Search for "evangelical left"

What the Fight over Allah says about the Future of Evangelical Christianity

By Richard Flory

…fessor Hawkins is just the latest casualty. But things are changing within evangelicalism. Evangelical schools are facing decreasing enrollments and a declining pool of religiously acceptable students. Other evangelical institutions (such as megachurches) appear to be carrying on as usual, but they are showing signs of stress. Memberships have plateaued over the last several years, and some megachurches are seeking new ways to appeal to younger pe…

Cruz and the Evangelical Illusion

By Sarah Posner

…casions last year, Donald Trump has scrambled the formula for winning over evangelical voters. Rather than pandering to evangelical voters with talk of “biblical values,” opposition to abortion, or promises to fight for “religious liberty,” Trump has played his own game. While evangelical “leaders” demand dedication to “Christian values” and fealty to the “Christian nation,” Trump has made only vague and episodic references to the Bible and his ow…

‘Do They Even Read the Bible?’ — Why Exposing White Evangelical Hypocrisy is a Dead End

By Cavan Concannon

…NRSV). DeSantis changed the biblical text in his allusion, equating the US Left with the devil. Few evangelicals bothered to critique DeSantis for his misquotation because he’d simply made the Bible say what they already knew it to say; namely, that political opponents of White evangelicals are in league with the devil and must be stopped. DeSantis both changed the words of scripture and let it speak for itself. When White evangelicals read the Bi…

A Great Evangelical Divorce? — Speaker Mike Johnson’s Breakup with Marjorie Taylor Greene Could Be Bad News For Trump

By Diana Butler Bass

…kraine groups figured out the key to American aid in their war was swaying evangelicals. Shifting evangelicals would shift overall public opinion and might change the votes of congress members representing districts with strong evangelical representation. From the end of last year until now, there’s been a steady, persistent attempt to do just that. And much of that pressure was directed toward Mike Johnson. The number of stories about Russian per…

Come Let Us Reason Together: A Response to Critics of Evangelical/Progressive Initiative

By Robert P. Jones

…religious right”; rather, the religious right represents only a portion of evangelicals: less than half (46%) of evangelicals are traditionalists, and the majority of evangelicals are centrists and modernists (40% and 14% respectively) who are potential allies for progressives on many issues. Another unfortunate side effect is that the circles of acceptable allies gets drawn ever smaller. For example, Rev. Debra Haffner of the Religious Institute…

Historian: Evangelical Trump Fandom is No Deviation

By Neil J. Young

…olitical importance and, I argue, become a religious and cultural tool for evangelicals. Evangelicals at this time were wrestling with all the dramatic changes to private and public life that corporate capitalism and modernity introduced. I focus on those evangelicals who were more comfortable with the corporate men and means than were not. In doing so, we find a story of modern evangelicalism that other scholars have mentioned in passing but have…

Dispelling the Zombie Myth of White Evangelical Support for Trump

By Robert P. Jones

…e an example to the rest of the world.” Strikingly, church-attending White evangelicals are also as likely as unchurched White evangelicals to believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country (30% vs. 32%). After analyzing dozens of questions, I found only one topic where church attendance has a mitigating effect on Trump’s MAGA appeal. White evangelicals who attend church at least a few times a month are slig…

Special Report: Have Evangelical Colleges Succumbed to “Theological Paranoia”?

By Chrissy Stroop

…e University, though many capable classmates, like many current and former evangelicals I’ve met since, chose evangelical colleges or universities, confident that they would prove compatible with authentic intellectual inquiry and tolerance for a range of political views. Given a worrisome trend at a number of Christian schools, not all would make that same choice today. Larycia Hawkins, associate professor of political science at Wheaton College…

RDBook: Whither the Religious Left?

By Bill Berkowitz

…religious left“? How do you see the development of an authentic “religious left?“ FC: The religious left ballyhooed by the media seems to consist of a few moderate evangelical authors, plus Jim Wallis, Rabbi Michael Lerner; some small Inside the Beltway organizations, and a gaggle of political consultants who advise clients on matters of “faith outreach“ and who advocate “dialog“ with conservative evangelicals. Whatever the merits of all of this,…

Maybe Instead of Solidarity, The Religious Left Should Try Being Indivisible

By Daniel Schultz

…ligious left, the religious left, and focused instead on letting religious lefts and leftists blossom, trusting that God would increase their efforts thirty or sixty or a hundredfold? Some people won’t get it, of course, and some people will reject it, while others won’t be able to act on it. But those who do might just be able to change the world. ____ * Here’s a neat example of the problem with specifics and universals: I say “Christian,” becaus…