The Bible Told Them So

Why did southern white evangelical Christians resist the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s? Simply put, they believed the Bible told them so. These white Christians entered the battle certain that God was on their side. Ultimately, the civil rights movement triumphed in the 1960s
and, with its success, fundamentally transformed American society. But this victory did little to change southern white evangelicals' theological commitment to segregation. Rather than abandoning their segregationist theology in the second half of the 1960s, white evangelicals turned their focus on
institutions they still controlled--churches, homes, denominations, and private colleges and secondary schools--and fought on.

Focusing on the case of South Carolina, The Bible Told Them So shows how, despite suffering defeat in the public sphere, white evangelicals continued to battle for their own institutions, preaching and practicing a segregationist Christianity they continued to believe reflected God's will.
Increasingly caught in the tension between their sincere belief that God desired segregation and their reluctance to give voice to such ideas for fear of being perceived as bigoted or intolerant, by the late 1960s southern white evangelicals embraced the rhetoric of colorblindness and protection of
the family as measures to maintain both segregation and respectable social standing. This strategy set southern white evangelicals on an alternative path for race relations in the decades ahead.

"The Bible Told Them So explains why southern white evangelical Christians in South Carolina resisted the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Simply put, they believed the Bible told them so. Interpreting the Bible in such a way, these white Christians entered the battle against the civil rights movement certain that God was on their side. Ultimately, the civil rights movement triumphed in the 1960s and, with its success, fundamentally transformed American society. But such a victory did little to change southern white evangelicals' theological commitment to segregation. Rather than abandoning their segregationist theology in the second half of the 1960s, white evangelicals turned their focus on institutions they still controlled-churches, homes, denominations, and private colleges and secondary schools-and fought on. Despite suffering defeat in the public sphere, white evangelicals continued to battle for their own institutions, preaching and practicing a segregationist Christianity they continued to believe reflected God's will. Increasingly caught in the tension between their sincere beliefs that God desired segregation and their reticence to vocalize such ideas for fear of seeming bigoted or intolerant by the late 1960s, southern white evangelicals eventually embraced rhetoric of colorblindness and protection of the family as measures to maintain both segregation and respectable social standing. Such a strategy set southern white evangelicals on an alternative path for race relations in the decades ahead"--

"How is possible that Southern White Christians could employ their faith to oppose racial equality and opportunity? Dr. Russell Hawkins shows us how with piercing clarity. This deeply-researched work reads like a novel, yet is at the same time packed with page after page of insight and revelation. A
true eye-opener." -- Michael Emerson, co-author of Divided by Faith and United By Faith

"Hawkins convincingly demonstrates how religion framed, informed, and bolstered South Carolina whites' resistance to racial equality. He further shows how, once the raw biblical justification of segregation acquired a bad reputation, the rhetoric of color-blindness and anti-identity politics carried
this resistance forward under a more respectable but deceptive guise." -- Carolyn Ren�e Dupont, author of Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1975

"Increasingly scholars of evangelicalism in the United States are telling more complex stories about the interplay of race and politics within its faithful ranks. The Bible Told Them So generates an important new ripple forcing us to consider the ubiquitous nature of disparate white evangelical
Christian denominations in their stance against black racial progress and desegregation. Stylistically unflinching while managing to remain approachably delicate, Hawkins has produced a tour de force that tells an unsettling tale of certain white evangelicals' efforts to maintain a dominant social
order" -- Derek S. Hicks, author of Reclaiming Spirit in the Black Faith Tradition