- The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Identifying Race and Religion
- Religion and Race in the Early Modern Iberian Atlantic
- Religion, Race, and American Empire
- Gendering the History of Race and Religion
- Religion, Race, and Sexuality
- Religion, Race, and Popular Culture
- Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America
- American Missionaries and Race
- Mormonism and Race
- Catholicism and Race
- American Judaism and Race
- Islam and Race in American History
- Buddhism and Race
- Religion, Race, and Humanism
- Religion and Race in American Music
- Documentary Photography and the Visual Politics of Race and Religion
- Race, Religion, and Documentary Film
- Religion, Race, and Sports
- Natives, Religion, and Race in Colonial America
- African and African American Religions in the Early Americas
- Religion and Race in the Greater South, 1500–1800
- Puritans and Race
- Religion and Racial Violence in the Nineteenth Century
- African American Religions in the Nineteenth Century
- Race, Gender, and the Hawaiian Islands Mission
- Asian American Religions from Chinese Exclusion to 1965
- South Asian Religions in Contemporary America
- African American Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement
- Black Theologies
- Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century
- Latinos/as and Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- Religion, Race, and Immigration in Contemporary America
- Migration and Modern Religious Pluralism
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
When Europeans came to the Americas, they brought with them both Christian missionaries and notions of racial difference. Since that early encounter, the story of American missions has been intertwined with issues of race. Although some might suspect a rather simple story of missionary racism and others an account of the egalitarian effects of the Christian message, the history of missions and race is a story of competing impulses and unexpected consequences. Missionaries participated in the construction of race, they challenged racism, and they reified it. In some cases, racism twined with cultural imperialism, leading to a message and to methods that valorized Anglo-American, largely Protestant, culture. In others, concerns about racism led to larger critiques of missionary practice and US presence abroad.
Keywords: American missions, racial equality, religion and race, Protestantism, cultural imperialism
Sarah Ruble is Assistant Professor of Religion at Gustavus Adolphus College. She is the author of The Gospel of Freedom and Power: Protestant Missionaries in American Culture since 1945.
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- The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Identifying Race and Religion
- Religion and Race in the Early Modern Iberian Atlantic
- Religion, Race, and American Empire
- Gendering the History of Race and Religion
- Religion, Race, and Sexuality
- Religion, Race, and Popular Culture
- Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century America
- American Missionaries and Race
- Mormonism and Race
- Catholicism and Race
- American Judaism and Race
- Islam and Race in American History
- Buddhism and Race
- Religion, Race, and Humanism
- Religion and Race in American Music
- Documentary Photography and the Visual Politics of Race and Religion
- Race, Religion, and Documentary Film
- Religion, Race, and Sports
- Natives, Religion, and Race in Colonial America
- African and African American Religions in the Early Americas
- Religion and Race in the Greater South, 1500–1800
- Puritans and Race
- Religion and Racial Violence in the Nineteenth Century
- African American Religions in the Nineteenth Century
- Race, Gender, and the Hawaiian Islands Mission
- Asian American Religions from Chinese Exclusion to 1965
- South Asian Religions in Contemporary America
- African American Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- White Protestants and the Civil Rights Movement
- Black Theologies
- Native American Religions in the Twentieth Century
- Latinos/as and Religious Identities in the Twentieth Century
- Religion, Race, and Immigration in Contemporary America
- Migration and Modern Religious Pluralism
- Index
