycott, led
• protest of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, “I Have a Dream” speech.

- Black integration into mainstream society.

• - Separatist Black Nationalism:
• Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey, African movement and colonization away from
• America.

• - Black Muslim movement, Malcolm X: Anti-White and anti-Christian,
• Christianity portrayed as the religion of the white people.

• - Though Black Muslim movement gained a lot of power, most leaders
• against King were still Christian leaders.