This book traces the development of a theology of nonviolence in the popular literature of antebellum social reform movements. Between 1820 and 1860, American social reformers pioneered a “politics of identification” that was deeply rooted in liberal Christian theology. Activists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, along with sentimental authors like Catharine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe, drew on the doctrine of the imago dei, or image of God, to argue that God is present both in the victims of violence and in those who use nonviolent means to overcome oppression. This p ... More

This book traces the development of a theology of nonviolence in the popular literature of antebellum social reform movements. Between 1820 and 1860, American social reformers pioneered a “politics of identification” that was deeply rooted in liberal Christian theology. Activists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, along with sentimental authors like Catharine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe, drew on the doctrine of the imago dei, or image of God, to argue that God is present both in the victims of violence and in those who use nonviolent means to overcome oppression. This posed a sharp alternative to the providential theology of Reformed orthodoxy, which was more inclined to see God's hand in wars and other violent events. Proponents of the new theology can be characterized as “radical Christian liberals.” They linked their liberal faith in human nature to the Christian doctrine of the imago dei, yet were willing to contemplate the overthrow of all social institutions, even ostensibly liberal or Christian ones, that blocked the free expression of the imago dei.