7For most of this nation's history, religious socialists made their case to a population that was, for the most part, hospitable to religion and resistant to socialism. Today, those trends are moving in opposite directions. A majority of young people and persons of color in the United States express support for socialism. At the same time, even as religious affiliation has dropped, most Americans still say religion is important to them. Religious Socialism provides an introduction to how those powerful forces come together in the form of religious socialism, the intersection between a devotion to God and a system that promotes social justice in the world. Many of its champions are profiled in this volume, including classic figures like Eugene Debs and Dorothy Day, as well as contemporary figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Cornel West.