New Evangelical Manifesto: A Kingdom Vision for the Common Good

by David P. Gushee (Editor)

Being religiously conservative does not necessarily mean being politically conservative. There is a significant, emerging segment of conservatively theological Christians who agree with politically liberal counterparts while staying true to their own faith regarding a wide variety of political issues in contemporary America.

It is time for a new look at faith and politics in America. It is time for A New Evangelical Manifesto .

Written by authors, theologians, and instructors affiliated with the The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (NEP), the aim of A New Evangelical Manifesto is to introduce the work and vision of the New Evangelical Partnership and other leaders gathered who think differently about how conservative faith relates to politics. The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (NEP) exists to advance human well-being as an expression of our love for Jesus Christ, which is itself a grateful response to his love for us and for a good but suffering world. A New Evangelical Manifesto discusses many hot button issues such as human trafficking, healthcare, race, abortion, nuclear weapons, war, global poverty, Christianity, the church, and theology.

257 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Rev. Prof. Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is also the elected past-president of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. Dr. Gushee is the author, co-author, or editor of 28 books, including the bestsellers Kingdom Ethics and Changing Our Mind. His other most notable works are After Evangelicalism, Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust, Introducing Christian Ethics, and The Sacredness of Human Life. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian moral thinkers. Gushee and his wife, Jeanie, live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reviews

[Ronald Goetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Evangelical Alternative to Christofascism: A Review of A New Evangelical Manifesto

When I first perused A New Evangelical Manifesto, I was more than a bit dubious. The fact that there was barely a mention of LGBT issues, let alone a chapter, had me conjuring all sorts of suspicions. Checking out their website, however, and examining the book more carefully, allayed my concerns, and I discovered that the recent offering from the Disciples of Christ publishing house, Chalice Press, is a significant contribution to the aspiring leadership of America's churches, and will certainly broaden the ministry horizons of anyone who reads it.

A New Kind of Evangelical Christianity

The first section of the book is titled "A New Kind of Evangelical Christianity," and was certainly my favorite. Brian McLaren's piece, "The Church in America Today," is a general introduction to the struggles faced by Christendom's American institutions, which will be familiar to most of us, although some review is always good.

Four of these readings were of special interest to me, Steve Martin's "Where the Church Went Wrong" and "Kingdom Community," Richard Cizik's "My Journey toward the 'New Evangelicalism,'" and Glen Harold Stassen's "God's Vision for the Church--Kingdom Discipleship."

Martin directed "Theologians Under Hitler", the 2005 documentary of how three major theologians provided tragically misguided support which assisted the Nazi party to coopt the church for German nationalism. This warning from history is reflected in 1) Martin's several pages on Elisabeth Schmitz, a woman who played a very costly communication linkage on behalf of German Jews in the Berlin ghetto; 2) in his three page introduction to Paul Althaus, Emanuel Hirsch, and Gerhard Kittel, the three subjects of his documentary; and 3) in Glen Stassen's discussion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King. (FYI: Gerhard Kittel, the German theologian, was the general editor of the famous ten-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. While "Kittel's" is now out of vogue, it was popular and influential in its day. I still own a set.)

Richard Cizik, forced out of the NAE for his concerns over climate change and his 2008 vote for Barak Obama

For those of you who missed the story, Richard Cizik is the 28-year veteran of the National Association of Evangelicals who was forced to resign in 2008 because of left-leaning comments he made to NPR interviewer Terry Gross on Fresh Air. This piece is his first published statement about the experience that effectively black-listed him from every evangelical organization with which Cizik was involved. It is a remarkably gentle commentary on the how evangelical leaders have allowed the Republican party to coopt the communities of faith given by God for them to steward. There is a 4-1/2 minute Youtube clip of Cizik describing his experience of being ousted from the NAE. His chapter in this volume, however, is better than the Youtube clip!

The book's second section is focused domestically, and deals with "Holistic Love of Marginalized Neighbors." These are the topics covered:

8. Those Trafficked and Commodified (Jennifer Crumpton)
9. Those Suffering Preventable Diseases (Andi Thomas Sullivan)
10. Our Muslim Neighbors (Rick Love)
11. People of All Races (Lisa Sharon Harper )
12. Women (Jennifer Crumpton)
13. Children (Laura Rector)
14. The Dying (Scott Claybrook)
15. The Global Poor (Adam Phillips)

Jennifer Crumpton's "Those Trafficked and Commodified" is the longest chapter in the collection at twenty pages, a wise editorial allocation for couple of reasons. First, sex trafficking is at epidemic levels and causes untold suffering to millions of women and girls world wide. Second, it is an "issue" that nearly everyone agrees on. This agreement is an area of guaranteed common ground on which virtually all Christians could meet and work together.

Pentecostal Cheryl Bridges Johns, "Where Evangelicals went Wrong with the Bible"

Section three is devoted to "Redemptive Approaches in Public Life" and covers the following topics.

16: Ending the Death Penalty (Timothy W. Floyd)
17: Making Peace (Paul Alexander)
18: Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (Tyler Wigg-Stevenson)
19: Overcoming Global Warming (Jim Ball)
20: Reducing Abortion (Charlie Camosy)
21: Resisting Consumerism (Jennifer Crumpton )
22: Standing Fast Against Torture (David P. Gushee)

As you can see, the contents of sections two and three look a lot like the table of contents of a reader on ethics, which the book is. A New Evangelical Manifesto is a book of readings for a class on Christian social ethics. Not surprisingly, five of the contributors (Markham, Alexander, Camosy, Stassen, and Gushee) are professors of ethics or social responsibility. But the book is far more than a book on Christian social ethics.

An Evangelical Alternative to Christofascism

My initial feeling was that he book was not a manifesto, if you have in mind the great manifestos from history, like the Ninety-Five Theses (Martin Luther, 1517), The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine, 1791), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792), Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, 1848), Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler, 1926), Silent Spring (Rachel Carson, 1962), Port Huron Statement (Tom Hayden, SDS, 1962), and A Christian Manifesto (Francis Schaeffer, 1982).

I was wrong. I was being excessively picky (!), comparing A New Evangelical Manifesto to history-changing manifestos of the past. The book actually is a manifesto, calling American evangelicals to pay attention to issues of social justice, and alerting them to the fact that NOM, the IRD, and FOTF haven't cornered the market on Biblical social holiness. The book, and the New Evangelical Partnership, provide a list of priorities and an organization through which to address those priorities.

Contributor Steve Martin documents theological blindness and seduction

A New Evangelical Manifesto is an alternative to Christofascism for evangelicals and other conservative religious. The NEP recognizes the horrible temptation to which American evangelicals are falling prey: the allure of totalitarian power over society. Please check out their DVD and video offerings: Elisabeth of Berlin, God with Us: Baptism and the Jews in the Third Reich, and Theologians Under Hitler.

Please consider purchasing these DVDs and videos. Education on totalitarianism and genocide is essential to preventing them, at least in our own countries. The front pages of my DVD case are devoted to Nazi Germany and to the Holocaust. Totalitarianism and genocide were the scourges of the twentieth century: the Armenian Genocide (1914-1918), the Holocaust (1933-1945), the Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), and Rwanda (1994) are just a few. Wikipedia has a more complete list of genocides.

If you have any input in your congregation for study groups of any kind, these resources belong in your personal or church library. Genocide is not something that nations only perpetrated in the ancient near east, and is not reserved to third-world countries.

If you lead discussion groups or topical classes, take a look at A New Evangelical Manifesto before you purchase other materials. If you are involved in higher education or in library acquisitions, do consider this book. Pastors looking for a preaching resource on Christian social issues, ditto.

I just signed up to receive email updates from the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, and I think you might like to sign up, too. http://newevangelicalpartnership.org/ The New Evangelical Partnership is empowering American Evangelicals concerned about human rights, climate change, nuclear disarmament, poverty, US foreign policy, prison reform, Muslim-Christian dialogue, and LGBT issues. I think you will find their new book informative, sometimes even edifying and inspiring.
__________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2004 Evangelicals in the U.S. were the most likely to vote for George W. Bush. Fine.

We were also the most likely to support the war in Iraq, justify torture and reject calls for abolishing the death penalty. Evangelicals - those whose named is derived from the word “good news” - are the most likely to support war and violence. What’s wrong with this picture?

As I recently shared about Evangelicals embracing people’s stories, it’s also true that Evangelicals are broadening their political ethic beyond abortion and gay marriage. Looking to the Scriptures for a holistic view of life, we have found that the good news reaches to all areas of the world - not only individual morality - and speaks to the pressing issues of our day: including conflict, environmental degradation, consumerism, objectification of women, global poverty and human trafficking (among others).

The New Evangelical Manifesto: A Kingdom Vision for the Common Good, edited by David P. Gushee from The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, moves beyond the narrow focus of the Religious Right. It’s authors represent a new wave of Evangelicals, grappling with the good news of Jesus and what it means for the world today.

There is a lot to be appreciated in this book. Fighting global poverty and preventable diseases are now accepted forms of Evangelical social action, and the book addresses these. But the authors of this book also critique the church’s failure to respond to climate change, and its historic support of war, torture, and nuclear weapons.

While many Christians, including Jennifer Crumpton, are rallying to fight human trafficking, Crumpton also rails against female exploitation and oppression in all its forms - from a ceaseless marketing that objectifies women to churches that continue to tell women they cannot lead or teach. Charlie Camosy broadens the discussion on abortion - promoting a pro-life ethic that also recognizes the plight of impoverished single moms, with whom the church should stand in love and support. We can all agree that Jesus commands us to love our neighbors. Rick Love reminds us that our neighbors are Muslim, and we are commanded to love them as well.

Many of the chapters are bold and smart, and paint a better picture of what the good news can mean in 2012.

The book falls short in a couple ways. First, the New Evangelical Manifesto does not represent the full picture of New Evangelicals. While Adam Phillips - in his chapter on addressing the global poor - recognizes his privilege as a white male from the United States, and explains that the new face of (Evangelical) Christianity is a woman in Nigeria, the book’s authors do not reflect this change in Christian demographics. If I counted right, one author is a black female, three are white females, and the rest (13) are white males. All from the U.S. While I resonate with most of the chapters and would commend them to you for understanding a broader view of Evangelical concern and action, Evangelicals - even the new ones - have a ways to go in welcoming - and pursuing - voices that are not (only) white and male.

The other shortcoming is the silence on the homosexuality/LGBT rights. The authors take bold stances on the environment, torture, and women’s roles, but fail to enter the fray of the church’s response to people who are gay. The only reference to it can be found in the appendix entitled “Here We Stand”:

"We stand against the collapse of marriage and for stronger family life. We are involved in efforts to strengthen the fading institution of marriage and thereby protecting and enhancing the well-being of children. We do not believe that denigrating the dignity and denying the human rights of gays and lesbians is a legitimate part of a “pro-family” Christian agenda, and will work to reform Christian attitudes and treatment of lesbian and gay people."

It’s a good statement, but this is huge right now. While I recognize how divisive it is among Christians, New Evangelicals have to enter this fray. It is a missing chapter in what is otherwise an important step for Evangelicals.

[Matt Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is evangelical, and then there is Evangelical. Both have their roots in the Greek word, evangelion which means "good news" or, as it has become to be known in Christianity, gospel. Lowercase evangelical has been around for two thousand years ever since Christ first uttered the words, "Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand" (as recorded in the Gospel of Mark). Capital Evangelicalism has only been around for a couple of centuries, first developing among Protestant Christians in the mid 1700's CE. Since that time, Evangelicalism has grown into a robust brand of Christianity, largely concentrated here in America. So much so, that over a third of American Christians define themselves as Evangelical.

Over the past few decades, the term Evangelical has become synonymous with the theo-political Religious Right and its zealous culture war waged against homosexual rights, abortion, and the Democratic party. For many, this current form of Evangelicalism is the only kind of Christianity that they have been exposed to, and it has developed a sour reputation as being an intolerant, judgmental, and hypocritical institution among observers both from within and outside the faith. Just how accurate this reputation is may be arguable, but perception is reality - and this is the reality that modern-day Evangelicalism finds itself in. However, there are a growing number of Evangelicals who acknowledge the mess they've created of Jesus' original gospel, and who despair of the reputation that they have earned for Christianity. There is good news: Evangelicalism is evolving.

Christian scholar and activist David P. Gushee, along with Steve Martin and Richard Cizik (former Vice President for Governmental Relations of the National Association of Evangelicals), founded The New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (NEP) in January 2010. The NEP exists to counter the bad reputation of Evangelicalism and to reclaim the gospel of Christ. Its edict is the recently published "A New Evangelical Manifesto: A Kingdom Vision for the Common Good" (Chalice Press). The book is a collection of essays from many contributors within the evolving American evangelical community, and aims to explain what the NEP is and what they believe. As Gushee writes in the book's introduction: "We want to see an engagement of Christians in American public life that is loving, rather than angry; holisitc, rather than narrowly focused; healing, rather than divisive; and independent of partisanship and idealology rather than subservient to party or idealogy...We want to see a Christian public witness that reflects the actual life, ministry, and teachings of the Jesus Christ we meet in Scripture and experience in the church at its best." Certainly a good ideology for an evolving Evangelicalism.

The New Manifesto is outlined in three sections. The first serves as a reflection on where Evangelicalism went wrong and how it may be reoriented. Author and progressive Christian thinker, Brian McLaren opens with his essay entitled, The Church In America Today. McLaren's writing establishes the New Manifesto's spirit as he casts a vision for a generous orthodoxy among all mainline churches and denominations characterized by hope, diversity, and creative collaboration. Brian urges that what Evangelicalism needs most is less borders and more bridges.

The next section presents essays which advocate a holistic, attentive, and effective love for neighbors - both global and local. They draw attention to an array of marginalized groups such as those trafficked and commodified, those suffering from preventable diseases, and the global poor. Some essays broaden the scope of who we perceive as marginalized, as they heed us to consider those neighbors that may live right next door but often go unnoticed: women, Muslims, children, and the elderly and dying.

The final section outlines a range of ethical & moral issues within the public sphere that challenge Evangelicals to action. Here, we read essays which admonish the death penalty, torture, consumerism, and nuclear weapons; and two essays which advocate overcoming global warming, and reducing abortion. Unfortunately, as vocal as these voices are in acknowledging many serious public affairs, they are absolutely silent on the issue of gay rights. It's disappointing that such a bold and inspiring endeavor to redefine the agenda of Evangelicalism would fail to include any insights for working with the gay community.

As a whole, The New Evangelical Manifesto lays out a strong directive for redemptive action. The essays are clear and convicting, and their subjects are significant problems which must be confronted. Yet, the very fact that such a manifesto needed to be produced in the first place betrays just how far Evangelicalism has drifted from the original evangelion of Jesus Christ and his good news of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus outlined his own manifesto 2000 years ago without the aid of a publisher or a national religious community to spread the word. He gave his manifesto in the form of the Beatitudes and in his Sermon on the Mount as he taught to a handful of individuals sitting on a hillside in Galilee. So, in essence, there is nothing "new" about The New Evangelical Manifesto - it is simply a much-needed and overdue realignment to the primary vision of the good news heralded by Christ. His was most certainly a kingdom vision for the common good, which is and will always remain very good news, indeed.

[Denise]

From PW: how theologically conservative Christians can stay true to their faith and agree with politically liberal counterparts

[Daniel Callahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contrary to what too many think, some evangelicals believe that social justice is not only NOT a dirty word, but, indeed, central to Christ's call .....

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did my review over at my website. http://bubsblurbs.com/?p=1610

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

review at Matichuk.wordpress.com

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting to know that Evangelicals, like almost every other religion, are not a monolithic belief group.

Especially interesting were the various articles on marginalized peoples and stances on public life.