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Religious liberals? What's the definition of THAT species?

Here is my blog on that...

Repent and believe for the Day of Judgment is at hand!

No, these are not the ravings of "right wing religious nuts" but of "left wing religious nuts." This is the message of the movie, "The Day After Tomorrow." I am somewhat behind the times, but I just had the chance to see this in full home theater surround sound. It was fun to watch, on a technical level, for its use of astounding special effects.

The above message is a common one in two gospels. One is a false gospel, the other true; I leave it to the reader to decide which is which:

Earth is headed inexorably towards the mighty apocalypse. It is a terrible Armageddon of humankind’s own making and only humankind can stop it. Man must change his ways or he is all but doomed. In this case, changing one’s ways refers to converting to leftist ideology – only therein does man’s salvation lie. Those who refuse to bow the knee to neo-communist environmental fascism are doomed to a horrible end.

Can’t you see? Can’t you see? Capitalist society must be destroyed before it is too late. Turn from your wicked ways brothers and sisters. Stop driving cars, stop polluting the earth with your capitalist filth, stop voting Republican!

If you do not change your ways, you are going to face a hell of your own making. What is that you say? You do not see the light? Very well then, you leave us no choice. We know what is best for you even if you are too stupid to realize it yourself. We will pass laws! Laws I say! You will be forced stop your self-destructive behavior for your own good.

Even so, man’s dire end may not be averted. Not to worry though, for once most of mankind and his filth is eliminated, we will have a new heaven and a new earth. Mankind can start fresh. Never again will he embrace evil capitalism. Repent, for the new Utopian society is at hand.

I recently heard from a gentleman who said he would vote for George Bush if only he did not feel so threatened by the "religious right" within the Republican Party. Oh, brother! What about the religious left? If you want to talk about "imposing morality" leftists have cornered the market.

Small children are treated like criminals for praying at mealtime; crosses are being torn down wherever they are found; religious expression is being stifled; traditional moral views will be silenced by hook or crook. Society is turning into a sea of hostility against Christian religion - exactly the opposite of what the founding fathers intended. Meanwhile a false morality is being erected in its place and no dissent will be tolerated. The left believes this gospel and works for the fulfillment of it as diligently as any so-called right wing fanatic you have ever met. Wake up America!

Update: Speaking of left wing religious nuts...

"The Evil Empire is hard at work, moving faster than at any time since the Second World War. It has mobilized the largest naval armada since that global conflict. It has already deployed thousands of U.S. soldiers on the sands of Saudi Arabia and along the coast of Kuwait..." From Workers World

Let the workers (or is that "wage slaves?")unite.

"Religious liberals? What's the definition of THAT species?" ~ austinaero

This will get you started:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1237389/posts?page=26#26
Saul Alinsky - The Religious Left follows him "religiously". Their flagship magazine: Sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=Soj0003&article=000311

Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals - By Saul Alinsky

In the 60's, as a radical mentality herself at Wellesley, Hillary Clinton was so enamored of Saul Alinsky and his *methods* she wrote her senior thesis under his mentoring. She uses his "how to fool the useful idiots" tactics to this very day, and will use them in her quest for the presidency.

As an aside ... at the "Sojourner Magazine" website linked above, a little window pops up asking the trick question, "Is Jesus a Republican or a DemocRAT?".

Wrong question. The question they know better than to ask is, "Is Jesus a moral RELATIVIST?"

*

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1253445/posts?page=31#31 Excerpt:

Since O'Reilly had a couple of guys on his program last night (10-21-04) from the Religious Left - one of whom was specifically referred to as being affiliated with Sojourners - the flagship magazine of the Religious Left - maybe we should request that he give equal time to a Capitalist like Ron Nash (see post #28). http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1253445/posts?page=28#28

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1253445/posts?page=33#33

*
Book Review: Why the Left Is Not Right -The Religious Left: Who They Are and What They Believe by Ronald Nash Published in The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - December 1997 by Doug Bandow http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3918

When it comes to religion and politics, most media attention is focused on the right. And it usually isn’t positive coverage. Religious conservatives are presented as threatening America’s constitutional balance, women’s right to choose, gays’ civil liberties, and much more.

Yet religious activism runs both ways. As Ronald Nash, a professor at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, notes in Why the Left Is Not Right, there is an active and diverse religious left in the United States. To be sure, these people, who once “proudly proclaimed their liberal or radical connections,” now “describe themselves as moderates and centrists,” notes Nash. But their policy positions remain unashamedly left-wing.

Nash divides the religious left into three parts: liberal mainline Protestants, liberal Catholics, and left-wing evangelicals. There’s no doubt where Nash stands. He argues that these groups have been used (willingly or unwillingly) by the Democrats for electoral purposes and have helped “demonize politically conservative Christians.” A prolific author and entertaining speaker, Nash obviously views himself as among the demonized right.

In his view, the central argument is not whether people of faith should be concerned about peace and justice, but what those terms mean. The evangelical left has appeared to have simply assumed the standard liberal understanding of the words and then discredited anyone (including their politically conservative brethren) who understood the terms differently and who pursued the objectives of peace and justice in a different way.

Perhaps the greatest value of Why the Left Is Not Right is that it shows how political activism by people of faith is neither new nor restricted to conservatives. Indeed, even as evangelicals were receiving exaggerated public attention for entering the political process, mainline Protestant denominations were promoting Democratic political causes domestically and communist revolutionary movements abroad. It is a story worth remembering when the media and political establishments pour obloquy on traditionally less active evangelicals and fundamentalists as they seek to protect themselves and their values from government intrusion.

Much the same politics has been on display within the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics were once “thoughtful enemies of secularism, humanism, and the liberal welfare state,” writes Nash. Many still are, but as Nash puts it, “large cracks have appeared in the political and social thinking of many educated Catholics.” The 1985 Pastoral Letter on the economy, for example, was as political as anything emanating from the Christian Coalition. Even more radical have been specific segments of the church, such as the Maryknoll Order.

However, Nash devotes most of his attention to the lesser-known left-wing evangelicalism. He argues that the New Left and “the adversary culture” of the 1960s spawned political liberalism among Protestants who purport to hold a more conservative, orthodox theological view. Nash focuses on three leading leftish evangelicals: Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine; Ron Sider, founder of Evangelicals for Social Action and author of Rich Christians in a World of Hunger; and Tony Campolo, sociology professor, well-published author, and presidential confidante.

The scrutiny is warranted, though Nash seems more skeptical of the trio’s good intentions than is justified. Wallis, for instance, lives his beliefs. Two decades ago Wallis moved his magazine to a poor section of Washington, D.C., and formed a community of the same name. At the same time, however, he has, as Nash points out, remained imbued with the leftist Zeitgeist of the 1960s. The boat people fleeing communist Vietnam, Wallis wrote, were leaving “to support their consumer habit in other lands.” Their departure should not be taken to “discredit” Vietnam. Wallis’s views toward Cuba and Nicaragua were similarly skewed.

Wallis’s economic opinions also were long solidly collectivist. The collapse of socialism abroad seems to have chastened himhe now calls himself centrist and asserts that he is independent of Democrats and Republicans alikebut he remains wedded to interventionist policies. Conservatives, Wallis charges, retain an “attachment to institutions of wealth and power, preference for the status quo, and the lack of a strong ethic of social responsibility.” Unfortunately, while Wallis now criticizes abuses by government, he underestimates how the activist state promotes concentrations of wealth and power, supports the status quo, and undermines social responsibility.

Similar is Nash’s case against Ron Sider. Sider is a gentle spirit who has borne substantial liberal criticism for his opposition to abortion and gay rights. Unfortunately, however, on economic policy he has always placed intentions before results. Thus, as Nash documents, Sider has long advocated the sort of government intervention that has been tried and found wanting throughout this century. While criticism is rife of the Christian Coalition for seemingly attaching itself to the GOP, Nash points out that “Ron Sider, the person who comes closest to being a moderate member of the evangelical Left, has himself spent years trying to elect liberal, typically Democratic, candidates to public office.”

Tony Campolo is probably the most public of the three, given his high-profile contacts with President Bill Clinton. Campolo also criticizes government, but seems committed to statist remedies when it comes to solving specific problems. Nash doesn’t stop his criticisms here, however; he goes on to question Campolo’s evangelical credentials, given the latter’s views on such issues as abortion, feminism, and the environment.

Through his analysis, which concludes with chapters on economics and poverty, Nash shows how even the best-intentioned of religious believers can come up with solutions inimical to the interests of those they wish to serve. But Nash, who has been on the receiving end of endless left-wing barbs, puts an unnecessary edge in his own analysis. Perhaps nothing irritates Nash more than the evangelical left’s flirtation with Bill Clinton.

Yet the opinions of Wallis, Sider, and Campolo reflect ignorance rather than malice. I’ve met and debated all three. All want to help those in need, seem to have been affected by the decline of statism, and were willing to acknowledge contrary arguments. They deserve to be criticized, not demonized.

Why the Left Is Not Right deals seriously with an important subject. Despite the public perception that religious activists gravitate toward the right, many people of faith have embraced collectivist remedies despite the ill effects on those most in need. In short, Nash’s basic thesis is correct: the left is not right. []

Zondervan • 1996 • 222 pages • $10.99 paperback

Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

28 posted on 10/22/2004 12:22:45 PM EDT by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1253445/posts?page=28#28