|
Holy Humanitarians American Evangelicals and Global Aid
Heather D. Curtis
Harvard University Press, 2018 Hardcover. 370 p. ISBN 978-0674737365. $29.95 / £21.95 / €27
Reviewed by Corwin E. Smidt Calvin College, Grand Rapids (Michigan)
This book tells a fascinating story about the role that a Christian newspaper, the Christian Herald, played in fostering American humanitarian efforts to alleviate human suffering in the wake of earthquakes, famines, civil unrest, and political rebellions during the late ninetieth and early twentieth century. The major figures of the book are Louis Klopsch and Thomas DeWitt Talmage, the editors of the newspaper. For the better part of two decades after 1890, they used the pages of their paper as a means of generate sympathy for, and humanitarian response to, the people afflicted by the different crises they addressed (e.g., the Russian people in their famine of 1892, the people of Constantinople following the earthquake of 1894, the people of India in their famine years during the 1890s; the Chinese famine of 1901). And, in covering this story and the response of the American people to their pleas, the author provides “an alternative account of American humanitarianism” [5], one that offers ”a fuller account of how evangelical media and its consumers contributed to the development of American humanitarianism” [12]. Yet, while the book covers the endeavors of the editors of the Christian Herald during a narrow slice of American history, there is much to discover within its pages that has relevance for contemporary life. The issues associated with fostering and providing international aid during that era of globalization, immigration, and imperialism reveal many parallels to the social discussions and political debates evident in today’s context of globalization, refugees, and immigration. And, as a result, the history of the Christian Herald’s efforts reveals how the noblest of intentions can get caught up with prevailing social forces, cultural norms, and political dynamics that, in turn, can shape and even “distort” the initial motivational bases for engaging in such endeavors. On the one hand, the editors of the Christian Herald saw engaging in humanitarian efforts on behalf of Christ’s church as a means by which to achieve and secure unity within the broader confines of the Christian church during a period in which there was growing theological divisions within the church itself. Consequently, by “framing famine relief as a spiritual discipline, the Christian Herald succeeded in attracting a diverse constituency of American evangelicals to participate” [34]. However, in their efforts to aid Muslims and Christians affected by the earthquake in Constantinople or to aid Hindus and Christians in the famine crises of India, questions were raised by subscribers to the newspaper about whether aid should be given to all in need, or only to just Christians, whether aid itself ultimately led to dependency rather than self-sufficiency, and whether such aid simply became an instrument of American foreign policy in an era of imperialism. And, while Klopsch and Talmage consistently insisted that “selfless devotion to Christ” should, and did, motivate their subscribers to engage in benevolent acts “on behalf of God’s poor,” they did not hesitate to raise other grounds for international almsgiving—namely, opportunities to play important roles in enhancing American political, economic, and cultural influence abroad. And, as a result, “Many evangelicals became convinced that ‘Christian America’ had a special obligation to aid those who shared their democratic ideals, economic aspirations, and theological heritage” [58]. Thus, as the author notes, “By recounting this history,” the book “invites us to consider how racial prejudices and gender biases, nationalist ambitions and capitalist aspirations, class discriminations, and religious antipathies have influenced efforts to extend Christ’s comparison from Klopsch’s time to our own day” [15]. Beyond the contours of the discussion of this wider story, there are several other stories which surface as one moves from one chapter to the next. The magazine had a national audience, one that was not tied to affiliation with any one specific denomination; it was rooted religiously within the evangelical expression of American Christianity. And, as the author notes, by analyzing “the role of popular religious media in shaping the development of humanitarianism,” one can learn “how and why ordinary people have engaged in efforts to aid the affiliated” [5]. And, it is a remarkable story of charitable giving. Building on “a new theory of ethics that located morality primarily in the emotions and encouraged individuals to practice virtue by identifying with the distress of strangers” [29], the author analyzes the fund-raising techniques employed by the editors, the operational procedures they established, and the theological perspectives they marshalled to foster their relief efforts. Remarkedly, the editors acknowledged every donation, regardless of the amount given, in the columns of the paper and closed each fundraising effort with an audited report of the revenues collected and the expenditures made. In so doing, subscribers were assured “that the journal offered an efficient and trustworthy channel for their philanthropic endeavors” [87]. And, respond they did in a remarkable way (e.g., in 1900, the readers of the Christian Herald contributed a total of $641,072 to the India famine fund alone—equivalent to $17,656,250 in 2017 US dollars). A second subplot undergirding the broader themes of the book is the competition between the philanthropic efforts of the Christian Herald and that of Clara Baton’s American Red Cross for serving as the primary conduit for coordinating and shaping American aid. Initially, despite certain strains in their relationship, the two agencies worked together in dispensing aid to the earthquake victims of Constantinople. But, these strains subsequently deepened in the 1898 Cuban relief campaign, and by the turn of the century the two agencies went head to head in providing aid to China and Japan. And, despite the fact that President Theodore Roosevelt selected the Red Cross in 1906 to be the preferred agency for sending aid to Japan and appealed to the American people to send their donations through that organization, the amount of money raised by the Christian Herald for Japanese relief nevertheless exceeded by nearly four times that raised through the American Red Cross. Only in the aftermath of San Francisco’s earthquake did the Red Cross came to dominate American relief operations. In the end, what most differentiated the international philanthropic approaches adopted by the Red Cross and the Christian Herald was how the two engaged in distributing their aid. Whereas the Red Cross employed “paid staff members who had to travel long distances to unfamiliar regions where they would need to find housing, purchase food, and spend precious time acclimating themselves, the Christian Herald always sought local volunteers who knew the culture, understood the needs, and could disseminate supplies quickly and efficiently” [140-141]. If there is any one weakness of the book, it is that the author never really sought to define the word “evangelical” and explain just why the Christian Herald should be considered a manifestation of the “evangelical wing” of American Protestant Christianity. While I believe she is correct in that assumption, it is simply taken as a given. Nevertheless, despite that neglect, Holy Humanitarians provides a fascinating story of the role that the Christian Herald played in generating international humanitarian aid among Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Cercles © 2019 All rights are reserved and no reproduction from this site for whatever purpose is permitted without the permission of the copyright owner. Please contact us before using any material on this website.
|
|
|
