On January 20th, 2009, the United States entered a new era in terms of race relations in the country. The hopes of many Americans were not to be fulfilled and many believe race relations are worse now. The reason is the legacy of race is integral to the American nation. The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States traces this legacy to show how race is defined by more than beliefs or acts of injustice. What this book reveals is that white supremacy is a religion in the United States. This book is a theo-historical account of race in the United States that argues that white supremacy functions through the Protestant Christian tradition. The Religion of White Supremacy in the United States is an interdisciplinary work of Critical Whiteness Studies, American History, and Theology to build a narrative in which the religion of white supremacy dominates U.S. culture and society. In this way, the racial tensions during the Obama era become sensible and inevitable in a nation that finds ultimacy in white supremacy.

Michael O. Emerson and Glenn E. Bracey II argue that most white Christians in America are believers in a "Religion of Whiteness" that raises the perpetuation of racial inequality to a spiritual commitment and shapes their faith, their politics, and more. Using national survey data, in-depth interviews, and focus group results gathered over several years, Emerson and Bracey show how the Religion of Whiteness shapes the practice of Christianity for millions of Americans--and what can be done to confront it.

Critically analyses the historical, cultural and political dimensions of white religious rage in America, past and present This book sheds light on the phenomenon of white rage, and maps out the uneasy relationship between white anxiety, religious fervour, American identity and perceived black racial progress. Contributors to the volume examine the sociological construct of the "e;white labourer"e;, whose concerns and beliefs can be understood as religious in foundation, and uncover that white religious fervor correlates to notions of perceived white loss and perceived black progress. In discussions ranging from the Constitution to the Charlottesville riots to the evangelical community's uncritical support for Trump, the authors of this collection argue that it is not economics but religion and race that stand as the primary motivating factors for the rise of white rage and white supremacist sentiment in the United States.

How Christian supremacy gave birth to white supremacy -- The witchcraft of white supremacy -- When words create worlds -- The symbolic capital of New Testament love -- The cruciform Christ -- Christian love in a weighted world

State of White Supremacy investigates how race functions as an enduring logic of governance in the United States, perpetually generating and legitimating racial hierarchy and privilege.

How are we to comprehend, diagnose, and counter a system of racist subjugation so ordinary it has become utterly asymptomatic? Challenging the prevailing literary critical inclination toward what makes texts exceptional or distinctive, Genre and White Supremacy in the Postemancipation United States underscores the urgent importance of genre for tracking conventionality as it enters into, constitutes, and reproduces ordinary life. In the wake of emancipation's failed promise, two developments unfolded: white supremacy amassed new mechanisms and procedures for reproducing racial hierarchy; and black freedom developed new practices for collective expression and experimentation. This new racial ordinary came into being through new literary and cultural genres—including campus novels, the Ladies' Home Journal, Civil War elegies, and gospel sermons. Through the postemancipation interplay between aesthetic conventions and social norms, genre became a major influence in how Americans understood their social and political affiliations, their citizenship, and their race. Travis M. Foster traces this thick history through four decades following the Civil War, equipping us to understand ordinary practices of resistance more fully and to resist ordinary procedures of subjugation more effectively. In the process, he provides a model for how the study of popular genre can reinvigorate our methods for historicizing the everyday.

Represents some of the best, cutting-edge thinking available on multiple forms of social upheaval and related grassroots movements. From the January 2017 Women’s March to the August 2017 events in Charlottesville and the 2020 protests for racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, social upheaval and protest have loomed large in the United States in recent years. The varied, sometimes conflicting role of religious believers, communities, and institutions in such events and movements calls for scholarly analysis. Arising from a conference held at the College of the Holy Cross in November 2017, Religion, Protest, and Social Upheaval gathers contributions from ten scholars in religious studies, theology and ethics, and gender studies—from seasoned experts to emerging voices—to illuminate this tumultuous era of history and the complex landscape of social action for economic, racial, political, and sexual and gender justice. The contributors consider the history of resistance to racial capitalist imperialism from W. E. B. Du Bois to today; the theological genealogy of the capitalist economic order, and Catholic theology’s growing concern with climate change; affect theory and the rise of white nationalism, theological aesthetics, and solidarity with migrants; differing U.S. Christian churches’ responses to the “revolutionary aesthetics” of the Black Lives Matter movement; Muslim migration and the postsecular character of Muslim labor organizing in the United States; shifts in moral reasoning and religiosity among U.S. women’s movements from the 1960s to today; and the intersection of heresy discourse and struggles for LGBTQ+ equality among Korean and Korean-American Protestants. With this pluralistic approach, Religion, Protest, and Social Upheaval offers a snapshot of scholarly religious responses to the crises and promises of the late 2010s and early 2020s. Representing the diverse coalitions of the religious left, it provides groundbreaking analysis, charts trajectories for further study and action, and offers visions for a more hopeful future.

Racism and white supremacy have survived in the United States for a very long time because from the onset, it was based on sound 'engineering.' The book contends that racism is not a belief, practice, or ideology that flared up by accident or through the spur of the moment. Rather, it followed sound engineering stages like planning, design, and construction. Racism was designed to serve a domineering purpose for white people and, therefore, there was a lot of planning that eventually led to its design and construction. Because the architects had a vision of its permanency, they chose the most durable materials for its construction. Metaphorically, they used mortar, bricks, and steel beams. These durable materials, among others, include religion, science, government (including the Supreme Court), the constitution and laws, brutality, and social media. As the centuries rolled by, succeeding architects of this design and construction have done a superb job in maintenance and modifications to elude stumbling blocks. Based on the times and prevailing winds, the racism construct has undergone mutations to evade capture and destruction - even to this day. Like a car, the engineering and engineers have evolved, the models and make are changing, but the underlying engineering remains intact. Today, the overt, brash, and brutal racism has generally ceded to an equally destructive, calculated, politically-correct, less pompous, highly sophisticated, and veiled racism. The book dissects this durable foundational construct and proffers recommendations that will systematically minimize its intensity.

This book provides a thorough introduction to historical and contemporary issues in American religion, tackling controversial hot-button topics such as abortion, Intelligent Design, and Scientology. Surveying key aspects of the controversial issues, persons, and religious groups of today, Encyclopedia of Religious Controversies in the United States, Second Edition is a thorough update and expansion of the first edition of this book. This two-volume work contains many new entries that reflect current 21st-century religious controversies. Written by a variety of scholars with varying specializations, the content covers major people, ideas, terms, institutions, groups, books, and events. The A–Z format allows for easy location of materials, a chronology of developments and events enables readers to trace the development of contentious topics over time, and a section of primary document excerpts gives readers further perspective on the issues.