Posted on 07/25/2006 7:55:23 PM PDT by pcottraux
Religious left gears up to face right counterpart
By Thomas Ferraro Tue Jul 25, 8:16 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The religious right, which helped re-elect President Bush in 2004 by rallying opposition to abortion and gay marriage, is now facing a pushback from the religious left.
With a faith-based agenda of their own, liberal and progressive clergy from various denominations are lobbying lawmakers, holding rallies and publicizing their positions. They want to end the Iraq war, ease global warming, combat poverty, raise the minimum wage, revamp immigration laws, and prevent "immoral" cuts in federal social programs.
Some, like the Rev. Robin Meyers of the United Church of Christ in Oklahoma, marry gay couples and seek to reduce abortions while rejecting calls by the right to outlaw them.
"I join the ranks of those who are angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian," declared Meyers, who has written a new book, "Why the Christian Right is Wrong.
According to scholars, the religious left has become its most active since the 1960s when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy -- black and white -- were key figures in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.
INFLUENCING ELECTIONS?
While the religious right is still more powerful, the left is setting its sights on this year's congressional elections and the 2008 White House contest.
Rising Democratic star Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said it is imperative for his party that fellow Democrats seek to counter the influence of the religious right.
"If we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons will continue to hold sway," he said at a June conference.
Hoping to expand its influence, the religious left has become visible in ways more often associated with the right.
Some progressive clergy, reaching out to the sick, joined a diverse coalition that took on the right in a battle this month to expand federally backed embryonic stem cell research.
Congress passed a bill to allow more research, but Bush vetoed it, saying the measure would violate the sanctity of human life by encouraging destruction of embryos left from fertility treatments.
"The religious right intends for you and I to live in a country where church and state are united -- where only their interpretations of biblical law dictates the law of our land," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister in Washington who heads The Interfaith Alliance which seeks to maintain the constitutional separation of church and state.
RIGHT REMAINS POWERFUL
But it's unclear how big an impact the religious left will have.
Laura Olson, a Clemson University expert on religion and politics, said the religious left is energized, but "a lot of times it shoots itself in the foot. It often pushes an overly broad agenda that results in conflicting priorities."
And analysts warn that greater activism can worsen the political divide.
"Religion has never been as politicized in recent times as it is right now," said Allen Hertzke, who teaches religion and politics at the University of Oklahoma.
"Politics is about combat -- 'us versus them.' Religion shouldn't be about that," Hertzke said.
Despite increased energy on the left, the religious right -- featuring big-name preachers, popular talk shows and legions of followers -- remains a far bigger influence than the loosely knit left.
In fact, the religious right has become in the past few decades a cornerstone of the Republican Party, working to put its conservative values at the heart of the party's priorities.
In the 2000 elections, the religious right helped Bush and fellow Republicans by rallying opposition to abortion. In the 2004 contests, the movement added to its agenda a drive against the equally divisive issue of gay marriage.
Exit polls in the 2004 White House election showed Bush had a big edge among regular churchgoers while Democrat John Kerry had strong backing among those who said they never attend.
The right's success prompted progressive faith-based voices to denounce the Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and other conservative evangelical leaders.
"The call of the gospel is to help the poor," Meyers said. "The strong ought to help the weak, instead of the strong helping the strong get stronger, which the Bush administration is all about."
Those on the right say they are not worried by the left's activism. Richard Land, president of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, said, "The religious left is a shadow of what it was in the '60s."
"I'm quite confident that in the struggle for hearts and minds, we've got a lot more boots on the ground than they do."
Amid the war of words, some clergy are making a point to steer clear of labels. Rev. Jim Wallis, who heads a faith-based group in Washington called Sojourners, has been widely viewed as part of the religious left. Yet he rejects the name and preaches the need to bring the nation to "a moral center."
"I'm an evangelical Christian who thinks that justice is a biblical imperative," said Wallis." The monologue of the religious right is finally over and a new dialogue has just begun."
Instead of endless babble about keeping religion out of public discourse, we will now hear competing messages: "Christ is actually pro-choice" and such.
And watch how the media, so dismissive of the religious right, will suddenly have all kinds of interest in the religious left--expect lots of shots of Katie Couric with a pen in her hand, nodding with interest as some leftist refering to God as "She" talks about the "immorality" of the WOT, for example.
Gay marriage doesn't prove to be very 'divisive' when the people actually get to vote on it, as its been voted down handily every time, from a low of 57% to a high of over 80%, and an average of about 70%.
Basically, the 'religious left' calls for bigger govt, amnesty for illegal aliens, and complete and unconditional surrender of conservatives in the Culture War.
Wishful thinking on the part of the MSM. Left-wing "ministers" have been around for decades (two ran for president as Democratic candidates). Their agenda will have no impact on the so-called religious right.
The religious left probably applies a socialist standard to Christ's teachings. In other words, instead of being all salvation, sacrifice, and God's plan for humanity, Jesus was some sort of hippy peacenik.
Suuuure. A couple of pastors does not a movement make.
It is kind of an oxymoron.
As an atheist, quite frankly, you can say nothing with confidence because your beliefs are rooted in nothing except that which you believe is your own intellectual superiority.
I've read your post, I don't think you qualify.
Other than for us to remind them that the cafeteria is closed.
There's no such thing. It's a convenient fiction created for this election cycle. It's not likely that an ideology that embraces every perversion known to man can lay any credible claim to religious gravitas.
More about Jim Wallis and the Sojourners organization:
http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/psca/
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=special.display&item=050111_godspolitics
http://www.calltorenewal.com/events/pentecost06/index.html
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=resources.discussion_guides
My opinion, this Jim Wallis is a money-changer. That is, a professional con man, using religion as his vehicle. It is his racket to end poverty by taking from the foolish, and putting the money in his own pocket.
I don't believe it. Odd the reporter didn't name the "scholars"?
I'll accept that.
Roosevelt had no confidantes but a lot of confidence. His playmates were imaginary but, from a young age, he believed in himself. He grew up that way not only because of class privilege and the expectation of being served, but because of his theology and his expectation, similar to Woodrow Wilson's, that he was chosen to perform great services to mankind.
Franklin Roosevelt particularly learned to think that way during his college preparatory experience at the Groton School in Massachusetts. Nine of ten students entered Groton as members of Social Register families. Many of them left as partakers of the Social Gospel. Endicott Peabody, founder and headmaster of Groton, was a disciple of Charles Kingsley, founder of the Christian Socialist movement in England. Peabody in turn became a lifelong influence on Roosevelt and many others. (When Roosevelt held private services in Washington before his inauguration and on other major occasions, he asked Rev. Peabody to conduct them.) Peabody proclaimed not only the social gospel but social universalism — the belief that it was unfair for anyone to be poor, and that government's task was to eliminate this unfairness by siding with poorer over richer, worker over capitalist. The influence of Peabody's faith is evident in notebooks Franklin kept at Groton on a variety of political issues. For example, Franklin proposed the development of unions backed up by governmental arbitration boards as the way to "resist unjust exactions by the employers."
Old news.
Well, even saying that it's become it's "most active" since the 1960s probably isn't saying much.
There is a "religious left," just not a Christian one. A "religious left" could include pagans, Wiccans, and a myriad of cults.
I apologize if I misunderstood your post.
They are quite sizable here in MA. The most conservative church out of this state from the 1960s is a perfect model in disguise for what exists today: church-going sheep under democrat influence, NOT religious doctrine of any tradition.
Truth is, the religious left has had free reign for a long time. The media has never been out to get them like they have been with the right. So this claim of newness is just an excuse to get them some free media. Talk away. We aren't the ones who want to stifle speech, religious or poltiical.
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