Search for "evangelical left"

The Problem with the Latest Predictions for ‘the Rise of the Religious Left’

By Hollis Phelps

…e cusp of an alternative religious movement. Enter the so-called religious left. Last week NPR ran a story about the putative rise of a more left-leaning religious coalition in the United States. The story suggests that a “comparable effort by liberal religious leaders” to the formation of the Moral Majority some 40 years ago is now taking shape, “coalescing in support of immigrant rights, universal healthcare, LBGTQ rights and racial justice.” Al…

Is The Religious Left Emerging as a Political Force? No.

By Daniel Schultz

…ike a mirror-image of the Religious Right to coalesce. Also, nobody on the left wants anything like the obnoxious authoritarians of the Religious Right to appear on the left. Democrats are secular-minded and they like it like that, thank you very much. (If you don’t believe me, check out the book sales of religious progressives, mine included.) And, yeah, turns out nobody really gives a damn about their pastors’ view on social or political issues….

Exvangelical TikTokkers Aren’t a Sign of the End Times, But Here’s What Evangelicals Need to Understand About ‘The Falling Away’

By Blake Chastain

…white evangelicalism wanting. As Dr. Anthea Butler says in her book White Evangelical Racism: “Evangelicals are not being persecuted in America. They are being called to account.” David Jeremiah cited 1 John, but when I think of what I’ve learned of and witnessed from the white evangelical church that formed me, I think of a different passage: 15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 Y…

Evangelical PR Blitz Before Midterms Won’t Fix the ‘81% Problem’

By Chrissy Stroop

…similar to Ekins’ on race by differentiating between self-identified white evangelicals and “evangelicals by belief.” This seems reasonable enough until it becomes clear that the primary function of the “evangelicals by belief” category is to conflate Christians of color (who may not even consider themselves evangelicals) with white evangelicals on the basis of certain shared theological views, in order to make white evangelicals come off as more…

Tearing Down Evangelical Icons: Why Penn’s Decision to Remove George Whitefield Statue May Be Good for American Evangelicalism

By Peter Y. Choi

…rved to obfuscate the history of evangelical participation in America’s racial sins. Its removal might mark a turning point in the unfolding story of evangelicals in America. How evangelicals will respond remains to be seen….

Neil Gorsuch Shows How Donald Trump Loses (Some) White Evangelical Christians

By John Stoehr

…op didn’t drive them away. It was just one more reason for leaving. White evangelicals taking the teachings of Jesus to heart are not who we should be talking about when asking what Trump could possibly do to alienate white evangelical Christians. The vast majority of that cohort is willing to eat virtually any insult as long as Trump sees to it that the right people are punished and, more importantly, that they can do the punishing. This is why…

Why White Evangelical Women Aren’t the Swing Voters They Sometimes Appear to Be

By Sikivu Hutchinson

…’s conference in the United States, the annual IF: Gathering, we know that evangelical women can often sound more like supporters of O’Rourke than Cruz (the Atlantic’s profile of evangelical superstar Beth Moore is another example). In fact, if we had to place this group of mostly white evangelical women on a political spectrum based solely on the messages they present at the conference, we would dub them liberals. But because these women remain f…

Russell Moore Claims There’s a Crisis in Evangelical America — But White Evangelicalism is Exactly Where it Wants to Be

By John Stoehr

…know is that the “Sermon on the Mount” does not play a central role in the evangelical Protestant community. What it doesn’t know is that the “Sermon on the Mount” is itself subversive to evangelical Protestants, in that it subverts their understanding of a world divided between the saved and the damned. They believe that God’s love is exclusive to those who are already on the inside of the evangelical community. It’s unconditional, but it’s also…

How a Catholic-Majority SCOTUS Fulfilled an Evangelical Dream

By Katherine Kelaidis

…hostility to non-like minded Protestants is theologically integral to many evangelical communities. And yet, from the late 1960s onward, evangelicals have led the movement to build ecumenical political coalitions among religious conservatives. The religious right grew from these efforts. What emerged was a political coalition with a white evangelical core that embraced conservative Catholics, Mormons, and others. For their cooperation, Mormons wer…

How “Race Tests” Maintain Evangelical Segregation

By Joshua L. Lazard

…bination of unintentional and intentional behaviors that are keeping white evangelical churches mostly white. The researchers introduce the notion that these white evangelical churches have created what they call “white institutional space.” Simply put, white institutional space is created through a process that begins with whites excluding people of color, either completely or from institutional positions of power, during a formative period in th…