Is The Religious Left Dead?
Frederick Clarkson printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri Oct 29, 2010 at 09:29:14 PM EST
One of the original front pagers here at Talk to Action recently published what I think is an important book, Changing the Script:  An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century.

Among other things, it is important for religious progressives and friends in considering their approach to politics, particularly in sorting out how to consider and address the Religious Right.  But apparently the book is having difficulty finding its audience. Or the audience finding the book. Either way, Dan is reconsidering his own thinking on the entire project and has drafted a memo which is reprinted with his permission on the flip.  

The Religious Left Is Dead
by Daniel Schultz

The label, anyway. I'm not as sure about the content.

I'm just back from a fizzled reading in town. One member of my congregation showed up, and the owners of the coffee shop where the event was taking place.

That's really okay: it's a rural Republican stronghold, what else could you expect? I only had hopes that we might get a turnout because I expected that a few friends, maybe one or two fellow travelers, would turn up.

But honestly, the response to the book has been underwhelming, at readings and elsewhere, and the whole idea of a "religious left" has been ebbing away for some time now. I think I know why.

The leaders and tidy, obedient followers of the Religious Right have so poisoned the well of a connected religion and politics that anyone who believes that God can dream of freedom, let alone fairness, for the dispossessed have simply walked away. Are you a liberal? you can ask them. Yes, they'll say. Are you a progressive? Perhaps. ...Are you a religious progressive? Well, no. They're just religious. The ethical peg can no longer be jammed into the political hole for these people. They're interested in what God calls them to do, and they're interested in politics. They're just not very interested in what the one might have to say to the other.

Jim Wallis, as much as I want to make a bête noire out of that pious old nincompoop, didn't have much to do with it. He's spent God knows how long shilling a politics redeemed from itself, based on soppy reconciliation and precious little else. But I have come to see that his pitch to the spiritual-minded, as soapy as it may be, responds to audience demand more than creates it. People see through him. The questions I get at my readings show it. They don't see the case for surrendering reproductive rights for a mess of common ground, and they're not afraid to say so. But neither are they about to slap a cross on their Mao jacket and wade out into the GOTV field.

The bullshit attacks on Obama's faith have had no effect. He's a generic Christian, just like most people in this nation. Even if he weren't, lefties wouldn't fault him for it.

The supposed secularism of the left has done nothing. As contemptuous of faith as some secular voices may seem (and sometimes they seem plenty), they're no threat to anyone with a settled identity. Don't like that I believe in God? Fuck you. Next question? It frustrates me to no end that I sometimes can't get my non-believer friends to digest religious ideas--if you're not reading William Cavanaugh, you're missing one of the smartest writers on politics operating today--but that's certainly not going to shake my religious or political commitments.

It's not the Republican wave building this year. We all know that's not true. Religious Democrats are like any others, which is to say, more used to catastrophe than they should have to be. And like any other Democrats, they're deflated by the lack of delivery on the promises of campaign 2008. Obama's shiny faith commitments did little to insulate him from disappointment.

What has finally killed the label of the religious left is a lack of interest in symmetry. People simply don't want a Religious Left to respond to the Religious Right. They want something that works in a categorically different fashion. I'm arrogant enough to think that I've given them something like that in my book, but I probably would have been better off packaging it as some kind of conversation-starter for churches. In fact (memo to my publisher), it's not too late to do just that. A Q&A supplement for discussion groups might be just what the doctor ordered for sales.

More to the point, it might be just what is needed to get the political message across. Religious progressives haven't left the field. They're just tired of wearing the uniform.

So, dutifully, I am stripping the insignia. It's time to go guerilla. I will never be ashamed to be a religious progressive, but I don't know how often I will volunteer the description. From now on, it's: Religious Right vs. just plain religious, and, well, I have some ideas about what what "religious" might mean. Maybe in a few years, the country will have regained its senses and the term Religious Left can reclaim some of its meaning. For right now, though, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that the label has got to go if the content is to survive.




Display:
Dan, it has been my experience that the problem is religion and that the solution is faith. Religion as people generally experience it today (particularly those who have gone the way of the "nones") is about the imposition of antiquated rules and sometimes harsh measures of judgment and control by a few over many in the name of God. The folks on the outside whom I have had the pleasure to encounter aren't generally looking to leave God behind; they are seeking an authentic experience of God in a way that brings them into fellowship and mutual ministry with others who have had similar experiences. The monolith that is perceived as the Religious Right incorporates the Religious Left for them, as well. When we come up with a way to speak to seekers in a way that clearly distinguishes us from the Religious Right, we will once again have energy and passion for the struggles that still loom ahead of us.

by RevRuthUCC on Mon Nov 01, 2010 at 02:03:41 AM EST
are seeking what works for them.

Too many have been so burned by "Christianity" that anything remotely Christian is just too much of a turn-off.  It stifles their faith and experience (much as you say that the Religious Right incorporates the Religious Left to them).  I've experienced problems with the Religious Left too - told that I couldn't be Christian and believe in self-defense (even as "Good Christians" keep telling me I cannot accept evolution as fact and be a Christian).  However, by far the usual experience with the Religious Left has been positive.  You know my experiences with the Religious Right.

The problem is control - and others defining your experience and your reality for you.  That is just plain wrong.  I think God would want people to be brought together and not split apart.  I think God would encourage people and not cause them pain.  In my opinion, Christianity should be inclusive.  Much (if not most) of it is not.

The people that I'm talking about seek out paths that do work for them... that provide peace and fulfillment, and a sense of the divine.  Christianity will never work for many of them, so we need to encourage them in the path that DOES provide them a sense of peace and joy.  Based on the people I've seen and know - that sense does occur outside of Christianity (contrary to all of the assertions of the "Good Christians"*).  Personally, I think the Creator will try to reach anyone in any way that they will relate to.

*- I don't consider the Religious Right/Dominionists/NAR to be truly Christian.  They have inverted Christianity, and turned it into a nightmare.  I'm not sure I would want to be in any heaven with the Jesus/God that they preach!

by ArchaeoBob on Tue Nov 02, 2010 at 12:16:46 AM EST
Parent



What audience Dan did envision for the book?  Really, I'd like to know. Because I get the sense he's writing toward a rather small sampling, & I'm not certain who, but I don't think it's me.  

by Asbury Park on Wed Nov 03, 2010 at 11:48:36 AM EST
you would have to read the book to find out.  And there's the rub, eh?

by Frederick Clarkson on Wed Nov 03, 2010 at 04:23:11 PM EST
Parent


Very interesting and insightful. I wonder what would happen if the Progressive Religious Left were to challenge the Religious Right more on scripture? After all, the fundamentalists are always saying that THEY know the Bible better than anyone, and that THEY have it right and no one else does.

Well, they don't have it right and it's not too hard to find holes in their doctrines. If a serious challenge to their 'Biblical authority' were mounted, with copious use of the Bible and with the Left being more passionate than the Right, something good might happen.

They have more money, though, and more influence, perhaps even control, of the media. Perhaps these debates could be on YouTube? Maybe this has already been done but it seems that to appeal to the average joe who has faith and believes what he is told about the Bible, there needs to be an alternative view that holds just as firmly to the scriptures -- with a heavy emphasis on love, forgiveness, peace and yes, Jesus.

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