The Gospel of Freedom and Power: Protestant Missionaries in American Culture after World War II

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments In the years I have been writing this book, I have acquired many debts. It is a joy to acknowledge them, even though I will not be able to repay them. I owe the idea for this book to Grant Wacker. Throughout the project, he has been an invaluable conversation partner as well as a constant source of encouragement. He remains the gold standard of mentors. David Steinmetz, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, and Julie Byrne all helped shape the direction of this project. Seth Dowland, Matt Harper, and Brantley Gasaway read early drafts and challenged me to rethink my central argument in the work’s nascent days. It took me a while to see it, but they were right. Elesha Coffman, Julie Gilbert, Brendan Pietsch, Kate Bowler, George Malkasian, Mary Solberg, Thia Cooper, and Jennifer Woodruff Tait read significant portions of the manuscript somewhere along the way. In each case, they offered insightful comments and encouragement to keep going when my enthusiasm flagged. Angela Tarango read the conclusion and, more importantly , refused to let me become a hermit. Lauren Winner read the whole book, asked tough questions, and gave me good advice. She also kept me from despair at key points. Working with the University of North Carolina Press has made publishing a book much less daunting than I supposed it could be. Three anonymous readers for the press read the manuscript and commented helpfully. I appreciate the seriousness with which they took this work and hope that I can begin to do their suggestions justice.Tema Larter, Caitlin Bell-Butterfield, and Ron Maner answered questions and made the process smooth. Special thanks goes to Elaine Maisner, my editor. She supported the project through many years and some doubts. Her questions prodded me to greater clarity about my method and my argument. All writers should have such an editor. My colleagues at Gustavus Adolphus College have been tre- x Acknowledgments mendously supportive as I simultaneously learned how to write a book, how to be a teacher, and how to be a colleague. They are teacher-scholars of the highest caliber and their commitments to their students inspire me. I am particularly grateful to the members of the Religion Department for providing a congenial environment in which to ply my trade. John Cha, our department chair, zealously protected my time as a junior faculty member so that I could write. When I was volunteering to take on extra courses, Garrett Paul saved me from myself (twice). At various times he, Mary Solberg, and Deborah Goodwin have added extra classes or extra preparations so that their junior colleagues would not need to do so. They are what senior faculty should be. Thia Cooper read drafts and cheered with me when I learned my manuscript was going to be published. Mary Gaebler has been a constant conversation partner. She, Eric Eliason, and Brian Johnson became a small community of friends who helped make Minnesota feel like home. Two classes of students in my Missionary Impulse in America course at Gustavus entered into this topic with interest and insight . Their questions and concerns prodded me to think harder. Their astute reading of texts made me look at my own writing in new ways. Historians depend on people who keep records. I am grateful for the wonderful staff at the Methodist Archives at Drew University , particularly Dale Patterson, Frances Lyons-Bristol, and Mark Shenise (who not only found me filmstrips galore but fixed the projector I broke so that I could keep watching them). Cathy Fortner and Kate McGinn helped me navigate the Free Methodist Archives at the Marston Historical Center. James Howell and the staff at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, welcomed me to their church and let me make free copies. Norma Cathey, in a labor of love, long kept the archives at First Free Methodist Church and gave me free rein. It was good to be home again. Other debts are more personal. Friends too numerous to count have enriched my life during the course of this project. My family has been a source of great joy. My parents, Mark and Karen John- Acknowledgments xi son, have read multiple drafts of every chapter in this book. They have cheered me and encouraged me. Their love continues to give me the freedom to take risks, secure in the knowledge that in their eyes I cannot fail...