Is the Good Book Good Enough?

Evangelical Perspectives on Public Policy

Contributions by Mark R. Amstutz, Timothy J. Barnett, Francis J. Beckwith, Zachary R. Calo, Ron Kirkemo, Jacob Lenerville, Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, Stephen V. Monsma, Eric Patterson, Jeffrey J. Polet, Noah J. Toly, Jennifer E. Walsh Edited by David K. Ryden

Not available to order

Publication date:

18 December 2010

Length of book:

298 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739150610

The political emergence of evangelical Christians has been a signal development in America in the past quarter century. And while their voting tendencies have been closely scrutinized, their participation in the policy debates of the day has not. They continue to be caricatured as anti-intellectual Bible thumpers whose views are devoid of reason, logic, or empirical evidence. They're seen as lemmings, following the cues of Dobson and Robertson and marching in lock step with the Republican party on the 'culture wars' issues of abortion, gay rights, and guns. Is The Good Book Good Enough? remedies the neglect of this highly influential group, which makes up as much as a third of the American public. It offers a carefully nuanced and comprehensive portrait of evangelical attitudes on a wide range of policies and their theological underpinnings. Each essay applies an evangelical lens to a contemporary issue - environmentalism, immigration, family and same-sex marriage, race relations, global human rights, foreign policy and national security, social welfare and poverty, and economic policy. The result thoroughly enriches our understanding of evangelicalism as a prism through which many view a wide range of policy debates.

1 Introduction:The Evolving Policy Agenda of Evangelical Christians
2 Section I. Engaging America: Evangelical Approaches to Domestic Policy Questions
3 1. Evangelicals and the Environment: From Political Realism to a Politics of Freedom
4 2. Evangelicals and Poverty
5 3. To Do Justly and Love Mercy: Using Scripture to Guide Criminal Justice Policy
6 4. Enlightened Economics and Free Markets
7 5. Better Late Than Never? Evangelicals and Comprehensive: Immigration Reform
8 Section II. Engaging the World: Evangelical Views on Global Issues
9 6. The Roots of Evangelical Humanitarianism and International Political Advocacy
10 7. Evangelicals and Foreign Policy in an Era of Conflict
11 8. "The New Internationals": Human Rights and American Evangelicalism
12 9. Evangelicals, Pakistan, and the war in Afghanistan: Scriptural Resources for National Security Issues
13 Section III. Engaging Culture: Counterforce or Capitulation?
14 10. Love Rightly Understood: Reflections on the Substance, Style, and Sprit of Evangelical Activism and (Same-Sex) Marriage Policy
15 11. Evangelicals and the Elusive Goal of Racial Reconciliation: The Role of Culture, Politics, and Public Policy
16 12. Politics, Evangelicals, and the Unavoidability of Metaphysics
17 13. The Good Book As Policy Guide: Characteristics, Critiques, and Contributions of Evangelical Public Policy Participation

Do Evangelical Christians offer a distinctive contribution to public policy debates? Students of religion and politics will benefit immensely from the richly textured, two-tiered response to this question in this superbly edited volume by Ryden (Hope College). At the first level, the book's diverse set of young and well-established scholars chronicles the long-standing and extensive (biblically based) engagement of Evangelicals across a broad spectrum of policy issues: environmentalism, poverty, criminal justice, immigration, human rights, national security, racial injustice, and the seemingly irreconcilable struggles over abortion and same-sex marriage. The second level is a more nuanced, self-critical discussion on the lack of a coherent theological framework for Evangelical policy participation. Several authors attribute this failure to an emerging apprehension among Evangelicals that their policy prescriptions are insufficiently grounded in a Christian (biblical) worldview and are instead mediated by ideology, partisanship, culture wars, and unfettered commitments to methodological individualism and free-market economics. Moreover, Evangelicals profoundly disagree over whether to enter policy debates qua Evangelicals or to translate their biblically informed policy positions into secular arguments. Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduate collections.