Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Bringing The Good News
Well, this is the best good news I've heard in a long time.
Read the whole article, there's much more, including a quote from the President of the Family Research Council questioning the wisdom of this mix of religion and politics," as if the Family Research Council wasn't just such a mix.
Especially welcome, the good news that The Clergy Leadership Network will have representatives in the south and the mid-west, where, as the group's spokesperson takes note, "moderate and progressive Christians have been losing their "political voice" to Christian conservatives." I'll say.
Though the group is interdominational, most of the participating clergy thus far are Christian Protestants, hence the title of this post. (I'm Jewish, but I've always found something beguiling about the notion of bringing even strangers good news.) Although the group doesn't plan to focus on divisive issues like abortion or gay rights, its participants will be taking on the Christian right's attack on issues that pertain to church/state, and the separation thereof.
Recently, we, on the more-or-less secular left, have found ourselves implored by our faith-based brethren not to push them away, not to turn our backs on the millions of believing Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, many of whom are not rightwing, but feel beset by an onslaught of secularism that the left has been too ready to validate, too ready to identify with, and thus lose the voices and the votes of people who should be our natural allies. We and the Democratid Party are being warned that we need to engage with believers, if we are to win the White House, and indeed, to revive the liberal/progressive tradition in this country.
Since I am personally sympathetic to this desire on the part of religious progressives to start a dialogue with progressives who don't consider themselves to be practioners of any particular religion, let me be clear that I'm not sympathetic to a statement like this one in Nicholas Kristof's much discussed warning to the left:
What on earth does that mean? How are Democrats becoming "more secular?" More non-believers are being drawn to the party? How on earth does Kristof even know if liberals are becoming "more" secular? Democrats should be "terrified" because they're on the wrong side of the "God Gulf?" Who says? Tom DeLay, that God-fearing Christian, that bagman extraordinaire for the Republican Party, who recently came up with yet another clever way to raise money for the party by turning fund raisers during the Republican convention into "charity" galas, thus getting around campaign finance laws, and making contributions tax deductible, all for the small price of giving some of the proceeds to a charity for poor children, or crippled children, or some other form of appropriately pitiable children?
It's stuff like this that makes so-called "secular" liberals like myself go grumpy when it comes to public protestations of religiosity. Which is not at all the same thing as a genuine dialogue about the role of religion in political life, and visa versa.
So imagine my delight to discover that Allan Brill of The Right Christians decided to take on Kristof's whole notion of yet another Great Awakening, in a three parter which you can find here, here, and here. Allan's findings are fascinating; if you missed Atrios's link to it, don't pass up this one; and read the comments section, particularly of the first one.
It's one of Allen's specific goals to engage fellow progressives in that genuine dialogue about how religious and political values intersect, as it is also Melanie's, late of Daily Kos, now the proprietress of her very own blog, Just A Bump In The Beltway, and well worth a visit.
There is a religious war going on in this country, and it's been declared by the right against liberals and progressives, both religious and secular, in the name of "traditional values" and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Well, you can see the problem right there. Who wants to be on the wrong side of the traditional values gulf, or worse still, the Judeo-Christian tradition gulf? Of course what's being advocated by the forces of the American right, Christian, Jewish, Neo-con, Federalist, you name it, they probably got it, is something quite different than just values and just traditions. And it's the left's task to unravel that reality in such a way that Americans in the middle, busy living increasingly difficult lives, can understand that such an analysis is not an attack on the idea of religion itself. To do that, progressives and liberals of every stripe, every religion, every irreligion, need to stand and to work together. So I think it's not a second too soon for us to start really talking to one another. Consider this to be only the first in a series of attempts to further the dialogue.
From The Slactivist, whose religion and politics are a seamless whole, this fascinating connection to The Equal Justice Initiative Of Alabama, shared, not quite by coincidence, by Atrios, self-proclaimed non-believer. It's a complicated story I'll let Fred tell it, which if you want to read in forward chronological order you can here, here, and here.
You'll see, it doesn't have to be that hard, when there's genuine good will towards all of us.
Clergy Group to Counter Conservatives
In an effort to counter the influence of conservative Christian organizations, a coalition of moderate and liberal religious leaders is starting a political advocacy organization to mobilize voters in opposition to Bush administration policies.
The nonprofit organization, the Clergy Leadership Network, plans to formally announce its formation on Friday and will operate from an expressly religious, expressly partisan point of view. The group cannot, under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, endorse political candidates, and it will have no official ties to the Democratic Party.
But the driving purpose of the organization, according to its mission statement, is to bring about "sweeping changes — changes in our nation's political leadership and changes in failing public policies."
The Rev. Albert M. Pennybacker, of Lexington, Ky., chief executive officer for the organization and the chairman of its national committee, said: "The Christian Right has been very articulate, but they have been exclusive and very judgmental of anyone who doesn't agree with them. People may want to label us the Christian Left. But what we really are about is mainstream issues and truth, and if that makes us left then that shines even more light on the need for a shift in our society."
The organization seeks to counter groups like the Christian Coalition of America and newly influential groups like the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition.
There are other liberal religious-based advocacy groups in Washington, like the Interfaith Alliance, a nonprofit group that lobbies Congress on policy issues. But the Clergy Leadership Council will be the first national liberal religious group, its organizers say, whose primary focus is electoral politics and partisan political organizing
Read the whole article, there's much more, including a quote from the President of the Family Research Council questioning the wisdom of this mix of religion and politics," as if the Family Research Council wasn't just such a mix.
Especially welcome, the good news that The Clergy Leadership Network will have representatives in the south and the mid-west, where, as the group's spokesperson takes note, "moderate and progressive Christians have been losing their "political voice" to Christian conservatives." I'll say.
Though the group is interdominational, most of the participating clergy thus far are Christian Protestants, hence the title of this post. (I'm Jewish, but I've always found something beguiling about the notion of bringing even strangers good news.) Although the group doesn't plan to focus on divisive issues like abortion or gay rights, its participants will be taking on the Christian right's attack on issues that pertain to church/state, and the separation thereof.
Recently, we, on the more-or-less secular left, have found ourselves implored by our faith-based brethren not to push them away, not to turn our backs on the millions of believing Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, many of whom are not rightwing, but feel beset by an onslaught of secularism that the left has been too ready to validate, too ready to identify with, and thus lose the voices and the votes of people who should be our natural allies. We and the Democratid Party are being warned that we need to engage with believers, if we are to win the White House, and indeed, to revive the liberal/progressive tradition in this country.
Since I am personally sympathetic to this desire on the part of religious progressives to start a dialogue with progressives who don't consider themselves to be practioners of any particular religion, let me be clear that I'm not sympathetic to a statement like this one in Nicholas Kristof's much discussed warning to the left:
The most striking cleavage is the God Gulf, and it should terrify the Democrats. Put simply, liberals are becoming more secular at a time when America is becoming increasingly religious, the consequence of a new Great Awakening. Americans, for example, are significantly more likely now than in 1987 to say they "completely agree" that "prayer is an important part of my daily life" and that "we all will be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for our sins."
What on earth does that mean? How are Democrats becoming "more secular?" More non-believers are being drawn to the party? How on earth does Kristof even know if liberals are becoming "more" secular? Democrats should be "terrified" because they're on the wrong side of the "God Gulf?" Who says? Tom DeLay, that God-fearing Christian, that bagman extraordinaire for the Republican Party, who recently came up with yet another clever way to raise money for the party by turning fund raisers during the Republican convention into "charity" galas, thus getting around campaign finance laws, and making contributions tax deductible, all for the small price of giving some of the proceeds to a charity for poor children, or crippled children, or some other form of appropriately pitiable children?
It's stuff like this that makes so-called "secular" liberals like myself go grumpy when it comes to public protestations of religiosity. Which is not at all the same thing as a genuine dialogue about the role of religion in political life, and visa versa.
So imagine my delight to discover that Allan Brill of The Right Christians decided to take on Kristof's whole notion of yet another Great Awakening, in a three parter which you can find here, here, and here. Allan's findings are fascinating; if you missed Atrios's link to it, don't pass up this one; and read the comments section, particularly of the first one.
It's one of Allen's specific goals to engage fellow progressives in that genuine dialogue about how religious and political values intersect, as it is also Melanie's, late of Daily Kos, now the proprietress of her very own blog, Just A Bump In The Beltway, and well worth a visit.
There is a religious war going on in this country, and it's been declared by the right against liberals and progressives, both religious and secular, in the name of "traditional values" and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Well, you can see the problem right there. Who wants to be on the wrong side of the traditional values gulf, or worse still, the Judeo-Christian tradition gulf? Of course what's being advocated by the forces of the American right, Christian, Jewish, Neo-con, Federalist, you name it, they probably got it, is something quite different than just values and just traditions. And it's the left's task to unravel that reality in such a way that Americans in the middle, busy living increasingly difficult lives, can understand that such an analysis is not an attack on the idea of religion itself. To do that, progressives and liberals of every stripe, every religion, every irreligion, need to stand and to work together. So I think it's not a second too soon for us to start really talking to one another. Consider this to be only the first in a series of attempts to further the dialogue.
From The Slactivist, whose religion and politics are a seamless whole, this fascinating connection to The Equal Justice Initiative Of Alabama, shared, not quite by coincidence, by Atrios, self-proclaimed non-believer. It's a complicated story I'll let Fred tell it, which if you want to read in forward chronological order you can here, here, and here.
You'll see, it doesn't have to be that hard, when there's genuine good will towards all of us.
