Evangelicals abandoned social reform for individual conversion as proto-liberals embraced it

Evidence

In 1973, progressive evangelical leaders issued the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern. Like members of the emerging Religious Right, they saw politics as an expression of their faith, but on nearly every issue they parted ways with their conservative brethren. They denounced racism and called for Christians to defend the rights of the poor and oppressed. Confessing that Christians had “encouraged men to prideful domination and women to irresponsible passivity,” they called instead for “mutual submission and active discipleship.” And they challenged “the misplaced trust of the nation in economic and military might—a proud trust that promotes a national pathology of war and violence which victimizes our neighbors at home and abroad.” The evangelical Left, however, failed to convince most fellow evangelicals that their faith required a critique of patriarchy and American power, rather than the assertion of both, and they would remain a relatively marginal group within the larger movement. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 120 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Civil War casualties shattered evangelical postmillennial optimism — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 51; Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 47; A viable evangelical Left existed in 1973 but lost to conservatives — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 120 (+5 more)

Related

• A viable evangelical Left existed in 1973 but lost to conservatives (similarity 0.89)
• Evangelical social concern in 1973 explicitly included women’s equality and anti-racism. (similarity 0.85)
• Religious Right leaders forfeited their prophetic voice by abandoning social reform. (similarity 0.84)
• Evangelicals traded collective social redemption for individual salvation as liberalism embraced the Social Gospel (similarity 0.83)
• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right (similarity 0.82)
• Early evangelical responses to civil rights were divided along left and fundamentalist lines (similarity 0.81)
• Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control (similarity 0.79)
• Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• A viable evangelical Left existed in 1973 but lost to conservatives #corroborates (0.80) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 120