To Bring the Good News to All Nations : : Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations / / Lauren Frances Turek.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Turek, Lauren Frances,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2020]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: The United States in the World
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (312 p.) :; 12 b&w halftones

When American evangelicals flocked to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century to fulfill their Biblical mandate for global evangelism, their experiences abroad led them to engage more deeply in foreign policy activism at home. Lauren Frances Turek tracks these trends, and illuminates the complex and significant ways in which religion shaped America's role in the late-Cold War world. In To Bring the Good News to All Nations, she examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s, assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes, and considers how those same groups promoted the imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that stifled evangelism.Utilizing archival materials from both religious and government sources in the United States, Guatemala, and South Africa, To Bring the Good News to All Nations links the development of evangelical foreign policy lobbying to the overseas missionary agenda. Turek's case studies—Guatemala, South Africa, and the Soviet Union—reveal the extent of Christian influence on American foreign policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Evangelical policy work also reshaped the lives of Christians overseas and contributed to a reorientation of US human rights policy. Efforts to promote global evangelism and support foreign brethren led activists to push Congress to grant aid to favored yet repressive regimes in countries such as Guatemala while imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on nations that persecuted Christians, such as the Soviet Union. This advocacy shifted the definitions and priorities of US human rights policies with lasting repercussions that can be traced into the 21st century.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction: Defining and Defending Rights -- 1. A Global Shift in Missionary Christianity -- 2. The Communications Revolution and Evangelical Internationalism -- 3. Religious Freedom and the New Evangelical Foreign Policy Lobby -- 4. Fighting Religious Persecution behind the Iron Curtain -- 5. Supporting a “Brother in Christ” in Guatemala -- 6. The Challenge of South African Apartheid -- Conclusion: Evangelical Foreign Policy Activism Ascendant -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index