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Evangelicals are increasingly turning their attention to such issues as the environment, international human rights, economic development, racial reconciliation, and urban renewal.
About the author
Philip Goff is director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture and professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Author or editor of over thirty books and journal volumes, he writes about the role of religion in American history, particularly its relationship to other aspects of American culture.
Brian Steensland is Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. His first book, The Failed Welfare Revolution, received the Mary Douglas Prize and the Political Sociology Book Award. His academic articles have appeared in leading sociology journals, such as the American Journal of Sociology and Social Forces.
Summary
Evangelicals are increasingly turning their attention toward issues such as the environment, international human rights, economic development, racial reconciliation, and urban renewal. This marks an expansion of the social agenda advanced by the Religious Right over 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. The New Evangelical Social Engagement brings together an impressive interdisciplinary team of scholars to map this new religious terrain and spell out its significance.
The volume's introduction describes the broad outlines of 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. Part One of the book discusses important groups and trends: emerging evangelicals, the New Monastics, an emphasis on social justice, Catholic influences, gender dynamics and the desire to rehabilitate the evangelical identity, and evangelical attitudes toward the new social agenda. Part Two focuses on specific issues: the environment, racial reconciliation, abortion, international human rights, and global poverty. Part Three contains reflections on the new evangelical social engagement by three leading scholars in the fields of American religious history, sociology of religion, and Christian ethics.
Additional text
The standard academic view of American evangelicalism is growing more dated by the year. Many new movements and subcultural shifts are underway in evangelicalism that open up possibilities for major changes in the future. Steensland and Goff offer one of the best windows into these important changes among evangelicals. This is a must-read for any student of American religion, culture, politics, and civil society.
