Trump And The Protestant Reaction To Make America Great Again

This book explores how polarised interpretations of America’s past influence the present and vice versa. A focus on competing Protestant reactions to President Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan evidences a fundamental divide over how America should remember historical racism, sexism and exploitation. Additionally, these Protestants disagree over how the past influences present injustice and equality. The 2020 killing of George Floyd forced these rival histories into the open. Rowley proposes that recovering a complex view of the past, confessing the bad and embracing the good, might help Americans have a shared memory that can bridge polarisation and work to secure justice and equality. An accessible and timely book, this is essential reading for those concerned with the vexed relationship of religion and politics in the United States, including students and scholars in the fields of Protestantism, history, political science, religious studies and sociology.

This book will take you on a journey into the roots of America, and what defines this country's "greatness." Does America have the "right" to act as the "world police" in global situations? How does this coincide with the recent election of Donald Trump? With so many questions on where this country stands, or should stand in relation to the world, this book is a helpful guide in understanding if America is, or needs to be "made great again!"

Based on extensive inside sources, including exclusive interviews with the President and Vice President, The Faith of Donald J. Trump explores his rarely discussed, but deeply important, religious beliefs and relationships with leading Evangelicals. The Chief Political Correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network and the "Jesus in the Public Square" columnist for the Washington Times explore the rarely discussed, but deeply important, religious beliefs and worldview of Donald J. Trump and his advisors. Donald J. Trump was raised as a Presbyterian and has praised both Christianity and the primacy of the Bible. In the Oval Office, he has surrounded himself with close advisors who share his deep faith. In this deeply reported book, David Brody and Scott Lamb draw on unparalleled access to the White House to explain President Trump’s connection to the Christian faith, the evangelical right, the prosperity gospel, and the pressing moral and ethical issues of our day. In part, the authors argue, President Trump won over evangelicals not by pandering to them, but by supporting them and all their most important issues without pretending to be something he’s not. Though the forty-fifth president is far from the perfect vessel—he has been married three times—his supporters argue that Donald Trump may be just what America needs. This book reveals how he has surrounded himself with believers who think he is the one guiding figure who can return us to the traditional values—hard work, discipline, duty, respect, and faith—that have long been the foundation of American life, and truly make America great again in all ways.

This volume examines how historical beliefs about the supernatural were used to justify violence, secure political authority or extend toleration in both the medieval and early modern periods. Contributors explore miracles, political authority and violence in Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, various Protestant groups, Judaism, Islam and the local religious beliefs of Pacific Islanders who interacted with Christians. The chapters are geographically expansive, with contributions ranging from confessional conflict in Poland-Lithuania to the conquest of Oceania. They examine various types of conflict such as confessional struggles, conversion attempts, assassination and war, as well as themes including diplomacy, miraculous iconography, toleration, theology and rhetoric. Together, the chapters explore the appropriation of accounts of miraculous violence that are recorded in sacred texts to reveal what partisans claimed God did in conflict, and how they claimed to know. The volume investigates theories of justified warfare, changing beliefs about the supernatural with the advent of modernity and the perceived relationship between human and divine agency. Miracles, Political Authority and Violence in Medieval and Early Modern History is of interest to scholars and students in several fields including religion and violence, political and military history, and theology and the reception of sacred texts in the medieval and early modern world.

As an increasingly polarized America fights over the legacy of racism, Susan Neiman, author of the contemporary philosophical classic Evil in Modern Thought, asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the past In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights–era South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. Through discussions with Germans, including Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who created the breakthrough Crimes of the Wehrmacht exhibit, and Friedrich Schorlemmer, the East German dissident preacher, Neiman tells the story of the long and difficult path Germans faced in their effort to atone for the crimes of the Holocaust. In the United States, she interviews James Meredith about his battle for equality in Mississippi and Bryan Stevenson about his monument to the victims of lynching, as well as lesser-known social justice activists in the South, to provide a compelling picture of the work contemporary Americans are doing to confront our violent history. In clear and gripping prose, Neiman urges us to consider the nuanced forms that evil can assume, so that we can recognize and avoid them in the future.

Why do religious militants think their actions are right or righteous? What keeps me from acting like them? Why do some religious persons act on their beliefs in charitable, inspiring and deeply humane ways? Is secularism the solution to religious violence, or is it part of the problem? This Element explores the vexed issue of violence done in the name of God, looking at the topic through the lens of peace and conflict studies, religious studies and historical studies. The beliefs of various communities, religious and secular, are explored, looking at how convictions inhibit and enable violence. This Element aims to foster a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the promises and perils of religion so that readers can better respond to a world filled with violence.

How did America’s white evangelicals, from often progressive history, come to right-wing populism? Addressing populism requires understanding how its historico-cultural roots ground present politics. How have the very qualities that contributed much to American vibrancy—an anti-authoritarian government-wariness and energetic community-building—turned, under conditions of distress, to defensive, us-them worldviews? Readers will gain an understanding of populism and of the socio-political and religious history from which populism draws its us-them policies and worldview. The book ponders the tragic cast of the white evangelical story: (i) the distorting effects of economic and way-of-life duress on the understanding of history and present circumstances and (ii) the tragedy of choosing us-them solutions to duress that won’t relieve it, leaving the duress in place. Readers will trace the trajectory from economic, status loss, and way-of-life duresses to solutions in populist, us-them binaries. They will explore the robust white evangelical contribution to civil society but also to racism, xenophobia, and sexism. White evangelicals not in the ranks of the right—their worldview and activism—are discussed in a final chapter. This book is valuable reading for students of political and social sciences as well as anyone interested in US politics.

This book identifies and analyzes the forms, causes, and potential treatments of religious abuse. Religious abuse can include experiences of sexual, physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental abuse connected to a religious context. The book will help readers understand different types of religious abuse, including where the perpetrator is a religious leader, a group, or a system, as well as when there is an overtly spiritual element connected to the justification for the abuse. It also describes common experiences of those who have experienced religious abuse and some treatment approaches that will be useful to mental health providers when their clients present with these experiences. The rigorous scholarly approach of this book provides an academically grounded insight into this complex topic. As such, it will be a key reference for those studying and working in Religious Studies, Religion and Psychology, the Sociology of Religion, and Counseling and Mental Health.