American Christians and Islam - Evangelical Culture Muslims From Colonial Period to Age of Terrorism

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America's Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a "demonic" and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world's Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today's evangelicals have deep roots in American history.

Tracing Islam's role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat--while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith--since the nation's founding. He shows how accounts of "Mahometan" despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals' fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians' anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America's immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical "end-times" narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals' unwillingness to acknowledge Islam's theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an "evil" and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world.

American Christians and Islam is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today.

List of contents

List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xix CHAPTER 1: Early American Christians and Islam 1 CHAPTER 2: The Barbary Wars, the Last Days, and Islam in Early National America 19 CHAPTER 3: Foreign Missions to Muslims in Nineteenth-Century America 37 CHAPTER 4: Samuel Zwemer,World War I, and "The Evangelization of the Moslem World in This Generation" 58 CHAPTER 5: The New Missionary Overture to Muslims and the Arab-Israeli Crisis 75 CHAPTER 6: Christians Respond to Muslims in Modern America 96 CHAPTER 7: Maturing Evangelical Missions and War in the Middle East 120 CHAPTER 8: American Christians and Islam After September 11, 2001 144 Epilogue 165 Notes 171 Index 195

About the author

Thomas S. Kidd

Summary

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America's Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a "demonic" and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world's Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today's evangelicals have deep roots in American history.

Tracing Islam's role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat--while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith--since the nation's founding. He shows how accounts of "Mahometan" despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals' fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians' anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America's immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical "end-times" narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals' unwillingness to acknowledge Islam's theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an "evil" and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world.

American Christians and Islam is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today.

Additional text

"In all respects, American Christians and Islam is a well-balanced, long overdue study, delving deep in the folk memory of America, painting a complex and suggestive profile of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim (dis)connection, celebrating both Christianity and Islamism, while formulating no apologies for either. . . . [I]t is an opportune appearance that seeks to do justice to Qur'anic verse and Islamic scholarship, an admirable monograph launching a timely invitation to grasp the true nature of Islam."---Adriana Neagu, American British and Canadian Studies

Product details

• Authors: Thomas Kidd, Thomas S. Kidd, Kidd Thomas S.
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.12.2013
• EAN: 9780691162300
• ISBN: 978-0-691-16230-0
• No. of pages: 224
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Islam, USA, RELIGION / Islam / General, RELIGION / Ecumenism & Interfaith, RELIGION / Christianity / General, Christianity, United States of America, USA, Interfaith relations