This edited collection of exciting new scholarship provides comprehensive coverage of the broad sweep of twentieth century religious activism on the American left. The volume covers a diversity of perspectives, including Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish history, and important essays on African-American, Latino, and women’s spirituality. Taken together, these essays offer a comparative and long-term perspective on religious groups and social movements often studied in isolation, and fully integrate faith-based action into the history of progressive social movements and politics in the modern United States. It becomes clear that throughout the twentieth century, religious faith has served as a powerful motivator and generator for activism, not just as on the right, where observers regularly link religion and politics, but on the left. This volume will appeal to historians of modern American politics, religion, and social movements, religious studies scholars, and contemporary activists.

“At long last, prayers for a comprehensive and critical study on the religious left in 20th-century U.S. politics and society have been answered with Danielson’s, Mollin’s, and Rossinow’s The Religious Left in Modern America. This superb collection focuses not only on the contributions of Protestants, but also of Catholics and Jews, to struggles for racial equality, economic justice, peace, and human rights at home and abroad.  Bringing together an outstanding group of historians and religious studies scholars, this volume will help set the agenda for the emerging scholarship in the field for years to come.” (Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas)
“This is a splendid collection of essays by fine historians about a vital subject that has been hiding in plain sight far too long. In the United States, religious belief has been as essential to the ideas and actions of the liberaland radical left as it has been to those of the right. Anyone who cares about the thorny, inescapable marriage of faith and politics must read this book.” (Michael Kazin, Georgetown University; author of War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918; editor, Dissent magazine)
“Cutting across faith traditions and the entire twentieth century, glimpsing radical social gospels in local and global contexts, and political circumstances of sweeping significance, The Religious Left in Modern America is an important and timely reminder that a dynamic religious left has always operated at the heart of American life. This is the most comprehensive and impressive study of its kind.” (Darren Dochuk, University of Notre Dame; author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism)

Offers a comparative and long-term perspective on the intersecting histories of religious radicalism and the secular left Challenges the perception that religion is antagonistic to democratic politics and culture Chapters explore a diverse range of religious groups that contributed to the key social movements of the twentieth century

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