The Star Tribune published quite a good piece the other day on the resurgence of progressive Christian voices in the public sphere.
Nationwide, new books and websites are raising the flag of the religious left. In Minnesota, the trend has been evident in such arenas as the legislative debate over a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Evangelicals and Catholics who back a ban faced church activists who argued that godliness was on their side. The chorus of liberal religious voices also has been heard on poverty, immigration and taxes ...
"People of faith have to help govern," [director of the Joint Legislative Religious Coalition, Brian] Rusche said. "The religious right tends to quote the Bible, while the left is moved by the longer narratives in which God calls people to do works of justice.
"People should use their beliefs to assess policy, but once you enter the civic realm, you have to honor religious pluralism," he said.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of "The Left Hand of God" and founder of the nationwide Network of Spiritual Progressives, said the religious right rose when it "addressed the spiritual void people felt when the dominant values were selfishness and materialism."
Liberals trying to keep talk of values out of the public sphere "only succeeded in keeping talk of their values out," he said. "The Constitution doesn't ban values in the public sphere. It only says the state should not impose a particular vision of God on us."
Of course, the mainstream media likes to characterize every issue in terms of binary opposites, and so spiritual progressives are represented as the "left" in counterpoint to the religious right.
In reality, Christian progressives represent the faithful middle ground between fundamentalism and secularism. In an e-mail sent today to friends of United Theological Seminary, Jaime Meyer put it this way:
It’s important to remember that what the media likes to call “left” or “liberal” is, actually, the middle of the road theologically. Religious liberals or progressives have long sought to articulate a view of God, Christ and the scriptures that is deeply rooted in the bible and tradition, and that finds a middle way between literalism on one hand and secularism on then other.
The media likes to portray “the fight” as between the “Religious Right” and “Religious Left.” But really, the two poles are literalism and secularism. Radicals from both poles like to portray those in the middle as occupying the opposite pole from themselves. Progressive Christianity is the heart-felt and deeply considered prayerful middle way between literalism and secularism. “The Faithful Middle is Finally Getting a Chance to Speak” might be a better headline!
Amen to that.
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