The Theology of Massive Resistance: Sex, Segregation, and the Sacred after Brown

Abstract

This chapter asserts that segregationists were motivated by their fear of miscegenation to seek divine sanction for the separation of the races. It explains that in their reading of the Bible, segregationists make theological justification for their opposition to the atheistic Supreme Court decision. It adds that many of the ordinary white southerners who quoted Holy Scripture in support of segregation were women.

“Communist Controlled Black Barbarism”: The Citizen’s Councils of America’s Anti-Communist Master Frame Cluster and the Renovation of White Supremacist Ideology

“…In instances where church leaders defied the will of their pro-segregationist congregations, ministers were usually ejected from their positions. As many local churches began to assert their autonomy in objection to the Southern Baptist Convention and other regional institutions, the struggle over the question of integration versus segregation became a contest over “cultural legitimacy” (Dailey 2005:163–165). This was the context in which the Council claimed authenticity as a grass-roots movement seeing no inconsistency between New Testament “brotherly love” theology and the notion of a divinely sanctioned segregated order (McMillen 1971).…”