Amy Laura Hall

This is an ambitious, powerful, and ground-breaking book. Amy Laura Hall examines attitudes toward parenthood and families among Protestants in the United States (especially white, middle- to upper-class, mainline Protestants in the early- to mid-twentieth-century) and the theological and ethical underpinnings of these attitudes. She pays particular attention to the impact of rhetoric and images in shaping attitudes toward families classified as "other." The chapter that hit me the hardest show more was Hall's appraisal of mainline Protestant complicity in the eugenics movement.

One of the things I like about Hall's work is that she doesn't leave anyone unchallenged. She self-identifies as progressive, evangelical, feminist, and pro-life, and those commitments are clear in her passionate writing. She has definitely impacted my thinking about what it means to create a family and a hospitable home. I hope her voice will be heard in the evangelical and mainline churches in the decades to come, and I look forward to more of her writing on theological ethics. show less