Patriotism Black and White

An intriguing study of religion, race, and nationalism within rural America, especially at a time when these matters are on such broad display.

~R. Drew Smith, Professor of Urban Ministry, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Nichole Phillips provides a wonderfully nuanced understanding of the contemporary dynamics of public theology, civil religion, and national identities among rural evangelicals in the United States. Taking seriously the shared and diverging perspectives of black and white Americans, Nichole Phillips thoughtfully mines what notions of service to country, sacrifice, and nationalism mean to diverse rural dwellers. In the process, she uncovers how a 'politics of death' shapes the triumphalism and nativism so characteristic of current forms of nationalism while offering important insight into a corrective for an American exceptionalism too long used to sacralize domination and exclusion. The book will surely generate robust conversation about the content, let alone the viability, of exceptionalism as a category to describe national identity in contemporary public discourse.

~Jeffrey Williams, Associate Professor of American Religious History, Brite Divinity School

At a time when black and white Christians seem inherently divided on matters of faith, race, and nation, Nichole Phillips' ethnography helps us to understand not only the ties that bind a small rural community, like military sacrifice and economic disenchantment, but also how social fissures experienced along racial fault lines consistently challenge the notion of a shared civil religion and national identity.

~Marla Frederick, Professor of African and African American Studies and of the Study of Religion, Harvard University

Patriotism Black and White is an interesting ethnographic study of a community in rural Tennessee. It compares rural black and white evangelicals and feelings about faith and patriotism in the United States using 9/11 and the election of Barack Obama as backdrops. Standing on four years of research, this book makes the case that America's national identity crisis relies on a 'nativistic and triumphalistic' American exceptionalism.

~Tamelyn N. Tucker-Worgs, Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies, Hood College

Phillips deserves much credit for forcing a sociological reckoning with race and American civil religion. Patriotism Black and White demonstrates the racial shortcomings of our previous scholarship and provides a roadmap for further study of evangelicals and their interpretations of what it means to be an 'American.'

~Mary Beth S. Matthew, Journal of Church and State