Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy

Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy PDF Author: Mark R. Amstutz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199987637
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This study shows that Evangelicals have played a more important role in U.S. foreign affairs than is generally acknowledged. After exploring how the political theology of this movement has structured Evangelical thought and action in global affairs, the book examines how Evangelicals have approached global poverty, relations with Israel, and a variety of other foreign policy initiatives. In view of the increasing political advocacy of Evangelical groups, the book concludes by offering recommendations for strengthening Evangelical global engagement.

Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy

Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy PDF Author: Mark R. Amstutz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199987637
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book

Book Description
This study shows that Evangelicals have played a more important role in U.S. foreign affairs than is generally acknowledged. After exploring how the political theology of this movement has structured Evangelical thought and action in global affairs, the book examines how Evangelicals have approached global poverty, relations with Israel, and a variety of other foreign policy initiatives. In view of the increasing political advocacy of Evangelical groups, the book concludes by offering recommendations for strengthening Evangelical global engagement.

Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy

Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy PDF Author: Mark R. Amstutz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199987653
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Gallons of ink have been spilled in examining the influence of Evangelicals on American politics. Yet the conversation--among pundits, politicians, and scholars--has focused overwhelmingly on hot-button domestic issues, such as abortion and gay marriage. In Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy, Mark Amstutz looks beyond our shores at Evangelicals' role in American foreign affairs. Writers have generally traced Evangelicals' political awakening to the 1970s or, at the earliest, to World War II. But Amstutz digs deeper, arguing that Evangelicals were active in foreign affairs since at least the nineteenth century, when Protestant missionaries spread throughout the world, gaining fluency in foreign languages and developing knowledge of distant lands. They were on the front lines of American global engagement--serving as agents of humanitarianism and cultural transformation. Indeed, long before anyone had heard of Woodrow Wilson, Evangelicals were America's first internationalists. In the postwar period, that expertise was put to more organized and sophisticated use, as Evangelicals sought to translate their belief that humans were created in God's image into a core principle of American foreign policy. Amstutz explores how this principle has been put into practice on issues ranging from global poverty to foreign policy towards Israel, paying close attention to Evangelicals' triumphs and failures on the global stage.

To Bring the Good News to All Nations

To Bring the Good News to All Nations PDF Author: Lauren Frances Turek
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501748939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
When American evangelicals flocked to Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century to fulfill their Biblical mandate for global evangelism, their experiences abroad led them to engage more deeply in foreign policy activism at home. Lauren Frances Turek tracks these trends and illuminates the complex and significant ways in which religion shaped America's role in the late–Cold War world. In To Bring the Good News to All Nations, she examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s, assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes, and considers how those same groups promoted the imposition of economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that stifled evangelism. Using archival materials from both religious and government sources, To Bring the Good News to All Nations links the development of evangelical foreign policy lobbying to the overseas missionary agenda. Turek's case studies—Guatemala, South Africa, and the Soviet Union—reveal the extent of Christian influence on American foreign policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s. Evangelical policy work also reshaped the lives of Christians overseas and contributed to a reorientation of U.S. human rights policy. Efforts to promote global evangelism and support foreign brethren led activists to push Congress to grant aid to favored, yet repressive, regimes in countries such as Guatemala while imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on nations that persecuted Christians, such as the Soviet Union. This advocacy shifted the definitions and priorities of U.S. human rights policies with lasting repercussions that can be traced into the twenty-first century.

Evangelicals and Foreign Policy

Evangelicals and Foreign Policy PDF Author: Michael Cromartie
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
These four provocative and timely essays examine evangelical involvement with foreign policy-its history, current context, and dominant trends-in order to stimulate thinking on what the role of evangelicals should be. The authors point out the mistakes and shortcomings of the past, describe the dangers of the present, and offer insights for effectively influencing American foreign policy in the future.

The Influence of Faith

The Influence of Faith PDF Author: Elliott Abrams
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0585381658
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The Influence of Faith examines religion as a growing factor in world politics and U.S. foreign policy. Particular attention is placed on the American reaction to the persecution of Christians and Jews overseas, as well as the role of faith-based groups such as missionary and relief organizations in the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy.

Toward an Evangelical Public Policy

Toward an Evangelical Public Policy PDF Author: Ronald J. Sider
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 0801065380
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Deepens thinking about biblical and other conceptual foundations for political engagement in order to unify and give consistency to evangelicals' involvement in politics.

The Kingdom of God Has No Borders

The Kingdom of God Has No Borders PDF Author: Melani McAlister
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190213442
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Award of Merit, 2019 Christianity Today Book Awards (History/Biography) More than forty years ago, conservative Christianity emerged as a major force in American political life. Since then the movement has been analyzed and over-analyzed, declared triumphant and, more than once, given up for dead. But because outside observers have maintained a near-relentless focus on domestic politics, the most transformative development over the last several decades--the explosive growth of Christianity in the global south--has gone unrecognized by the wider public, even as it has transformed evangelical life, both in the US and abroad. The Kingdom of God Has No Borders offers a daring new perspective on conservative Christianity by shifting the lens to focus on the world outside US borders. Melani McAlister offers a sweeping narrative of the last fifty years of evangelical history, weaving a fascinating tale that upends much of what we know--or think we know--about American evangelicals. She takes us to the Congo in the 1960s, where Christians were enmeshed in a complicated interplay of missionary zeal, Cold War politics, racial hierarchy, and anti-colonial struggle. She shows us how evangelical efforts to convert non-Christians have placed them in direct conflict with Islam at flash points across the globe. And she examines how Christian leaders have fought to stem the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa while at the same time supporting harsh repression of LGBTQ communities. Through these and other stories, McAlister focuses on the many ways in which looking at evangelicals abroad complicates conventional ideas about evangelicalism. We can't truly understand how conservative Christians see themselves and their place in the world unless we look beyond our shores.

Shards of Identity

Shards of Identity PDF Author: Taylor West
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781680530445
Category : Evangelicalism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This book is an exploration of the origins of the American evangelical movement in the United States during the Cold War, specifically between 1945 and 1981. Amongst numerous other theories that already exist regarding the emergence of this religious and social movement, the text carries out this exploration through the theory of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Bauman maintains that religious fundamentalisms emerge in the context of problems and questions of identity and its formation in the contemporary world. In Bauman's estimation, the contemporary age militates against the formation of a personal identity and that fundamentalist religious systems have emerged to fill this void. In order to historically explore Bauman's ideas, to see how his hypothesis might manifest itself, as well as drawing insight from conceptual history, gender studies, and cultural history, the text breaks up its inquiry thematically, examining vital aspects of identity: speech, ideology, the faculty of action, contemporary religious forms, and human relations. This study gives, among other things, special attention to the questions of evangelicalism and its involvement in American politics during the Cold War. It shows that the social and cultural separatism that is said to have characterized the evangelical movement is no longer tenable. And, finally, it demonstrates a marked reorientation within American evangelicalism: a turning away from the eternal and toward the world.

Evangelicals and Israel

Evangelicals and Israel PDF Author: Stephen Spector
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195368029
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Arguing that the reasons evangelical Christians support Israel is for more complicated reasons than preparing for the Second Coming, this text examines Christian Zionism and the ways that religion and politics converge in American evangelicals' love and support for Israel and the Jewish people.

Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change

Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change PDF Author: Janelle S. Wong
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 161044874X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
As immigration from Asia and Latin America reshapes the demographic composition of the U.S., some analysts have anticipated the decline of conservative white evangelicals’ influence in politics. Yet, Donald Trump captured a larger share of the white evangelical vote in the 2016 election than any candidate in the previous four presidential elections. Why has the political clout of white evangelicals persisted at a time of increased racial and ethnic diversity? In Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change, political scientist Janelle Wong examines a new generation of Asian American and Latino evangelicals and offers an account of why demographic change has not contributed to a political realignment. Asian Americans and Latinos currently constitute 13 percent of evangelicals, and their churches are among the largest, fastest growing organizations in their communities. While evangelical identity is associated with conservative politics, Wong draws from national surveys and interviews to show that non-white evangelicals express political attitudes that are significantly less conservative than those of their white counterparts. Black, Asian American, and Latino evangelicals are much more likely to support policies such as expanded immigration rights, increased taxation of the wealthy, and government interventions to slow climate change. As Wong argues, non-white evangelicals’ experiences as members of racial or ethnic minority groups often lead them to adopt more progressive political views compared to their white counterparts. However, despite their growth in numbers, non-white evangelicals—particularly Asian Americans and Latinos—are concentrated outside of swing states, have lower levels of political participation than white evangelicals, and are less likely to be targeted by political campaigns. As a result, white evangelicals dominate the evangelical policy agenda and are overrepresented at the polls. Also, many white evangelicals have adopted even more conservative political views in response to rapid demographic change, perceiving, for example, that discrimination against Christians now rivals discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities. Wong demonstrates that immigrant evangelicals are neither “natural” Republicans nor “natural” Democrats. By examining the changing demographics of the evangelical movement, Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change sheds light on an understudied constituency that has yet to find its political home.