Conceived at the same conference that produced the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Student Interracial Ministry (SIM) was a national organization devoted to dismantling Jim Crow while simultaneously advancing American Protestant mainline churches' approach to race. In this book, David P. Cline details how, between the founding of SIM in 1960 and its dissolution at the end of the decade, the seminary students who created and ran the organization influenced hundreds of thousands of community members through its various racial reconciliation and economic justice projects. From inner-city ministry in Oakland to voter registration drives in southwestern Georgia, participants modeled peaceful interracialism nationwide. By telling the history of SIM--its theology, influences, and failures--Cline situates SIM within two larger frameworks: the long civil rights movement and the even longer tradition of liberal Christianity's activism for social reform. Pulling SIM from the shadow of its more famous twin, SNCC, Cline sheds light on an understudied facet of the movement's history. In doing so, he provokes an appreciation of the struggle of churches to remain relevant in swiftly changing times and shows how seminarians responded to institutional conservatism by challenging the establishment to turn toward political activism.

This social history of post-Revolutionary South Carolina examines the successful reconciliation of Patriots and Loyalists. The American Revolution was a vicious civil war fought between families and neighbors. Nowhere was this truer than in South Carolina. Yet, after the Revolution, South Carolina’s victorious Patriots offered vanquished Loyalists a prompt and generous legal and social reintegration. From Revolution to Reunion investigates the way in which South Carolinians, Patriot and Loyalist, managed to reconcile their bitter differences and reunite to heal South Carolina and create a stable foundation for the new United States. Rebecca Brannon considers rituals and emotions, as well as historical memory, to produce a complex and nuanced interpretation of the reconciliation process in post-Revolutionary South Carolina, detailing how Loyalists and Patriots worked together to heal their society. She frames the process in a larger historical context by comparing South Carolina’s experience with that of other states. Brannon highlights how Loyalists apologized but also became vital contributors to the new experiment in self-government and liberty. In return, the state government reinstated almost all the Loyalists by 1784. South Carolinians succeeded in creating a generous and lasting reconciliation between former enemies, but in the process they downplayed the dangers of civil war—which may have made it easier for South Carolinians to choose that path a second time.

Race is one of the most pressing issues of our time; How should pastors tackle it from the pulpit? In this collection of essays, issues of race and ethnicity are explored from a variety of perspectives, offering guidance to pastors on how to address those topics in their own contexts. Each builds on a foundational passage of Scripture. With contributions from Bryan Loritts, Ray Ortlund, J. D. Greear, and more, Ministers of Reconciliation offers practical and biblically faithful approaches to the subject of race.

“Important and lucidly written...The American Revolution involved not simply the wisdom of a few great men but the passions, fears, and religiosity of ordinary people.” —Gordon S. Wood In this boldly innovative work, T. H. Breen spotlights a crucial missing piece in the stories we tell about the American Revolution. From New Hampshire to Georgia, it was ordinary people who became the face of resistance. Without them the Revolution would have failed. They sustained the commitment to independence when victory seemed in doubt and chose law over vengeance when their communities teetered on the brink of anarchy. The Will of the People offers a vivid account of how, across the thirteen colonies, men and women negotiated the revolutionary experience, accepting huge personal sacrifice, setting up daring experiments in self-government, and going to extraordinary lengths to preserve the rule of law. After the war they avoided the violence and extremism that have compromised so many other revolutions since. A masterful storyteller, Breen recovers the forgotten history of our nation’s true founders. “The American Revolution was made not just on the battlefields or in the minds of intellectuals, Breen argues in this elegant and persuasive work. Communities of ordinary men and women—farmers, workers, and artisans who kept the revolutionary faith until victory was achieved—were essential to the effort.” —Annette Gordon-Reed “Breen traces the many ways in which exercising authority made local committees pragmatic...acting as a brake on the kind of violent excess into which revolutions so easily devolve.” —Wall Street Journal

"Illustrated in this catalog are 100 political satires on the American Revolution from the Colonial Williamsburg collection. Each full-page illustration is accompanied by a brief interpretation and explanation, plus complete information on its original publication."--Jacket.

This edited volume examines a range of historical and contemporary episodes of reconciliation and anti-reconciliation in the aftermath of war. Reconciliation is a concept that resists easy definition. At the same time, it is almost invariably invoked as a goal of post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding and transitional justice. This book examines the considerable ambiguity and controversy surrounding the term and, crucially, asks what has reconciliation entailed historically? What can we learn from past episodes of reconciliation and anti-reconciliation? Taken together, the chapters in this volume adopt an interdisciplinary approach, focused on the question of how reconciliation has been enacted, performed and understood in particular historical episodes, and how that might contribute to our understanding of the concept and its practice. Rather than seek a universal definition, the book focuses on what makes each case of reconciliation unique, and highlights the specificity of reconciliation in individual contexts. This book will be of much interest to students of transitional justice, conflict resolution, human rights, history and International Relations.