The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center

by David P. Gushee

David Gushee argues convincingly that there is in U.S. politics an "evangelical center" of voters who do not identify with the politics and religion of either the right or the left. Although evangelical Christians are portrayed by the media as conservatives, Gushee claims that the evangelical movement includes nearly even numbers of voters on the right, in the center, and on the left of the political spectrum. He provides portraits of the major figures in each of the three camps, outlines the core convictions of the adherents, and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each group's positions. He suggests that the evangelical center is poised for growth; this book could be its manifesto.

Genres: Religion

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

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

[CJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for giving a snapshot of the landscape of Evangelical political camps/advocacy groups, particularly in respect to Bush. The ‘evangelical right’ (by Gushee’s definition - the first half of his book defines people and advocacy groups) used ‘permissive just war’ to justify Iraq and torture, whereas the ‘evangelical center’ where he includes top evangelical colleges (Wheaton) and NGOs (World Vision and IJM) made statements against torture, for ‘creation care’, etc. He says that evangelicals’ splintered denominations make ‘us’ accustomed to conflict and individualistic, rather than ‘loyal to the church universal’.

So what does it look like for ‘centrist’ evangelical institutions to mobilize people on their positions of ‘strict just war’ and responding to climate change, given church decentralization and in the face of the ‘evangelical right’s’ mobilization of NGOs, media.. I like the idea that one path is for evangelicals to better commit to belonging to a global church and then find the commands for pluralism and ethics.

[Радостин Марчев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Забележително свежа в много отношения.

[Ko Matsuo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gushee does a fantastic job in framing the complexity of the Evangelical world in the 21st century.
His point is that that the Evangelical Right tends to focus too much on abortion and the sanctity of marriage, while the Evangelical Left tends to focus too much on social justice and environmental issues. He calls for an Evangelical Center which can adopt the good of both sides.

Gushee makes all these points in the first chapter. The rest of the book is a rather dry exposition of who the players are.