The New Evangelical Social Engagement

Paul Harvey

A new anthology to point your attention to, and one with a variety of essays that address many of the points raised by David Swartz's Moral Minority and other books on progressive evangelical social engagement:

Brian Steensland and Philip Goff, eds., The New Evangelical Social Engagement (Oxford, 2014).

A brief description from the book's website:

In recent years evangelical Christians have been increasingly turning their attention toward issues such as the environment, international human rights, economic development, racial reconciliation, and urban renewal. Such engagement marks both a return to historic evangelical social action and a pronounced expansion of the social agenda advanced by the Religious Right in the past few decades. For outsiders to evangelical culture, this trend complicates simplistic stereotypes. For insiders, it brings contention over what "true" evangelicalism means today. Beginning with an introduction that broadly outlines this 'new evangelicalism', the editors identify its key elements, trace its historical lineage, account for the recent changes taking place within evangelicalism, and highlight the implications of these changes for politics, civic engagement, and American religion. The essays that follow bring together an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to map this new religious terrain and spell out its significance in what is sure to become an essential text for understanding trends in contemporary evangelicalism. The book features essays by the likes of David Swartz, Omri Elisha, John Green, Glen Stassen, Amy Reynolds, Gerardo Marti, and many before, with topics ranging from "green evangelicals" to evangelicals and human rights to "pro-lifers of the left" to what is different and what is the same between an older and younger generation of progressive evangelicals. Check it out.