The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist, and Gay Christians-and the Movement That Pushed Them Out

by Isaac B. Sharp, David P. Gushee (Foreword by)

Overview

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear “evangelical”?

For many, the answer is “white,” “patriarchal,” “conservative,” or “fundamentalist”—but as Isaac B. Sharp reveals, the “big tent” of evangelicalism has historically been much bigger than we’ve been led to believe. In The Other Evangelicals, Sharp brings to light the stories of those twentieth-century evangelicals who didn’t fit the mold, including Black, feminist, progressive, and gay Christians.

Though the binary of fundamentalist evangelicals and modernist mainline Protestants is taken for granted today, Sharp demonstrates that fundamentalists and modernists battled over the title of “evangelical” in post–World War II America. In fact, many ideologies characteristic of evangelicalism today, such as “biblical womanhood” and political conservatism, arose only in reaction to the popularity of evangelical feminism and progressivism. Eventually, history was written by the “winners”—the Billy Grahams of American religion—while the “losers” were expelled from the movement via the establishment of institutions such as the National Association of Evangelicals.

Carefully researched and deftly written, The Other Evangelicals offers a breath of fresh air for scholars seeking a more inclusive history of religion in America.

Q Spirit Top 23 LGBTQ Christian Books List (2023)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802881755
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/18/2023
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	300,084
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Isaac B. Sharp is director of online and part-time programs and visiting assistant professor at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He is the coeditor of Evangelical Ethics: A Reader in the Library of Theological Ethics series (Westminster John Knox, 2015) as well as Christian Ethics in Conversation (Wipf & Stock, 2020).


 
David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia. He also serves as chair in Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit and senior research fellow at International Baptist Theological Study Centre, both in Amsterdam. His many other books include Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust: Genocide and Moral Obligation.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface 
Introduction: The Evangelicals? 
1. The Liberals 
2. The Black Evangelicals 
3. The Progressives 
4. The Feminists 
5. The Gay Evangelicals 
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

01/16/2023

Sharp, a professor of theological studies at Union Theological Seminary, debuts with a richly detailed history of forgotten progressive evangelical figures. While American evangelicalism is defined today by religious, social, and political conservatism (embodied by figures like Billy Graham), it wasn’t always so, writes Sharp, noting how, as a postwar conservative movement spread through American evangelicalism, “dissenters” who tried to “carve out space for an alternative kind of evangelicalism” were marginalized or excommunicated. Among this group were Howard O. Jones, who in 1957 became the first Black pastor to serve as an “associate evangelist” for the Graham crusade (though he experienced racism in the church); Letha Dawson Scanzoni, a founding member of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus, who wrote lightning-rod articles criticizing the idea of women’s spiritual inferiority to men; and Jim Wallis, founder of the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners. Still, the march of conservative evangelicalism continued, and by the 21st century, the movement mostly stood for antiliberalism, antifeminism, and antimodernism. Big changes are unlikely, the author suggests, because historically those who tried to do so “were cast out or... walked away.” Sharp skillfully brings the complexities of evangelicalism alive, and his meticulous research and careful analysis casts its history in a new light. This will fascinate scholars of American religion. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

The Englewood Review of Books
“Sharp’s book is an important contribution to the field of evangelical studies. Beyond that, it is something of an affirmation for those who still wish to claim their evangelical identity while denouncing the racism, sexism, and homophobia that has come to typify it. Evangelical identity is more porous, more diverse, and potentially more gracious than the EvangelicalTM brand managers would like to acknowledge.

From the Publisher