Michael G. Thompson. For God and Globe: Christian Internationalism in the United States between the Great War and the Cold War.

In a much-welcomed addition to the burgeoning literature on religion and U.S. foreign relations, For God and the Globe: Christian Internationalism in the United States between the Great War and the Cold War recovers the story of Christian internationalism as a forgotten intellectual movement in the United States, one that stood in opposition to empire, nation, and race at a time when Christian internationalism was, according to conventional accounts of American Christianity, an ideological prop for the maintenance of American empire. Drawing on vast original material, Thompson chronicles the trajectory of this movement as one of declension. The star—or rather stars—of the book are the short-lived periodical The World Tomorrow (WT) and the ecumenical conference held at Oxford in 1937. Through its editor Kirby Page, WT presented a distinct way of Christian thinking about international relations. After all, WT was a self-described periodical with an evangelical radical bent. Page sought to apply Christian ethics as embodied in the historical Jesus (33) to U.S. foreign relations and international affairs in general. Page became a vocal critic of U.S. imperialism not only in the Philippines but also in Latin America. Alongside other well-known Christian figures such as Sherwood Eddy, Page zeroed in on nationalism as the principal cause of conflict (43), believing that it led to militarism and imperialism, and he thus countered liberal internationalist support for institutions such as the League of Nations that were oriented around national sovereignty. All in all, WT—at one point, it was the recipient of General Douglas MacArthur’s ire, for “opposing the defense of homeland and the principles hallowed by the blood of our ancestors” (47)—provided a central and sophisticated institutional gathering point for the crystallization of ideas of anti-imperialist and antinationalist thinkers who sought to influence public opinion. When WT shut its doors in 1934, its ideas found important places in many corners of U.S. foreign policy discussions.

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