Acknowledgments
This book was written over the course of eighteen months in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the devastating loss of life and health remains a tragedy, the pandemic forced a remote work policy at the University of Kansas (KU) that made a regular writing schedule possible for me. My work as an acquisitions editor in the fields of political science, constitutional law, and religious studies provided some of the initial stimulus for this book. Jared Goldstein’s Real Americans: National Identity, Violence, and the Constitution (Kansas, 2021) was particularly important in shaping my views. My thanks also to John Colman, Chelsea Ebin, Mark Graber, Nathaniel Green, Dana Lloyd, Ellen Messer-Davidow, Emily Pears, and Tisa Wenger for sharing their work and insights with me on questions of politics, religion, and identity.
I am forever grateful to the University of Kansas Libraries for sending me countless books, articles, and book chapters. My kids would joke about how often packages of books would arrive at our front door. I could not have written this book without the easy access to research materials that KU made possible.
I am grateful to Kait Dugan, the Director of the Center for Barth Studies, for her help with my research on Karl Barth. My thanks as well to the Wheaton College Special Collections for their assistance with the papers related to the Chicago Call. Andrew Chignell graciously responded to my questions regarding Wheaton College.
Throughout the writing of this book, I have had several dialogue partners who have read many or all of the chapters and offered invaluable feedback. James F. Kay has gone above and beyond in the years since he served on my dissertation committee. He was the first person I sent the materials that became this book, and his detailed feedback has been a gift to me. Annette Bourland Huizenga read the chapters and encouraged me to finish it quickly so we could use the book in the DMin course we have been coteaching at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. Having this goal in view from the start gave me an audience to target. Jason Bruner read most of the manuscript and gave me excellent notes and suggestions for improvement. His book, Imagining Persecution: Why American Christians Believe There Is a Global War against Their Faith (Rutgers, 2021), was an essential source and inspiration for Chapter 4. David Roberts read my chapters and even tested out some of my early material with people at his church. He helped keep me mindful of the constructive implications of my argument when I was tempted to focus only on the historical narrative. I am grateful also to Brach Jennings for reading my manuscript but even more so for hours of stimulating conversation over Zoom.
As with all of my work, W. Travis McMaken has been a constant dialogue partner, and many of the ideas developed here were first worked out in conversation with him.
Additional thanks and appreciation to Collin Cornell, Jacob L. Goodson, J. R. Daniel Kirk, Steven Nemes, Samuel L. Perry, Jonathan Rowlands, Isaac B. Sharp, Austin Steelman, Logan Williams, Stephen L. Young – for sharing your work, time, or ideas with me.
My thanks to Beatrice Rehl, my editor at Cambridge University Press, who has been exceptional in her handling of my project. I am thankful as well to the two anonymous readers of the manuscript, whose encouraging and thoughtful suggestions were very helpful in the revision process.
Finally, my mother, Harriet Congdon, read through my entire manuscript as I wrote it, and offered incisive thoughts in response. Many of the ideas in the conclusion were developed in long phone conversations with her, and I am eternally grateful for her support. Having her eyes on the work helped keep my writing from veering into overly academic territory.
I am thankful to Amy Fong and my two children for keeping me grounded and reminding me there is more to life than books.
My deepest appreciation to Lindsay Wegener for her loving partnership and support throughout the writing of this book. In gratitude I dedicate it to her.
