Most American Christians voted for the current administration and Congress, despite their potentially negative impact on people of color, the poor, and other vulnerable communities (not to mention a constitutional crisis). In his book, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors, John Compton says that American Protestants stopped loving their neighbors when they lost their cultural dominance in the 1970s. Prior to that, perceived threats to White Protestant dominance often resulted in powerful movements that scapegoated, excluded, and erased the non-Protestant and “heathen other” rather than seeking the common good. But… there were also many Christians who remained stubbornly faithful to Jesus’ command to love the neighbor despite majority opposition.

In today and next week’s “deep dive” episodes of the Pearl Dive, Tim Tseng and Randi Walker talk about Protestant advocacy for civil rights in Seattle, Washington in the 1940s and 1950s. Her 2012 book,  Religion and the Public Conscience, Ecumenical Civil Rights Work in Seattle, 1940-1960 shows how the Seattle Council of Churches and the Christians and Friends for Racial Equality fought for racial justice in the years before the civil rights movement. As part of these organizations and networks, Asian American Christians also played important roles in shaping a public moral conscience in Seattle.

Today, we get acquainted with Randi, talk about mainline Protestants, and discuss the emerging racial-ethnic landscape of Seattle prior to World War II. Next week, we will learn about ecumenical Protestant efforts in Seattle to secure a peaceful and just community in an emerging city with a significant Filipino, Chinese, and Japanese American presence.

*This conversation was recorded on September 25, 2023.

This season of Pearl Dive was brought to you by the Asian American Christian History Institute (AACHI) at the Fuller Theological Seminary’s Asian American Center and with the support of the KT Foundation.

LINKS

* Joanna Phillips, “Christian Friends for Racial Equality, 1942-1970,” The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project (University of Washington).

* John W. Compton, The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020). | Podcast

* Kathryn Gin Lum. Heathen: Religion and Race in American History (Harvard University Press, 2022).

* Nicholas T. Pruitt, Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism (New York: New York University Press, 2021).

* Mark Wild, Renewal: Liberal Protestants and the American City after World War II (University of Chicago Press, 2019). | Podcast

* Gene Zubovich, Before the Religious Right Liberal Protestants, Human Rights, and the Polarization of the United States (University of Pennsylvania, 2022).

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