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The Sunday NEW YORKTIMEScarried - on Page One, just below the masthead - what I regard as an extremely significant article about people of faith, from the Left, getting involved, as never before since the 1960s, in our nation's politics. The catalyst, of course, is President Trump, who enjoyed overwhelming Christian evangelical support, despite his personal life.

The problem for the "Religious Left", if that's what we should call this movement: It's much, much more diverse than the Christian Right. To a point, diversity can be a strength, but it can also lead to hopeless divisions which can handicap a movement as a potent political force. Then, there's the question of whether the highly secularized Left can make common cause with those animated by spiritual concerns. [As this article notes, President Obama at least tried outreach to evangelicals; Hillary Clinton snubbed them, rejecting interview requests from evangelical media outlets.]

A powerful quotation from Reverend Jim Wallis, founder of the SOJOURNERS community and magazine: "The fact that one party has strategically used and abused religion, while the other has had a habitually allergic and negative response to religion per se, puts our side in a more difficult position in regard to political influence."

Also, surely religious liberals/progressives don't want to ape the Christian Right anyway. Younger voters are far more secular than older voters, and arguably, the Christian Right has helped drive them away. And younger people who DO believe, such as younger evangelical Christians, don't exactly fall into the orbit of the Reverend Franklin Graham, an ardent Trump supporter.

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This article touches on the continuing polarizing effect of the abortion issue. Voters who largely agree with progressives on social justice, climate change, etc., just can't vote for a party with an absolutist abortion rights position. Plus, many mainstream Democratic politicians - in part, to protect themselves from Republican attacks as being "too soft" on crime and national defense - are often indistinguishable from most Republicans in supporting capital punishment, robust military spending, etc.

This leads to a pointnotfully treated in this article: The fully consistent, pro-life, "seamless garment" position (anti-abortion, but with a generous social safety net; anti-capital punishment; anti-war, but not necessarily fully pacifist; pro-social justice; pro-environmental) is represented inneither major U.S. political party,nor in any third party. Neither a U.S. Supreme Court stacked with liberal/progressive justices,nora high court stacked with strict, conservative "constructionists", i.e., Antonin Scalia wannabes, will interpret the Constitution in this direction. Not a single Delaware statewide official,norany member of the Delaware General Assembly, has shown such an inclination. [I'm open to someone who could persuade me otherwise!] Doubtless, this reflects a hard cold assessment of what voters seem towant. But in the looming battle between religious rightists and religious liberals/progressives, a third group will remain consistently in flux in our politics, spiritually divided between Republicans and Democrats, frequently alienated from both, plus all the third parties. Political limbo on earth.

Again, from the SundayNewYorkTimes....

Read more from the original source:
Time for Religious Liberals/Progressives to break the Religious Right's Grip on the nation's "moral" agenda? - WDEL 1150AM (blog)