The Social Gospel in American Religion

Evans has made an important contribution both in his excellent explanation of the origins and nature of the social gospel and his strong case for seeing its influence extending well into the twentieth century. In doing so, Evans writes primarily about individual social gospel figures, many of them well-known, others not as prominent, including women and African American ministers or reformers. His brief discussions of these figures are the heart and the strength of the book. -- Church History and Religious Culture
Christopher Evans has broken the Social Gospel out of the theological and ecclesial boxes that have been used to contain and domesticate its message. In The Social Gospel in American Religion readers will appreciate the true scope of the Social Gospel witness for over the last century and recognize its prophetic relevance and urgent resonance for today's broken world in need of Good News. -- Rev. Paul Raushenbush,Senior Vice-President for Public Engagement, Auburn Seminary
Christopher Evans has done it again. In this finely-crafted study one of the foremost scholars of the American Social Gospel weaves a story that is at once breathtaking in scope and full of subtle analysis. Anyone interested in the vital intersection of religion and reform in modern United States history will want to read this book. -- Heath W. Carter,author of Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago
Evans provides a new and much needed history of one of Americas most important religious movements. With seeds planted during the Second Great Awakening, the fruits of the Social Gospel extend to the end of the 20th century, and, in ironic ways, even into our own time. Evans tells the story of a long Social Gospelfrom before the Civil War to after Civil Rights to Barack Obama. This book should become, in short order, the standard history of the Social Gospel. -- Barry Hankins,Professor of History, Baylor University
Few subjects in American religious history invite interdisciplinary inquiries and readerships as much as does the Social Gospel. In the formal sense, it could be confined to a narrative of liberal American Protestantism c. 19001920. But, in the telling of Evans, its story begins a century earlier and, associated with new names, continues its reach into the present. Readers who have interests in the ethics of social reform, liberal theology and its opposition, African-American and feminist studies, rhetorical analyses of popular preaching, straight-out sociology, and the larger American historical contexts of movements and emphases like the Social Gospel will find reason to read this book with care. -- Martin E. Marty * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
In recounting the social gospels full story, Evans fights off caricatures of the movement from the neo-orthodox left and defends the social gospel against appropriations by the religious right. The end result is a well-written and insightful addition to the intellectual history of social Christianity in America. -- Mark T. Edwards,Fides et Historia