Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice
Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice

Author: Brantley W. Gasaway

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2014-10-30

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1469617730

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In this compelling history of progressive evangelicalism, Brantley Gasaway examines a dynamic though often overlooked movement within American Christianity today. Gasaway focuses on left-leaning groups, such as Sojourners and Evangelicals for Social Action, that emerged in the early 1970s, prior to the rise of the more visible Religious Right. He identifies the distinctive "public theology--a set of biblical interpretations regarding the responsibility of Christians to promote social justice--that has animated progressive evangelicals' activism and bound together their unusual combination of political positions. The book analyzes how prominent leaders, including Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, and Tony Campolo, responded to key political and social issues over the past four decades. Progressive evangelicals combated racial inequalities, endorsed feminism, promoted economic justice, and denounced American nationalism and militarism. At the same time, most leaders opposed abortion and refused to affirm homosexual behavior, even as they defended gay civil rights. Gasaway demonstrates that, while progressive evangelicals have been caught in the crossfire of partisan conflicts and public debates over the role of religion in politics, they have offered a significant alternative to both the Religious Right and the political left.

Jesus and Justice
Jesus and Justice

Author: Peter Goodwin Heltzel

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2009-07-21

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0300155735

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This timely book investigates the increasing visibility and influence of evangelical Christians in recent American politics with a focus on racial justice. Peter Goodwin Heltzel considers four evangelical social movements: Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, Christian Community Development Association, and Sojourners. The political motives and actions of evangelical groups are founded upon their conceptions of Jesus Christ, Heltzel contends. He traces the roots of contemporary evangelical politics to the prophetic black Christianity tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the socially engaged evangelical tradition of Carl F. H. Henry. Heltzel shows that the basic tenets of King's and Henry's theologies have led their evangelical heirs toward a prophetic evangelicalism in a shade of blue green--blue symbolizing the tragedy of black suffering in the Americas, and green symbolizing the hope of a prophetic evangelical engagement with poverty, AIDS, and the environment. This fresh theological understanding of evangelical political groups shines new light on the ways evangelicals shape and are shaped by broader American culture.

Gay on God's Campus
Gay on God's Campus

Author: Jonathan S. Coley

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-02-02

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1469636239

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Although the LGBT movement has made rapid gains in the United States, LGBT people continue to face discrimination in faith communities. In this book, sociologist Jonathan S. Coley documents why and how student activists mobilize for greater inclusion at Christian colleges and universities. Drawing on interviews with student activists at a range of Christian institutions of higher learning, Coley shows that students, initially drawn to activism because of their own political, religious, or LGBT identities, are forming direct action groups that transform university policies, educational groups that open up campus dialogue, and solidarity groups that facilitate their members' personal growth. He also shows how these LGBT activists apply their skills and values after graduation in subsequent political campaigns, careers, and family lives, potentially serving as change agents in their faith communities for years to come. Coley's findings shed light on a new frontier of LGBT activism and challenge prevailing wisdom about the characteristics of activists, the purpose of activist groups, and ultimately the nature of activism itself. For more information about this project's research methodology and theoretical grounding, please visit http://jonathancoley.com/book

Social Justice Goes To Church: The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism
Social Justice Goes To Church: The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism

Author: Jon Harris

Publisher: Ambassador International

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 1649600917

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"The infusion of social justice into the gospel may well be the most dangerous problem facing the church today. Yet, it is going unnoticed in far too many circles. Social Justice Goes to Church can serve as a wake-up call." —Samuel C. Smith, Ph.D. Chair and Graduate Program Director, Department of History, Liberty University In order to understand why so many evangelicals recently support left-leaning political causes, it is important to know a little history. In the 1970s, many campus radicals raised in Christian homes brought neo-Marxist ideas from college back to church with them. At first, figures like Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, and Richard Mouw made great gains for their progressive evangelical cause. But, after the defeat of Jimmy Carter, the religious right stole the headlines. Today, a new crop of mainstream evangelicals has taken up the cause of the New Left, whether they know it or not. As pro-life evangelicals rush to support movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, it is important to realize they are walking in footprints already laid down. Their mission may be more successful, but it is not new. To understand where the evangelical social justice movement is heading, it is vital to understand the origins of the movement. Social Justice Goes to Church: The New Left in Modern American Evangelicalism answers, from a historical perspective, the vital question, "Why are American evangelicals moving Left?" “The great injunction to the Church was to preach the Gospel to the world, while not being of the world. Social justice neatly reverses this trend, preaching the ways of the world into the church. That is not its only critical reversal. The Gospel is about freedom from guilt and sin and bondage. Social justice seeks above all to apportion guilt and sin and bondage, enslaving entire demographics and requiring that they kneel before man in attrition. How important that a book of this nature should enter the fray right now. I applaud Mr. Harris for his excellent work in providing the practical means of identifying and repelling this fraudulent force, this ideological interloper, this dangerous false teaching.” —Douglas Kruger Author of Political Correctness Does More Harm Than Good: How to Identify, Debunk, and Dismantle Dangerous Ideas

Themelios, Volume 40, Issue 2
Themelios, Volume 40, Issue 2

Author: D. A. Carson

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1725250063

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Themelios is an international, evangelical, peer-reviewed theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Themelios is published three times a year online at The Gospel Coalition (http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/) and in print by Wipf and Stock. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. Themelios began in 1975 and was operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. General Editor: D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Managing Editor: Brian Tabb, Bethlehem College and Seminary Consulting Editor: Michael J. Ovey, Oak Hill Theological College Administrator: Andrew David Naselli, Bethlehem College and Seminary Book Review Editors: Jerry Hwang, Singapore Bible College; Alan Thompson, Sydney Missionary & Bible College; Nathan A. Finn, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Hans Madueme, Covenant College; Dane Ortlund, Crossway; Jason Sexton, Golden Gate Baptist Seminary Editorial Board: Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School Lee Gatiss, Wales Evangelical School of Theology Paul Helseth, University of Northwestern, St. Paul Paul House, Beeson Divinity School Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary James Robson, Wycliffe Hall Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship Robert Yarbrough, Covenant Seminary

Reforming Sodom
Reforming Sodom

Author: Heather R. White

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2015-07-24

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1469624125

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With a focus on mainline Protestants and gay rights activists in the twentieth century, Heather R. White challenges the usual picture of perennial adversaries with a new narrative about America's religious and sexual past. White argues that today's antigay Christian traditions originated in the 1920s when a group of liberal Protestants began to incorporate psychiatry and psychotherapy into Christian teaching. A new therapeutic orthodoxy, influenced by modern medicine, celebrated heterosexuality as God-given and advocated a compassionate "cure" for homosexuality. White traces the unanticipated consequences as the therapeutic model, gaining popularity after World War II, spurred mainline church leaders to take a critical stance toward rampant antihomosexual discrimination. By the 1960s, a vanguard of clergy began to advocate for homosexual rights. White highlights the continued importance of this religious support to the consolidating gay and lesbian movement. However, the ultimate irony of the therapeutic orthodoxy's legacy was its adoption, beginning in the 1970s, by the Christian Right, which embraced it as an age-old tradition to which Americans should return. On a broader level, White challenges the assumed secularization narrative in LGBT progress by recovering the forgotten history of liberal Protestants' role on both sides of the debates over orthodoxy and sexual identity.

The Crisis of Evangelical Christianity
The Crisis of Evangelical Christianity

Author: Keith C. Sewell

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1498238769

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In the broad context of Christianity as it developed over two millennia, and with special reference to the last three centuries, this discussion finds that Evangelicalism has repeatedly offered a reduced and distorted understanding of the faith. The evangelical outlook is much less scriptural than evangelicals generally assume. When it comes to appreciating the order of creation, our calling to develop integral Christian thinking and living, the religious significance of culture, and the coming of the kingdom, reductionist Evangelicalism struggles with its only rarely acknowledged deficiencies. As a result, we have all too often ended up with a Christianity shorn of its cosmic scope and wide cultural implications, and restricted to institutional church life and the cultivation of private spiritual experience. The consequences are frequently enervating and corrosive. Without disregarding what is important in the past, evangelicals are here challenged to take the Bible much more seriously, and thereby transcend the limitations of their habitual reductionism. Evangelicals are encouraged to embrace an integral and full-orbed understanding of Christian discipleship that will equip the faithful to address the deep and complex challenges of the twenty-first century.

The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism
The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism

Author: Andrew Atherstone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-07-11

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1317041526

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Evangelicalism, an inter-denominational religious movement that has grown to become one of the most pervasive expressions of world Christianity in the early twenty-first century, had its origins in the religious revivals led by George Whitefield, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. With its stress on the Bible, the cross of Christ, conversion and the urgency of mission, it quickly spread throughout the Atlantic world and then became a global phenomenon. Over the past three decades evangelicalism has become the focus of considerable historical research. This research companion brings together a team of leading scholars writing broad-ranging chapters on key themes in the history of evangelicalism. It provides an authoritative and state-of-the-art review of current scholarship, and maps the territory for future research. Primary attention is paid to English-speaking evangelicalism, but the volume is transnational in its scope. Arranged thematically, chapters assess evangelicalism and the Bible, the atonement, spirituality, revivals and revivalism, worldwide mission in the Atlantic North and the Global South, eschatology, race, gender, culture and the arts, money and business, interactions with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Christianity, and Islam, and globalization. It demonstrates evangelicalism’s multiple and contested identities in different ages and contexts. The historical and thematic approach of this research companion makes it an invaluable resource for scholars and students alike worldwide.

The Kingdom of God Has No Borders
The Kingdom of God Has No Borders

Author: Melani McAlister

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0190213426

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In The Kingdom of God Has No Borders, Melani McAlister offers a sweeping narrative of the last fifty years of evangelical history outside of the United States, weaving a fascinating tale that upends much of what we know--or think we know--about American evangelicals.

Evangelical America
Evangelical America

Author: Timothy J. Demy

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-09-21

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 161069774X

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An essential new reference work for students and general readers interested in the history, dynamics, and influence of evangelicalism in recent American history, politics, and culture. What makes evangelical or "born-again" Christians different from those who identify themselves more simply as "Christian"? What percentage of Americans believe in the Rapture? How are evangelicalism and Baptism similar? What is the influence of evangelical religions on U.S. politics? Readers of Evangelical America: An Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Religious Culture will learn the answers to these questions and many more through this single-volume work's coverage of the many dimensions of and diversity within evangelicalism and through its documentation of the specific contributions evangelicals have made in American society and culture. It also illustrates the Evangelical movement's influence internationally in key issues such as human rights, environmentalism, and gender and sexuality.