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The Rise of the Global South and the Protestant Peace with Socialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2020

Udi Greenberg
Udi Greenberg*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Department of History, 301 Carson Hall, Hanover, NH, 03755, USA
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores a major shift in European Protestant thought about socialism during the mid-twentieth century, from intense hostility to acceptance. During the twentieth century's early decades it was common for European Protestant theologians, church leaders and thinkers to condemn socialism as a threat to Christianity. Socialist ideology, many believed, was inherently secular, and its triumph would spell anarchy and violence. In the decades after the Second World War, however, this hostility began to wane, as European Protestant elites increasingly joined Christian-socialist associations and organisations. By focusing on the Protestant ecumenical movement, this article argues that one of the forces in this change was decolonisation, and in particular the rise of Christian and socialist thinkers in the Global South. It shows how concerns about Christianity's future in Asia and Africa helped some European Protestants to rethink their long-held suspicion towards state-led economic management and distribution.

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Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 29 , Special Issue 2: Religion and Socialism in the Long 1960s: From Antithesis to Dialogue in Eastern and Western Europe , May 2020 , pp. 202 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors, 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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2 On the ecumenical movement's involvement in constitutions and international charters on religious matters, see for example Nurser, John, For All People and All Nations: The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2005)Google Scholar and Peiponen, Matti, Ecumenical Action in World Politics (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Society, 2012)Google Scholar. I discuss further examples later in the article.

3 It is telling that for several decades, the most important historical works were written by the movement's members and leaders. See for example Hogg, William Richey, Ecumenical Foundations (New York: Harper, 1952)Google Scholar and Visser, Willem A. ‘t Hooft, The Genesis and Formation of the World Council of Churches (Geneva: World Student Christian Federation, 1982)Google Scholar.

4 The most important work to chart the history of the ecumenical movement is Justin Reynolds, Against the World: International Protestantism and the Ecumenical Movement between Secularization and Politics, Ph.D dissertation, Columbia University, 2016. See also the articles by Elisabeth Engel, James Kennedy, Justin Reynolds, Albert Wu, Christopher Stroop, Bastiaan Bouwman and Annegreth Schilling gathered in the special issue of Journal of Global History 13, 2 (2018)Google Scholar. I discuss some of these in more detail below.

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25 Both texts are cited in Ibid., 238, 239.

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40 Thomas's interactions with European ecumenists is detailed in Reynolds, ‘From Christian Anti-Imperialism’. On the seminars on his and McCaughy's manuscript, see Potter, Philip and Wieser, Thomas, Seeking and Serving the Truth (London: SCM Press, 1997), 171Google Scholar.

41 Cited in Reynolds, ‘From Christian Anti-Imperialism’, 250.

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55 Gustavo Gutierrez, ‘The Meaning of Development: Notes on a Theology of Liberation’, and Ruben Alves, ‘Theology and the Liberation of Man’, both in In Search of a Theology of Development, 116–79 and 80–110, respectively. On Gutierrez and Alvino's participation in Sodepax event, see Schilling, ‘Beetween Context and Conflict’, 288–9.

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