DOC A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow by David L. Chappell in History

Review

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. the third awakening and the second reconstructionBy David M. Pence"Approaching this story as an atheist; I was surprised and skeptical to hear so many of my subjects-- whom I admired from afar--expressing what Bayard Rustin called "fundamentalist" views. Even had I been a believer in the sense that most educated folk use the term I doubt that any isolated testimony of miracles could have struck me as worth copying down in my notes. But it was repeated so much and perhaps because it was so foreign to me ..I kept copying it down and ultimately it appeared a key to the beliefs... and strategic choices of my sources" David Chappell; author of Stone of Hope Faith in God allows a man to see more clearly into the reality of things but apparently it has taken Atheist Chappell to write this penetrating book defining the civil rights movement as a religious revival. He plays the righteous pagan Virgil in guiding Christian Dantes through the biblical prophetic theology and working of the Spirit which signaled the civil rights movement as the third American Awakening. While Chappell is obviously more comfortable with the reasoning and rationales of the Bayard Rustins of the movement; he is also an honest man. All those miracles and fundamentalists kept intruding in his story. He takes religion seriously enough not to study only the protesters but to analyze the inability of the segregationists to mount a serious religious argument against integration. His look behind the "southern white mob" reveals 1) a divided white church; 2) respectable opponents of integration trying to distance themselves from the rabble; and 3) politically potent segregationists unmatched by a similar certitude among religious authorities.American churches are bellwethers for the nation. In the 1840's the Baptists and Methodists split into northern and southern churches. In 1861 the Presbyterians did the same. When the Civil War came; a white man could go to a southern church and hear why a Christian had a duty to fight northern tyranny. When a soldier was buried; his death was seen as part of the Christian tradition of male sacrifice for the community. This kind of religious sanction never became such a force in the South during the sixties. Before the Supreme Court Brown decision on school desegregation (1954); the PCUS (Southern Presbyterians) had passed resolutions supporting desegregation. Just after Brown; the Southern Baptists overwhelmingly did the same. Since 1954 Billy Graham never allowed segregated sitting at his rallies. All of his rallies throughout the South were integrated and he once complained that national news stations chose to never report that fact. The chapters in Chappell's book that look seriously at the intellectual and religious movements supporting segregation support his thesis that the "The historically significant thing about white religion in the 1950's and 1960's is that it failed in any meaningful way to join the anti civil rights movement. The white southern churches never lived up to the militant image that southern politicians had shown."There was in the post WWII era a more pressing evangelical development being led by such men as L Nelson Bell intellectual leader of the Southern Presbyterians. "Bell was part of a conservative insurgency within southern Protestantism known as Evangelicalism. The evangelical movement emerged during WWII as an aggressive effort to reestablish the popularity; legitimacy; authority and institutional strength of conservative doctrine." Educated Protestant conservatives felt neither the Bryan fundamentalism at the Scopes trial nor the theological liberalism of the Social Gospel adequately proclaimed the Gospel in America or in the foreign missions. That Chappell can see all of this as well as understand that Martin Luther King was not a product of the Social Gospel nor Tillichian Ground of our Being theology shows a remarkable clarity for any reporter. It is downright miraculous from an atheist. There is an especially insightful notation that Rev King rejected the flattening of religion into "ethical religion". The whole anthropology of religion as ethics led to an unwarranted optimism about the nature of man and the struggle needed to confront evil with a more powerful force. Education was NOT the key to prophetic religion. God; judgment; conversion; sin; demons and miracles constitute the vocabulary of the prophets. King's God was a highly personal God--the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob not the god of the philosophers. He could be trusted in times of travail and prayed to in times of danger. Andrew Young was quoted; "the civil rights movement brought a resurgence of religious feeling in the South. When folks start shooting at you--- you do a lot more praying." When Bayard Rustin was asked if King believed in the fundamentalist active personal God; he answered "Oh yes profoundly; it always amazed me how he could combine this intensely philosophical analytical mind with this more or less fundamental-well I don't like to say fundamentalist --but abiding faith." As Thomas Gilmore another civil rights veteran said--"the Holy Spirit guided us. I got strength facing the sheriff he was the biggest man in the county but I felt we were walking next to someone bigger. God is real; man. Years later Gilmore became the first black sheriff of his county. Chappell has little time for the flatteners of history who in the name of "people's history" try to paint the civil rights struggle as the ever present but under reported fight of the common man against oppression. Chappell argues that something happened here that was extraordinary indeed and the people who stepped out of the routines of their everyday lives to enter the political arena and national historical narrative were extraordinary people. He found the source of their courage and hope (that "stone of hope" they somehow chipped from the mountain of despair). What is unique about his study is that he does not stress the easy lesson that the biblical prophetic tradition was a foe to racism. He instead contrasts prophetic religion as a more effective and truthful actor for justice than position paper rationalistic liberalism. What did those Baptist preachers; Ralph Abernathy; Martin Luther King and Fred Shuttlesworth know and do that eluded Gunnar Myrdal; John Dewey; Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Lionel Trilling. Chappell's answer is that the civil rights movement was not the inevitable maturation and triumph of philosophical liberalism. It was not education for progress. Rather it was a Spirit driven melding of characters and events living out the biblical narrative by confronting the soul of a nation. This prophetic witness employed a "coercive non-violence" necessary to confront evil and men wedded to evil. Such nonviolence is much more like war than pacifism and is grounded in a realistic Christian anthropology which saw both struggle and an embrace of "unrequited suffering" as the redemptive route to justice. It was a stunning paradox of this fitting time that there was no group more convicted by this witness--not into joining the cause but chastened to inaction--than Southern evangelicals who were also seeking a renewal of lived out religion in the daily life of the nation. Returning military veterans of WWII and Korea as well as preachers infused the civil rights movement with the intersecting language and claims of religion; patriotism and righteous warfare. The charismatic soldier-preacher Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham said in 1958; "this is a religious crusade; a fight between light and darkness; right and wrong; fair play and tyranny. We are assured of victory because we are using weapons of spiritual warfare." In 1964 the fire still burned in the man whose eloquence was only surpassed by his courage. "We have faith in America and still believe that Birmingham and Alabama will rise to their heights of glory in race relations. And we shall be true to our ideals as a Christian nation."The civil rights movement "carried the Constitution in one hand and the Bible in the other." This crucial book by an atheist historian should challenge American Christians to distinguish the great religious awakening of the civil rights movement from the contrary spirits of black power and the sexual revolution. These profane pretenders have hobbled our national gait. Black and white evangelicals are now religious brethren separated into the voting army "bases" of two opposing parties. How long asked Elijah can Israel hobble on divided between Baal and Yahweh. Can the third great awakening stir American Christians to be one again promising a second reconstruction more just than the first? Chappell's book gives no answer but he has led us to the question.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Looking At the Civil Rights Movement From a Unique PerspectiveBy Lionel S. TaylorThere are countless books that have looked at the Civil Rights Movement from a variety of perspectives. I have read ones that have dealt with everything from a basic biography of the major players in the movement to the relationship with the powers in Washington to the secret surveillance that the FBI was running against them. But none of them have dealt with the deep religious and philosophical issues that motivated the two sides during the struggle and this is a little surprising when one looks at the number of clergy that was involved in the movement. A Stone of Hope looks at the Civil Rights movement from this perspective and makes a very persuasive argument that this is one of the key reasons for its success. The author argues that those who fought for segregation were able to use the black churches and the social networks and moral authority that they provided in a way that the other side could not do despite trying. Interestingly he contrasts this with the struggle against Slavery 100 years previous when the Southern protestant denominations played a much more active and vital role. The author points out several of the inherent contradictions in the Jim Crow system that made it very difficult to defend on theological grounds as well as the class contradictions that existed among the various pro segregation forces. The latter subject has been dealt with in other books but I found it especially interesting when examined through the lens of the fundamental contradictions of the Jim Crow system.In the conclusion of the book that author admits that his general approach to history is the materialist perspective and that he finds himself identifying more with Marx than Weber. But he also say that he thins that the ideological aspects of social movement should not be ignored that is what inspired him to write this book. I am very glad he did! This book provides a fresh perspective on a very familiar subject and by doing so makes issues that have been raised by other authors much more clear.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Civil Rights Victory: Not Due to Liberal Politics; but to Prophetic ReligionBy Frank BellizziChappell argues that the incredible success of the American civil rights movement was not a victory created by political liberalism. It was; instead; a victory created by prophetic religion. It was the result of; among other key factors; a new expression of a powerful Western tradition that reaches all the way back to the great preachers of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In short; prophecy--not in the peculiar sense of predicting future events; but in the more general sense of speaking truth to injustice--goes a long way in explaining how and why the movement achieved headway. The civil rights movement can be seen as a revival whose power was never matched by the religion of segregationists. This monograph is a significant contribution to the historiography of the topic.