Freeing God's children : the unlikely alliance for global human rights /

The growth of the Christian church through the 20th century in South America, Africa, and Asia has made Christianity a predominantly non-Western faith. Tragically, however, persecution of Christians produced more martyrs in the 20th century than in all the others combined. Hertzke (Univ. of Oklahoma) is a sympathetic participant in the compelling story of how American evangelicals in the 1990s were awakened to the plight of the "suffering church" abroad, as in, for example, such nightmarish locales as Sudan. Evangelicals responded by extending their remarkable domestic network of ministry organizations to launch a new type of faith-based human rights movement. Political results have included congressional passage of the International Religious Freedom Act (1998) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000). The former requires the US State Department to report annually on the status of religious freedom in every nation around the world; the latter, supported by such diverse figures as Charles Colson and Gloria Steinem, moved against international crime and sex slavery. By linking with broader advocacy groups, including Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, and non-Christians, evangelicals have become the "newest internationalists," pushing American foreign policy in a more democratic and humanitarian direction. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. W. B. Bedford Crown College

Why would liberal Jewish groups team up with conservative Pentecostals to fight human rights abuses? What issues might prompt the Catholic Church to work together with Tibetan Buddhists? In this engaging book, Hertzke, who teaches religion and political science at the University of Oklahoma, argues that 21st-century religious and political activism has made for some strange bedfellows. As religious persecution increases in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world?and most of the West continues to ignore the mounting death toll?some courageous people have banded together to fight for religious freedom and human rights around the world. With surprisingly accessible writing and memorable stories of activists and the victims of religious persecution, Hertzke explores the rise of unexpected religious alliances in the struggles against sex trafficking, against the persecution of Christians in Indonesia and elsewhere, and against the atrocities in Sudan and the repression in Tibet. One startling trend that emerges is the new interest America?s evangelical Christians have evinced in world issues. Hertzke paints a fascinating, and ultimately optimistic, picture of the way that individuals of many different religious backgrounds have chosen to work together on human rights issues. In doing so, he analyzes a neglected aspect of the paradigm shift in religion today, in which affiliation matters far less than ideological affinity. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.