Jackson Free Press

A story in Salon today begins:

The Bush administration is going to hell. That, at least, could be the take-away message from a Tuesday press conference religious leaders from five major Protestant denominations held at the National Press Club. Clad in clerical collars, and invoking the Gospel story of Lazarus, a poor man ignored at the gate of a rich man's estate who went to heaven while the rich man was sent to hell, the leaders called on Congress to oppose what they called an "immoral budget" and staked a claim for moral values that don't have anything to do with abortion or gay marriage. "The 2006 budget that President Bush has sent to Capitol Hill is unjust," they charged. "It has much for the rich man and little for Lazarus." But while the press conference focused on calling attention to the need for truly compassionate policies that protect the most vulnerable in society, it had another mission as well: to assert the relevance of the religious left.

What's that, you say? The religious what?

Everyone knows about the religious right, a movement of conservative, mostly Christian, religious communities that has become increasingly involved in American politics over the last three decades. The idea that there could be a countervailing religious force, whether defined as religious progressives or simply everyone not part of the religious right, has long since been dismissed from public consciousness. Indeed, the religious left had almost forgotten about itself—the community hadn't come together to protest a federal budget, one of the religious leaders told me, "since the early Reagan years."

Previous Comments

ID

169867

Comment

Don't miss Casey Parks' JFP story, Rise of the Religious Left from Dec. 16, 2004. Glad to see the national media catching up with Mississippi. ;-)

Author

ladd

Date

2005-03-10T17:20:54-06:00

ID

169868

Comment

This, I think is an important point: The religious left, on the other hand, hasn't seen any need to build separate institutions because its members already have outlets for political involvement. The average religious liberal doesn't need to go to church to get involved with political issues; she goes down the street to her local ACLU's meeting or to a MeetUp or joins a letter-writing campaign through her teacher's union. Her commitment to politics may be driven by her religious beliefs, but the connection is never made explicit. A religious conservative, on the other hand, spends more of his time at his local church and is more naturally drawn to activism through that community of congregants. and this, too: The Democratic Party hasn't helped matters. For years, the party has ghettoized religion -- flooding into black churches on the Sundays before elections, but treating religion as simply a quaint ethnic characteristic -- and the last election was no exception. The Kerry campaign ran just one television ad that mentioned its candidate's background as an altar boy: It was in Spanish, appearing only on a Spanish-language network. And when the candidate spoke about faith (which he often did, charging that Bush was a "man [who] claims to have faith, but has no deeds"), it was almost always in front of an African-American audience, fueling charges that Kerry's faith was insincere and brought out only for political purposes. No one has argued that Democratic politicians should suffuse their rhetoric with hymn lyrics and claim God's endorsement. But by backing away from each other like opposing magnets, the religious left and the Democratic Party have ceded the language of faith and values and morality to conservatives.

Author

kate

Date

2005-03-11T13:35:49-06:00

ID

169869

Comment

Agreed on both. It's so valid that Democrats show up in black churches (or neighborhoods) during election time and no other time. It's time that the left re-embrace religion. Doesn't mean the government needs tto be involved -- it must not be, of course, in order to protect our freedoms -- but there sure is nothing wrong with pointing out the parts of our religious texts that call for helping the poor, overcoming greed, etc. Part of the reason too few people understand those texts is that the right cherrypicks the moralistic wedge stuff and skates by this stuff, and the left is so busy being afraid of religion that they don't talk about it. It's time for a change.

Author

ladd

Date

2005-03-11T15:06:49-06:00