Global Encounters and the Evangelical Left

Abstract

Global encounters pushed American evangelicalism leftward in the twentieth century. Missionary work in India provoked E. Stanley Jones to crusade for civil rights in the United States. Initiatives in the Majority World by World Vision fed progressive evangelical sensibilities at home. More recently, immigrants to the United States have been lobbying for more government action against poverty and the death penalty. While evangelical immigrants may push left on certain issues, however, they also preach traditionalist religious convictions on the supernatural and sexuality that offend secular progressives. Whatever the prospects of future coalitions, analyses of the American left must reckon with dense and growing religious networks that span the world.