Publisher Fact Sheet This groundbreaking study analyzes the evolution of Southern Baptists' attitudes toward African Americans during a tumultuous period of change in the United States.

In the summer of 1964, the turmoil of the civil rights movement reached its peak in Mississippi, with activists across the political spectrum claiming that God was on their side in the struggle over racial justice. This was the summer when violence against blacks increased at an alarming rate and when the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi resulted in national media attention. Charles Marsh takes us back to this place and time, when the lives of activists on all sides of the civil rights issue converged and their images of God clashed. He weaves their voices into a gripping narrative: a Ku Klux Klansman, for example, borrows fiery language from the Bible to link attacks on blacks to his "priestly calling"; a middle-aged woman describes how the Gospel inspired her to rally other African Americans to fight peacefully for their dignity; a SNCC worker tells of harrowing encounters with angry white mobs and his pilgrimage toward a new racial spirituality called Black Power. Through these emotionally charged stories, Marsh invites us to consider the civil rights movement anew, in terms of religion as a powerful yet protean force driving social action. The book's central figures are Fannie Lou Hamer, who "worked for Jesus" in civil rights activism; Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi; William Douglas Hudgins, an influential white Baptist pastor and unofficial theologian of the "closed society"; Ed King, a white Methodist minister and Mississippi native who campaigned to integrate Protestant congregations; and Cleveland Sellers, a SNCC staff member turned black militant. Marsh focuses on the events and religious convictions that led each person into the political upheaval of 1964. He presents an unforgettable American social landscape, one that is by turns shameful and inspiring. In conclusion, Marsh suggests that it may be possible to sift among these narratives and lay the groundwork for a new thinking about racial reconciliation and the beloved community. He maintains that the person who embraces faith's life-affirming energies will leave behind a most powerful legacy of social activism and compassion.

Monographs on philosophers multiply daily but on occasion the question of why a particular philosopher matters. If we stop thinking about them by asking why, then will they cease to exist? When Mercer University Press opened its doors more than thirty years ago, it committed itself to religious studies in general, and to several thinkers. One of those was Soslash;ren Kierkegaard. Now, as the Press concludes a major publishing event with the completion of the International Kierkegaard Commentary, it seeks to honor the only series editor it has known: Robert Perkins. The method of this honor is by asking Why Kierkegaard Matters. The leading Kierkegaard scholars have contributed essays that range from the very personal and memoir-esque to the academic and analytical. As a result, this festshcrift is not only a book to honor an extraordinary editor, but is in it's own right a major contribution to the assessment of the importance of Kierkegaard. Written with the general reader in mind, this collection will prove useful by both scholar and student, and will lead the general reader to encounter one of the most original Christian philosophers in the history of the world.

Born into a sharecropping family in New Hebron, Mississippi, in 1930, and only receiving a third-grade education, John M. Perkins has been a pioneering prophetic African American voice for reconciliation and social justice to America's white evangelical churches. Often an unwelcome voice and always a passionate, provocative clarion, Perkins persisted for forty years in bringing about the formation of the Christian Community Development Association—a large network of evangelical churches and community organizations working in America's poorest communities—and inspired the emerging generation of young evangelicals concerned with releasing the Church from its cultural captivity and oppressive materialism. John M. Perkins has received surprisingly little attention from historians of modern American religious history and theologians. Mobilizing for the Common Good is an exploration of his theological significance. With contributions from theologians, historians, and activists, this book contends that Perkins ushered in a paradigm shift in twentieth-century evangelical theology that continues to influence Christian community development projects and social justice activists today.

Dr. Jerry Vines accepted the call to pastor First Baptist Church, Jacksonville,FL, in July 1982 and retired in February of 2006. He was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in both 1988 and 1989. He traveled the country preaching and teaching the Bible at churches, conferences, and denominational meetings. Now, in his autobiography, the pastor, Baptist statesman, and father tells his story that begins in Carrollton, GA, takes him to Jacksonville, FL, and whirls through the fiery controversies of the conservative resurgence.Readers gain perspective on some of a denomination’s pivotal moments through the eyes of one of its most influential figures, focusing on his life and ministry.