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Article: Pulpit Politics: Faces of American Protestant Nationalism in the Twentieth Century.
- Article from:
- Sociology of Religion
- Article date:
- December 22, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Association for the Sociology of Religion. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By WARREN L. VINZ. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997, xii + 267 pp. $19.95.
America: was our nation an industrial giant and world power or a shameful imperialist country bent on gunboat diplomacy? This excellent study of American religious nationalism rests upon an assumption that the United States wears a messianic mantle capable of two interpretations: (1) "zealous nationalism" in which America redeems the world by destroying the wicked, thereby exhibiting our superiority (even racial), and framing the world in manichaean terms; or (2) "prophetic realism" in which evil is identified "in the heart of the chosen people themselves" (p. 8). Each ...