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Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK's Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930
To many Americans, modern marches by the Ku Klux Klan may seem like a throwback to the past or posturing by bigoted hatemongers. To Kelly Baker, they are a reminder of how deeply the Klan is rooted in American mainstream Protestant culture.
Most studies of the KKK dismiss it as an organization of racists attempting to intimidate minorities and argue that the Klan used religion only as a rhetorical device. Baker contends instead that the KKK based its justifications for hatred on a particular brand of Protestantism that resonated with mainstream Americans, one that employed burning crosses and robes to explicitly exclude Jews and Catholics.
To show how the Klan used religion to further its agenda of hate while appealing to everyday Americans, Kelly Baker takes readers back to its “second incarnation” in the 1920s. During that decade, the revived Klan hired a public relations firm that suggested it could reach a wider audience by presenting itself as a “fraternal Protestant organization that championed white supremacy as opposed to marauders of the night.” That campaign was so successful that the Klan established chapters in all forty-eight states.
Baker has scoured official newspapers and magazines issued by the Klan during that era to reveal the inner workings of the order and show how its leadership manipulated religion, nationalism, gender, and race. Through these publications we see a Klan trying to adapt its hate-based positions with the changing times in order to expand its base by reaching beyond a narrowly defined white male Protestant America.
This engrossing exposé looks closely at the Klan’s definition of Protestantism, its belief in a strong relationship between church and state, its notions of masculinity and femininity, and its views on Jews and African Americans. The book also examines in detail the Klan’s infamous 1924 anti-Catholic riot at Notre Dame University and draws alarming parallels between the Klan’s message of the 1920s and current posturing by some Tea Party members and their sympathizers.
Analyzing the complex religious arguments the Klan crafted to gain acceptability—and credibility—among angry Americans, Baker reveals that the Klan was more successful at crafting this message than has been credited by historians. To tell American history from this startling perspective demonstrates that some citizens still participate in intolerant behavior to protect a fabled white Protestant nation.
Most studies of the KKK dismiss it as an organization of racists attempting to intimidate minorities and argue that the Klan used religion only as a rhetorical device. Baker contends instead that the KKK based its justifications for hatred on a particular brand of Protestantism that resonated with mainstream Americans, one that employed burning crosses and robes to explicitly exclude Jews and Catholics.
To show how the Klan used religion to further its agenda of hate while appealing to everyday Americans, Kelly Baker takes readers back to its “second incarnation” in the 1920s. During that decade, the revived Klan hired a public relations firm that suggested it could reach a wider audience by presenting itself as a “fraternal Protestant organization that championed white supremacy as opposed to marauders of the night.” That campaign was so successful that the Klan established chapters in all forty-eight states.
Baker has scoured official newspapers and magazines issued by the Klan during that era to reveal the inner workings of the order and show how its leadership manipulated religion, nationalism, gender, and race. Through these publications we see a Klan trying to adapt its hate-based positions with the changing times in order to expand its base by reaching beyond a narrowly defined white male Protestant America.
This engrossing exposé looks closely at the Klan’s definition of Protestantism, its belief in a strong relationship between church and state, its notions of masculinity and femininity, and its views on Jews and African Americans. The book also examines in detail the Klan’s infamous 1924 anti-Catholic riot at Notre Dame University and draws alarming parallels between the Klan’s message of the 1920s and current posturing by some Tea Party members and their sympathizers.
Analyzing the complex religious arguments the Klan crafted to gain acceptability—and credibility—among angry Americans, Baker reveals that the Klan was more successful at crafting this message than has been credited by historians. To tell American history from this startling perspective demonstrates that some citizens still participate in intolerant behavior to protect a fabled white Protestant nation.
342 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2011
28 people are currently reading
465 people want to read
About the author
Kelly J. Baker
11 books37 followersKelly is the author of Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930, The Zombies Are Coming!: The Realities of the Zombie Apocalypse in American Culture, Grace Period: A Memoir in Pieces, and Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia.
She's also the editor of Women in Higher Education, a feminist print monthly, and a freelance writer with a religious studies PhD who covers religion, higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, and popular culture.
She's written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Killing the Buddha, The Rumpus, Sacred Matters, Chronicle Vitae, Religion & Politics, Washington Post, and Brain, Child.
When she's not writing assignments or wrangling two children, she's writing a cultural history of zombie apocalypses and making her way toward a collection of essays about endings and other disasters.
She's also the editor of Women in Higher Education, a feminist print monthly, and a freelance writer with a religious studies PhD who covers religion, higher education, gender, labor, motherhood, and popular culture.
She's written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Killing the Buddha, The Rumpus, Sacred Matters, Chronicle Vitae, Religion & Politics, Washington Post, and Brain, Child.
When she's not writing assignments or wrangling two children, she's writing a cultural history of zombie apocalypses and making her way toward a collection of essays about endings and other disasters.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 10, 2013
Baker posits a compelling argument that the Klan is less fringe than we'd like to imagine; however, much is sadly lost by the monograph's rather carelessly repetitive organization, and ultimately, Baker fails to define the "Klan Gospel." What was it about the Klan's ideology, which is to say conservative American evangelical ideology, that caused them to interpret Protestant Scripture so differently from other Protestants and emboldened them to embrace terrorism? What is it about this vein of evangelicalism that continues to produce strikingly similar rhetoric from certain swaths of Fox News and the Tea Party? Does Protestantism corrupt American ideals of tolerance and equality or do certain American myths (ie. vigilante-ism) distort the Gospel narrative of Christianity? The Gospel According to the Klan exhibits a particularly disheartening lack of nuance or clarity.
January 13, 2019
Fascinating. Baker argues that the second iteration of the Klan was not exceptional, but representative of certain swaths of 1920s American culture. One of the things that really jumped out at me is the similarity between the rhetoric of the 1920s Klan and the 1920s DAR. Some of it was so familiar that I want to check to see if they were publishing some of the same nationalist writers.
My only quibble is that I have more unanswered questions about how the Klan developed their theology of white nationalism. Did they come up with these concepts through a practice of "common sense" bible reading, or were they adapting theological models that their leaders had learned through more formal study. A number of Klansmen identified themselves as ministers, but its not clear which denomination they belonged to, how and if they were educated etc - I would have found the answers to those questions very interesting.
My only quibble is that I have more unanswered questions about how the Klan developed their theology of white nationalism. Did they come up with these concepts through a practice of "common sense" bible reading, or were they adapting theological models that their leaders had learned through more formal study. A number of Klansmen identified themselves as ministers, but its not clear which denomination they belonged to, how and if they were educated etc - I would have found the answers to those questions very interesting.
June 23, 2021
This book is incredibly dense, and I mean that in a good way. Baker paints with deliberately thin strokes, picking apart the minutia of these religious and theological beliefs.
This book is difficult to read because it forces me as a WASP to deconstruct much of the environment I grew up in and to see the lines that unfortunately cross between mainline Protestantism and the overtly abhorrent views of the KKK. But ultimately that is what makes this such an important read, Baker instigates thought and provides context to the discussion. It is a must read for anyone having grown up WASP, especially in the south and it's caused me to reflect a lot on the normalcy of white supremacy in its most discrete and "pleasant" forms.
It's interesting that the afterward to this book acts as a foreshadowing to much of the political turmoil we've seen in the past four years. The fears she holds in 2010 and the daunting final proposition she ends the book with have gained more horror and consequence in the polarization that has occurred since.
This book is difficult to read because it forces me as a WASP to deconstruct much of the environment I grew up in and to see the lines that unfortunately cross between mainline Protestantism and the overtly abhorrent views of the KKK. But ultimately that is what makes this such an important read, Baker instigates thought and provides context to the discussion. It is a must read for anyone having grown up WASP, especially in the south and it's caused me to reflect a lot on the normalcy of white supremacy in its most discrete and "pleasant" forms.
It's interesting that the afterward to this book acts as a foreshadowing to much of the political turmoil we've seen in the past four years. The fears she holds in 2010 and the daunting final proposition she ends the book with have gained more horror and consequence in the polarization that has occurred since.
January 20, 2020
I can't quite recall when I first learned about the Ku Klux Klan. Growing up in Texas, I'm sure I encountered it at an early age. My vague memories include the image of the white hood, the name, and an awareness that it was loosely associated with the Civil War. An early impression was the silliness of it--the name's ridiculous alliteration; terms like "klavern" and "Kloran" and "Kleagle;" the outlandish outfits. Racism was not a first impression. I thought they were anti-Christian since they burned crosses.
Later, when we studied it in school, I was still incredulous. Who would want to dress up like that and terrorize others? Evidently, dear young Melody, a lot of people.
Kelly J. Baker's book concerns the second wave of the KKK, from 1915-1930, a resurrection of sorts after the Reconstruction iteration petered out. Admirably, she employs a historical method of "seeing with," rather than outright compassion or vilification. The Gospel According to the Klan is worth the read just to observe how well Baker handles the KKK as a historian.
Baker's essential argument is that the KKK relied heavily on Protestantism as a way to increase its membership, further its ends, empower its rhetoric, and cast its vision for America. Baker relates aspects of the KKK that are often overlooked in favor of its racist practices. Antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-immigration, and a few more antis are studied in detail. Evidently, the KKK did not limit its reign of terror to black people, but also freely whipped, tortured, and murdered "deviant" members of local communities (see: out-of-work men who "could not provide well enough" for their families; working mothers; divorced women). Baker also looks at economic reasons for the targeting of black people--many instances of KKK violence on black men occurred when white men expressed anger or jealousy over black men's employment.
The usage of Protestant language and symbols in KKK rituals, publications, and conversations is staggering. (Evidently, burning crosses is somehow pro-Christian.) KKK members honestly thought they were doing God's work. Emotionally, I find this unconscionable; historically, there's enough evidence to write several more books on this topic. A chapter that stood out to me was "The Sacredness of Motherhood: White Womanhood, Maternity, and Marriage in the 1920s Klan." Women supported the KKK to the extent of starting the WKKK. Baker excellently explores the mythos of the pure, beautiful damsel in need of protection by a white supremacist knight. It's a bit haunting for me, having grown up next to the evangelical purity culture and knowing families who perpetuated similar narratives (without any direct link to the KKK).*
Honestly, read this book for yourself if you're at all interested in the truth about the KKK. It was much more than racism, though white supremacy was the spoken and implicit cause for the KKK. The Gospel According to the Klan has helped me realize some unconscious "lost cause" narratives I've encountered. Overall, I find myself quite interested in the history of this terrifying institution, even though it makes me want to vomit.
Baker makes some excellent points about the role of religion in domestic terrorism in the conclusion, having written her book in the wake of 9/11. I resent the use of "fundamentalist"** as a term for violent religious radicalism, and Baker avoids this, instead drawing connections between KKK violence and calls for anti-Islam violence after 9/11. I'd be interested in an updated version of this text, since racial violence is again central in public discourse.
*I'm speaking of the obsessive evangelical focus on sexual purity and feminine virginity. I knew a family that gave their boys toy weapons and their girls dolls, because they wanted to instill in their children a sense of the male protector and the female mother. It wasn't just an option of play for the children, but a gendered command from the parents to the children of how to form their masculine and feminine selves. Unfortunately for everyone, the boys quickly used the toy weapons in a boys vs. girls battle. We girls were left unprotected, unwilling to sacrifice our dolls on the altar of the gender wars. Such is childhood libido dominandi.
**"Fundamentalist" was a self-chosen term for a group of American Christians in the early-to-mid 20th century, and still has plenty of adherents today. The term was chosen because of a popular pamphlet on the "Fundamentals" of the Christian religion (the virgin birth of Christ, the literal resurrection, et c.). It is a historically bound term that cannot be used with the abandon of empty terms like "liberal" and "conservative." However, I'd love to read a study on early 20th century fundamentalism and the KKK, since they were both fomenting unrest at the same time.
Later, when we studied it in school, I was still incredulous. Who would want to dress up like that and terrorize others? Evidently, dear young Melody, a lot of people.
Kelly J. Baker's book concerns the second wave of the KKK, from 1915-1930, a resurrection of sorts after the Reconstruction iteration petered out. Admirably, she employs a historical method of "seeing with," rather than outright compassion or vilification. The Gospel According to the Klan is worth the read just to observe how well Baker handles the KKK as a historian.
Baker's essential argument is that the KKK relied heavily on Protestantism as a way to increase its membership, further its ends, empower its rhetoric, and cast its vision for America. Baker relates aspects of the KKK that are often overlooked in favor of its racist practices. Antisemitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-immigration, and a few more antis are studied in detail. Evidently, the KKK did not limit its reign of terror to black people, but also freely whipped, tortured, and murdered "deviant" members of local communities (see: out-of-work men who "could not provide well enough" for their families; working mothers; divorced women). Baker also looks at economic reasons for the targeting of black people--many instances of KKK violence on black men occurred when white men expressed anger or jealousy over black men's employment.
The usage of Protestant language and symbols in KKK rituals, publications, and conversations is staggering. (Evidently, burning crosses is somehow pro-Christian.) KKK members honestly thought they were doing God's work. Emotionally, I find this unconscionable; historically, there's enough evidence to write several more books on this topic. A chapter that stood out to me was "The Sacredness of Motherhood: White Womanhood, Maternity, and Marriage in the 1920s Klan." Women supported the KKK to the extent of starting the WKKK. Baker excellently explores the mythos of the pure, beautiful damsel in need of protection by a white supremacist knight. It's a bit haunting for me, having grown up next to the evangelical purity culture and knowing families who perpetuated similar narratives (without any direct link to the KKK).*
Honestly, read this book for yourself if you're at all interested in the truth about the KKK. It was much more than racism, though white supremacy was the spoken and implicit cause for the KKK. The Gospel According to the Klan has helped me realize some unconscious "lost cause" narratives I've encountered. Overall, I find myself quite interested in the history of this terrifying institution, even though it makes me want to vomit.
Baker makes some excellent points about the role of religion in domestic terrorism in the conclusion, having written her book in the wake of 9/11. I resent the use of "fundamentalist"** as a term for violent religious radicalism, and Baker avoids this, instead drawing connections between KKK violence and calls for anti-Islam violence after 9/11. I'd be interested in an updated version of this text, since racial violence is again central in public discourse.
*I'm speaking of the obsessive evangelical focus on sexual purity and feminine virginity. I knew a family that gave their boys toy weapons and their girls dolls, because they wanted to instill in their children a sense of the male protector and the female mother. It wasn't just an option of play for the children, but a gendered command from the parents to the children of how to form their masculine and feminine selves. Unfortunately for everyone, the boys quickly used the toy weapons in a boys vs. girls battle. We girls were left unprotected, unwilling to sacrifice our dolls on the altar of the gender wars. Such is childhood libido dominandi.
**"Fundamentalist" was a self-chosen term for a group of American Christians in the early-to-mid 20th century, and still has plenty of adherents today. The term was chosen because of a popular pamphlet on the "Fundamentals" of the Christian religion (the virgin birth of Christ, the literal resurrection, et c.). It is a historically bound term that cannot be used with the abandon of empty terms like "liberal" and "conservative." However, I'd love to read a study on early 20th century fundamentalism and the KKK, since they were both fomenting unrest at the same time.
October 21, 2020
What if we take the KKK at their word?
That's the provocative question behind Kelly Baker's book, which explores in depth the printed literature of the second Klan, who left behind newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and much else describing their motivations and beliefs. Our tendency as enlightened whites who would never do that kind of thing is to belittle the Klan, diminish its arguments, and act like the values they claimed to uphold were not actually their values.
That way, when Klan leaders argue – as they did constantly and often still do today – that they defend Protestant values, we can write them off as "not real Christians" and pretend their nativism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, racism and sexism do not represent a mainstream current of American, never mind Christian, history. And if we can push the KKK to the intellectual and social margins of our history, we can treat each resurgence of Klannish rhetoric and actions as anomalies, as exceptions to the "rule" of what America is. Of who "we" are.
This, of course, is how people can be shocked when Donald Trump fails repeatedly to condemn the Klan and other white supremacist groups, how certain Americans can simultaneously argue for "religious liberty" in the courts while objecting to Muslim community centers blocks away from Ground Zero in Manhattan. We blithely assume the Klan's fusion of Protestant Christianity, white supremacy, anti-immigrant nativism, and toxic masculinity is a lie, that the Klan was really something much worse – a bunch of violent rubes, maybe, a fringe element made up of poor hicks, certainly not comprising middle-class white-collar workers who went to church every Sunday.
Baker punctures our myths with this book, showing how the Klan's beliefs, when we take them seriously, are disturbingly normal, its intolerance and violence not fringe at all, but all too common – and all too wrapped up in notions of cross and flag that still dominate our discourse today.
That said, I'd have liked more context for the Klan's violence; because she focuses entirely on the Klan's self-perceptions, Baker barely mentions the violence it perpetrated; in that sense, a critical discussion of its victim-playing compared with accounts from its victims might have been useful. We get some of this in the account of the KKK riot at Notre Dame, but an expansion of that chapter would have been helpful, I think.
In addition, because it focuses so much on a fairly narrow set of literature, the analysis starts feeling repetitive as the same sources argue the same basic philosophies in slightly different ways. In the end, there's only so many ways a hate group and cloak its bile in the flag and nail it to a (burning) cross. And, as it turns out, those ways sound alarmingly familiar for those of us living 100 years later.
That's the provocative question behind Kelly Baker's book, which explores in depth the printed literature of the second Klan, who left behind newspapers, brochures, pamphlets, and much else describing their motivations and beliefs. Our tendency as enlightened whites who would never do that kind of thing is to belittle the Klan, diminish its arguments, and act like the values they claimed to uphold were not actually their values.
That way, when Klan leaders argue – as they did constantly and often still do today – that they defend Protestant values, we can write them off as "not real Christians" and pretend their nativism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, racism and sexism do not represent a mainstream current of American, never mind Christian, history. And if we can push the KKK to the intellectual and social margins of our history, we can treat each resurgence of Klannish rhetoric and actions as anomalies, as exceptions to the "rule" of what America is. Of who "we" are.
This, of course, is how people can be shocked when Donald Trump fails repeatedly to condemn the Klan and other white supremacist groups, how certain Americans can simultaneously argue for "religious liberty" in the courts while objecting to Muslim community centers blocks away from Ground Zero in Manhattan. We blithely assume the Klan's fusion of Protestant Christianity, white supremacy, anti-immigrant nativism, and toxic masculinity is a lie, that the Klan was really something much worse – a bunch of violent rubes, maybe, a fringe element made up of poor hicks, certainly not comprising middle-class white-collar workers who went to church every Sunday.
Baker punctures our myths with this book, showing how the Klan's beliefs, when we take them seriously, are disturbingly normal, its intolerance and violence not fringe at all, but all too common – and all too wrapped up in notions of cross and flag that still dominate our discourse today.
That said, I'd have liked more context for the Klan's violence; because she focuses entirely on the Klan's self-perceptions, Baker barely mentions the violence it perpetrated; in that sense, a critical discussion of its victim-playing compared with accounts from its victims might have been useful. We get some of this in the account of the KKK riot at Notre Dame, but an expansion of that chapter would have been helpful, I think.
In addition, because it focuses so much on a fairly narrow set of literature, the analysis starts feeling repetitive as the same sources argue the same basic philosophies in slightly different ways. In the end, there's only so many ways a hate group and cloak its bile in the flag and nail it to a (burning) cross. And, as it turns out, those ways sound alarmingly familiar for those of us living 100 years later.
September 28, 2020
I have a great appreciation for those scholars who take on an in-depth study of a particular topic. The Baba and the Comrade, by Elizabeth Woods comes to mind. Dr Baker has perused all available written work created by the Second Klan 1904-to the late 1930s, and crafted an elegant explanation of the fraternity the organizers were trying to develop in and by the membership. At the heart of the organization were two main pillars, white privilege and Protestant belief. (The fact that it started out with five white ministers might have something to do with that.). She takes us through the organizing, what Klansmen were expected to do and act. Women in the Klan and their own organization the WKKK are covered with some interesting and perhaps, unexpected insights. The anti-Catholic bias that played a major role. The anti-Black bias that was a continuation from the Reconstruction Klan. She also accounts for other programs and ideas they were to support. Part of the draw of this book is her dealing with the idea of how to deal with repugnant ideas to let the writers speak for themselves, and yet draw the line that does not encourage or approve of them. Even though Dr. Baker does this, for the most part, I have friends and relatives I would not share this book with, lest they take it as a guide. But for people looking for the roots that propel white supremacy for today, this provide at least a partial answer.
June 16, 2017
I read this book for my Race and Religion in the United States class and it is by far the best book I have ever read for a class. The book drew a clear, well-argued connection between how contemporary American WASP religious values have been racialized directly due to the work and legacy of the Klan. One of my favorite parts was Baker's analysis of white womanhood's role in the growth of the Klan and its legacy, with the book going into important detail about white women's efforts during suffrage and beyond to assert white women as the privileged equals of white men in their racial pecking order. In a "colorblind" era it is important to understand how the Klan's values left such a deep rooted impact on WASP religious ideologies, using interpretations of scripture along with the legacy of colonialism and the rise of pseudoscience to assert that the Klan's vision for the world was what the Protestant Christian God had intended. Overall this is an excellent read for someone trying to understand how racism and xenophobia have become so deeply rooted in so many American's interpretation of Christianity.
February 26, 2021
Kelly Baker's book analyzes the Klan of the 1920s based on her analysis of the Klan's internal ideology, primarily its newspapers, journal and other writings. Her book does not address what the Klan did in that era; her study is on how the Klan identified itself. Her thesis is that the 1920s Klan was based on anti-immigrant policies and hostility to Catholics, Jews and African-Americans. Klan members defined themselves as pan-Protestants and the only legitimate Americans. Its version of white supremacy rendered all others inherently inferior. The insight in her work is her emphasis on seeing the religious element of the self-definition. Reading this book in 2021 I was also struck by the extent to which the core ideology of current white supremacists is based on the same beliefs as the 1920s Klan.
November 15, 2023
Extremely well-researched, but I couldn’t help thinking it would greatly benefit from a good editor. Baker is overly repetitive throughout. She does a great job DESCRIBING the views of the 1920s Klan, but falls short of explaining how they arrived at such views, which was what I was most interested in when I picked this up. Where did things wrong? How did they come to such hateful conclusions when reading the same Bible that has led so many others to greater peace and respect and love? Bakers seems to hold the disappointing idea that nothing went wrong; rather the views of the KKK are somehow normal and legitimate expressions of Christianity This aside, the Conclusion and Afterword do offer some interesting insights into the seeming correlation between the 1920s Klan and mainstream politics in the modern era.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2023
During the Progressive Era, the Ku Klux Klan experienced a reorganization, resurgence, and another rapid and ignominious end. Baker explored the rise and fall of the “second Klan” by analyzing their print culture as generated by a weekly magazine, the "Imperial Knight-Hawk", which was succeeded in 1924 by the "Kourier Magazine." She argued that Protestant Christianity was a foundational element of the second KKK and has been underestimated by the current historiography. By detailing the Protestant elements of the Klan, she also argued that this was an indication that they were a more banal form of nationalism than extremist, as the conventional wisdom supposes.
March 4, 2023
Kelly Baker creates an academic tour de force of the Second KKK in its own words. By combing through convention speeches, newspaper op-eds, and the KKK's own newsletters, Baker shows the story the Klan told themselves about what they were doing ... rescuing a mythological white, Protestant America. This is a scary book, because it shows how some hateful hucksters can mobilize tens of thousands of ordinary Americans for a heinous movement by appealing to patriotism and a selective history of America.
May 10, 2021
Although this book had all the promise of an electrifying read, it turned out to be like watching grass grow. It's not often you read a book in greater need of an editor. The author repeats herself over and over again, and not just a few sentences - whole slabs of the book are repeated many times. I'm sure she has done lots of research and there were some things I didn't know, but the length of the book (over 300 pages) was WAY too long to hold the interest of the reader.
February 4, 2018
Lucid, important, and meticulously researched.
February 5, 2020
Well worth the read. Baker provides a detailed analysis of how the 1920’s KKK was founded in white supremacist Protestantism and how it continues to influence American conservatism today.
August 26, 2021
This covers an interesting subject, but it's presented in such granular detail that it will put you to sleep. I think this must have been a doctoral thesis. I couldn't finish it. Dry, dry, dry
September 29, 2022
Devastating and so relevant to our current events in the US.
February 20, 2021
I read this while doing a research project on the KKK in Pennsylvania during their anti-Catholic surge in the early 20th century. I found this book extremely helpful and well written for this topic - I used this book far more than others on similar topics. It's very specific, so if you're looking for a broad history of the KKK, find something else.
April 6, 2013
If images of white robes, pointed hoods, and a burning cross represent racism and violence for you then you are not alone. But do they also evoke ideas of nationalism, Protestantism, and masculinity? In the early twentieth century, the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan tied their faith to patriotism and in the process produced a unique self-fashioned religious identity.
Kelly J. Baker, scholar of America religious history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, examines this seemingly reprehensible organization and treats it as she would any other phenomenon, through a critical lens from an objective perspective. In her wonderful new book, Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930 (University Press of Kansas, 2011), she explores the writings of Klan members and outlines their creative renderings of religion, nationalism, gender, and race. In our conversation we discuss the importance of print culture, the communal act of reading, Jesus as the ideal Klansman, the symbolic meaning of the robes, cross, and flag, and the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). We end our discussion by looking at the Klan’s legacy of exclusionism and conservatism as a widespread characteristic of American society and how this is manifested in contemporary culture through figures like Terry Jones, who gained notoriety with his call to burn the Qur’an. Kelly does an excellent job of encouraging scholars of religion to reexamine our subjects and tackle issues that make us uneasy and uncomfortable. These topics and individuals are as much a part of religious history as the figures we would want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with.
http://newbooksinreligion.com/2012/06...
Kelly J. Baker, scholar of America religious history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, examines this seemingly reprehensible organization and treats it as she would any other phenomenon, through a critical lens from an objective perspective. In her wonderful new book, Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930 (University Press of Kansas, 2011), she explores the writings of Klan members and outlines their creative renderings of religion, nationalism, gender, and race. In our conversation we discuss the importance of print culture, the communal act of reading, Jesus as the ideal Klansman, the symbolic meaning of the robes, cross, and flag, and the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). We end our discussion by looking at the Klan’s legacy of exclusionism and conservatism as a widespread characteristic of American society and how this is manifested in contemporary culture through figures like Terry Jones, who gained notoriety with his call to burn the Qur’an. Kelly does an excellent job of encouraging scholars of religion to reexamine our subjects and tackle issues that make us uneasy and uncomfortable. These topics and individuals are as much a part of religious history as the figures we would want to sit down and have a cup of coffee with.
http://newbooksinreligion.com/2012/06...
April 23, 2012
Dry and targeted to a more academic audience than most books I read (this non-history major had to use the magic powers of Google to better comprehend some of Dr. Baker’s more intellectual passages), this is a disturbing insight into the KKK of the early 20th century. Dr. Baker crawls into the heads of the KKK and its members via articles, columns, and interviews without ever crossing the line of sympathizing or defending them. She condemns them while seeking to understand them, and it makes for a compelling narrative, especially when presenting examples of when the Klan was persecuted. The book doesn’t push the KKK off to the margins or rationalize why they don’t represent America, and, in places, it makes for a bitter pill to swallow. By underlining the KKK’s perception of their patriotism and where they fit into the mainstream culture and society of 1920s America, Dr. Bakers gives readers a book that moves beyond the historical facts it presents. Finally, this book hit the sweet spot on length: long enough to delve into the topic but not so long as to become an overwhelming endeavor. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews