Organizing the Religious Left Options

[RobJohnson]

Bush has had four years to work on those "moral issues" that he put on the ballot right next to his name.

He did nothing then, and won't during the next four years either.

Its simply a coverup (smoke screen) to push the corporations and insurance companies adgendas..and not only did over half of the nation fall for it, they actually voted this year!

The DNC needs to settle on a canidate early and run with it.

[Mgleaf]

There is an organization already in existance.  They were started to counteract the religious right.  My husband and I were involved with this group when we lived in Oklahoma City.  The name of the group is, "The Interfaith Alliance."  This is a group of ministers and lay people.  All faiths are included and they are wonderful people.  You can find them on the web and see for yourself what their ideas are.  They have a national office in Washington DC.  One of the most well known members is Walter Kronkite.

I hope this is going to work. I haven't posted on a forum before.

The Interfaith Alliance has been around for a while. I don't think they're getting too far with counteracting the religious right. At least, I don't think what they're doing is quite what people on this forum are talking about.

[mom2hs2boys]

We have to admit Karl Rove, Inc. created a political dymamic-duo that demanded respect. Should Democrats follow in kind ? NO !

No, but there was a lot of rhetoric going around saying that "If you're a Christian, you vote Republican." To me, it's just the opposite, but I'll admit that there were times I felt funny for bucking the trend, until I reminded myself WHY I felt that voting Democrat was more in line with my beliefs. The Democratic party needs to be truly inclusive. Part of that is speaking to the liberal side that all Christians possess, even if they don't admit it.

[Jane Jackson]

I know many churchgoers who voted for Bush because he was a "Born-Again Christian." These are the same people who have more faith in War than Peace to protect us, and think Clinton weakoned the military. They believe Democrats are 1) weak; 2) sinful; 3) stupid; 4) directionless; and/or 5) too lazy to work. These hard-liners will never change and vote Democrat.
I also know many non-churchgoers who voted for Bush for the same five reasons the churchgoers did. Those "five reasons" represent the image the Republicans have succeeded in laying on the Democrats. I believe what Democrats have to do is show that they are none of these.
But there will always be those Republicans who don't really give a hoot about morals, who think it is admirable to tell lies to win, cheat the voters out of their vote at the polls, and steal wealth through tax breaks and sending jobs overseas. Somehow, they must be stopped.

This post has been edited by Jane Jackson: Nov 10 2004, 12:32 AM

[MakThorpe]

Rove and Co. went after a coherant constituency that is not timid about being exclusionary especially among other christians. Most christians resent being told that they are not "true christians", and that they are going to hell because they do not hold certain creeds.

Rove's base will cleave at this point. Forget about the left/right dichotomy. Cleave the group between fundamentalist and moderate. The overarching metaphor is that the born agains represent the intolerance of the Church of England of the 18th century, and portray everyone else outside that core as the real Americans- simply trying to pursue their beliefs free of fundamentalists or hollywood trying to spread their objectional values into their communities.

The dichotomy is not so much left-right as it is fundamentalist versus moderates. It is the same dichotomy you see in most religions. Fundamentalists like Wahabis versus the more European oriented muslims. Reformed Jews versus the Hassidics.

The group of moderates outside of christian fundamentalists is large, including non christians and even the non religious who are social conservatives.

Democrats can gather them under the big umbrella of respect for the moral diversity of america. But to do this, Democrats will have to establish a consistent philosophy for how it proposes to support moral pluralism while not abandoning the individuals right to live free of moral bigotry. Attempting to a establish a morality neutral environment nationwide has only established an atmosphere of moral relativism which is itself the main target of rage for social conservatives of all stripes. The democratic party must be for local governments that fully support the values of the community, so long as the expression of those values observe every citizen's constitutional rights.

What the democratic party promises is that the federal government will not seek to impose moral views in the form of laws or policies on local communities.

In this way, all people can come to the party. We can talk to Muslims one day, Latin American traditional Catholics the next, and Orthodox Jews the next- and the message is always the same- you will not be tyranized by the Christian fundamentalists. Locally, we will fully support policies and laws that reflect the views of the local community.

At the national level, we will maintain a neutral stance- neither for nor against issues with a contentious moral component.

Rove and Co. will rerun the 2004 gameplan. Democrats will succeed if it runs the 1776 gameplan.

[Arneoker]

I hope this is going to work.  I haven't posted on a forum before.

The Interfaith Alliance has been around for a while.  I don't think they're getting too far with counteracting the religious right.  At least, I don't think what they're doing is quite what people on this forum are talking about.

From their website I have an idea of why they aren't getting too far. Their focus seems to be on separation of Church and State issues and tolerance. This is all well and good and very necessary, but IMO a strong "religious left" movement needs to go beyond that and speak to a multitude of issues, such as alleviating poverty and protecting the environment. Below is a post of a very interesting article from today's Washington Post that I believe deals with just the issues and strategies that a "religious left" should be about:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...1-2004Nov9.html

Liberal Christians Challenge 'Values Vote'

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A07

Liberal Christian leaders argued yesterday that the moral values held by most Americans are much broader than the handful of issues emphasized by religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Battling the notion that "values voters" swept President Bush to victory because of opposition to gay marriage and abortion, three liberal groups released a post-election poll in which 33 percent of voters said the nation's most urgent moral problem was "greed and materialism" and 31 percent said it was "poverty and economic justice." Sixteen percent cited abortion, and 12 percent named same-sex marriage.

But the religious leaders acknowledged that the Christian right had reached more voters than the Christian left. Some said it was time for "moderate and progressive" religious groups, as well as the Democratic Party, to rethink their positions.

"One of the things a few of us are talking about is a reassessment of how the Democrats deal with an issue like abortion -- could there be a more moderate ground, where even if they retained their pro-choice stance, they talked about uniting pro-choice people together to actually do something about the abortion rate?" said Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners.

If the Democratic Party were to "welcome pro-life Democrats, Catholics and evangelicals and have a serious conversation with them" about ways to reduce teenage pregnancy, facilitate adoptions and improve conditions for low-income women, it would "work wonders" among centrist evangelicals and Catholics, Wallis said.

In a conference call with reporters to discuss the election and the new poll, Wallis and three other Christian leaders argued that many religious Americans do not fall neatly into liberal or conservative camps.

They contended that there is a vast religious middle, including "progressive evangelicals," "resurgent mainline Protestants" and "socially conservative African Americans," that could be attracted by biblically based "prophetic" appeals to make peace, fight poverty and spread social justice.

"The values that were promoted most within the conservative religious community were almost always tied to a fear factor, and that was not necessarily the case in the Democratic strategy, and I would say should not be the case," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance.

The nationwide telephone poll of 10,689 voters was conducted by Zogby International for the Catholic peace group Pax Christi, the New York-based civic advocacy group Res Publica and the Washington-based Center for American Progress, a think tank allied with Democrats. It had a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.

The poll found that 42 percent of voters cited the war in Iraq as the "moral issue" that most influenced their choice of candidates, while 13 percent cited abortion and 9 percent same-sex marriage. Asked to name the greatest threat to marriage, 31 percent said "infidelity," 25 percent cited "rising financial burdens" and 22 percent named same-sex marriage.

Tom Perriello, an organizer at Res Publica, said the poll shows that "while there may be a solid 20 percent who are very focused on abortion and gay marriage, for most Americans of faith, there are other moral issues of greater urgency, and that's where the religious middle is."

Throughout the presidential campaign, opinion polls showed that frequent churchgoers were far more likely to support Bush than his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry. Exit polls on Election Day found that 22 percent of voters cited "moral values" as the key to their vote, and they tilted 4 to 1 toward Bush.

The answer to this "God gap," Perriello said, "is that progressives need to embrace the deep moral critique that people are looking for and make that case on poverty and Iraq, and not just try to talk more about God or outpace the Republicans on gay marriage or abortion."

According to Perriello, liberal religious groups registered 500,000 new voters, made 400,000 get-out-the-vote phone calls, and raised $1.75 million for newspaper and radio ads during the campaign. But he said the post-election poll found that 71 percent of voters had heard from the religious right while 38 percent said they had heard from the religious left.

This post has been edited by Arneoker: Nov 10 2004, 06:55 PM

[MakThorpe]

The religious left didn't vote for Bush anyway.

The democrats have to do better than this idiotic idea at eating into Rove's base.

[muleman]

Muleman,

I'm not sure what part of the country you are in. But here in New England, there are many different flavors of UU and UCC congregations. There are UU churches with a distinctly Christian flavor. There are others with a more neo-Pagan leaning, and others that are more Humanist. There are UCC churches that are more and less liberal. If you and your wife are uncomfortable with the particular churches you are attending, perhaps you should try a few others, if there are other's in your area. Or maybe other mainstream Christian Protestant denominations are more to your taste. If you are looking for a more traditional Christian viewpoint, try attending a Presbyterian, Methodist or Lutheran church. I also know someone who is a pastor in denomination called "Disciples of Christ" who is openly gay, and her congregation is fine with that. That denomination is not big here in New England, but I am told it is in other parts of the country.

I hope you can find a spiritual home somewhere out there. I have tried, and I don't seem to fit anywhere. I was active in a UU church for a while, but I found the congrgation to be distinctly classist. I have occasionally attended Quaker meeting, but haven't felt overly drawn to Quakerism for the long-term.

Roxanne

Hi, Roxanne - Thank you very much for your thoughts. We are in the Rocky Mountain West - the UUs are strictly secular humanists. The UCC, as previously noted, is so enthralled with the social causes that the litergy has gone haywire. We plan on visiting a Methodist church toward holiday season.
Muleman's principal interest, in the context of this superb forum, is to point out that the religious right does not have a monopoly on intolerance. Only when those who profess a Christian faith are truly "open" (let alone "affirming") will God's children find common ground based on common sense.
Again, many thanks.

[muleman]

Nobody is talking about a radicalized 'left' that will 'shut out the faithful'.  The idea is to be INCLUSIVE of ALL FAITHFUL and even those who aren't of a 'faith' but who believe in traditional liberal social justice values.

Yeesh.

Very well said. As Muleman noted in a post with BrotherLove, liberal Christians have shown a remarkable lack of tolerance. We indeed must be inclusive of all faithful, those without a faith, and many other faiths, including Buddhists, Daoists, Hindus, and, of course, our Muslim brothers and sisters. Perhaps this forum will be a beacon of light as we try to build a city on the hill.

[muleman]

Hello msjosette from a fellow UCCer.
I go to an extremely liberal UCC church and we haven't changed over to "inclusive language"--although sometimes it is integrated in surprising ways. I believe that "inclusive language" has not been mandated by the General Synod and probably won't be--it will be up to each individual church to decide. Unfortunately, however, not all UCC churches seem to agree on much more important issues like being "open and affirming."  THAT is agreed upon by the General Synod as witnessed in the new ad campaign "God is still speaking."

Muleman takes it, Rebcamuse, that your church has not installed the New Century Hymnal in your pews. If not, offer a prayer of thanksgiving.
Muleman supported open and affirming. Unfortunately, that policy, together with some truly unfortunate post-approval events, has created a great schism in what was a large church - and now is a medium sized church. There is no middle ground, no willingness to compromise, indeed, even the breaking of commitments based on compromise.
To quote a current phrase, WWJD?

[JDB]

Our ELCA/UCC churches share one building, a restored prairie and a deeply progressive outlook.. One of our Revs is a gay woman, the other led anti-Iraq war protests. We have formed a discussion group to feel our best way as mostly liberal Christians to respond to this election.

Some want to focus on direct political action and split our efforts from the church

Some want to talk to a right-wing church near us and find common ground on the environment, our passion

Some want to overturn the tables in the Temple and make it clear that not all Christians are intolerant and speak out with a loud voice as Christians against the injustice we see

Any thoughts?

This post has been edited by JDB: Nov 10 2004, 10:09 PM

[MakThorpe]

Does this have anything to do with eating in to Rove's base, or is that goal completely irrelevant?

If it is relevant, then how many voters who would be comfortable being identified as the religious left actually voted for Bush?

[Mgleaf]

[quote=Arneoker,Nov 10 2004, 06:54 PM]
From their website I have an idea of why they aren't getting too far. Their focus seems to be on separation of Church and State issues and tolerance. This is all well and good and very necessary, but IMO a strong "religious left" movement needs to go beyond that and speak to a multitude of issues, such as alleviating poverty and protecting the environment. Below is a post of a very interesting article from today's Washington Post that I believe deals with just the issues and strategies that a "religious left" should be about:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...1-2004Nov9.html

Liberal Christians Challenge 'Values Vote'

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A07

Liberal Christian leaders argued yesterday that the moral values held by most Americans are much broader than the handful of issues emphasized by religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Battling the notion that "values voters" swept President Bush to victory because of opposition to gay marriage and abortion, three liberal groups released a post-election poll in which 33 percent of voters said the nation's most urgent moral problem was "greed and materialism" and 31 percent said it was "poverty and economic justice." Sixteen percent cited abortion, and 12 percent named same-sex marriage.

But the religious leaders acknowledged that the Christian right had reached more voters than the Christian left. Some said it was time for "moderate and progressive" religious groups, as well as the Democratic Party, to rethink their positions.

"One of the things a few of us are talking about is a reassessment of how the Democrats deal with an issue like abortion -- could there be a more moderate ground, where even if they retained their pro-choice stance, they talked about uniting pro-choice people together to actually do something about the abortion rate?" said Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners.

If the Democratic Party were to "welcome pro-life Democrats, Catholics and evangelicals and have a serious conversation with them" about ways to reduce teenage pregnancy, facilitate adoptions and improve conditions for low-income women, it would "work wonders" among centrist evangelicals and Catholics, Wallis said.

In a conference call with reporters to discuss the election and the new poll, Wallis and three other Christian leaders argued that many religious Americans do not fall neatly into liberal or conservative camps.

They contended that there is a vast religious middle, including "progressive evangelicals," "resurgent mainline Protestants" and "socially conservative African Americans," that could be attracted by biblically based "prophetic" appeals to make peace, fight poverty and spread social justice.

"The values that were promoted most within the conservative religious community were almost always tied to a fear factor, and that was not necessarily the case in the Democratic strategy, and I would say should not be the case," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We need to keep in mind that the religious rights reaches out to people and pulls them in. They're often, IMO, dishonest about it. Example - Over a year ago, a family moved into our subdivision and invited everyone to an open house. We went, and had a lovely time. (They provided good food, BTW, always a way to make people feel good.) As we were saying our good-byes to our hostess, though, she said they were also having a book study every Friday night, and handed me a post card, saying, "This is the first book we'll be studying." The book was called, "The Purpose-Driven Life." It looked like something religious, and sure enough, when I got home and looked it up on Amazon, that's what it was.

This post has been edited by Mgleaf: Nov 11 2004, 01:00 AM

[Ecoist]

Don't forget the other World religions! Sustainability of the planet is a huge spiritual issue. We need to head off this War of Civilizations that folks like Ossama Bin Laden and George W Bush seem intent on igniting. Otherwise there will be much more suffering, not just for this generation, but for many more to follow.

Buddhism, my faith, views all spiritual traditions as potential paths to Nirvana and the diversity of these traditions is valuable for rescuing beings with different interests or aptitudes. No one path would be suitable for everybody. Even where they contrast or conflict they are useful in helping a spiritual aspirant to clarify his or her own practice.

I have been interested in this subject for the past seven years and have been writing a science fiction trilogy to explore some of these themes. Hopeful I can finish editing and get it published soon to help out this debate.

All the best. :D

[jenr8tr]

No, but there was a lot of rhetoric going around saying that "If you're a Christian, you vote Republican."  To me, it's just the opposite, but I'll admit that there were times I felt funny for bucking the trend, until I reminded myself WHY I felt that voting Democrat was more in line with my beliefs.  The Democratic party needs to be truly inclusive.  Part of that is speaking to the liberal side that all Christians possess, even if they don't admit it. 

I think the key is to do what Bono (of U2) does. Clinton originally consulted with him because of his work on 3rd World Debt relief, hunger & AIDS. Bono has had remarkable success working with members of congress on both sides of the isle because he speaks unabashedly as a born-again Christian, using Bible quotes to back up his rhetoric. There is a fine line that must be walked, because this country is a bastion for religious freedom and showing one's religious faith must not be construed as religious intolerance, but the beliefs that define oneself.

[MakThorpe]

Apparently it is so irrelevant that it is not even worth a reply.

[Arneoker]

Apparently it is so irrelevant that it is not even worth a reply.

Will you lighten up! You're not the only one on this board who has ever been ignored for a while!

I agree with a lot of what you say in your post #46, although I think that everyone has to realize that many religious people do base their moral values on their religion and do consider their moral values when they make their political choices. If we want to reach these people we need to respect that. Now that kind of thing can lead to bad things such as the Christian Right but also to good things like the civil rights movement. We do consider moral values when in our politics when we promote social justice, aid for the poor, etc. If I didn't I wouldn't be here and I suspect that is true for a lot of people, not just religious people. But any kind of politics that we foster must be inclusionary, respectful and welcoming to people of whatever religion and to the nonreligious.

I must say that what you said in post #48 seems to contradict a lot of what you said in post #46. Certainly there are those we will not be able to reach but I think there are culturally conservative Christians who voted for Bush who might be persuaded to vote differently next time. I apologize if I misunderstood you but could you clarify what you meant?

[Arneoker]

There is a fine line that must be walked, because this country is a bastion for religious freedom and showing one's religious faith must not be construed as religious intolerance, but the beliefs that define oneself.

I think this says it very well and is something people of all religions and those who are not religious should be able to accept.

[LNAB]

It occurs to me...that purhaps a "left leaning" Christian movement should actually start pushing the administration of it's failure to DELIVER REAL CHRISTIAN VALUES..

like
alleviating poverty
stopping the torture of prisoners
the death penalty
inequitable justice forced upon the poor
holding Corporate polluters accountable for the people they are killing with their pollution

stuff like that..

[ollie]

What I am thinking about is not about some massive conversion of the religious "right" to our way (ain't gonna happen) but perhaps skimming off 4-5% of the more moderate "mainstreamers" who perhaps didn't feel so comfortable with us.

Remember that we only need 3-5% to come to our side next time.