The U.S. Culture Wars Abroad: Liberal-Evangelical Rivalry and Decolonization in Southern Africa, 1968–1994

• Published in: The Journal of American history (Bloomington, Ind.) Vol. 110; no. 2; pp. 308 - 332
• Main Author: Zubovich, Gene
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Organization of American Historians 01.09.2023
• Subjects: African history; Decolonization; Evangelicalism; Postcolonialism; Religious organizations; United States > US; Southern Africa
• DOI: 10.1093/jahist/jaad261
• ISSN: 0021-8723

Mandela praised the role of religious organizations in the liberation of southern Africa, but he left unmentioned that other Christian groups were actively working to support white supremacist regimes in the region. The WCC faced opposition to its human rights work from the governments of South Africa, Portugal, and the United States, which often invoked religious themes in their support for groups battling “godless communism.” But the most resolute on-the-ground resistance came from American evangelical missionaries, whose numbers were rapidly expanding in sub-Saharan Africa and, indeed, across what was then called the Third World. In the 1970s and 1980s, evangelicals organized against the perceived threat of liberal and left-wing religious groups in southern Africa, just as they had done in the United States. This diffuse network of evangelicals provided public support for anticommunist military organizations in the region and sometimes went as far as sending military aid. In the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism and from white minority rule to popular rule in southern Africa, the WCC and evangelicals often found themselves in opposition