Burning Faith: Church Arson in the American South

"A thoroughly researched examination of events that alarmed Americans in the 1990s. Strain provides a sophisticated dissection of the many forces, people, and events at the center of what many regarded as a national crisis."--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, University of Connecticut "As the first book-length look into one of the earliest and most racially and religiously explosive issues sweeping the nation in the 1990s, Burning Faith now places Christopher Strain among the pioneering historians today writing on post-Cold War America."--Devin Fergus, Vanderbilt University In the 1990s, churches across the southeastern United States were targeted and set ablaze. These arsonists predominately targeted African American congregations and captured the attention of the media nationwide. Using oral histories, newspaper accounts, and governmental reports, Christopher Strain gives a chronological account of the series of church fires. Burning Faith considers the various forces at work, including government responses, civil rights groups, religious forces, and media coverage, in providing a thorough, comprehensive analysis of the events and their fallout. Arguing that these church fires symbolize the breakdown of communal bonds in the nation, Strain appeals for the revitalization of united Americans and the return to a sense of community. Combining scholarly sophistication with popular readability, Strain has produced one of the first histories of the last decade and demonstrates that the increasing fragmentation of community in America runs deeper than race relations or prejudice.