Why did southern white evangelical Christians resist the civil rights
movement in the 1950s and 1960s? Simply put, they believed the Bible
told them so. These white Christians entered the battle certain that God
was on their side. Ultimately, the civil rights movement triumphed in
the 1960s and, with its success, fundamentally transformed American
society. But this victory did little to change southern white
evangelicals' theological commitment to segregation. Rather than
abandoning their segregationist theology in the second half of the
1960s, white evangelicals turned their focus on institutions they still controlled--churches, homes, denominations, and private colleges and secondary schools--and fought on.
Focusing on the case of South Carolina, The Bible Told Them So
shows how, despite suffering defeat in the public sphere, white
evangelicals continued to battle for their own institutions, preaching
and practicing a segregationist Christianity they continued to believe
reflected God's will.
Increasingly caught in the tension between
their sincere belief that God desired segregation and their reluctance
to give voice to such ideas for fear of being perceived as bigoted or
intolerant, by the late 1960s southern white evangelicals embraced the
rhetoric of colorblindness and protection of the family as measures
to maintain both segregation and respectable social standing. This
strategy set southern white evangelicals on an alternative path for race
relations in the decades ahead.
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