Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican or Democrat

"To let the religious right define evangelical...wipes out the memory of real people who lived and fought for just causes and just social policies because of their faith....I refuse to let the religious right confiscate my heritage."—from Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican...Or Democrat

A new breed of evangelicals, with a fiery passion for economic justice, racial reconciliation, and care for the environment, has abandoned the religious right.

Lisa Sharon Harper, a rising star in this movement, describes the roots of this political shift, the agents of change driving it, and, in interviews with leaders across the political spectrum, the extent of the evangelical rejection of the right-wing political agenda. In Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican...Or Democrat, Harper lays out a manifesto for the new progressive evangelical movement, drawing inspiration from the biblical concepts of shalom and the kingdom of God, as well as from historical predecessors such as William Wilberforce, Sojourner Truth, and John Perkins.

Harper offers a powerful indictment of the religious right, of its role in hijacking evangelical passion and dividing Christians against each other, and—in an agenda that is racist and sexist to the core—of its abandonment of the gospel. She shows how evangelicals, in disengaging from partisan politics, can reclaim their roots and become a new moral voice for the nation.