Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism by Nicholas T. Pruitt

Abstract

Reviewed by: Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism by Nicholas T. Pruitt Mark Thomas Edwards Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism. By Nicholas T. Pruitt. (New York: New York University Press. 2021. pp. x, 279. $45.00. ISBN: 9781479803545.) Evangelicals and fundamentalists were once marginalized in the study of American religious history, but now they receive too much attention. Thankfully, a new generation of scholars is proving that we still have a lot to learn about liberal, mainline, and ecumenical Protestants. Elesha Coffman, K. Healan Gaston, Kevin Schultz, Gale Kenny, and Gene Zubovich, among others, are moving the field beyond the "history of theology"—with its attendant obsession with the Niebuhr brothers—and establishing broader connections to American public life and identity. Nicholas T. Pruitt's new book is a welcome addition to that endeavor. His subject is the ecumenical Protestant "pluralistic bargain" (3) that culminated in support for the liberalization of immigration law under the landmark Hart-Cellar Act (1965). Pruitt's subjects were cosmopolitan in the (David) Hollingerian sense of championing controlled ethnic, racial, and religious diversity within a framework of continuing white Protestant supremacy. As Pruitt aptly puts it, "the pluralistic bargain amounted to an attempt by Protestant churches to incorporate progressive mores of toleration while bracing themselves against modern [End Page 633] cultural forces that threatened to decenter Protestant Christianity within American society" (7). Open Hearts, Closed Doors is an institutional history of Protestant home missions that highlights the social gospel's paradoxical inclusive-exclusive nature. Following the establishment of immigrant quota systems between 1917–1924, the Federal Council of Churches (FCC) and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) pursued kinder, gentler forms of "Christian Americanization" (43)—like community centers, immigrant schools on Ellis Island, and the Bureau of Reference for Migrating Peoples—as alternatives to the violent nativism of a resurgent Ku Klux Klan. Ecumenical Protestants advocated toleration for Japanese immigrants but did not begin challenging immigration restriction laws until during and after World War II. In the name of wartime "Christian brotherhood" (92), the FCC and SBC expanded refugee relief, aided the resettlement of interned Japanese Americans, and lobbied for increased immigration from Asia. Pruitt finds that "tri-faith" Christian Americanism still aimed to keep the country white and Protestant even while becoming more accepting of diversities of culture and language. Perhaps the most important Cold War liberal project ecumenical Protestants undertook was applying steady pressure on Washington for a more open immigration policy, including the passage of Hart-Cellar. The costs for doing so were both immediate and long-term: Ecumenical Protestants found themselves repeated targets of Red Scare churches and politicians, while the eventual consequence of their activism was the undermining of any white Protestant establishment. Pruitt concludes his study with a brief discussion of how evangelicals have taken up ecumenical Protestants' "pluralistic bargain" in the twenty-first century. He might have used that space to relay how ecumenical churches today have repented of Protestant exceptionalism and embraced a thoroughgoing cultural and religious pluralism centered around supporting immigrants—as Grace Yukich explored in One Family Under God (2013). But that is a minor point of disagreement. Pruitt has masterfully documented and detailed an unexplored dimension of Protestant social Christianity in action, including its direct and lasting impact on American life and politics. His book deserves a wide audience. [End Page 634] Mark Thomas Edwards Spring Arbor University Copyright © 2021 The Catholic University of America Press