Don't hand religion to the right

[T_i_B]

Superb article from the UK Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1440525,00.html

Jesus offered a political manifesto that emphasised non-violence, social justice and the redistribution of wealth - yet all this is drowned out by those who use the text to justify a narrow, authoritarian and morally judgmental form of social respectability. The irony is that the religious right and the secular left have effectively joined forces to promote the idea that the Bible is reactionary. For the secular left, the more the Bible can be described in this way, the easier it is to rubbish. Thus the religious right is free to claim a monopoly on Christianity. And the Christian left, hounded from both sides, finds itself shouted into silence.

Does this matter? Well, yes. Religion isn't going away; if anything, it is making a comeback. Nearly three-quarters of the population declared themselves Christian in the 2001 census. The old belief that religion would wither and die has beenexposed as simplistic. In this environment, the secular left needs to suspend worn-out hostilities and realise that many people of faith are fellow travellers in the fight for social justice. Otherwise, the coalition of Christian and secular conservatives will grow stronger. That will further damage the church, turning it into an intolerant sect. But it will also undermine progressive politics.

All of which requires a new courage from the Christian left. They need to toughen up, get organised and invoke the spirit of millions of Christians, from St Francis to Donald Soper, who have fought against injustice throughout the ages. Twenty years ago, Faith in the City was a prophetic call to Britain: condemning the selfishness of Thatcherism and the greed of 1980s Britain. The current campaign, Make Poverty History, is a similarly significant moment.

But the present situation also demands a reassessment by the secular left of the religious left. Because only the religious left is capable of challenging the religious right with the language of faith. The secular left, in short, needs to stop sniping and start making new friends. In America, the Christian right and the neocons have grown strong by working together. Now so must we.

[readmylips]

1. They forgot the bottom line: Money...

The so called christian right have millions and are supported by the biggest billionaires in the US and the world, and they have united as WHITES. The christian left are the poor and brown skins with no money, no voice and no VOTE. They can't hide it, it's Whites vs Darks.

[ktowntennesseedem]

2. "For now there is no longer slave nor free, Greek nor Hebrew,

male nor female, for we are one in Christ." The religious right are united by not only a strict orthodoxy but by race, culture, fear, and a host of other commonalities. But the religious left, though very diverse, are still united by something far greater. We need to celebrate that, and use that to speak to the truth that we worship a God of love and peace and tolerance and forgiveness, that God is far bigger than anyone's limited and limiting understanding, and that the Religious-Right is just plain Wrong.

[Merlin]

7. Wow! What a great post. And how true it is!

Thank you for these profound thoughts. I especially like:

"(We must) speak... the truth that we worship a God of love and peace and tolerance and forgiveness; that God is far bigger than anyone's limited and limiting understanding."

If only the right understood this. Hell, if only the left understood this!

[ktowntennesseedem]

13. Thanks, Merlin!

I'm still trying to understand it myself, but hopefully there is still plenty of room for growth in my personal faith-pilgrimage. Unfortunately, that's more than I can say about those on the right, and I grew up among very conservative Baptists so I know what I'm talking about. They've long ago given up on seeking any further truth or understanding. Their God is rigid, legalistic, and well defined, and they are very uncomfortable with anything or anyone that contradicts or challenges them. My God is still full of surprises, and is that mystery that makes the journey worthwhile.

[Briar]

3. I respect Giles Fraser

but does he really think Bliar is a member of the Christian socialist movement? He isn't nearly as embarrassed to sound Christian as he is to sound socialist. If Blair let his religion out of the closet, I think it wouldn't look so different from that of Reg Vardy and other English variants on Creationists.

As for Rowan Williams being a "bearded lefty" - uh, don't think so. Those who put institutional coherence before the good of individual men and women don't look very left-wing to me - though of course they might be bearded.

[PATRICK]

4. In perspective

The particular sect, the Tertullians, were in one part of the stadium being devoured apart from the mainstream Christians- by choice. That is how seriously people facing the same grisly martyrdom considered their differences. Tertullians have vanished as a sect, predictably, they all do, but their type has not. Things of God are at least said to have the characteristic of persisting though Jesus himself expressed real concern whether this mission would go on faithfully. At the least, those that vanish like the fads of the day, no matter how long or impressive their run was, are definitely easy to see as on the wrong track.

And the current group of televangelists and Political Right fundamentalists are a caricature of a caricature even more ruined by power and money than any predecessor and to equal degree bereft of mental or moral strengths or argument. They could be ANY crazy sect from any culture so low has the degradation progressed in direct relationship of their power over others. They have been recruited precisely for their worst traits and their worst traits have profited them most in worldly success. In that weakness there is no scandal or strength or authoritarian unity, just exuberant, emotion drenched flab. The division therefore is fairly pure. Those individuals who have allied themselves with Mammonite powers are outside the pale- not necessarily the denominations or fractions of Churches they sprang from. The loose ties to Christianity that is their organizational nature makes the mob too bland to brand as heretical. Their particular actions and support of worldly evils speaks too loudly to bother about their doctrinal flaws, legion though they may be.

Other fundamentalists line themselves against injustice and so do atheists. It is about sheep and goats, not left and right, Christian and non, Catholic or Protestant. It is the Beatitudes- stupid. And as Gandhi showed, if someone has no particular Christian faith, the truth and the justice of things are not so murky.

[eridani]

5. Can I have at least one reasonably high-profile example--

--of a secular leftist slamming a religious leftist? They slam the religious right all the time, but that really isn't the same.

In the sanctuary movement of the 80s, mainly initiated by the religious left, the secular left had no problems joining in and supporting them.

[Merlin]

8. You won't find any at "high profile" level. But it permeates liberalism.

We all know it.

The problem is liberals are more rational and intellectual than non-liberals. Thus they are righly turned off by religion's controlling nature and claims that the bible is "The Word of God" not just a collection of ancient lore, myth and poetry.

But in rejecting religion, liberals also reject God. That is a mistake. Religion is a human institution. But the Universe isn't.

Liberals are right to reject the god of the bible. But they must return to the God of the Enlightenment; the God of Descartes, Spinoza, Paine, Franklin, Jefferson and Einstein. This is the secret to restoring a detente between the religious left and the secular left.

[T_i_B]

10. "Liberals are right to reject the god of the bible"

Well if that is the case my friend then you have just handed religion on a plate to the right. Not all of us want to join a movement that treats religion with contempt, and that is what drives many religious folk into the arms of the right.

[eridani]

11. I think the secret is to focus on ethics instead of faith

When talking about religion, always specify which one first. The human race has had, during its entire existence, only two religions—tribalism and universalism. All of the evil associated with religion is due to the former, and all of the good associated with religion is due to the latter.

The premise of tribalism is organized male brutality incarnated as divinity, and the goal as Yahweh promised Abraham was “I will bless you abundantly and greatly multiply your descendants until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants shall possess the cities of their enemies.” Women are cattle, rape is a sacrament (except when the property rights of higher-ranking men are violated), xenophobia is a sacrament (the ‘other,’ however defined, is to be subordinated or killed), sex is for men (who have a right to it) and done to women, always potentially evil due to loss of control and the possibility of the wrong sperm connecting with the wrong egg. Hierarchy and domination are important—it’s necessary for everyone to know whose boots they have to lick and who they are entitled to kick in the face with impunity. Faith in irrational mythology is a loyalty oath to the tribe, and God likes your tribe better than any of the other ones and will help you take their real estate. Or, as one of its major exponents, Genghis Khan, put it, “Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use the bodies of his women as a nightshirt and a support.”

The premise of universalism is that empathy is the basis for universal ethics that apply not only to your blood relations but to all humanity, succinctly summarized by the Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And according to the Book of Jonah, that means even Assyrians, who were to be treated the same as any of the tribes of Israel, provided that they repented of bad habits like mass murder, rape and pillage. The ‘other’ is human too, and women and children are moral agents and not just possessions. The goal is that “every man shall sit in safety, underneath his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” No warlords, no empires, owning your own means of production but not anybody else’s, art and human knowledge as higher pursuits than conquest.

When discussing religion, remember that every single specific tradition has elements of both tribalism and universalism. The Old Testament has Yahweh the mass murderer, but also the universal deity of the Book of Jonah. The Catholics have Francis of Assisi and Torquemada, Hildegarde of Bingen and the Borgia Popes. Muslims have the Wahabis and Sufis, Osama bin Laden and Badshah Khan, etc. Judaism has Likudiks and those whose practice is Tikkun Olam, struggling for social justice to repair the world. All the famous prophets and reformers, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, etc. were all universalists. All suffered the fate of having tribalists eventually reclaim them as tribal totems.

And cyberspace village atheist threads notwithstanding, there is no such thing as an ethically privileged epistemology either. Atheists, agnostics, pagans and members of non-theistic traditions also have the exact same tribalist/universalist split. Oppenheimer vs. Teller, Stephen Jay Gould et al. against the eugenicists, etc. Though the contrast is not as intense, Soka Gakkai Buddhism is much more nationalistic than Zen. Older pagan traditions were often into the My God Is Better Than Your God game, and emperors often demanded to be worshipped as deities, but pilgrims and seekers generally took great care to respect the local deities of others. Neopagan traditions include the Nazi Thule Society and white supremacist versions of Asatru, as well as people who go beyond dancing naked in the woods to significantly altering the way they live to protect them.

I’m into universalist ethics, and I regard anybody, faith or no faith, materialist or not, who is on my side ethically as an ally.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. An excellent summary

I'd nominate it for the Greatest page if it were its own thread ... (hint, hint)

[eridani]

18. I've been offline for a few days--I'll repost in the religion section n/t

[arikara]

15. Whoa, thanks... great information

Could you recommend any further reading on the subject? I have an interest in learning more about religion but prefer not to read dogma.

[aneerkoinos]

6. How true

Socialism is just as much about the spiritual groth of mankind as it is material and social equality.

Christianity should be - and is - about what Jesus tought, not about Paul's bigotry and hallucinations.

[Maat]

9. I'm not going to - hand religion over.

I'm organizing a Interfaith Alliance Meetup in my area.

[InformedSource]

14. Christianity could EASILY be used against the Right

I've been tempted to do it, but not being a believer (I like many but not all of the words of Jesus, but don't believe in his, or anyone's, divinity) I couldn't put up with being that much of a hypocrite.

Oftentimes there is a Biblical quote, especially the direct quotes attributable to Jesus, that would be the perfect rebuttal to right wing assertions. If someone could memorize them and quote chapter and verse, it would leave them without an answer and expose their hypocricy.

Imagine O'Reilly telling the Bible to "Shut Up!"

[T_i_B]

16. That's very true

I've often wondered where some people get such a materialistic attitude to religion from I must admit.

Often the problem is simply bad theology. I think it's important to remind people that Christians should not be turning people away from the alms box, least of all the government. That Jesus himself did not know when the end times will come so therefore who are we to say "armageddon here we come!" with regard to the Middle East and so on.

At the end of the day I think that we Christians need to be very much on our guard against politicians on both right and left who will corrupt the word of the lord to suit their own ends and ambitions.

[Bridget Burke]

17. Bible quotes? Gore was in a seminary for a while....

Just after Vietnam. He was raised Southern Baptist, although he distanced himself from that sect after they went political. Kerry also probably knows his way around the Bible--it IS part of a good Catholic education.

From a Church/State separation standpoint it would have been HIGHLY inappropriate--but I'd love to have heard either Democratic candidate match Bible quotes with Shrub. They'd leave him in the dust.