Introduction

The introduction sketches out the theological, diplomatic, and political commitments of ecumenical and evangelical Protestantism in twentieth century America. It likewise discusses the twentieth-century origins of Christian nationalism and Christian globalism in American Protestant thought, surveying in particular how the two world wars and onset of the Cold War both activated and refined these competing theologies of global engagement. Beyond the American context, it outlines the German Protestant pushback to American efforts to reconstruct Germany on an American basis. Wrestling with the legacy of their own nationalist theologies, German Protestants drew on the devastation of the Second World War to outline a new “third way” theology that positioned Protestant churches as global mediators within the intense ideological landscape of the Cold War. When a growing number of American Protestants found themselves converted to this line of thought, it became clear that their efforts to remake Europe had in fact begun to remake them.

The Lonely Flame

This chapter surveys how the American Protestant ecumenical leader Stewart Winfield Herman, Jr., responded to the Nazi regime while serving as a pastor in Berlin from 1936 to 1941. Through an examination of Herman’s views of Hitler, the German Church Struggle, and Nazi persecution of the Jews, it weighs just how conflicted American Protestants, including leading Protestant ecumenists, proved on these matters. Based in the Nazi capital, Herman in particular captured the uncertain mind of American Protestants on German affairs. In Berlin, Herman expressed caution about Nazi totalitarianism, yet he still proved open to some of Hitler’s aims of national renewal and voiced his support of the German leader. He also hesitated to support the Confessing Church at first, fearing that the movement might cause enduring ecclesial schism. Finally, when Berlin’s Jews came to Herman seeking aid, anti-Judaism and Christian antisemitism led him and other Americans to be slow to offer their help. Overall, Herman’s interwar record illustrates how Protestant ecumenists were far from monolithic or fixed in their views of their era’s challenges. As their witness fractured, they struggled to meaningfully counteract Nazi fascism.

Battleground Europe

This chapter explores the transformation of postwar Europe into a spiritual battleground between ecumenists and evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics, and American democrats and Soviet communists. As the occupation of Germany matured, both ecumenical and evangelical Protestants sought to win over Germany as a new anti-communist partner in the heart of Europe. They likewise sought to establish their competing spiritual orders across the continent through ecumenical tours of reconciliation and evangelical revivals. The postwar activism of American Protestants extended far beyond just seeking to revive Europe’s soul. Both ecumenical and evangelical Protestants mobilized to create a Protestant bulwark against Soviet communism across the continent, as well as to counteract a postwar resurgence of the Vatican and Roman Catholicism. Under their watch, the struggle for the soul of Europe began.

Epilogue

The epilogue considers how the spiritual reconstruction of Europe solidified Christian nationalism and Christian globalism as enduring theologies of global engagement within American Protestant churches. It traces the legacy of these Cold War theologies through an era of decolonization, the global growth of Christianity, and new international challenges at the start of the twenty-first century. In particular, it surveys how the “third way” theology of European Protestants such as Karl Barth and Martin Niemöller led American Protestants to rethink their commitments to American Christian nationalism. Yet a new wave of spiritual “cold warriors” helped ensure the struggle for the soul of Europe and the United States would continue well into the start of a new century.

God’s Marshall Plan

This chapter examines how ecumenical American Protestants sought to come to Europe’s “spiritual aid” through carrying out a “Marshall Plan for the Churches.” By the summer of 1947, these Protestant ecumenists were preparing to rebuild European churches, distribute material aid across the continent, and promote theological exchange across the Atlantic. All the while, they also sought to strengthen the standing of democracy and capitalism in Europe and, in particular, to bolster European spiritual defenses against communism. While German and European Protestants welcomed ecumenical aid, they also protested the Cold War interests of the United States. In particular, they challenged American ecumenists for contributing to the spread of what they deemed a new kind of American imperial order in the world. In response, a growing number of Europeans called on ecumenical Protestants across the North Atlantic to become a “third way” spiritual force between American democracy and Soviet communism.

Reviving the Heartland

This chapter documents the mission of American ecumenist Stewart Winfield Herman, Jr., in occupied Germany and surveys the American ecumenical effort to spiritually remake the defeated nation in America’s image. It argues that Herman and other leading American ecumenists sought to reform the German churches along American and ecumenical lines in order to establish a new Christian order across the Atlantic. It also shows that the occupation ultimately yielded a spiritual quagmire within the German Protestant church and the transatlantic ecumenical movement, one shaped by fierce historical divisions and animosities. A deep-seated suspicion toward American spiritual activism and imperialism likewise inspired fierce German opposition to American spiritual reforms. Nonetheless, American Protestants still drew inspiration from the occupation to launch much broader spiritual interventions across the entire European continent.

Spiritual Rearmament

This chapter documents evangelical Protestant efforts to “spiritually rearm” Germany and Europe in an era of Cold War militarization. These spiritual efforts complemented a vast increase in American military capabilities during the early 1950s, as well as West Germany’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The evangelical pursuit of Europe’s “spiritual rearmament” signaled the rising prominence of Protestant evangelicals in American politics and diplomacy. Vying for spiritual leadership of their nation, Protestant evangelicals prepared to spread across the globe a gospel of faith, freedom, and free enterprise. In response to Cold War rearmament campaigns, a growing number of American ecumenists began to adopt Europe’s “third way” theology.

World Chaos

This chapter investigates how leading ecumenists like Henry Smith Leiper and fundamentalists such as J. Frank Norris and Gerald Winrod responded to a series of crises that swept over the transatlantic world in the early 1930s, including the global Great Depression, Hitler’s seizure of power, the German Church Struggle, and Nazi persecution of the Jews. It documents how ecumenical and fundamentalist Protestants in the United States developed dramatically different interpretations of these events. While ecumenists called for a new global order of democracy and ecumenism, fundamentalists undertook crusades against evil both at home and abroad. In sum, their respective responses to these challenges further fractured their churches and their nation.

For Christ and Country

The Second World War marked a landmark moment of transition for both ecumenical and evangelical Protestants in the United States. The arrival of war in December 1941 emboldened both groups of Protestants to make the case not only for armed intervention abroad but also for spiritual intercession. The pacifist isolationism of Protestant ecumenists faded as they embraced the Christian realism of Reinhold Niebuhr and called for a new “American Century” of Protestant and democratic values. Meanwhile, fueled by an apocalyptic militarism, American fundmenatlists sought to use the war to reclaim a more prominent role in American politics and foreign affairs. As both groups of American Protestants mobilized “for Christ and country,” they also began to outline competing missions to remake the world, and above all Germany, out of the ruins of war.

Spiritual Conquest

This chapter examines the twentieth-century origins of Christian nationalism and Christian globalism in American Protestant missionary efforts and the First World War. It also asserts the prominence of American Protestant engagement with Germany in shaping both theological modes of engagement. Whether it was Germany’s autocratic ambitions or its liberal theology, a growing number of American Protestant ecumenists and evangelicals alike identified Germany as a major threat to their global mission. While ecumenists mobilized for war to build a new Wilsonian international order, evangelicals found inspiration in their premillennial apocalypticism to oppose Germany. The Great War and its aftermath then led both ecumenical and evangelical Protestants to see one another as rivals within their own nation. These events ultimately activated and refined competing forms of international engagement that would define America’s global mission in the decades to follow.