a leftist evangelizing for detente with evangelical Christians

[jrtom]

http://revolutioninjesusland.com/index.php/

fdmts, this is for you in particular (because of some stuff you've already been saying and doing), but I think that others on my friendslist (karjack) will find this of interest.

Most secular progressives are comfortable with mainline liberal Christianity. But when it comes to evangelicals, many can only think of anti-gay ballot initiatives, clinic bombers, street preachers with megaphones and corrupt televangelists. And they tend to be confused and disturbed by a movement that reads the Bible “literally” as the “inerrant word of God.”

This blog is a plea to the progressive movement, to take another look and get to know the diverse and complex world of evangelical Christianity in its own terms. Here you’ll find interviews, commentary, analysis and other dispatches from all over “Jesusland.” This tour will explore everything from the workings of the local church, to the evangelicals’ vibrant, decentralized national leadership training infrastructure to theological questions such as, “How in the world DO they read the Bible literally?” and “Do they really think I’m going to hell?”

...there is an incredibly large and beautiful social movement exploding among evangelicals right now that stands for nearly all of the same causes and goals that secular progressives do. Those goals include: eliminating poverty, saving the environment, promoting justice and equality along racial, gender and class lines and for immigrants—and even separation of church and state.

(Incidentally, for those who don't recognize the author's name, he used to be one of those running MoveOn.org.)

Comments

[karjack.livejournal.com]

This is great! Thank you. :)

[pjack.livejournal.com]

Really amazing stuff. Thanks for the link!

No parlay

[fdmts.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked at it in any detail yet ... so I've nothing of substance to say.

Dance dance, skirt skirt ...

[fdmts.livejournal.com]

So, I've read some of it now. Can't say that I'm blown away. This fellow has rediscovered the amazing ability of religion to sway masses. He blathers on about how much *energy* there is in the megachurch services. Yes indeedy. Energy.

I suppose that the connection is that I've been saying that the good people of the world don't wake up and try to do evil. They want to do good. Evangelicals no more want to destroy the world than blacks, gays, liberals, or republicans do. Hooray. Yep, we're all human and we all want a comfortable place to sleep.

Now on to the negatives: These folks, in their masses, may have a great desire to do good ... but it's all too often being subverted and corrupted by lies. If you train large groups of people to believe what the man at the front of the room says ... provided that he uses the magic words ... that's stunningly dangerous. Train them that the book is always right, but that it's confusing. That you need an expert to translate for you ...

... and pretty soon they're blowing themselves up at planned parenthood clinics and bus stations in Israel.

Evangelical, absolutist religion is a free pass past your logical mind ... and it leads almost invariably to abuse. Sometimes it's just little, local stuff like the priests screwing the little boys. Sometimes it's worse than that.

In either case, count me out. I may like the people, but I'm terrified of their organization.

Re: Dance dance, skirt skirt ...

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I didn't post this because I thought that it would inspire my left-leaning friends (or any of them) to decide that evangelical Christianity was The Way. Frankly, I'd be a bit disturbed if it had had that effect.

The connection that I had had in mind was that you'd been making a point, it seemed to me, to make some connections with people on other sides of issues important to you (e.g. your attempt to talk with someone picketing an abortion clinic). Plus (IIRC) the work you'd done in Haiti was organized by a religious organization. Furthermore, I think I remember you saying at some point in the past that (leftist) intellectuals aren't much of a demographic and we're not going to move things in the way that we want, politically, by ourselves.

I agree with what you say about these masses being manipulated by the guy at the front of the room. This is true of politics, and constituents, in general. The magic words for our country at the moment appear to be "national security" and "terrorism" and so forth rather than "Jesus" and the like, and the book is the Constitution (which is always right, but confusing), but the parallels seem pretty strong to me. *wry smile*

So what this is about, to me, is thinking about ways in which we can connect to people that believe and want a lot of the same specific things that we do, but that frame things very differently. If we can agree on a frame (and acknowledge that we won't connect on every level or every issue) then maybe we can do a lot of good together.