Abortion and America’s Churches explores the surprising history of how American Christians think about abortion.
Many people assume that Christians have steadfastly condemned abortion throughout the United States’s history. Daniel K. Williams overthrows all assumptions about the unity, consistency, or simplicity of American Christian thought and belief in this groundbreaking new book. He demonstrates that churches in the United States have fought among themselves and with the wider culture as they developed and enforced their stance on abortion, revealing major struggles to define their often-changing positions. Far from a cynical exercise of political interest, changes and disagreements arose from serious theological considerations informed by each tradition’s approach to the faith. These theological shifts—and corresponding shifts in interreligious political alliances—led to the changing fortunes of Roe v. Wade.
By capturing the fascinating and complicated history informing each faith’s position, Abortion and America’s Churches restores much-needed context to the sharp polarization over abortion today.
Daniel K. Williams is a senior fellow at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, where he teaches American history. He is the author of several books on modern American religion and politics, including The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship and Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before "Roe v. Wade." His work has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Christianity Today.
Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Liberal Protestants before Roe: Abortion as a Personal Moral Decision 2. Catholics before Roe: A Theology of Unborn Life 3. Evangelicals before Roe: A Moderate Conservatism on Abortion 4. Catholics and Evangelicals after Roe: The Making of a Pro-Life Alliance 5. The Rise and Fall of a Consistent Life Ethic 6. Liberal Protestants after Roe: A Theology for a Pluralistic Nation 7. The Conservative Christian Coalition That Overturned Roe Notes Index
"Like all good historical works, Abortion and America’s Churches provides invaluable context, complicating our understanding of the past in enlightening ways. . . . [It] succeeds in tackling a difficult subject with a consistently fair and even-handed approach. Between its admirable objectivity and its extensive reliance upon primary sources, the book is likely to become the standard treatment of how different Christian traditions have wrestled with abortion." —Christianity Today
"Religion did come to play a significant part in the evolution of abortion policy, a part more subtle and complex than today’s reductive abortion conversation tends to reflect. In his new book, Abortion and America’s Churches: A Religious History of ‘Roe v. Wade,’ Daniel K. Williams, a longtime student of the religious right, observes that the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision, signed by six Protestant justices and one liberal Catholic justice, reflected the consensus that mainstream Protestant denominations had reached on the issue." —New York Review of Books
"The book is excellent and detailed. . . . Williams’s book is a fascinating history because of the space he gives to the prolonged struggle within denominations to decide what their position on abortion would be and how they would explain it." —Word on Fire
“Abortion and America’s Churches will be a go-to source for people wanting to understand the landscape of Christianity and abortion politics in the United States.” —Andrew R. Lewis, author of The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics
"Meticulously researched and empathetic, Abortion and Americas Churches fills an important gap in the history of the most divisive issue in the United States. Williamss evenhanded, detailed account is a must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the role of faith in the American debate over reproduction." —Mary Ziegler, author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession
"Daniel K. Williams reminds us that ideas have always mattered in politics. This thoroughly researched and masterfully crafted book should be essential reading for anyone interested in the subject." —Mark Thomas Edwards, author of Walter Lippmann
"Abortion and Americas Churches will be the definitive look at how Christians settled down on what is still unsettled." —Marvin Olasky, co-author of The Story of Abortion in America
"Thoroughly researched, theologically sophisticated, and politically astute, Abortion and Americas Churches is a comprehensive account of the developing positions and shifting alliances of American Christian communities as they struggled with abortion before and after Roe v. Wade." —Jerome E. Copulsky, author of American Heretics
“This book is essential for anyone who wants to understand the debate over abortion in America. Williams’s lucid, evenhanded account of this debate’s twists, turns, and deep theological roots has forced me to revise the way I think about the history of sex, gender, and culture war in America.” —Molly Worthen, author of Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump
"Daniel K. Williams provides an invaluable guide to the abortion debate as it has evolved since the 1960s, not simply in terms of national politics but also in terms of theological developments in the nation’s Christian churches. Even readers who imagine themselves well-informed will learn from this accomplished and eminently readable book." —Leslie Woodcock Tentler, author of American Catholics
"The history of the abortion debate in the United States is very much tied to the history of US Catholics and Protestant denominations and their reactions to abortion. Thank goodness we finally have an in-depth look at this history, and from a trustworthy and talented historian. Abortion and Americas Churches is a gift that will be read for decades to come."—Charles C. Camosy, author of One Church
