American Evangelicals on War, 1937–1973
timothy d. padgett
studies in historical and systematic theology
Swords and Plowshares: American Evangelicals on War, 1937–1973
Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology
Copyright 2018 Timothy D. Padgett
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Print ISBN 9781683591061
Digital ISBN 9781683591078
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3. The Conflagration, 1942–1945
4. Plowshares into Swords, 1946–1949
7. Battles Near and Far, 1959–1963
8. Almost Armageddon, 1964–1968
ACCC American Council of Christian Churches
NAE National Association of Evangelicals
MBI Moody Bible Institute
CH Christian Herald
CT Christianity Today
ET Eternity
MM Moody Monthly
OH Our Hope
PJ Presbyterian Journal
SPJ Southern Presbyterian Journal
This topic was a lifetime in coming. History in general and military history in particular had always been a passion of mine. What drew me in were the great tensions of war, the best and the worst of humanity on display in the same events and often the same individuals. It was not the excitement of explosions and battles which interested me but the reasons behind it all. The writings of Francis A. Schaeffer, John Keegan, and Victor Davis Hanson encouraged me to look beyond the “what” of history to the “why” of the ideas driving people to think and act in a given way. I wanted to know why people acted in the ways that they did, and what made one group more moral, successful, and memorable than another. Yet it was issues of the church which drove me into academic work. I wanted to know how servants of the Prince of Peace reacted to a time of total war.
Had it not been for the counsel of a great many along the way, I would have been left with nothing more than disparate passions of little value to anyone besides myself. It was Craig Kaplowitz who encouraged me to find a subject which I was passionate about. Only then, he warned, would I be able to push through the weeks and months of ...
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About Swords and Plowshares: American Evangelicals on War, 1937–1973Evangelicals are warmongering nationalists—right? Many assume that evangelicals have always shared the ideology and approach of the Moral Majority. But the truth is much more complex. Historically, evangelical rank and file have not held to one position about war; instead, they are strewn across the spectrum from love of peace to glorying in war. In Swords and Plowshares, Timothy Padgett complicates our common perceptions of evangelical attitudes towards war and peace. Evangelical leaders regularly wrote about the temporal and eternal implications of war from World War II to the Vietnam War. Padgett allows us to see firsthand how these evangelicals actually spoke about war and love of country. Instead of blind ideologues we meet concerned people of conviction struggling to reconcile the demands of a world in turmoil with the rule of the Prince of peace. |
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