Conservative Protestants have been successful in communicating their religious voice in the public sphere, while liberal Protestants have struggled to articulate a distinctly liberal, religious voice. In this article, I show that a major component of liberal Protestant identity—inclusivity—itself constitutes a fundamental barrier to developing that voice. Drawing on 26 interviews and a year of participant observation at a liberal Protestant congregation in the southeast, I first show that congregants construct their identity of inclusivity in response to cultural associations of Christianity with conservatism and exclusivism. I then analyze three discursive strategies that congregants use to make sense of individuals’ involvement in Moral Mondays, a left‐leaning local social movement. By connecting Moral Mondays to social justice, to religious beliefs, and to individual commitments, congregants depoliticize involvement in Moral Mondays and maintain their commitment to inclusivity. I argue that inclusivity does not limit their participation, but rather limits their ability to connect that participation to their liberal religious voice. This research has important implications for understanding barriers to liberal Protestants’ articulation of a distinctly liberal and religious voice in the public sphere.

中文翻译：

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自由教会与社会正义运动：分析包容性的局限性

保守的新教徒已经成功地在公共领域传达了他们的宗教声音，而自由主义的新教徒一直在努力表达一种明显的自由主义的宗教声音。在本文中，我证明了自由新教徒身份的主要组成部分（包容性）本身构成了发展这种声音的根本障碍。在东南部一个自由的新教教会中，我接受了26次采访和一年的参与者观察，我首先表明，由于基督教与保守主义和排他主义的文化联系，聚集者建立了包容性身份。然后，我分析了三种融合策略，这些融合策略可以使人们理解个人参与道德星期一这一向左倾斜的本地社会运动的意义。通过将道德星期一与社会正义联系起来，对于宗教信仰和个人承诺，con悔者将参与道德星期一的行为政治化，并保持了对包容性的承诺。我认为包容性并不限制他们的参与，而是限制他们将这种参与与他们的自由宗教声音联系起来的能力。这项研究对于理解自由主义者在公共领域表达清晰的自由主义和宗教声音的障碍具有重要意义。