Acts of Conscience

In response to the massive bloodshed that defined the twentieth century,American religious radicals developed a modern form of nonviolent protest, one thatcombined Christian principles with new uses of mass media. Greatly influenced by theideas of Mohandas Gandhi, these "acts of conscience" included sit-ins, boycotts,labor strikes, and conscientious objection to war.Beginningwith World War I and ending with the ascendance of Martin Luther King Jr., JosephKip Kosek traces the impact of A. J. Muste, Richard Gregg, and other radicalChristian pacifists on American democratic theory and practice. These dissentersfound little hope in the secular ideologies of Wilsonian Progressivism,revolutionary Marxism, and Cold War liberalism, all of which embraced organizedkilling at one time or another. The example of Jesus, they believed, demonstratedthe immorality and futility of such violence under any circumstance and for anycause. Yet the theories of Christian nonviolence are anything but fixed. Fordecades, followers have actively reinterpreted the nonviolent tradition, keepingpace with developments in politics, technology, and culture.Tracing the rise of militant nonviolence across a century ofindustrial conflict, imperialism, racial terror, and international warfare, Kosekrecovers radical Christians' remarkable stance against the use of deadly force, evenduring World War II and other seemingly just causes. His research sheds new light onan interracial and transnational movement that posed a fundamental, and stillrelevant, challenge to the American political and religiousmainstream.