Recently an academic friend whose views and worship practices meet all the usual criteria of evangelical told me he no longer owns the label. When I asked why, he answered simply, “When I tell people I am an evangelical, they automatically assume I want America to bomb Guatemala.”
This valuable anthology addresses a topic that usually flies under the media’s radar: “new” evangelicals’ progressive social engagement in the past quarter century. Other works, such as David R. Swartz’s Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism, Brantley W. Gasaway’s Progressive Evangelicals and the Pursuit of Social Justice, and Heather Curtis’s forthcoming Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid, tread some of this ground.The New Evangelical Social Engagement, edited by distinguished scholars of American religion at Indiana University/Purdue University, amplifies these works with deeply researched historical and sociological case studies.
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The New Evangelical Social Engagement offers a treasure of resources. Contributors discuss the work of movement pioneers such as Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, Christianity Todayeditor David Neff, and Sojourners editor Jim Wallis. The endeavors of current leaders, such as New York City pastor Tim Keller and author Shane Claiborne, also receive extended treatment. Crucial statements like the 1973 Chicago Declaration, the 1994 Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation, and the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act win close scrutiny, too.