Religious-liberal groups

[tristano's ghost]

Despite the MSM's going along with the notion that Christianity is a GOP PAC:

Christian Alliance for Progress

Interfaith Alliance

are just a couple of organizations out there worthy of support if you're a liberal believer. If anybody knows of others, please feel free to list them...

[amerijazz]

Here's another:

Sojourners - http://www.sojo.net/

[RedJazz]

Christian Century Magazine (a kind of Christian version of the Nation)

The Society of Friends

The Unitarian Universalist Association

The American Friends Service Committee

The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (an association of religious pacifists)

It is true that not all Quakers or Unitarians are Christians.

For specifically Christian denominations:

The National Baptist Convention (the largest African American denominiation)

The United Methodist Church

The United Church of Christ

The United Presbyterian Church

The Catholic Worker Movement

[RedJazz]

Some people wouldn't consider them religious, but:

The American Humanist Association

The American Ethical Union

[GoodSpeak]

Hm.

I wonder how much real power these groups have politcally.


Besides, Bush and his bully boyz probably haven't gotten around to censoring them yet.

It'll come.



Until then, I pray this simple prayer:

Jesus, please save me from your followers....

[bostontricky]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Besides, Bush and his bully boyz probably haven't gotten around to censoring them yet.

From this morning's Boston Globe (and website)

ACLU seeks files from FBI on possible surveillance
By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | May 18, 2005

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is seeking FBI files on behalf of four advocacy groups and 10 activists in the state, saying it believes they have been targets of surveillance because of their politics.

The ACLU, in Freedom of Information Act requests it plans to send out today, is requesting all records kept by the FBI and antiterrorism agencies on the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group in Cambridge; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which has a state chapter in Boston; the International Action Committee Boston, an antiwar group, and the ACLU itself. The letter also seeks government files on 10 activists and political dissidents, including such liberal heavyweights as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.

Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU chapter in Massachusetts, said several activists believe they have been under surveillance for at least a year, including around the time of the Democratic and Republican national conventions last summer.

''We believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant and that the American people have a right to know and a duty to find out if the government is engaged in domestic political spying in ways that diminish our liberty and do not make us any safer," Rose said in an interview yesterday.

The request is part of a coordinated nationwide effort by the ACLU to obtain records of alleged spying on activists who oppose the war in Iraq, the USA Patriot Act, and other government policies. ACLU affiliates in nine other states planned to file similar requests today.

In addition, the ACLU's national organization said it will file suit in federal court in Washington today to compel the FBI to comply with a similar request it made in December for the files of groups in the District of Columbia, Colorado, and five other states. To date, the ACLU said, the FBI has provided fewer than 20 pages in response to those requests.

The Washington Post reports today that new FBI documents show that questioning by antiterrorism agents of antiwar protesters last summer in Denver did not lead to any information about criminal activity.

The ACLU obtained the memos as part of ongoing litigation. They provide a glimpse of the FBI's efforts to interview dozens of members of leftist protest groups in advance of the party conventions last year in Boston and New York, the Post reports.

ACLU officials said yesterday that the documents show that investigators from the FBI and the local Joint Terrorism Task Force were on a fishing expedition, the Post reports.

An FBI spokesman in Washington, Edwin C. Cogswell, declined to address the allegations of surveillance of Massachusetts groups. He acknowledged in a statement that the agency had investigated some Colorado-based activist groups, including Food Not Bombs, in response to a ''specific and credible threat" of violence at the Democratic National Convention last July.

In Massachusetts, Keith Harvey, director of the New England office of the American Friends Service Committee, is one of those who believes he's been watched. For at least two weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention last summer, he said, black SUVs and black sedans were parked outside his group's office on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. A helicopter often hovered overhead and even appeared to follow one employee home to Dorchester, he said.

At one point, Harvey said, he approached a man sitting in a sedan and asked him to identify himself. The man politely replied that he worked for the US Department of Homeland Security but declined to identify himself, he said.

''He said, 'Keith, I'm just doing my job,' " Harvey said.

Harvey said yesterday that his group has vigorously opposed the war in Iraq and other government policies, but that he cannot understand why it would be placed under surveillance.

Another individual who complained about possible surveillance is Merrie Najimy, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a nonprofit group that has alleged violations of Arab-Americans' civil rights since Sept 11.

She said a uniformed Boston police officer appeared at the group's office on Boylston Street in Boston when the group held a press conference two years ago to protest a move by FleetBoston Financial Corp. to close the accounts of several individuals and institutions with Arabic names.

The officer left before the press conference ended, Najimy said. But when Najimy went to a Fleet branch up the street from her office immediately afterward to close her account as a protest, she said, she spotted him inside and overheard him on his cellphone discussing the press conference and telling someone it ''wasn't anything to be concerned about."

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by RedJazz

The United Methodist Church

That'd be Gee Dubbya's denomination. And Hillary Clinton's, too.

Oopz

[RedJazz]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

That'd be Gee Dubbya's denomination. And Hillary Clinton's, too.

No denomination is responsible for its individual members. Richard Nixon was a Quaker after all and the Quakers were a leading force in opposing the War in Viet Nam, the very war that Nixon was conducting.

As a group the Methodists have a very strong social justice platform, as is the case with most NCC groups associated with the God Box up there on Morningside Heights.

[RedJazz]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

Hm.

I wonder how much real power these groups have politcally.


Besides, Bush and his bully boyz probably haven't gotten around to censoring them yet.

It'll come.



Until then, I pray this simple prayer:

Jesus, please save me from your followers....

Well they do have some money and a fairly sophisticated intellectual leadership and along with the remnant of organized labor and the mass civil rights organizations (particularly the NAACP and NOW) form the potential basis in civil society for a genuine opposition in the US. Certainly moreso than the mainstream of the Democratic Party. I suspect that some people might take exception to this, which is fair enough, but I would ask of them where they think the institutional basis for an opposition movement is in the US.

Originally Posted by RedRocker

Richard Nixon was a Quaker after all and the Quakers were a leading force in opposing the War in Viet Nam, the very war that Nixon was conducting.

Oh my.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by RedJazz

As a group the Methodists have a very strong social justice platform, as is the case with most NCC groups associated with the God Box up there on Morningside Heights.

It's true that the Methodists, like most Christians, do a lot of charitable work in the poorest communities in the USA and around the world. However, I would not confuse the UMC with a liberal political activist organisation of the sort beloved by Jim Wallis. Methodists are, like most American church-goers, predominantly Republican. They are not all Republican, but I imagine that if you passed separate plates on a Sunday, the right plate would be more blessed than its left-handed alternative. That is due to traditional values.

[bostontricky]

Originally Posted by RedJazz

Richard Nixon was a Quaker after all and the Quakers were a leading force in opposing the War in Viet Nam, the very war that Nixon was conducting.

That's when it all started to fall apart: Nixon ultimately ordered an investigation upon himself by the FBI.

[RedJazz]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

It's true that the Methodists, like most Christians, do a lot of charitable work in the poorest communities in the USA and around the world. However, I would not confuse the UMC with a liberal political activist organisation of the sort beloved by Jim Wallis. Methodists are, like most American church-goers, predominantly Republican. They are not all Republican, but I imagine that if you passed separate plates on a Sunday, the right plate would be more blessed than its left-handed alternative. That is due to traditional values.

I don't have the stats in front of me, but I do believe that the above is a mischaracterization of American Christianity.

My Methodist preacher is a jazz trumpet player, runs a jazz Vespers every week, heads the local musicians union and is involved with all kinds of work on behalf of peace and justice. Historically the Methodists were extremely instrumental in the formation of the British labor movement (see E P Thompson's Making of the English Working Class).

Most American Catholics to this day are working class and their social values reflect their class roots.

The National Baptist Convention, one of the largest Protestant denominations, is the primary denomination of African Americans. As such it is predominantly liberal and Democratic.

The so-called "mainstream" Protestant churches, the Prebyterians, Methodists, American (not Southern) Baptists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, etc, at united together in the National Council of Churches. While they are theologically more conservative than are Quakers or Unitarians, socially they are quite liberal. They are constantly under attack from the conservative evangelical congregations, which despite the fact that they make a lot of noise and get a lot of press nevertheless remain a minority tendency in American culture.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by RedJazz

I don't have the stats in front of me, but I do believe that the above is a mischaracterization of American Christianity.

I am sure your personal experiences are unique, but all political data lines up church going with Republicanism. It was the single best indicator of partisan leaning in 2004, whether you regularly attended a form of worship or not. It hasn't always been that way, of course. And there are many ways in which the gospel is indeed a liberal doctrine and undertaking. But, broadly, the Left in the US has been incredibly hostile to traditional values, and this general animosity has pushed most "American Christianity" into the conservative camp that seeks to preserve a vague, retreative normalcy against progressive assaults. If you affirm the centrality of Christ as the Redeemer, for instance, you are probably not allowed in a public school and have to occupy the same place in public condemnation as the homophobic Boy Scouts and the anachronistic Pledge of Allegiance.

[lynn]

I think that your above statement is really misleading Monte. All these people have been numbed by the rhetoric they's been exposed to for the last 15 years, make that 25.

The rise of the over zealous mega churches led by Jerry Falwell in tandum with the political ambitions of Newt Ginrich and the Rebublican's backfiring Contract With America has derailed any of the social concience that this country had. The Gospel of Riches, the main dogma of these groups who advocate that God blesses his chosen with wealth, (I made it a habit of watching these guys while I was in college as a study of human depravity) have, in my opinion, created a spiritual void in this country. The current push by these organizations to promote a christian nation in the most extreme sense really has little to do with Christ's teachings and more to do with control and power over peoples lives and promoting their own agendas.

They may be good people but I think their politics is bad for this country. They are intent on reversing the seperation of chuch and state and use their own version of revisionistic history to hammer home their message.

I do think it worth noting that much of this bubbled up out of the South, after the 50's and 60's which coincidentally was the era in which the Federal Courts imposed desegration leading to white flight out of the Democratic Party. The poster boy for the South, Strom Thurmon, was one such example. Born a democrat, died a republican, born again and a life long bigot and father of a mixed race child.

But I digress. I think it is more complicated than the simplistic view many of the current religious/political leaders paint it. They want to put everybody in their values box thinking it is the only values system of merit and damn those who disagree. I'd call that pretty unchristian.

[RedJazz]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

I am sure your personal experiences are unique, but all political data lines up church going with Republicanism. It was the single best indicator of partisan leaning in 2004, whether you regularly attended a form of worship or not. It hasn't always been that way, of course. And there are many ways in which the gospel is indeed a liberal doctrine and undertaking. But, broadly, the Left in the US has been incredibly hostile to traditional values, and this general animosity has pushed most "American Christianity" into the conservative camp that seeks to preserve a vague, retreative normalcy against progressive assaults. If you affirm the centrality of Christ as the Redeemer, for instance, you are probably not allowed in a public school and have to occupy the same place in public condemnation as the homophobic Boy Scouts and the anachronistic Pledge of Allegiance.

As is widely known by poll takers, the kind of answer you get depends very much on the kind of question you ask. The fact is that the largest denomination in the US is Catholicism and the vast majority of Catholics remain Democrats despite the Church's pro life stance (which is at least consistent as it is also against capitol punishment. The National Baptist Convention, the largest African American denomination, has inexcess of 5 million members, and they are overwhelmingly Democratic (and regular church goers). Leaving aside the tiny very liberal denominations such as Quakerism, Unitarianism and Reform Judaism, the vast majority of mainstream denominations are affiliated with the National Council of Churches, the bette noir of evangelical Christianity. In terms of affiliated members the NCC is much larger than all the evangelical congregations combined. It may be true that evangelicals attend church more regularly than do members of mainstream denominations. It is also undoubtedly the case that the bureaucracies of the mainline churches are more liberal than are individual congregations of those same denominations, especially in less cosmopolitan back waters, just as trade union officials tend to be more liberal than typical union members. While I don't have precise figures here, none of this is based on subjective annecdotal experience.

As for "the Left" being hostile to traditional values, I'm not at all sure what that means. At one level, there really is no left in the United States, at least not in the sense of a mass social democratic left such as exists in western Europe. But if you want to define left in some other way, sui generis to the United States, well then, organized religion has always played an integral role in a specifically American left, whether we are talking about antebellum abolitionists, or the role of the Catholic church in working class movements for more than a century. Or the central role that religious organizations have played in the peace movement historically. Or the African American civil rights movement, which literally would not have existed without the African American church. For at least the past 20 years peace and justice committees have been organized in the congregations of most main stream congregations. These groups, while nominally nonpartisan, have been in the forefront of organizing for peace and social justice and for such specific reforms as the abolition of capitol punishment.

I am not here talking about groups such as the Catholic Worker movement, Sojourners, the American Friends Service Committee, or the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which are clearly and self consciously radical efforts, but rather the everyday efforts of main stream congregations.

One of the sad "victories" of evangelical Christianity is that because it is so good at public relations, it has often become confused in the minds of the non-church going public with the dominant main stream of Christianity, which, while by no means radical, is also not the reactionary homophoebic institution suggested above. Indeed, it remains the dominant expression of American Protestantism despite the pubic relations coup of the evangelicals.

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by RedJazz

One of the sad "victories" of evangelical Christianity is that because it is so good at public relations, it has often become confused in the minds of the non-church going public with the dominant main stream of Christianity, which, while by no means radical, is also not the reactionary homophobic institution suggested above. Indeed, it remains the dominant expression of American Protestantism despite the pubic relations coup of the evangelicals.

Yes, Christianity is not a PAC for the GOP, no matter what the evangelicals and the MSM would have you believe.

Interesting article on the evangelicals' adaptation of business models in Business Week. Sounds like "McChurches" to me... I'm a thirtysomething, but when I go to church, I do not want a multimedia spectacle that eliminates much traditional religious imagery (talk about traditional values! I'd much rather see a cross when I enter a church than some NFL-Sunday-sized TV superscreen).

In this climate, I'd say liberal churches have a duty to become a base of opposition. Thanks for all of the references added above.

[tristano's ghost]

Greg Saunders:
Take Back Jesus

It's heartening to read the letter that Tom printed below from Scott in Nashville. I've received plenty of letters and comments along these lines in response to the religious posts I've done in the past and it leads me to this question : Are you also saying those things to your fellow Christians or just smartass atheists like me1 who to like to take cheap shots at the religious wrong? I'm grateful that there are Christians who are willing to fight the stereotype that conservative fundamentalists represent all of Christianity, but correcting misconceptions is only one piece of the puzzle2. As Bruce Bawer explains in his excellent book "Stealing Jesus "3, Christians need to reclaim their religion from the radical right :

In recent years, [conservative] Christians have organized into a political movement so successful that when many Americans today hear the word Christianity, they think only of the [conservative] variety. The mainstream media, in covering the so-called culture wars, generally imply that there are only two sides to choose from : The God-of-wrath Christian Right and the godless secular Left. Many Americans scarcely realize that there is any third alternative. . . . [Conservative Christianity] has warped Christianity into something ugly and hateful that has little or nothing to do with love and everything to do with suspicion, superstition, and sadism. And, quite often, it denies the name of Christianity to followers of Jesus who reject its barbaric theology. In essence, then, it has stolen Jesus-yoked his name and his church to ideas, beliefs, and attitudes that would have appalled him. And let's face it, it's not too hard to jump to the conclusion that Jesus would have been appalled by fundamentalists' devotion to "God's Official Party ". This excerpt for the book of Luke is a perfect example of what I'm talking about : A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"

"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I doubt there are many religious leaders who would advocate giving up everything you own and giving it to the poor, but even with a loose interpretation of this passage, it's not to difficult to infer how Jesus would react to the men and women on both sides of the aisle who accumulate great wealth while people around the world are literally starving to death. Or leaders who are more concerned with giving tax breaks to the rich while children are dying of preventable diseases due to a lack of healthcare. Or a president who ignores the plight of millions of men and women who work multiple jobs to make a decent living because his highest priority is to destroy the safety net that keeps those same people from spending the last years of their lives as paupers.

I hope this doesn't come off as preachy or patronizing when I say that it's time for Christians to take back Jesus from the theological kidnappers of of the far-right. The conservative extremist brand of Christianity is an aberration that doesn't represent the mainstream and makes a mockery of the teachings of Jesus, who warned :

"Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" You can be proud of your religion without proselytizing. There's nothing pushy about saying "I voted against Bush because I'm a Christian" or reminding people that Jesus had more to say about compassion for the poor than he did about abortion, homosexuality, or judicial activism. Considering how much our President is fond of telling the public how much he loves Jesus, it's fair game to point out how skewed his priorities are when held up to the teachings in the gospels.

The perception that Christianity is an exclusively right-wing religion isn't going to go away until the silent majority of Christians stand up and take their religion back. Yes, you should correct people on the far left who make the mistake of assuming everyone who reads the Bible is in league with Fred Phelps, but you should be equally vigilant in regards to the mainstream press. If an AP article uses the word "Christian" to describe Pat Robertson without qualifying it with an adjective like "evangelical", write a letter to the editor. If CNN implies that someone is conservative because they're religious, flood their switchboard with complaints. Most of all, don't let anyone get away with implying that you're betraying your own faith just because you disagree with the Republican party.


1 : I'm describing myself here, not accusing anyone of labeling me as such.

2 : But it's an important piece. I often try to be sensitive to these sorts of things, which is why I make an effort to never use the word "Christianity" when referring to the extreme-right without qualifying it with terms like "conservative", "fundamentalist", or "lunatic".

3 : You can read an excerpt of the book here.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

That'd be Gee Dubbya's denomination. And Hillary Clinton's, too.

Yeah.

And we left that "religion" when they defrocked that lesbian minister.

Such bullshit.




It's a CHURCH, not a country club.