Conservative Protestants are mentioned repeatedly in the ongoing conversation about social capital, individualism, and community in the United States. As John Wilson notes in his introduction, evangelicals are frequently discussed either as a threat to civil society or as apparent counterexamples to the prevailing view of American society's fragmentation. The essays in this volume take another look at the role of evangelicals in American civic life. The prominent contributors examine evangelicals' beliefs and activity on topics ranging from bioethics to race relations and welfare reform to international human rights. Taken together, the essays show that, contrary to what critics have proclaimed, the social commitment of evangelicals extends considerably beyond family-related issues, and that their activity in the public sphere makes an essential contribution to the public good. Clearly written and persuasively argued, A Public Faith: Evangelicals and Civic Engagement is a powerful correction to the misconceptions about evangelicals that abound in the current civil-society debate. Co-published with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Undeniably, the amount of "human information" in our culture has increased by leaps and bounds. How that information is used has profound implications on the way we live as a society. At the same time, the discussion of values, norms, and purpose is often missing from the discourse of social research especially by those who work within the positivist framework. Authors James Bradley and Kurt Schaefer develop principles to guide the use of data and models in the human sciences. Writing as scholars who are at home with empirical and mathematical social science, yet taking seriously the critiques of this heritage, the authors propose ways of developing norms without becoming radically subjective. The Uses and Misuses of Data and Models argues eloquently that norms, values, and purpose need to become part of the common discourse of researchers, with more ethical and socially responsible research the result. The Uses and Misuses of Data and Models is an intriguing and thought-provoking book that will be of great interest to anyone involved in the enterprise of social research.