The European discovery of the Americas and its cultures introduced theological and anthropological questions for Christians that had not yet been fully answered on such a grand scale. The Catholic Church, not accounting for different cultural groups, seemingly had the anthropological question, “Who am I?” The Hebrew Bible most clearly proclaims that the human race was created in the image of God. Yet, despite this, Christians throughout history have struggled and failed to recognize and affirm the full humanity of all peoples. In turn, Christians have oppressed, enslaved, and killed countless persons whom they deemed not worthy of the title: “human.” The European Christians alongside the Indigenous inhabitants of these lands encountered cultures that were entirely different to their own. Two essential questions arose out of this cultural dichotomy for European Christians. The first was not, “Who am I?,” but “Who are these indigenous peoples?,” as their culture was evidently different from the European Christians.

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The American Constitution grants citizens freedom of speech and freedom of association. Collectively, these rights recognize citizens’ ability to protest the American Government. From the inception of the United States, direct-action protests have been a cornerstone of American democracy. Direct-action protests are so well renowned and embedded into the fabric of American democracy that in-direct protests have failed to gain the same level of traction and immortalization. This essay examines the validity of indirect small-scale resistance when conducted by liturgical (i.e.: Catholic and Episcopalian) and non-liturgical (i.e.: Baptist and Methodist) churches and the historical background that predated resistance modes and church influence during the Civil Rights Movement.

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Toward the end of Just Kids, the iconic queer photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, now on his deathbed with AIDS, tells his once partner Patti Smith: “We never had any children.” This yearning for heterosexual parenthood is a strange statement coming from an artist who pushed the boundaries of queer representation in art, invoking the anger of Congress and heterosexual America in the process. In response, Patti Smith shuts Mapplethorpe down, telling him instead “our work was our children.” Smith’s response does two important things. First, it legitimizes artmaking as a worthwhile life pursuit, elevating art to the status of childhood (which, as Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner argue, has achieved the “status of sanctified nationality” in America). Second, this statement reveals a major project of Smith’s memoir—the reimaging of domesticity, the creation of a home centered around art, rather than a nuclear family.

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