The activism of campus evangelicals

I have followed with interest Mr. Elliot Ratzman's letters in the past few months regarding evangelical Christianity and his disappointment in campus evangelical groups' lack of interest in fighting for issues of justice and peace. Mr. Ratzman raises a worthwhile issue with which campus evangelicals must grapple, and in several regards, his observations are correct. Nevertheless, there is a much fuller picture that must be presented.

Several weeks ago, former President Jimmy Carter, one of America's best known evangelicals, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his historic work on the Camp David Accords and his continuing commitment to alleviating injustice and poverty through organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. As President Carter has attested many times, the mission of Habitat is motivated from a Christian imperative, one that he and Linda and Millard Fuller (founders of the organization) appropriate from an evangelical perspective. Consider also Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by Chuck Colson, another evangelical luminary who was once a prisoner himself, that provided presents to one-third of the nation's two million prisoners' children last holiday season. Perhaps most representative of the changing times is reflected in the differing organizational aims between the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, the organization headed by Dr. Graham's son, Franklin. Although Franklin Graham continues to share his father's zeal for souls, Samaritan's Purse is primarily a humanitarian organization; its Operation Christmas Child program delivered five million gifts to underprivileged children in 95 counties this holiday season. So American evangelicalism is not nearly as insular as an outside observer might think.

Mr. Ratzman would, doubtless, applaud these efforts. Yet I have not addressed the germ of his complaint: the lack of political activism by local Christian groups. Quite frankly, just because Jesus advocates a new heaven as well as a new earth does not mean that every group that claims his name must make that priority their raison d'être. Princeton Evangelical Fellowship is not a literary society and does not engage in the same activities as the Whig-Cliosophic Society, but this does not mean that there are not literate Christians within PEF or that the organization is opposed to open discussion on contentious issues. It may simply fall outside of the organization's self-understood purview. Perhaps that is the rub that bothers well-meaning activists the most — that evangelicals appear simply not to care about macro-level issues. Despite the noble efforts of Habitat for Humanity or Prison Fellowship Ministries, they remain largely individualistic moral responses writ large.

Mr. Ratzman may be seeking to move campus evangelicals to a more leftist orientation to which I simply note that the conservativism of American evangelicalism is not characteristic of the movement worldwide; in Great Britain, for example, evangelical Christians are often socialist in orientation and typically follow the practices of left-leaning activist groups. Moreover, a growing number of left-of-center evangelicals have recently taken an active role in raising awareness of an un-Christlike callousness to human suffering and injustice. This fall, Princeton groups such as Agape Christian Fellowship protested the cultural genocide happening in Sudan with other concerned Christians. And during fall break, when many of us were enjoying a week off, several campus evangelicals spent their time at the Bowery Mission in New York, a home for formerly homeless men.

I imagine that part of the critique being raised is that campus evangelical groups represent an inadequate embodiment of Christianity; they neglect to attend to the full range of claims made by Jesus and his teachings. But as sociologist Chris Smith has shown, the personal influence strategy of American evangelicalism often narrows the range of strategies they practice, but not necessarily the goals toward which they strive. The individualistic impulse that characterizes American evangelicalism seeks to change the world one person at a time, which leads to an aversion for certain types of political activism. We must not mistake this for indifference or apathy. In fact, I would suggest that American evangelicals have been conducting a quiet revolution in recent years. A recent Gallup Poll showed that American evangelicals are more than twice as likely as non-evangelicals to report being involved in "social service activities such as helping the poor, the sick or the elderly." The number of local evangelical ministries in places like Camden and Trenton bear witness to evangelicals' desire to care for their neighbor in tangible, holistic ways. While much remains to be done by American evangelicals, the movement is thriving, in part because they are seeking some of the same ends for which Mr. Ratzman yearns: A world in which prisoners are visited, the hungry are fed, the sick receive ministry, and the naked are clothed. D. Michael Lindsay GS Sociology