Discussion, debate, concerns, and realities when it comes to the topic of immigration have been a constant the American news cycle for much of the past few years. From talk of border walls to migrant caravans to discussion of root causes, not to mention refugees, politicians and journalists have devoted much ink and screen time to the topic. The irony for the historian is that such stories are nothing new, and that with a few exceptions as to particular actors and locations, the exact same stories can be found dominating American news outlets a century ago with almost identical arguments being made on the topics at hand. Discussion of immigration is hardly a recent topic for Americans to consider, whether in the halls of Congress or in the nation's pews.
However, despite the ubiquity of the immigration debate, we still have much to learn. Helping lead that educational effort is Nicholas T. Pruitt's excellent monograph, Open Hearts, Closed Doors: Immigration Reform and the Waning of Mainline Protestantism. Pruitt, a professor at Eastern Nazarene College, expertly navigates how the vaunted Mainline Protestant denominations came to understand, shape, and deal with immigration-related issues and the very real people caught up in them. In doing so, he also offers a new perspective on the eventual decline of those very same denominations by the second half of the twentieth century, placing their evolving stance on what to do about the newest Americans into the oft-told tale of how the Seven Sisters went from hegemonic “gatekeepers” (7) in American society to a lesser part of the national story.
The strengths in Pruitt's account are numerous. For one, pictures are interspersed throughout the book's pages, allowing readers to see exactly what he is describing. For another, the writing is clear and accessible to both the expert and lay reader interested in the topic. Additionally, Pruitt showcases a wide variety of denominational sources mined from archives across the nation, among them the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). By including the SBC in his depiction of mainline Protestantism, readers encounter a richer, more national array of Protestant opinion on the topic of immigration. Indeed, Pruitt is to be commended for considering Protestant responses as being driven not only by immigration to places like New York, with a focus on Southern and Eastern Europeans, but rather to embrace the southwestern United States and Hispanic immigration as well as the Pacific Northwest and immigration from Asia. Furthermore, he highlights how refugees, whom Americans historically have considered a separate category of immigrant, further complicated the Protestant response to millions of new potential Americans. As a result, readers are treated to not just a variety of denominational responses but also a sampling of the different immigrant groups that were arriving in the United States and the difficult situation of creating, at either the church or state levels, a one-size-fits-all response.
Another real strength is Pruitt's discussion of how the mainline's reaction to immigration evolved over time, going from an overt attempt at conversion to one of “ambivalent pluralism” (193) as it became obvious that absorbing these various immigrants en masse into specific Protestant churches, or even making them into Christians, was likely not going to occur, but that helping these groups become a part of American society could. In doing so, Pruitt considers not just the denominational boards, but also large institutions like the Federal (later National) Council of Churches, home mission movements, and the people who made them up, including spotlighting the important role of Protestant women in crafting the mainline's immigration efforts. The result is a book that considers local circumstances alongside national and international currents, that mixes the sacred with the profane and the pulpit with political realities.
However, Pruitt's rendition of these stories may lead to some issues for readers. He notes, if he does not always linger as much as some readers might like, on the various immigration reform bills that made their way through Congress during the twentieth century. Spending more time on these pieces of legislation might have further showed the decline of the mainline's influence in American society. Additionally, while he does discuss the very real fears many American Protestants had of Catholic immigration, Pruitt's account of the Second Ku Klux Klan is sparse, as is time spent contemplating how the denominational battles between Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates may have influenced how the mainline came to understand immigration and immigrants’ place in the nation. While Pruitt does a wonderful job of showing how the social gospel and concepts of Christian brotherhood modified the mainline's understanding of immigration, discussing how these theological debates led to either roads not taken or different stances would have been a welcome consideration. Likewise, some readers may wish to hear more from the immigrants themselves, though to be fair, that was not the story Pruitt set out to tell.
None of this is meant to detract from what Pruitt has accomplished, however. His story is sweeping in its scope and the narrative he is able to construct from a wide variety of sources is to be commended. That it also serves as a call for more research on the topic makes it an even better book. In the end, Open Hearts, Closed Doors, offers readers valuable insights into an issue that remains with us today. By telling the story of how mainline Protestants became advocates of immigration, in the hope that they could keep America Protestant, Pruitt shows the ultimate undermining of Protestant cultural dominance as it had long been known in the United States. While this broadens our understanding of both immigration and mainline decline, it also holds lessons for evangelical Protestants today and Americans in general regardless of their faith tradition.
