Born of Conviction

Winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters' Nonfiction Award Born of Conviction presents a compelling narrative and challenges scholars who portray Mississippi Methodists as a racist monolith. The book is well structured Reiff effectively demonstrates that the Born of Conviction controversy was a seminal moment in the history of the [Methodist Episcopal Church].""-Christina Dickerson-Cousin, Journal of Religion Reiff's fine oral history work and his eagle-eyed mining of materials on Mississippi Methodist churches from several archives make Born of Conviction as much an impressive institutional study as an exploration of individual lives. Born of Conviction is an important study, obviously a labor of love for the author, and a fine contribution to the growing scholarship on religion in the American South. * Edward H. Miller, Journal of Southern History * Born of Conviction: White Methodists and Mississippi's Closed Society is a very impressive and important contribution to our evolving understanding of how religion made the Civil Rights Movement move. In telling this story and his tireless pursuit of these brave clergy, Reiff has excavated a fascinating fissure in the cracks of Mississippi's closed society.""-Davis W. Houck, Church History Reiff's account of the 'Born of Conviction' statement aspires to complicate our understanding of the faith of white Mississippians by shedding new light on the responses of so-called 'white moderates' who operated outside the Civil Rights Movement but opposed Jim Crow. * Reviews in American History * Elaborate endnotes and textual allusions show [Reiff] to have engaged a huge array of scholarship...[and have] invested incredible effort and energy in oral history (interviews and recorded material). [He] accordingly draw[s] very current recent, timely, telling insights, perspectives and judgments into [his] narratives and do[es] so in quite adroit fashion. * Methodist History * Highly recommended. * CHOICE * With its careful attention to building the back-stories and describing in detail the results for the twenty-eight signers, this book has earned its place among the growing body of works about the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. * Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies * This high-quality study is a significant addition to the historiography of the civil rights era. * Journal of American History * What is there to know about twenty-eight Methodist ministers in the 1960s? From written and oral history sources, Reiff's book shows there is a great deal to learn, much of it surprising, about well-educated professionals working inside and outside organized religion. * The Southern Register * A nuanced history...[The] narrative moves effortlessly between an individual and institutional focus, a great strength of the book. Readers will walk away understanding the issues facing the Methodist Church in the 1960s, while simultaneously seeing how individuals fit into that larger picture. * Journal of Southern Religion * Reiff tells [the Born of Conviction] story fully and clearly. The signers of this statement and their fate deserve the broad audience that this book will rightly command. * The Clarion-Ledger * Every historical era or period, especially times of social distress, await books that guide us to a safer and better shore. Born of Conviction is a book for our time. Its pages offer portrayals of the human capacity for social evil and for heroic moral leadership. We encounter an America divided along the color line and meet white clergy and laypeople who risked Christian discipleship through words and deeds that can instruct, inspire, and invite today. As we find ourselves again on the long road to authentic democracy, this book should be required for leaders and laypeople, who will learn much from our predecessors. * Robert Michael Franklin, President Emeritus, Morehouse College * Through meticulous research and crisp, engaging narrative, Born of Conviction: White Methodists and Mississippi's Closed Society accomplishes the exceedingly difficult task of telling a new and broadly significant story in the American Civil Rights Movement: the crisis of congregational and denominational identity in the wake of enormous social change. Joseph Reiff has made an enormously valuable contribution to our understanding of the movement, painstakingly reconstructing a largely forgotten chapter in the Southern 'church struggle' that is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. * Charles Marsh, Commonwealth Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia * This masterful work tells a crucial and overlooked story from some of the worst days of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. Anger among whites was intense in January 1963 when twenty-eight white Mississippi Methodist pastors called for racial tolerance. Reiff tells a captivating social, cultural, and religious story with exhaustive and impeccable scholarship, revealing the deeper narrative beyond the pastors' statement and its aftermath. * Lovett H. Weems, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC * Reiff, a former Methodist minister himself and son a Methodist minister, not originally from Mississippi, involved in some of the events described here has interviewed a great number of the participants in the events, researched the Methodist materials thoroughly, and incorporated the relevant primary and scholarly/secondary material into his own work. The result is a really memorable book that will be not just the definitive history of the origins, writing, influence, and aftermath of the 'Born of Conviction' statement, but one of the most important contributions to Mississippi, civil rights, and southern religious history published since 2000...Reiff was, in a sense, born to write this history, and he uses his advantages of family, regional, and Methodist connections to the great benefit of all who will be enriched by his superior piece of scholarship. For anyone who cares about the relationship of religion, race, and the civil rights movement, this is a classic. * Reading Religion *