My Brother's Keeper
246 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
10 b&w illus.
Paperback
Release Date:22 Mar 2017
ISBN:9781625342775
My Brother's Keeper
George McGovern and Progressive Christianity
University of Massachusetts Press
George McGovern is chiefly remembered for his landslide loss to Richard Nixon in 1972. Yet at the time, his candidacy raised eyebrows by invoking the prophetic tradition, an element of his legacy that is little studied. In My Brother's Keeper, Mark A. Lempke explores the influence of McGovern's evangelical childhood, Social Gospel worldview, and conscientious Methodism on a campaign that brought antiwar activism into the mainstream.
McGovern's candidacy signified a passing of the torch within Christian social justice. He initially allied with the ecumenical movement and the mainline Protestant churches during a time when these institutions worked easily with liberal statesmen. But the senator also galvanized a dynamic movement of evangelicals rooted in the New Left, who would dominate subsequent progressive religious activism as the mainline entered a period of decline. My Brother's Keeper argues for the influential, and often unwitting, role McGovern played in fomenting a "Religious Left" in 1970s America, a movement that continues to this day. It joins a growing body of scholarship that complicates the dominant narrative of that era's conservative Christianity.
McGovern's candidacy signified a passing of the torch within Christian social justice. He initially allied with the ecumenical movement and the mainline Protestant churches during a time when these institutions worked easily with liberal statesmen. But the senator also galvanized a dynamic movement of evangelicals rooted in the New Left, who would dominate subsequent progressive religious activism as the mainline entered a period of decline. My Brother's Keeper argues for the influential, and often unwitting, role McGovern played in fomenting a "Religious Left" in 1970s America, a movement that continues to this day. It joins a growing body of scholarship that complicates the dominant narrative of that era's conservative Christianity.
This is an excellent book on an important and long-neglected topic. It will be valuable for historians of the presidency, historians of American religion, and political scientists.'—Randall Balmer, author of Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter
'My Brother's Keeper will make an important contribution to our understanding of a significant twentieth-century political figure and to the broad field of religion and politics in modern American history.'—Thomas Knock, author of The Rise of a Prairie Statesman: The Life and Times of George McGovern
'Lucidly written and at times witty . . . Lempke's story is one of both continuity and change. He rightly situates 'progressive, social justice-oriented Protestant Christianity' at the heart of 'respectable civil life' in the 1960s and early 1970s.'—Journal of Church and State
'Mark A. Lempke's carefully researched account of the religious life and times of George McGovern offers an intimate portrait of an earnest Methodist working to bring Social Gospel values to rough-and-tumble American politics.'—Journal of American History
'This is an important work. It secures McGovern's place in American religious history. It also adds to our knowledge of progressive Christianity . . . Lempke's book deserves a broad readership.'—Fides et Historia
'Lempke's treatment of McGovern's theology is nuanced and informed, offering thick perspective on wider religious developments; his accounting of the activist's political awakening is equally incisive.'—American Historical Review
Mark A. Lempke is visiting instructor, SUNY Buffalo, Singapore campus.
