Civilizing the World: The Social Activism of Practical Christians from Chicago to the Middle East
Ebook
Civilizing the World explores the vibrancy and impact of forgotten social reformers who defied categorization within the Social Gospel or secular progressive movements. These social reformers, or "Practical Christians," functioned as a network of activists whose dedication to spiritual conversions and cultural transformation arose from a shared commitment to nonsectarian Christian cooperation and practicing Christian citizenship. Bringing together a diverse coalition of liberal Protestants, revivalists, evangelicals, and "secular" reformers, Practical Christians rejected theological divisions in favor of broad alliances committed to improving society at home and abroad. A complete understanding of the intimate relationship between local and global activism provides new insight into Practical Christians' social networks, political goals, religious identities, and international outlook. This broad reform alliance considered their domestic and global reforms as seamless tasks in modernizing the world. Just as Chicago Practical Christians labored to "civilize" their immigrant neighbors and encourage their adoption of their own Christian and American habits, like-minded Americans worked to "Christianize" and "modernize" Armenians and the Middle East. The Practical Christian coalition faltered post-World War I as evangelicals and revivalists continued to prioritize spiritual conversions while liberal Protestant and secularizing activists placed more emphasis on the process of Americanizing immigrants and the world.
“Civilizing the World is historical scholarship at its best. Sarah Miglio incandescently explodes so many false binaries that are currently conventional wisdom. If you are used to thinking of late nineteenth-century America in terms of proto-Fundamentalists vs. proto-Modernists, revivalists vs. Social Gospellers, moral causes vs. political action, or humanitarian vs. proselytizing efforts, then the rediscovery of the ‘Practical Christians’ is going to cause you to reassess it all.”
—Timothy Larsen, author of A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians
“In this important study, Sarah Miglio offers us a window on a lost era in American religious history. She recounts more fully than has been done previously how, before the polarization of the fundamentalist era, revivalist evangelicals could cooperate with liberal Protestants and secularists in practical Christian charity and social reform at home and abroad.”
—George Marsden, author of Fundamentalism and American Culture
“Sarah Miglio’s marvelous Civilizing the World freshly illuminates the complex connections between evangelicals, Social Gospellers, missions, and social reform. Through her remarkable archival research into Progressive-era Chicago, Miglio introduces a broad, activist cohort of ‘Practical Christians’ and overturns a host of stereotypes and clichés about her subject. This book is a model of original historical writing.”
—Thomas S. Kidd, author of Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh
- Title: Civilizing the World: The Social Activism of Practical Christians from Chicago to the Middle East
- Author: Sarah Miglio
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666796407, 9781666737196, 1666737194, 9781666796391, 1666796395, 1666796409
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666796407
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-08-23T00:57:29Z
Sarah Miglio is assistant provost at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.