Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Annicchino on the Paradigm Shift in Human Rights

In the Italian journal, Il Foglio, our friend and sometime guest contributor Pasquale Annicchino (European University Institute) has a provocative essay, “Now America waters down religious freedom and prefers rainbow colors. Why is that?” Annicchino sees a paradigm shift in American human rights policy. Where the US once favored religious liberty, it now gives priority to personal autonomy, especially LGBT rights:

What seems to have permanently changed is the cornerstone of the American projection in its narrative on rights around the world. The White House lights up with rainbow colors in the day of the Supreme Court ruling that recognizes the right to gay marriage. There is a decline in action for religious freedom, a right that refers to groups and individuals, while a vision linked to individualism and the principle of personal autonomy is on the rise, and the rights of LGBTI people are probably the clearest example of that.

An interesting take. You can read Annicchino’s essay here.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Ford, “Bonds of Union”

In March, the University of North Carolina Press will release “Bonds of Union: Religion, Race, and Politics in a Civil War Borderland,” by Bridget Ford (California State University, East Bay).  The publisher’s description follows:

This vivid history of the Civil War era reveals how unexpected bonds of union forged among diverse peoples in the Ohio-Kentucky 51w0ube2b38l-_sx330_bo1204203200_
borderlands furthered emancipation through a period of spiraling chaos between 1830 and 1865. Moving beyond familiar arguments about Lincoln’s deft politics or regional commercial ties, Bridget Ford recovers the potent religious, racial, and political attachments holding the country together at one of its most likely breaking points, the Ohio River.

Living in a bitterly contested region, the Americans examined here–Protestant and Catholic, black and white, northerner and southerner–made zealous efforts to understand the daily lives and struggles of those on the opposite side of vexing human and ideological divides. In their common pursuits of religious devotionalism, universal public education regardless of race, and relief from suffering during wartime, Ford discovers a surprisingly capacious and inclusive sense of political union in the Civil War era. While accounting for the era’s many disintegrative forces, Ford reveals the imaginative work that went into bridging stark differences in lived experience, and she posits that work as a precondition for slavery’s end and the Union’s persistence.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Mirola, “Redeeming Time”

In January, the University of Illinois Press will release “Redeeming Time: Protestantism and Chicago’s Eight-Hour Movement, 1866-1912,” by William A. Mirola (Marian University).  The publisher’s description follows:

During the struggle for the eight-hour workday and a shorter workweek, Chicago emerged as an important battleground for workers9780252038839 in “the entire civilized world” to redeem time from the workplace in order to devote it to education, civic duty, health, family, and leisure.

William A. Mirola explores how the city’s eight-hour movement intersected with a Protestant religious culture that supported long hours to keep workers from idleness, intemperance, and secular leisure activities. Analyzing how both workers and clergy rewove working-class religious cultures and ideologies into strategic and rhetorical frames, Mirola shows how every faith-based appeal contested whose religious meanings would define labor conditions and conflicts. As he notes, the ongoing worker-employer tension transformed both how clergy spoke about the eight-hour movement and what they were willing to do, until intensified worker protest and employer intransigence spurred Protestant clergy to support the eight-hour movement even as political and economic arguments eclipsed religious framing.

A revealing study of an era and a cause, Redeeming Time illustrates the potential–and the limitations–of religious culture and religious leaders as forces in industrial reform.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“The Pew and the Picket Line” (eds. Cantwell et al)

In March, the University of Illinois Press will release “The Pew and the Picket Line: Christianity and the American Working Class,” edited by Christopher D. Cantwell (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Heath W. Carter (Valparaiso University), Janine Giordano Drake (University of Great Falls). The publisher’s description follows:

The Pew and the Picket Line collects works from a new generation of scholars working at the nexus where religious history and working-9780252081484class history converge. Focusing on Christianity and its unique purchase in America, the contributors use in-depth local histories to illustrate how Americans male and female, rural and urban, and from a range of ethnic backgrounds dwelt in a space between the church and the shop floor. Their vivid essays show Pentecostal miners preaching prosperity while seeking miracles in the depths of the earth, while aboveground black sharecroppers and white Protestants established credit unions to pursue a joint vision of cooperative capitalism.

Innovative and essential, The Pew and the Picket Line reframes venerable debates as it maps the dynamic contours of a landscape sculpted by the powerful forces of Christianity and capitalism.