"Religion and Nonviolence in American History"

Nonviolence has long been an important aspect of American religion. Understanding the tradition of religious nonviolence helps illuminate such subjects as the growth and limits of state power, the character of political dissent, and the significance of race in the nation’s history. In the colonial p...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kosek, Joseph Kip (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2012
In: Religion compass
Year: 2012, Volume: 6, Issue: 8, Pages: 402-413
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Summary:Nonviolence has long been an important aspect of American religion. Understanding the tradition of religious nonviolence helps illuminate such subjects as the growth and limits of state power, the character of political dissent, and the significance of race in the nation’s history. In the colonial period, Quakers tried to square the nonviolent ideal with the vagaries of pluralism and cultural conflict. Nineteenth-century nonresistants led by William Lloyd Garrison tied the problem of violence to the injustice of slavery. The connections between peace and justice were revitalized in the decades after the First World War, when Mohandas Gandhi’s efforts in India suggested the viability of nonviolent direct action as a practical strategy for social change. That modern form of nonviolence achieved great success in the civil rights movement, as Martin Luther King, Jr. and other African American innovators used it to defeat white supremacy. Religious nonviolence was also at the center of antinuclear protests and the campaign to end the Vietnam War. More recently, nonviolence has appeared in the prolife movement and the opposition to United States military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
ISSN:1749-8171
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion compass
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2012.00365.x