Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Fall 9-26-2014

Journal Title

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology

Volume Number

1

Issue Number

2

First Page

119

Last Page

140

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2014.924421

Version

Post-print: the version of the article having undergone peer review but prior to being published

Disciplines

Human Rights Law | Peace and Conflict Studies

Abstract

American evangelicals have a history of engagement in social issues in general and anti-slavery activism in particular. The last 10 years have seen an increase in both scholarly attention to evangelicalism and evangelical focus on contemporary forms of slavery. Extant literature on this engagement often lacks the voices of evangelicals themselves. This study begins to fill this gap through a qualitative exploration of how evangelical and mainline churchgoers conceptualize both the issue of human trafficking and possible solutions. I extend Michael Young's recent work on the confessional schema motivating evangelical abolitionists in the 1830s. Through analysis of open-ended responses to vignettes in a survey administered in six congregations I find some early support for a contemporary salvation schema. It is this schema, I argue, that underpins evangelicals' framing of this issue, motivates their involvement in anti-slavery work, and specifies the scope of their critique. Whereas antebellum abolitionists thought of their work in national and structural terms contemporary advocates see individuals in need of rescue. The article provides an empirical sketch of the cultural underpinnings of contemporary evangelical social advocacy and a call for additional research.

Notes

Original publication information:

Choi-Fitzpatrick, A., “To Seek and Save the Lost: Human Trafficking and Salvation Schemas among American Evangelicals”, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2014: 1 (2), 119-140.

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