Evangelical voters are almost always identified with two issues: abortion and marriage.
But some see a growing evangelical movement that advocates on a broader range of issues such as reducing poverty and improving public education, according to an online poll of Beliefnet readers released by the spiritual Web site.
At a Wednesday forum organized by Beliefnet, the Rev. Joel Hunter, a former president of the Christian Coalition, said that when it started, the evangelical political movement defined itself by what it was against.
“Any movement starts out as, you’re against something,” he said. “It’s kind of like the middle-school years. You define yourself by what you hate, what you’re not. And as you grow up, you have to start defining yourself by who you are, by what you want to build. That’s where we are right now.”
Panel moderator Jim Wallis, the founder and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, said there’s a “new face today of what it means to be evangelical,” with activists translating the lessons of Scripture into addressing issues such as AIDS in Africa and global warming.
He says the people of faith who engage those issues could spark a “great awakening” of a movement for social justice issues.
