Progressive religious voices not irrelevant, just ignored

[cbayer]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/08/02/progressive-religious-voices-not-irrelevant-just-ignored/

August 2, 2012 By Fred Clark

So yesterday, more than 60 Christian leaders released a statement “expressing their strong opposition to any legislative proposal that fails to extend the 2009 improvements made to refundable tax credits such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit.”

I’m quoting there from Nick Sementelli of the progressive Christian group Faith in Public Life. Pretty much have to quote from a group like that because statements like this are mostly otherwise ignored by cable news and the rest of the media — the same media who eagerly report and repeat every utterance from the religious right.

At some level that’s just weird.

I understand the perceptions and the tropes that shape this coverage and inattention. I get that, for example, the “mainline” Protestant denominations that belong to the National Council of Churches are perceived as declining and irrelevant. But those denominations still represent about 45 million members.

more at link

[Freddie]

1. 45 million of us

Don't forget Rick Santorum said we're not really Christians and have lost our way.
And the atheists can't tell the difference between us and the brainwashed bangers, and say we're idiots.
Liberal Christians don't brag about our faith, we live it. President Obama is one of us.

[cbayer]

2. Well said, although I think there are many atheists who see common ground and can

recognize the difference easily.

You will run into some of them in this group. They are your allies.

[Freddie]

3. Agree!

However, my son--in college, so he knows everything--is one of those atheists who likes to insult *all* Christians, so it's a sensitive topic at home. Sigh.

[cbayer]

4. I suspect the biggest problem is that he is your son and in college and is separating

himself from you and what you are.

Just a hunch, having been through it three times!

Welcome to the religion group, Freddie!

[Raster]

5. in a nutshell: "...in college, so he knows everything..."

Be gentle, these things take time. Life is contextual.

[SecularMotion]

6. You'll also find christians here who like to insult "all" atheists.

[cbayer]

7. And atheists who like to insult all christians. And so it goes...

but I wish it didn't.

[SecularMotion]

8. It's only an insult if you take it as one.

The opinions of other members reflect more on themselves than me.

[cbayer]

10. Agree.

[dmallind]

12. No we can all tell the difference

The fundies are the ones willing and able to invest in media presence both actively as owners and tangentially with sound PR and consistent, strong messaging.

We, or I should say I as I speak for no-one else although it's a common enough opinion I have heard expressed, cannot however work out why liberal believers simply bemoan the difference instead of learning from it.

Surely in a sample size that large there are people every bit as small c charismatic and every bit as determined and every bit as business savvy as the Dobsons and Robertsons of the world.

As for the "all" Christians I certainly can't speak for your son and he may indeed insult all Christians, but that accusation gets thrown around here when people make perfectly true and perfectly grammatical claims such as "Christians oppose gay marriage". There is no "all" explicit or implicit in that sentence. Nobody ever complains about exactly analogous sentences like "Men favor Romney". Nobody is foolish enough to infer that this means, or was intended to mean, that every single man is a Romney fan - just that if you poll men only Romney would win. If you polled Christians only, gay marriage would lose. Here's a cite before I get asked http://www.gallup.com/poll/154529/Half-Americans-Support-Legal-Gay-Marriage.aspx

But for religion in general and Christianity in particular, it is somehow seen as terrible bigotry to use this everyday phrasing that speaks about groups as a single entity.

Here are several again exactly examples that would never gain a whisper of complaint.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-02/house-republicans-seek-drought-relief-while-delaying-farm-bill.html

House Republicans pass..... but at least 8 voted against it. Is the headline wrong or bigoted because it did not say "some"? No - because the Republicans as a group voted for the bill more than not, and it passed.


http://www.businessinsider.com/whites-are-20-times-wealthier-than-blacks-2011-7

White Americans are wealthier than blacks. Poor I'm not but I could give you the names of dozens of black Americans far wealthier than I, from memory, and don't doubt that millions exist who are so. Racist because it doesn't specify this? No, because the data show that both aggregated and averaged white wealth exceeds black wealth.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/deborah-orr/deborah-orr-face-the-facts-men-are-more-prone-to-violence-than-women-880256.html

Men are more prone to violence than women? Aileen Wuornos is not a fictional character and neither is Daniel Berrigan, but only a truly woefully informed person would look at crime stats and draw any other conclusion.

I have no idea why the approach to such statements is seen as hateful when it begins with "Christians" or "Believers" instead of the above groups, but it's behind almost every accusation of religion-bashing I've ever seen on DU and most other places too.

[onager]

9. I love these Lib'rul Xian Mutual Admiration threads...

They're hilarious. Keep up the good work!

Sorry, but in the Great Cartoon Of Life, the Fundies are the Roadrunner and liberal Xians are Wile E.Coyote. And it's been that way for years. Just check the numbers.

One example:

Let's say I, a Militant Atheist, get up on Sunday morning and decide - along with my breakfast of Fried Xian Baby - to indulge myself in some Recreational Xianity. And I often do.

So I turn on the TV, and how many mainline, traditional liberal-Xian preachers can I find?

OK, I'll let the experts decide. I live in Los Angeles - not East Jesus, Mississippi. And the following list is just off the top of my head, incomplete and from memory.

Of all the religious programming I have available here on Sunday morning, which of these would you consider "progressive, liberal Xians?"

--Rick Warren
--Joel Osteen
--Jimmy Swaggart
--TBN (Paul & Jan "Giant Scary Pink Hair" Crouch)
--Creflo Dollar (and his lovely wife Taffy)
--Hour of Power with Robert Schuller (sometimes downgraded to Half-Hour of Power, due to bankruptcies etc.)
--Benny Hinn
--Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (home of the virulently gay-bashing and happily deceased Rev. D. James Kennedy)

I left off EWTN, the Catholic-owned channel. They have their own fishes-and-loaves to fry.

[cbayer]

11. Exactly. That's why it is important to be able to recognize the difference.