Faith and Foreign Affairs in the American Century

The United States has led the world economically, culturally, politically, and militarily following World War I. In 1941, Life magazine publisher Henry Luce dubbed his country’s preeminence “the American Century.” His editorial was a statement of fact but also an aspiration for his countrymen to unite in promotion of a world order friendly to American interests.Faith and Foreign Affairs in the American Century examines the nature of public involvement in American diplomacy. As a concept decades in the making, the American Century was conceived by and for those connected through the country’s leading foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. This book also studies Washington insiders Francis and Helen Miller, who fought to make the American empire a radically democratic one. The Millers’ many partnerships embodied the conflicts as well as the cooperation of Christianity and secularism in the long reimagining of the United States as a global power. Mark Thomas Edwards draws upon personal, family, and group experiences to rethink the nature of public involvement in diplomacy. The book is a genealogy of the idea of the American Century. It is also a political-religious history of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the Millers, and readers will encounter moments of Protestant Christian power and weakness in the making of modern American foreign relations.

This book retells the history of twentieth-century diplomacy as a disappearing act. The 'American Century' was born of a Protestant–secular partnership, but through Edwards' careful archival work, we watch the ecumenical Protestant departure from the international stage. This is an imperative work, showing, first, how essential Protestant secularism was in the effort to define the United States as a great global power and, second, how intimate and familial this quest—and its slow fade from political relevance—was. This is required reading for anyone interested in democracy, Christianity, and foreign affairs., Scholars have spent a great deal of time and energy debating the extent to which US foreign policy has been religious or secular. But what if this is a false choice? In this intriguingly provocative, highly original, and deeply insightful book that takes readers beyond the religious turn, Mark Thomas Edwards shows how 'Protestant secularism' powered the emergence and spectacular growth of American internationalism.

Mark Thomas Edwards is associate professor of US history and politics at Spring Arbor University.