Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

This work is a welcome addition to the growing literature on religion and US foreign policy. Turek (Trinity Univ.) examines the rise of Evangelical concern with human rights in the 1970s, especially for fellow believers in communist-controlled countries. Following from the belief that humans are made in God's image, God is then the author of human rights, the foremost being religious freedom, namely peoples' right to believe, practice, and evangelize. This concern developed with the rise of advanced communications and the creation of a global Evangelical network. Evangelicals saw totalitarian/communist regimes as a threat to religious freedom, whereas authoritarian ones generally allowed the right to freely worship. Thus, they put pressure on Congress and the Reagan White House regarding Soviet and Romanian persecution of Baptists, Pentecostals, and other religious minorities. Fear of a communist victory led Evangelicals to back authoritarian Rios Montt in Guatemala and to push for a gradual end to apartheid in South Africa. Eventually, the Soviet Union collapsed and religious freedom emerged, Guatemala moved toward democracy, and apartheid was abolished without a communist takeover. Turek buttresses her arguments with an abundance of sources.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty.