Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid

by Heather D. Curtis

Overview

On May 10, 1900, an enthusiastic Brooklyn crowd bid farewell to the Quito. The ship sailed for famine-stricken Bombay, carrying both tangible relief—thousands of tons of corn and seeds—and “a tender message of love and sympathy from God’s children on this side of the globe to those on the other.” The Quito may never have gotten under way without support from the era’s most influential religious newspaper, the Christian Herald, which urged its American readers to alleviate poverty and suffering abroad and at home. In Holy Humanitarians, Heather D. Curtis argues that evangelical media campaigns transformed how Americans responded to domestic crises and foreign disasters during a pivotal period for the nation.

Through graphic reporting and the emerging medium of photography, evangelical publishers fostered a tremendously popular movement of faith-based aid that rivaled the achievements of competing agencies like the American Red Cross. By maintaining that the United States was divinely ordained to help the world’s oppressed and needy, the Christian Herald linked humanitarian assistance with American nationalism at a time when the country was stepping onto the global stage. Social reform, missionary activity, disaster relief, and economic and military expansion could all be understood as integral features of Christian charity.

Drawing on rigorous archival research, Curtis lays bare the theological motivations, social forces, cultural assumptions, business calculations, and political dynamics that shaped America’s ambivalent embrace of evangelical philanthropy. In the process she uncovers the seeds of today’s heated debates over the politics of poverty relief and international aid.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674737365
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/16/2018
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Heather D. Curtis is Associate Professor of Religion at Tufts University.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 A Religious Paper Thoroughly Humanitarian 17

2 Cosmopolitan Compassion 55

3 We Are Fighting for Philanthropy 81

4 Almoner of the World 123

5 The Limits of Evangelical Benevolence 171

6 To Safeguard Christian America 213

7 A Shifting Landscape 259

Epilogue 279

Abbreviations 297

Notes 299

Acknowledgments 349

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

03/26/2018
In this useful study, Curtis (Faith in the Great Physician), associate professor of religion at Tufts University, broadly examines evangelical Christian humanitarianism at the turn of the 20th century by focusing on the efforts of organizations associated with the Christian Herald newspaper. Much of her material comes from the archives of the paper, a popular evangelical publication in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Herald’s owners and editors, Louis Klopsch and Thomas Talmage, used the newspaper’s reach to inform American evangelicals of international disasters and solicit funds for disaster relief. Curtis explores the difficulties this presented for Klopsch, Talmage, and the associated relief organizations in their evangelical context. For example, when they solicited funds for victims of an earthquake in Constantinople, readers responded with anti-Muslim backlash. Klopsch and Talmage, Curtis writes, thought of aid as a way of not only Christianizing international populations but of Americanizing them as well. This ideological bent inevitably led to the Herald frequently clashing with non-sectarian organizations such as the American Red Cross. The final chapters of the book wrap up the story of the Christian Herald—it ceased publication in 1992—and take a too-brief glance at the history of Christian evangelical humanitarian efforts through the end of the 20th century. Despite the narrow focus, Curtis’s study sheds new light on the development of evangelical aid relief in America. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Deeply researched and cogently argued, Holy Humanitarians is a major contribution to the literature on the American missionary impulse and philanthropy. Curtis is a master stylist; her book is a model of how to write with beauty and grace.

Grant Wacker

A remarkable achievement. Holy Humanitarians offers valuable insights into issues of domestic inequality, Christian–Muslim encounters abroad, and Americans’ ambivalent attitudes about the suffering of distant others. This thoughtful, nuanced exploration of the contradictions of humanitarian sentiment is rich and compelling.

Melani McAlister

A wonderfully written and powerfully insightful book that stretches and deepens our understanding of how religion helped shape America’s engagement with the world. Historians have recently explored humanitarianism and philanthropy around the turn of the twentieth century, yet Curtis shows that we’ve only just scratched the surface.

Andrew Preston

Provides an illuminating lens into evangelical culture at the turn of the 20th century…Curtis explores the ways in which evangelical philanthropy created and curated the images of helpless people abroad.

Marginalia - David C. Kirkpatrick

A stellar study of the popular Christian Herald and its outsized importance in the emergence of American evangelical media, philanthropy, and global engagement at the turn of the twentieth century. This is a colorful, compelling narrative.

Darren Dochuk

But how did [photographs of ‘sponsored’ children in developing countries]—not to mention the acts of transnational giving that they are intended to motivate—become so ubiquitous in American evangelical households? And how did evangelical institutions become such important players in international relief and development work in the first place? [Curtis] answers these questions and more in her brilliant new book…which shows that evangelical leadership in these realms significantly predated the tidal wave of postwar generosity that gave rise to organizations such as World Vision… [S]he underscores the urgency of ongoing moral reflection: After all, as her story makes clear, love of one’s global neighbor has sometimes come with dubious strings attached.

Christianity Today - Heath W. Carter

[Curtis’s] book shows that evangelicals have always displayed a mixture of innocence and partisan zeal.

Wall Street Journal - D. G. Hart