Auf ein Miniaturbild klicken, um zu Google Books zu gelangen.
|
Lädt ... American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorismvon Thomas S. Kidd
   Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.  bruchu | Jan 15, 2009 | 
 American Christians and Islam skillfully navigates through a vast literature and an equally extensive array of personalities, making mature and often persuasive interpretations. Kidd not only offers a fascinating story of how American Christians have thought about Islam, but for those who identify as evangelicals, he also issues a sobering reminder that the history of their behavior toward Muslims has seldom resembled much that is Christian.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, many of America's Christian evangelicals have denounced Islam as a "demonic" and inherently violent religion, provoking frustration among other Christian conservatives who wish to present a more appealing message to the world's Muslims. Yet as Thomas Kidd reveals in this sobering book, the conflicted views expressed by today's evangelicals have deep roots in American history. Tracing Islam's role in the popular imagination of American Christians from the colonial period to today, Kidd demonstrates that Protestant evangelicals have viewed Islam as a global threat--while also actively seeking to convert Muslims to the Christian faith--since the nation's founding. He shows how accounts of "Mahometan" despotism and lurid stories of European enslavement by Barbary pirates fueled early evangelicals' fears concerning Islam, and describes the growing conservatism of American missions to Muslim lands up through the post-World War II era. Kidd exposes American Christians' anxieties about an internal Islamic threat from groups like the Nation of Islam in the 1960s and America's immigrant Muslim population today, and he demonstrates why Islam has become central to evangelical "end-times" narratives. Pointing to many evangelicals' unwillingness to acknowledge Islam's theological commonalities with Christianity and their continued portrayal of Islam as an "evil" and false religion, Kidd explains why Christians themselves are ironically to blame for the failure of evangelism in the Muslim world. American Christians and Islam is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the causes of the mounting tensions between Christians and Muslims today. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
Aktuelle DiskussionenKeineBeliebte Umschlagbilder
 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)261.2Religions Christian church and church work Church and the world; Social theology and interreligious relations and attitudes Christianity and other systems of (non-)beliefKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (4)
Bist das du?Werde ein LibraryThing-Autor. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2
In "American Christians and Islam," Thomas S. Kidd presents a scholarly historical survey of Christian proselytizing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is roughly divided into the sections of: Barbary wars, Victorian era, middle-class reformers, Arab-Israeli crisis, modernity, postwar, and post 9-11.
The thesis of the book is that: American Christians' views about Islam usually divulge more about American Christians than about actual Muslims. Kidd attempts to show how a distorted vision of the Muslim world has led to unnecessary animosity between members of both faiths. Kidd does not attempt to show the Muslim point of view, but he is polemical against the prevailing Christian attitudes toward Islam and Muslims in general.
In particular, Kidd is primarily focused on the Christian idea that Islam was founded and propagated through a doctrine of violence, ie. jihad. That Islam was spread throughout the world by the sword. Misconceptions, for example, that the Turkish slaughter of Armenians was religiously based.
Another theological theme that Kidd explores throughout are the Christian eschatological beliefs that have been misinterpreted to view Islam as the anathema of Christ. Such literal views of Revelations in the Bible have fundamental Christians believing in the establishment of Israel to end the Jewish diaspora and the Judgement Day when Christians will defeat Muslims forever the second coming of Christ will appear.
While Kidd is impressive in the depth he covers. I do however feel that some parts are under-explored or missing altogether. For instance, popular Christian misconceptions about Islam as intolerant of women is scantily mentioned by Kidd. Though not in a evangelical sense, but the Orientalism of Cold War social scientists in the proliferation of area-studies, which have included the Middle-east, is all but ignored. Bernard Lewis, Emeritus of Princeton, the most famous of which, is never even mentioned.
If you are really interested in a more detailed book on Protestant missionaries in the Middle East, I highly recommend "Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East" by Ussama Makdisi. That is not to say that "American Christians and Islam" is not important or not any good, but that "Artillery of Heaven" presents more depth with which the analysis can draw its conclusions from. (