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Heathen : Religion and Race in American History by Kathryn Gin Lum (2022, Hardcover)

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Heathen : Religion and Race in American History, Hardcover by Gin Lum, Kathryn; Baker, Susan (CON), ISBN 0674976770, ISBN-13 9780674976771, Brand New, Free shipping in the US "American ideas about race owe much to the notion of an undifferentiated "heathen world" held together by its need of assistance. This religious notion shaped American racial governance and undergirds American exceptionalism, even as purported heathens have drawn on their characterization as such to push back against this national myth"--

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-100674976770

ISBN-139780674976771

eBay Product ID (ePID)23050436979

Product Key Features

Book TitleHeathen : Religion and Race in American History

Number of Pages368 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicChristian Theology / Systematic, Christianity / History, United States / General

Publication Year2022

IllustratorYes

GenreReligion, History

AuthorKathryn Gin Lum

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.2 in

Item Weight20 oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

LCCN2021-053223

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsNuanced and illuminating...Ranging from King Philip's War in 17th-century New England to 'anti-Asian hate' during the Covid-19 pandemic, Gin Lum sheds light on a troubling yet overlooked aspect of U.S. religious history and issues a powerful call for change. Readers will gain new insight into the roots of 'White Protestant American' exceptionalism., Heathen is a rare intellectual achievement of discernment, analysis, and clarity. By interpreting the cultural dimensions of race and religion in America through the prism of heathen identity, Gin Lum refracts a visage of fraught history to reveal colors of truth that disturb and inform with lightning courage. This is transformative scholarship at its best., A fascinating book...Gin Lum suggests that, in many times and places, the divide between Christian and 'heathen' was the central divide in American life., Expansive...As much as this book is about the historical underpinnings of religious colonialism, it is also about how the circulation of texts--in the form of ethnographic research, Western classics, religious propaganda, and scripture--give imaginative shape to worlds., A must read for anyone doing the work of deconstructing and decolonizing a Christianity known for its name-calling...In brilliant detail, [Gin] Lum shows the historical connection between paganism and Christianity...A timely resource for Christians who are seeking a version of Christianity that does not require cultural assimilation and that does not make excuses for a religion that employed and endorsed race as a means of othering., Brilliant...Gin Lum's writing style is nuanced, clear, detailed yet expansive, and accessible, which will make the book a fit for both graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Any scholar of American history should have a copy.

Dewey Decimal241.675

SynopsisAmerican ideas about race owe much to the notion of an undifferentiated "heathen world" held together by its need of assistance. This religious notion shaped American racial governance and undergirds American exceptionalism, even as purported heathens have drawn on their characterization as such to push back against this national myth., An innovative history that shows how the religious idea of the heathen in need of salvation undergirds American conceptions of race. If an eighteenth-century parson told you that the difference between "civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far," the words would hardly come as a shock. But that statement was written by an American missionary in 1971. In a sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses--discourses, specifically, of race. Americans long viewed the world as a realm of suffering heathens whose lands and lives needed their intervention to flourish. The term "heathen" fell out of common use by the early 1900s, leading some to imagine that racial categories had replaced religious differences. But the ideas underlying the figure of the heathen did not disappear. Americans still treat large swaths of the world as "other" due to their assumed need for conversion to American ways. Purported heathens have also contributed to the ongoing significance of the concept, promoting solidarity through their opposition to white American Christianity. Gin Lum looks to figures like Chinese American activist Wong Chin Foo and Ihanktonwan Dakota writer Zitkála-Sá, who proudly claimed the label of "heathen" for themselves. Race continues to operate as a heathen inheritance in the United States, animating Americans' sense of being a world apart from an undifferentiated mass of needy, suffering peoples. Heathen thus reveals a key source of American exceptionalism and a prism through which Americans have defined themselves as a progressive and humanitarian nation even as supposed heathens have drawn on the same to counter this national myth.

LC Classification NumberBT734.2.G56 2022