Search for "evangelical left"

Republican Scandals Drag Secretive ‘Family’ Into the Big Time

By Randall Balmer, Anthea Butler, Evan Derkacz, Jeff Sharlet, and Diane Winston

…n embryo) are stark. What does irritate me, though, is the perception that evangelical means white. There are evangelicals of color who never fit into this old, white male bastion of blustery rhetoric, and they have had to wrestle with moral issues of their respective communities in different ways than the cabal of folks residing in Colorado Springs. That group has always been about another agenda, although they did get co-opted somewhat in 2004 e…

In Israel, Left and Right Join to Protest New Government Threat to Democracy — What’s Striking is What’s Missing

By Shaul Magid

…y Ganz, not Gideon Sa’ar, and not Yair Lapid. In other words, even for the Left and center-left—even as the Occupation marches on—it’s essentially over. It is no longer the core of the Left’s problems with the country. Amazingly, the Left and center-left accomplished what the Right has been trying to do unsuccessfully for decades: stifle the conversation about the Occupation. To change the subject. This is not unintentional. In order for the cente…

The Divide Between “Trumpvangelicals” and the Rest of Us

By Jonathan Orbell

…icals’ vision for the movement and the on-the-ground reality—between ideal evangelicalism and evangelicalism as it “actually exists,” at least in certain pockets of the country. Simply excluding those whose evangelical faith we deem illegitimate is not an adequate response to the problem of Trumpvangelicalism. It’s not as though formulating a better theological litmus test, one which Trump’s evangelical backers will inevitably fail, gets our tradi…

The Real Reasons Why Evangelical Embrace of Environmentalism Lags

By Sarah Posner

…eter Illyn, who also pushed for cap and trade, face opposition from fellow evangelicals: some don’t like calling themselves “environmentalists,” a term they associate with lefty secularism; others grumble that “creation care” has focused more on the “creation” rather than the “Creator.” Still others maintain suspicion about government regulation, a question pollsters should really drill down on when surveying attitudes on the environment and envir…

Fact Check: Is the Evangelical Youth-Inspired Great ‘Awokening’ Just Around the Corner?

By Chrissy Stroop

…hing back on the false narratives that still characterize most coverage of evangelicals. Ex-evangelicals are stakeholders in discussions of evangelicalism with real insights, and we deserve a seat at the table. Unfortunately, instead of listening to ex-evangelicals or even to empirical data, the movers and shakers in legacy media outlets seem set on continuing to normalize an anti-democratic, anti-pluralist demographic with distortions, half-truth…

Fear, Nostalgia and Power Drove Evangelicals to Trump: Interview with Evangelical Scholar John Fea

By Eric C. Miller

…rprising as his victory was, we shouldn’t be too surprised that he rallied evangelicals to achieve it. If evangelicalism is supposed to be rooted in faith, hope, and love, you note that it’s now primarily driven by fear, nostalgia, and a will to power. Has this always been true, or has the movement been corrupted? American evangelicals have been fearful, nostalgic, and desirous of political power to varying degrees since the 17thcentury. In a chap…

Evangelicals Looking for Walker to “Do Nothing” in 2016 Election

By Sarah Posner

…Miller, an attorney who works for Hillsdale College and contributes to the evangelical blog Mere Orthodoxy, “speaks for a good number of evangelicals who do want a new tone.” But, he added, “I don’t really think that despite the endless stories to this effect, I don’t think the evangelical bloc, to the extent it is a bloc, I don’t think it’s changed that much.” Evangelicals likewise remain divided on immigration. While some evangelical leaders hav…

Obama Threaded the Moral Needle of Latino Evangelicals in ’08

By Gastón Espinosa

…omise to correct the misperception that Democrats were anti-faith and anti-evangelical: Evangelicals have come to believe often times that Democrats are anti-faith. Part of my job in this campaign, something that I started doing well before this campaign, was to make sure I was showing up and reaching out and sharing my faith experience with people who share that faith. Hopefully we can build some bridges that can allow us to move the country forw…

How the Anti-Abortion Movement Gave us Donald Trump — and Why It Could Bring Worse

By Jonathan Dudley

…lical magazine, and in a joint statement representing “the conservative or evangelical position,” evangelical leaders characterized abortion as usually wrong but not the same as killing another person. This was not an historic aberration. Although Christian theologians have generally rejected abortion, they haven’t always embraced the idea that it’s the same as killing a person at every stage of pregnancy. Thomas Aquinas, on some readings, held th…

Cherry-Picking in the God Gap: A Post-Election Conversation on the Religious Vote and the Battle to Spin it

By Daniel Schultz and Chrissy Stroop

…false narratives that simply will not die. There’s a whole subgenre on how evangelical youth are going to be making evangelicals normal, “like us,” any day now, because gee whiz, they say they care about the environment! It’s like Bullwinkle trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat—”This time for sure!” Dan: I’m glad somebody else remembers Bullwinkle. I should also note that in addition to your fine writing, we of course have some other great stuff…