The New York Times recently published a letter from Telos Editorial Associate Marcia Pally, who commends the paper for drawing attention to the work of “new evangelicals”:
Molly Worthen’s insightful review of “Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism,” by David R. Swartz (Sept. 30), is, I hope, the beginning of more coverage of the evangelicals who have left the right. Swartz’s fine scholarship illuminates a critical shift in our religio-political landscape: “new evangelical” activism in environmental protection, economic justice and immigration reform — a big change in where evangelical time and money are going. If we don’t read about changes like this, we accept old prejudices and remain blind to political realities.
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, a reassessment of our global market system seems to be afoot: if neoliberalism (too much market) yields the Great Recession, if socialist planned markets (not enough market) produce the failed economies of the former Soviet bloc, and if social-market combinations (too much market centralization) progress toward the high-cost and slow growth of Western Europe, what are better options? This essay describes the economic justice efforts of “new evangelicals,” those who have left the right for an anti-consumerist, anti-militarist focus on economic justice, environmental protection, immigration reform, and racial/religious reconciliation. It reviews the history of U.S. evangelicalism, describes the current shift away from the religious right, and details “new evangelical” common-good capitalism, where the benefits of capitalist markets are preserved yet embedded in—and constrained by—common-good values. This is not alms-giving but the restructuring of opportunity for those whom the market has failed—not an undoing of market relations but a radical change of relations within the market. The undergirding religious doctrines and case studies, both domestic and overseas, are described. Against the view that linking markets to common-good principles is romantic or useless, “new evangelicals” are already on the ground, doing just this sort of linking. 
In light of the 2008 global financial crisis, a reassessment of the global market system seems to be afoot. If neoliberalism (too much market) yields the Great Recession, if socialist planning (not enough market) produced the failed economies of the former Soviet bloc, and if social-market combinations (too much centralization of the market) progress towards the slow economic growth and high-cost programs of Western Europe, what are better options? 
