From Jeremiad to Jihad

Violence has been a central feature of America’s history, culture, and place in the world. It has taken many forms: from state-sponsored uses of force such as war or law enforcement, to revolution, secession, terrorism and other actions with important political and cultural implications. Religion also holds a crucial place in the American experience of violence, particularly for those who have found order and meaning in their worlds through religious texts, symbols, rituals, and ideas. Yet too often the religious dimensions of violence, especially in the American context, are ignored or overstated—in either case, poorly understood. From Jeremiad to Jihad: Religion, Violence, and America corrects these misunderstandings. Charting and interpreting the tendrils of religion and violence, this book reveals how formative moments of their intersection in American history have influenced the ideas, institutions, and identities associated with the United States. Religion and violence provide crucial yet underutilized lenses for seeing America anew—including its outlook on, and relation to, the world.

John Carlson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University.

Jon Ebel is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Foreword
Martin E. Marty

Preface

Introduction. John Brown, Jeremiad, and Jihad: Reflections on Religion, Violence, and America
John D. Carlson and Jonathan H. Ebel

Part I. Religious Origins and Tropes of American Violence
1. From King Philip's War to September 11: Religion, Violence, and the American Way
Andrew R. Murphy and Elizabeth Hanson

2. A Nation Birthed in Blood: Violent Cosmogonies and American Film
S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate

3. From Covenant to Crusade and Back: American Christianity and the Late Great War
Jonathan H. Ebel

4. From Jeremiad to Manifesto: The Rhetorical Evolution of John Foster Dulles’s “Massive Retaliation”
Ned O’Gorman

5. American Providence, American Violence
Stephen H. Webb

Part II. Religion and America’s “Others”
6. New Israel, New Amalek: Biblical Exhortations to Religious Violence
John Corrigan

7. Religion and Violence in Black and White
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

8. State Violence and the Un-American West: Mormons, American Indians, and Cults
Todd M. Kerstetter

9. Alma White’s Bloodless Warfare: Women and Violence in U.S. Religious History
Lynn S. Neal

10. Of Tragedy and Its Aftermath: The Search for Religious Meaning in the Shootings at Virginia Tech
Grace Y. Kao

Part III. The Ethics of Violence and War
11. A Just or Holy War of Independence? The Revolution’s Legacy for Religion, Violence, and American Exceptionalism
John D. Carlson

12. Why War Is a Moral Necessity for America: Realism, Sacrifice, and the Civil War
Stanley Hauerwas

13. Contemporary Warfare and American Efforts at Restraint
James Turner Johnson

14. Enemies Near and Far: The United States and Its Muslim Allies in Radical Islamist Discourse
Sohail H. Hashmi

15. Varieties of “Violence”: Thinking Ethically about the Use of Force in the War on Terror
Jean Bethke Elshtain

Contributors
Index