To Bring the Good News to All Nations

Frances Turek Lauren

Description

When American evangelicals flocked to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century to fulfill their Biblical mandate for global evangelism, their experiences abroad led them to engage more deeply in foreign policy activism at home. Lauren Frances Turek tracks these trends and illuminates the complex and significant ways in which religion shaped America's role in the late-Cold War world. In To Bring the Good News to All Nations, she examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s, assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes, and considers how those same groups promoted the imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that stifled evangelism.Using archival materials from both religious and government sources, To Bring the Good News to All Nations links the development of evangelical foreign policy lobbying to the overseas missionary agenda. Turek's case studies-Guatemala, South Africa, and the Soviet Union-reveal the extent of Christian influence on American foreign policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Evangelical policy work also reshaped the lives of Christians overseas and contributed to a reorientation of U.S. human rights policy. Efforts to promote global evangelism and support foreign brethren led activists to push Congress to grant aid to favored, yet repressive, regimes in countries such as Guatemala while imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on nations that persecuted Christians, such as the Soviet Union. This advocacy shifted the definitions and priorities of U.S. human rights policies with lasting repercussions that can be traced into the twenty-first century.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Diplomacy
• Political science of religion
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis
• Diplomatie (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501748936
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

TOBRINGTHEGOODNEWS TO ALL NATIONS

Avolumeintheseries

TheUnitedStatesintheWorld editedbyDavidC.Engerman,S.GreeAmyPdnluarebna,grKA.mera

A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

TOBRINGTHEGOODNEWS TO ALL NATIONS

EvangelicalInfluenceonHuman Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations

LaurenFrancesTurek

CornellUniversityPress Ithaca and London

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of a grant from Academic Affairs of Trinity University, which aided in bringing this book to publication.

Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca NY 14850.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Turek, Lauren Frances, 1983– author. Title: To bring the good news to all nations : evangelical influence on human rights and U.S. foreign relations / Lauren Frances Turek. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Series: The United States in the world | Includes bibliographical references andindex. Identifiers: LCCN 2019035834 (print) | LCCN 2019035835 (ebook) | ISBN9781501748912 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501748936 (pdf ) | ISBN9781501748929 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Christianity and international relations—United States. | Evangelicalism—Political aspects—United States. |Evangelicalism— United States—Influence. | Christianity andpolitics—United States. | Human rights—Religiousaspects—Christianity. | United States— Foreign relations. Classification: LCC BR115.I7 T87 2020 (print) | LCC BR115.I7 (ebook) | DDC 261.8/70973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035834 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035835

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction:Defining and Defending Rights

1. A Global Shift in Missionary Christianity

2. The Communications Revolution and Evangelical Internationalism

3. Religious Freedom and the New Evangelical Foreign Policy Lobby

4. Fighting Religious Persecution behind the Iron Curtain

5. Supporting a “Brother in Christ” in Guatemala

6. The Challenge of South African Apartheid

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1

16

44

72

95

124

151

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Contents

Conclusion:EvangelicalForeignPolicyActivismAscendant

Notes

Bibliography

Index

181

189

259

287

Acknowledgments

We often think of researching and writing a book as a solitary task, but I have found the opposite to be true. Throughout this endeavor, I have been blessed with more help and support than I could possibly deserve from many wonderful advisers, colleagues, archivists, family members, and friends. I could not have researched and written this book without the gener- ousfinancial support that I received from Trinity University, the Institute for Political History, The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, the Society for Historians of Ameri- can Foreign Relations, the American Historical Association, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation at the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia Society of Fellows, the Billy Graham Center Archives/The Tor- rey M. Johnson, Sr. scholarship fund, The Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures at the University of Virginia, the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia, and the Robert J. Huskey Travel fund at the University of Virginia. I am grateful to Melvyn Leffler, who has been a tireless champion of this project from the very beginning. Mel is an unparalleled scholar, thinker, and adviser, and I consider myself lucky to have had the honor of working

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Acknowledgments

with him. During my time as a graduate student, he provided me with the right mix of encouragement and advice, as well as the intellectual freedom I needed to develop as a scholar. His generous and rigorous feedback encour- aged me to write clearly and think incisively. The insights that he provided have improved my work—and this book—immeasurably. I cannot imagine a better mentor or role model. I also owe a debt of gratitude to other scholars who aided me in my stud- ies at the University of Virginia, including Brian Balogh, Marc Selverstone, Matt Hedstrom, Phyllis Leffler, Jennifer Burns, Sophia Rosenfeld, J.C.A. Stagg, Mark Thomas, Stephen Schuker, Charles Mathewes, Ethan Schrum, and Christopher Nichols. Valarie Cooper introduced me to the fascinating world of Pentecostalism and played a significant role in shaping this project. I also benefited greatly from discussions with Brian Owensby about Latin American history and with John Edwin Mason about South African history. I received much good advice on the manuscript, as well as much needed merriment, from my UVA colleagues, including Stephen Macekura, James Wilson, Brent Cebul, Harold Mock, Evan McCormick, Mary Barton, Kelly Winck, Alexandra Evans, Joseph Scott, Philip Herrington, Cecilia Márquez, Tamika Richeson, Alec Hickmott, Mary Hicks, Willa Brown, and Chris Cor- nelius. Brian Rosenwald, Rhonda Barlow, Kate Geoghegan, and Emily Sene- feld deserve special thanks—I will cherish their support and the friendships we forged in graduate school forever. Ihadthegoodfortunetospendthe2014–15academicyearattheJohnC. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. The faculty and staff there provided me with a congenial in- tellectual home, and I thank Darren Dochuk, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Leigh Schmidt, Marie Griffith, Mark Valeri, Lerone Martin, Rachel Lindsay, Ronit Stahl, Maryam Kashani, Stephanie Wolfe, Sheri Peña, and Debra Kennard for their invaluable help and feedback on my work. MycolleaguesatTrinityUniversityalsodeservespecialthanks.CareyLati- more has cheered me on and supported me from the moment I arrived in the department. Jason Johnson, Aaron Navarro, Gina Tam, Nicole Marafioti, Da- vid Lesch, Anene Ejikeme, Ken Loiselle, Erin Kramer, Linda Salvucci, Todd Barnett, Emilio de Antuñano, Michael Hughes, Claudia Stokes, and Angela Tarango have provided generous feedback on my work and a truly gratifying work environment. I am also appreciative of the research assistance I received from my students Katie Welch and Meg Chase, who gathered interesting read- ing material for me. Countlessarchivistsassistedmeinmyresearch.Alldeservecommenda- tion, but I owe special thanks to Bob Shuster and Katherine Graber at the

Acknowledgments

ix

Billy Graham Center Archives, Keith Call at the Wheaton College Special Collections Buswell Library, Thelma Porres, Blanca Velásquez, Anaís García Salazar, and all of the other staff members at the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica, as well as the staff at the National Archive of South Africa for their tremendous help and patience. They went above and beyond to aid me in my research. I am also thankful to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for granting me permission to reference their ma- terials in this book. Manycolleaguesandscholarsreadchapters,commentedonconference papers, or provided advice or feedback in other ways. I thank Melani McAli- ster, Sarah Snyder, Andrew Preston, Cara Burnidge, Mark Edwards, Emily Conroy-Krutz, John Wilsey, Dan Hummel, Amanda Demmer, Rasmus Søn- dergaard, Hideaki Kami, Michael Cangemi, Susie Colbourn, Simon Miles, Mitch Lerner, Andy Johns, Jeff Engel, Kyle Longley, Liz Borgwardt, Vanessa Walker, Bob Brigham, Mark Philip Bradley, Virginia Garrard-Burnett, and Randall Balmer, among many others. A version of chapter 5 appeared in the September 2015 issue ofDiplomatic Historyroups:’EavgnlecilaGrthundetleeti,ierthrostriChnppuSoT“B‘atro and U.S.-Guatemalan Relations during the Ríos Montt Regime.” The author thanks the editors ofDiplomatic Historyfor their permission to republish this material. MydeepestthankstoMichaelMcGandy,KarenLaun,IrinaBurns,and the other members of Cornell University Press who nurtured this project. Their tireless work, candid suggestions, and careful editing made thefinal manuscript much better, and they have been a joy to work with every step of the way. I also very much appreciate Sandy Aitken, who did the painstaking work of preparing the index. Finally,Ithankthedearfriendsandfamilywhosupportedmethrough this process. Rachel Rehl, Chris and Doreen Siciliano, Brian and Kelly Har- graves, Michael and Lindsay Burke, Lucy Kwon, Karena Wong, Lauren Hunter, Nicole Gitau, Greg Schiller, and Natalie Belew have all cheered me on and offered words of encouragement as I worked on this book. My family deserves special recognition. My parents, Thomas and Jayne, and my sister, Sara, offered their unwavering support; their love and faith in me sustained me throughout this project. I would not have been able to complete this book without them behind me. Finally, my husband Jeffrey has been my rock, reading drafts of every chapter, offering incisive suggestions, and pro- viding constant reassurance. His love and support have meant everything to me. This book is dedicated to him, to my parents, and to my sister.