DESCRIPTION
A provocative account of recent evangelical Christian engagement with conservative politicsThis book provides a fresh, lively, iconoclastic history of evangelical Christians' involvement with American politics. Examining key evangelical political figures -- from Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to Billy Graham and Chuck Colson to Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis -- D. G. Hart argues that American evangelicalism, from the right as much as the left, is (and always has been) a bad fit with classic political conservatism and its insistence on the limited role of government.
Whenever evangelicals have pushed for government solutions to moral or social problems or for crusading military and foreign policy ventures abroad, Hart argues, their religious and moral idealism has trumped the sober realism of classic conservatism and a careful understanding of the virtues of the American political system. Further, Hart predicts that, with such a tenuous relationship to the core principles of conservatism, evangelicals on the right are unlikely to remain politically conservative unless they finally accept --
really accept -- the limited uses of politics to effect lasting social change.
Readers of
From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin are sure to find Hart's voice timely and compelling.
Read more from the author of this book on
EerdWord.