This book is a biography of John G. Fee, who was a product of the Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century, the economies of the small slave-holding farm, and the intimacies and comradeship of black and white children. Born in Bracken County, Kentucky, in 1816, Fee is a unique figure in the antislavery movement. Most abolitionists were northern born, but they were assisted and supported by many antislavery men who left the South and worked against slavery from the northern states. Both groups addressed themselves to the problem of slavery from the security of the North, but Fee was born in the South and chose to live there and work against the peculiar institution from within its stronghold. He became the most important and influential reformer to wage war against slavery in the South during the nineteenth century and ultimately had the longest career in race relations, extending into the twentieth century. --From publisher's description.

Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world. Slave owners in the Caribbean and elsewhere established governments and legal codes based on an ideology of "Protestant Supremacy," which excluded the majority of enslaved men and women from Christian communities. For slaveholders, Christianity was a sign of freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. When Protestant missionaries arrived in the plantation colonies intending to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity in the 1670s, they were appalled that most slave owners rejected the prospect of slave conversion. Slaveholders regularly attacked missionaries, both verbally and physically, and blamed the evangelizing newcomers for slave rebellions. In response, Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries articulated a vision of "Christian Slavery," arguing that Christianity would make slaves hardworking and loyal. Over time, missionaries increasingly used the language of race to support their arguments for slave conversion. Enslaved Christians, meanwhile, developed an alternate vision of Protestantism that linked religious conversion to literacy and freedom. Christian Slavery shows how the contentions between slave owners, enslaved people, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world.

• The Humanisation of Slavery in Old Testament Law by David L. Baker • Slavery, Human Dignity and Human Rights by John Warwick Montgomery • Slavery in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and Today by Thomas Schirrmacher Three scholars discuss slavery in the Old Testament and a Christian view of slavery. They argue, that slavery in the OT had not much in common with Roman- Greek, Muslim or modern European slavery, as the slaves where protected by the legal system. They believe that there is a road from the humanisation of slavery in the OT through the soft opposition against slavery in the New Testament to the abolition of slavery by Christians and in Christian nations. The last essay contains a longer section on “The Role of Evangelicals in the Abolition of Slavery“, that summarizes the research of the last decades showing that the uncorrupted oppositions by pious people and the power of the masses without direct political influence changed history, the first major human rights campaign of history.

This collection of essays from a special issue of American Quarterly explores the complex and sometimes contradictory ways that religion matters in contemporary public life. Religion and Politics in the Contemporary United States offers a groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary conversation between scholars in American studies and religious studies. The contributors explore numerous modes through which religious faith has mobilized political action. They utilize a variety of definitions of politics, ranging from lobbying by religious leaders to the political impact of popular culture. Their work includes the political activities of a very diverse group of religious believers: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others. In addition, the book explores the meanings of religion for people who might contest the term—those who are spiritual but not religious, for example, as well as activists who engage symbols of faith and community but who may not necessarily consider themselves members of a specific religion. Several essays also examine the meanings of secular identity, humanist politics, and the complex evocations of civil religion in American life. No other book on religion and politics includes anything like the diversity of religions, ethnicities, and topics that this one does—from Mormon political mobilization to attempts at Americanizing Muslims in the post-9/11 United States, from César Chávez to James Dobson, from interreligious cooperation and conflict over Darfur to the global politics surrounding the category of Hindus and South Asians in the United States.

A panoramic introduction to religion in America, newly revised and updated

Lewis Tappan (1788--1873), founder of the Journal of Commerce and the nation's first credit rating firm, is probably best known for his business accomplishments. His greatest achievement, however, was not finance but freedom. In the 1830s, he and his wealthy brother Arthur underwrote and inspired the Manhattan headquarters of the American Anti-Slavery Society and founded many other organizations to promote freedom, faith, and racial tolerance. As prominent historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown demonstrates in this fascinating portrait, Tappan contributed much more to the cause of liberty and equality than has yet been acknowledged.

Through an examination of the two icons of the nineteenth century American temperance movement -- the self-made man and the crusading woman -- Fletcher demonstrates the evolving meaning and context of temperance and gender.