Evangelicals Are Recently Also Social Activists

Today's Atlanta Journal Constitution has published an article titled This Isn't Your Father's Moral Majority. It argues that conservative evangelicals are re-evaluating what it means to be a Christian. Their new concern about social activism has the potential to fundamentally reorder the federal government's priorities as well as trigger shifts in the Republican and Democratic parties. As examples, the article points to Alabama Gov. Bob Riley's failed attempt to raise taxes on the wealthy and reduce them on the poor; to support among the religious right in South Carolina for more state money for poor rural public schools; and to the arrest in Washington last month of more than 100 evangelical Christians who were protesting the plans of President Bush and the Republican Congress to cut spending on anti-poverty programs like food stamps.