Michael Gerson: A New Social Gospel

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson writes that many evangelicals who are chafing at the narrowness of the religious right are focusing on a new faith-based agenda:

... Many evangelicals have begun elbowing against the narrowness of the religious right, becoming more globally focused and more likely to consider themselves "pro-life and pro-poor." Depending on your perspective, this may be creeping liberalism or political maturity. But where did it come from?

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... this new evangelicalism is, in part, a positive legacy of the religious right. One of the important innovations of religious conservatism in the 1980s was the discovery of common cause between evangelicals and Roman Catholics after generations of mutual bitterness. Early pro-life events featured busloads from Liberty University marching beside Knights of Columbus carrying statues of the Virgin Mary, in the best democratic tradition of taming durable differences. Over two decades, evangelicals came to view John Paul II as almost one of their own, admiring his balance of firm orthodoxy and global concern for the poor and oppressed. And for many, including me, Roman Catholic social thought provided a more sophisticated model of social engagement than a fractured Protestantism had produced. Evangelicals began to talk of subsidiarity (the imperative to respect and strengthen value-shaping institutions of community and family) and solidarity with the poor, and the pursuit of the common good, in ways that were not allergic to government.

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(emphasis added)