The Right of the Protestant Left

Edwards, Mark

doi:10.1057/9781137019905

Cited by 15 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Leaders at the Big Three identified left-leaning social democracy, especially the New Deal, as the true enemy of their way of life and as a flawed understanding of “progress.” Connecting social democracy to Communism, they claimed that both ideologies were secular or atheistic in their philosophical and theological assumptions, and therefore hubristic (McAllister-Grande, 2017). Because most secular philosophies rejected supernatural or transcendental explanations of reality, leaders deemed them “totalitarian.” Thus, in this explanation, both social democracy and Communism were “totalitarian,” in the sense that they denied the possibility of a God-centric universe and focused, instead, on social betterment and improvement (Edwards, 2012; McAllister-Grande, 2017).…”

Section: The Virtue Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because most secular philosophies rejected supernatural or transcendental explanations of reality, leaders deemed them "totalitarian." Thus, in this explanation, both social democracy and Communism were "totalitarian," in the sense that they denied the possibility of a God-centric universe and focused, instead, on social betterment and improvement (Edwards, 2012;McAllister-Grande, 2017).…”

Section: The Virtue Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

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General Education for a Closed Society: Neo-Puritanism in American Civic Education After World War II

McAllister-Grande

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: This research is framed by both the historical lineage of the New Civics and the legacy of educational and curricular debates in the United States. It contributes to the literature on mid-20th century education. Purpose and Research Questions: This study explores the relationship between religion, civics, and education through the lens of university and faculty leaders at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities in the mid-20th century. Research questions include (a) What were some of the major trends in curricular reform before totalitarianism emerged as an idea or concept, and how were they related to questions of freedom? (b) In the mid-to-late 1930s, how did the presidents of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale view the idea of totalitarianism/authoritarianism and its potential impact on these earlier reform efforts? In addition, what role did trustees, students, faculty, and other constituents play in these conversations? (c) What educational proposals were offered as solutions or counterattacks to totalitarian ideas? (d) What lessons can we draw today from these debates about educating for freedom? Research Design: This study utilized a historical case study design based on intellectual, educational, and cultural history. I examined more than 30 archival collections at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale; my focus was on curricular meeting minutes, presidential papers, dean’s papers, and individual manuscripts. Findings/Results: Most literature on 20th-century American education and civics focuses on secularization. My research instead emphasizes the dynamic relationship between religion and education, including the ways in which educational practices became religious in form and purpose. I illuminate the ways in which, even after World War II, Christian supernaturalism and secular facts were thought by a coterie of faculty and university leaders to be interconnected. Educators at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale referenced Christian Humanism—a fusion of supernatural and secular—as being highly relevant to their time.

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Section: The Virtue Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Virtue Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

General Education for a Closed Society: Neo-Puritanism in American Civic Education After World War II

McAllister-Grande

2021

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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2012

Church Hist

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“A Bad Kind of Magic”: The Niebuhr Brothers on “Utilitarian Christianity” and the Defense of Democracy

Gaston¹

2014

H. Theolo. Review

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In August 1947, a few months after President Harry S. Truman pledged the United States to fight communism around the globe, Time magazine delivered a stern warning to its wide readership from Reinhold Niebuhr, the nation's best-known theologian: “The new idolatry in the U.S. may be a blind, uncritical worship of democracy.” The Time article excerpted a Christianity and Crisis piece on “Democracy as a Religion” in which Niebuhr stressed the hidden dangers of the increasingly ubiquitous paeans to democracy in postwar America. That spring's commencement addresses, he noted, would give any sensible observer the distinct impression that “Americans have only one religion: devotion to democracy. They extol its virtues, are apprehensive about the perils to which it is exposed, pour maledictions upon its foes, rededicate themselves periodically to its purposes and claim unconditional validity for its ideals.”

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The Right of the Protestant Left

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

General Education for a Closed Society: Neo-Puritanism in American Civic Education After World War II

General Education for a Closed Society: Neo-Puritanism in American Civic Education After World War II

Books Received

“A Bad Kind of Magic”: The Niebuhr Brothers on “Utilitarian Christianity” and the Defense of Democracy

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