White Evangelical Racism, Second Edition

“White Evangelical Racism has dropped a bomb on the playground of many historians of evangelicalism who have been insufficiently attentive to their subjects’ history, specifically to their racism and nationalism from the nineteenth century to the present.”—American Religion

“In her elegant and unrelenting monograph White Evangelical Racism, Butler provides us with a cogent argument for inverting the narrative of evangelicals in American history. The book is brief, pointed, and accessible. Her argument, consistently made from start to finish, leaves no doubt where she sees the debate. Her clarion call to recognize the normative whiteness of American Christianity, especially in the media and politics, is timely and necessary.”—Journal of Southern History

“White Evangelical Racism makes for tough reading, but we would do well to drop our defenses, to listen, and to see what grows.”—Christian Scholars Review

“[Butler’s] ability to weave together history, personal experience, and contemporary reflection in such a cohesive and approachable manner makes White Evangelical Racism stand out. . . . By critiquing and unequivocally condemning White evangelical racism while also acknowledging another evangelical lineage, Butler presents masterful critique while still providing space for a much-needed nuance often missed when [we speak] about the tradition in America as a whole.”—The Christian Century

“A strong work of synthesis designed for a popular audience, White Evangelical Racism deftly weaves together cutting-edge scholarship on evangelicalism from the last twenty years.”—Christianity Today

“Every so often a book comes along that distills essential truths so crisply, so powerfully, that it feels not just valuable but vital—alive with the clear, brilliant, and even thrilling thinking we need like we need water and air. Anthea Butler writes with force and grace of what is, how it came to be, and why it must change. White Evangelical Racism is an American revelation, in the real, deep sense of that rightly troubling word.”—Jeff Sharlet, best-selling author of The Family and This Brilliant Darkness

“A half century ago, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. observed that 'the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.’ In this powerful book, Anthea Butler reckons with the ways in which religious devotion and racial division still reinforce each other in the lives of many evangelical Christians to this day."—Kevin M. Kruse, author of One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America

“A searing indictment of the American evangelical tradition. As Anthea Butler shrewdly illustrates, racism is embedded in the deepest structures of evangelicalism, viscerally present from the slaveholding Christianity of Frederick Douglass’s era to ongoing evangelical support for the bigoted policies of former Donald Trump. Urging us to see evangelicalism as a nationalistic political movement upholding white hegemony, Butler has written a dazzling book: an essential, if excruciating, read for those personally shaped by evangelicalism no less than for those flummoxed by it.”—R. Marie Griffith, author of Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics

“Spotlighting how white evangelicals have espoused and practiced an enduring commitment to white supremacy and anti-Blackness from antebellum America to Donald Trump and beyond, White Evangelical Racism stands out for its historical breadth and for Anthea Butler’s unique gifts as both an accomplished African American historian and a popular media writer. This book will be greeted with great anticipation and attention.”—Lerone A. Martin, author of Preaching on Wax

“Terrific. Provocative. Solidly argued. Amid all the efforts to make sense of evangelicals’ political identity, I know of no one besides Anthea Butler who does so with such a disciplined and historically grounded approach—combined with a fluid, direct, and personal style. While focusing on evangelicals’ history, Butler shows how we’ve all been shaped and indicted by racism, and she doesn’t let us off the hook.”—Julie J. Ingersoll, author of Building God’s Kingdom