Divine Rebels: American Christian Activists for Social Justice

Independent journalist Deena Guzder has reported from the front lines of international human rights crises in Pakistan, Iran, and India. Now, her first book chronicles the U.S. Christian human rights movements from 1960 to the present. While many commentators focus on the religious right as a social force, Guzder's accessible and engaging account highlights Americans whose politics are progressive precisely "because they are religious." The biographies of 10 nonviolent activists open a window on American Christianity's tradition as a catalyst for progressive social change. Profiles include Quaker Jim Corbett, an Arizona rancher who sparked the 1980s Sanctuary movement by providing haven for Central American war refugees; Pentecostal preacher and environmental activist Charlotte Keys, founder of Jesus People Against Pollution, who is fighting chemical dumping near her rural Mississippi home; and the more famous Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest who burned Selective Service draft files in 1968 as an antiwar protest. Guzder's first-person reporting animates her prose without obscuring her subject. By steering her fact-based writing away from the polemical, this Zoroastrian-raised writer provides a fine introduction to those who call themselves "social justice Christians." (May)