Sourcing the major traditions of progressive Christian social ethics—social gospel liberalism, Niebuhrian realism, and liberation theology—Gary Dorrien argues for the social-ethical necessity of social justice politics. In carefully reasoned essays, he focuses on three subjects: the ethics and politics of economic justice, racial and gender justice, and antimilitarism, making a constructive case for economic democracy, along with a liberationist understanding of racial and gender justice and an anti-imperial form of liberal internationalism. In Dorrien's view, the three major discourse traditions of progressive Christian social ethics share a fundamental commitment to transform the structures of society in the direction of social justice. His reflections on these topics feature innovative analyses of major figures, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, James Burnham, Norman Thomas, and Michael Harrington, and an extensive engagement with contemporary intellectuals, such as Rosemary R. Ruether, Katie Cannon, Gregory Baum, and Cornel West. Dorrien also weaves his personal experiences into his narrative, especially his involvement in social justice movements. He includes a special chapter on the 2008 presidential campaign and the historic candidacy of Barack Obama.

Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice (Columbia Series on Religion and Politics)

History

Dorrien, Gary

World

Columbia University Press

The black social gospel emerged from the trauma of Reconstruction to ask what a “new abolition” would require in American society. It became an important tradition of religious thought and resistance, helping to create an alternative public sphere of excluded voices and providing the intellectual underpinnings of the civil rights movement. This tradition has been seriously overlooked, despite its immense legacy. In this groundbreaking work, Gary Dorrien describes the early history of the black social gospel from its nineteenth-century founding to its close association in the twentieth century with W. E. B. Du Bois. He offers a new perspective on modern Christianity and the civil rights era by delineating the tradition of social justice theology and activism that led to Martin Luther King Jr.

The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel

Americas

Yale University Press

This magisterial follow-up to The New Abolition, a Grawemeyer Award winner, tells the crucial second chapter in the black social gospel’s history. The civil rights movement was one of the most searing developments in modern American history. It abounded with noble visions, resounded with magnificent rhetoric, and ended in nightmarish despair. It won a few legislative victories and had a profound impact on U.S. society, but failed to break white supremacy. The symbol of the movement, Martin Luther King Jr., soared so high that he tends to overwhelm anything associated with him. Yet the tradition that best describes him and other leaders of the civil rights movement has been strangely overlooked. In his latest book, Gary Dorrien continues to unearth the heyday and legacy of the black social gospel, a tradition with a shimmering history, a martyred central figure, and enduring relevance today. This part of the story centers around King and the mid-twentieth-century black church leaders who embraced the progressive, justice-oriented, internationalist social gospel from the beginning of their careers and fulfilled it, inspiring and leading America’s greatest liberation movement.

Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel

An expansive and ambitious intellectual history of democratic socialism from one of the world’s leading intellectual historians and social ethicists The fallout from twenty years of neoliberal economic globalism has sparked a surge of interest in the old idea of democratic socialism—a democracy in which the people control the economy and government, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included. With a focus on the intertwined legacies of Christian socialism and Social Democratic politics in Britain and Germany, this book traces the story of democratic socialism from its birth in the nineteenth century through the mid‑1960s. Examining the tenets on which the movement was founded and how it adapted to different cultural, religious, and economic contexts from its beginnings through the social and political traumas of the twentieth century, Gary Dorrien reminds us that Christian socialism paved the way for all liberation theologies that make the struggles of oppressed peoples the subject of redemption. He argues for a decentralized economic democracy and anti-imperial internationalism.

Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

A sweeping, ambitious history of American democratic socialism from one of the world's leading intellectual historians and social ethicists The United States is witnessing a surge of democratic socialism, a reflection of a widespread recognition that global capitalism works only for a minority and is harming the planet's ecology. This history of American democratic socialism from its beginning to the present day begins with radical democrats of the early American republic and tracks the American refashioning of a European idea. It tells a story about socialists who founded the Republican Party and the first American socialist organizations, emphasizing that women and African Americans came to socialist activism mostly through Christian socialism, as did leaders of the first great hope of radical industrial unionism, the Knights of Labor. &nbsp; Comprehensive, deeply researched and highly original, this book offers an impressive synthesis of secular and religious socialisms, detailing both their intellectual and their organizational histories.

American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory

The third and final volume in the first comprehensive history of Black social Christianity, by the “greatest theological ethicist of the twenty-first century” (Michael Eric Dyson)\nThe Black social gospel is a tradition of unsurpassed importance in American life, and it remains ongoing. So Gary Dorrien argues in his groundbreaking trilogy of books on the history of Black social Christianity. Following his Grawemeyer Award–winning book The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel (2015) and his Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel (2018), this third, concluding volume offers an interpretation of Black social Christianity since the early 1970s.\nBeginning in the shadow of Martin Luther King Jr., it examines the past fifty years of this intellectual and activist tradition, interpreting its politics, theology, ethics, social criticism, and social justice organizing. Considering the intersection of Black social Christianity with liberation theology, womanist theology, the LGBTQ+ movement, critical theory, antiracism efforts, progressive religion, broad-based interfaith organizing, global solidarity politics, and more, Dorrien shows how those who carried on the struggle in King’s name were often lifted by King’s moral example.\nA Darkly Radiant Vision features in-depth discussions of Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Samuel DeWitt Proctor, Gayraud Wilmore, James Cone, Cornel West, Katie Geneva Cannon, Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Traci Blackmon, William J. Barber II, Raphael G. Warnock, and many others.

A Darkly Radiant Vision: The Black Social Gospel in the Shadow of MLK

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Imperial Designs

This work argues that the influence of neoconservatives has been none too small and all too important in the shaping of this monumental doctrine and historic moment in American foreign policy. Through a fascinating account of the central figures in the neoconservative movement and their push for war with Iraq, he reveals the imperial designs that have guided them in their quest for the establishment of a global Pax Americana.

Politics & Government

Routledge

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dorrien, Gary. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dorrien, Gary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dorrien, Gary. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice (Columbia Series on Religion and Politics)

Economy, Difference, Empire: Social Ethics for Social Justice (Columbia Series on Religion and Politics)

The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel

Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel

The New Abolition: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel

Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism

Breaking White Supremacy: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Social Gospel

American Democratic Socialism: History, Politics, Religion, and Theory

A Darkly Radiant Vision: The Black Social Gospel in the Shadow of MLK

Imperial Designs