Includes bibliographical references and index.

Inventing social ethics : Francis Greenwood Peabody, William Jewett Tucker, and Graham Taylor -- The social gospel : Washington Gladden, Josiah Strong, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Harry F. Ward -- Lift every voice : Reverdy C. Ransom, Jane Addams, and John A. Ryan -- Christian realism : Reinhold Niebuhr, H. Richard Niebuhr, John C. Bennett, and Paul Ramsey -- Social Christianity as public theology: Walter G. Muelder, James Luther Adams, John Courtney Murray, and Dorothy Day -- Liberationist disruptions: Martin Luther King Jr., James H. Cone, Mary Daly, and Beverly W. Harrison -- Disputing and expanding the tradition : Carl F. H. Henry, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Michael Novak, and Jim Wallis -- Dealing with modernity and postmodernity: Charles Curran, James M. Gustafson, Gibson Winter, Cornel West, Katie G. Cannon, and Victor Anderson -- Economy, sexuality, ecology, difference: Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Marvin M. Ellison, John B. Cobb, Jr., Larry Rasmussen, Daniel C. Maguire, Sharon Welch, Emilie M. Townes, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, María Pilar Aquino, and David Hollenbach -- Borders of possibility : the necessity of 'discredited' social gospel ideas.