Posted on 07/18/2005 8:07:21 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
Smarting from criticism that liberals have lost touch with voters' religious values, faith leaders have organized a first-of-its-kind conference to mobilize political activism among spiritual progressives.
The sold-out four-day activism conference set to begin Wednesday in Berkeley is expected to draw progressive religious leaders from all over the nation.
Well-known Rabbi Michael Lerner came up with the idea of a progressive interfaith conference that does not advocate for any political party but instead pushes for candidates and policies that uphold progressive moral ideals.
He partnered with Jim Wallis, the evangelical best-selling author of "God's Politics" and founder of the liberal Sojourners magazine.
Both say Democrats need to talk more openly about how spiritual values figure into decision-making and political goals.
Lerner sees the conference as a time to acknowledge what the religious right has successfully conveyed for some time: The nation is gripped in a spiritual crisis.
"There is a growing recognition that the Democratic Party and the liberal progressive forces have not been addressing adequately the spiritual crisis in our society," Lerner said.
"It's a central issue, and a central reason why the Republicans have been winning is because they speak to the spiritual crisis in America. Even though, in my view, they speak to it in a distorted fashion."
The source of the spiritual malaise comes from the "ethos of selfishness and materialism that people learn in the marketplace and bring home into their personal life," he said.
Heightened disillusionment over the Iraq situation coupled with concerns about the growing clout of the religious right convinced Lerner that there was a need to stoke the passions of spiritual progressives.
But a sold-out event makes Lerner speculate he might have set his sights too small and should have booked a bigger hall.
"I'm not surprised, but I wouldn't have counted on it either," he said at his Berkeley hills home.
Lerner is best-known as the editor of the Jewish interfaith magazine Tikkun, which means to heal, repair and transform the world.
The goal of the conference, slated through Saturday at UC Berkeley's Pauley Ballroom, is to create an active network of spiritual progressives who will make their views felt in the political arena.
Registration reached the 1,000 mark about two weeks ago. Lerner and other organizers scrambled to find larger rooms for workshops that they initially expected would draw up to 50 participants but now need to accommodate nearly 100. Organizers had to turn people away after reaching the maximum of 1,200.
The seminar costs $50 to $350, based on a sliding scale. Half the registrants come from California.
For Karen Hanretty, the spokeswoman of the California Republican Party, the conference seems like a ploy to help the Democrats.
"Since the November 2004 election, the Democratic Party has done a lot of soul-searching in an attempt to show they can get more voters," Hanretty said. "Part of their approach is to stop excluding pro-life supporters from the Democratic Party, and now they're trying to embrace their version of the Christian right."
The conference gathers a diverse slate of spiritual leaders, politicians, activists and scholars.
Another activism conference set for Washington follows in February. By 2007, Lerner envisions the creation of a platform for spiritual progressives, which the group hopes to present to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.
Of late Democrats have been characterized as not addressing faith issues. A 2004 Pew Research Center poll found that in the past 15 years conservatives have become increasingly united in their beliefs while liberals have become somewhat less religiously oriented. The numbers also show that the more a person attends religious services, the more likely he or she is to be a political conservative.
Democrats don't need to discuss their individual faith, said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Santa Rosa, who will be a presenter.
"We don't have to," she said. "We live it."
The party demonstrates its moral values by protecting those in need, she said.
For too long, liberals ignored spirituality, sometimes regarding religion with hostility, Lerner said.
"What's our message? Come out of the closet as a spiritual being," he said. "Affirm your own highest values."
The conference features presenters who have challenged religious authority, and sometimes been penalized for it.
Matthew Fox, a former Dominican priest and founder of Oakland's Wisdom University, will be speaking twice at the conference. His theological views on sexuality and gender, among other issues, led to his being silenced in the 1980s by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope John Paul II ordered Fox to leave the church, and he eventually converted to the Episcopalian faith. At the conference, the Catholic Church critic will discuss his belief that the climate is ripe for a new Reformation. He also will co-lead a discussion on science and spirituality.
In June, Fox traveled to Germany's Wittenberg cathedral, where Martin Luther started the Reformation in 1517. Like Luther, he said, he nailed his 95 theses, this time for a new Reformation, to the door.
"We need a new language," Fox said of his Reformation theory. He suggests that spiritual leaders need to speak in the language of today's youth, something the religious right has been doing.
Lerner expects a less than unified voice resulting from the conference.
"Whenever anybody tries to create something, there will be splits immediately. If you think you're going to have a unified spiritual left, forget it. I don't know if everybody will beat up on each other at the conference. ... It's not going to be unified."
Hanretty predicts nothing much will result.
"It's unclear to me what beliefs and values the spiritual progressives share in common," she said. "I don't think they have a certain agenda that they're trying to achieve, other than to somehow out-spiritualize the Christian right. That's what they're trying to do."
• WHAT: Spiritual Activism Conference
• WHERE: Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley, Bancroft and Telegraph avenues
• WHEN: July 20-23
• COST: $50 to $350; sold out
• SCHEDULED PRESENTERS : Jim Wallis, author of "God's Politics;" Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun; John Shelby Spong, Episcopal bishop and author; Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Gandhi; Michael Nagler, founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of California; Jim Hernandez, 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee for gang violence prevention program; Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Santa Rosa
• INTENDED GOALS:
1. Challenge the misuse of God and religion by the religious right.
2. Challenge the ethos of selfishness and materialism of the advanced industrial societies and replace it with a new bottom line.
3. Build an alliance among secular, religious and "spiritual but not religious" progressives, in part by challenging the anti-religious biases in parts of the liberal culture.
• MORE INFORMATION: tikkun.org and then click on Spiritual Activism Conference
This is about what I'd expect...
Lerner's appointment and status as a rabbi is constantly in question from mainstream actual Jews. I don't know much about him myself, beyond the fact that I really don't like his politics. However, he has some very liberal (and I mean that in the stretching the definition sense) interpretations of what Judiasm stands for, and its values. Also, as a Jew, I kinda feel embarassed by him, although I did like how he told the communist and pro-terrorist ANSWER off that one time. As a Jew, I say he does not speak for me
That's me speaking as a Jew. As a normal nitpicking person, I can't help but notice it says FORMER dominican priest, and that he was kicked out of the church for not representing Catholic values. That strikes me as VERY suspect if he's speaking on the basis of his 'faith'. Clearly, he had very little faith in the Catholic Church. And then there is Jim Wallis, and what I've heard from him and about him (what little that is) makes me kinda...doubtful as to his credentials. He is, as far as I can tell, a bona-fide evangelical, but then I didn't look very hard. Some of his politics look suspiciously socialist to me, but then I'm likelly wrong. ;) Who am I to know him?
My guess is that you got him (Wallis) pegged.
If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, etc...
Don't you mean, if it looks like an ass and sounds like an ass...
And I mean that strictly in the donkey sense, of course.
ha ha...thats a good one. Ass is biblical so yes I accept the analogy.
"Well-known Rabbi Michael Lerner came up with the idea of a progressive interfaith conference that does not advocate for any political party but instead pushes for candidates and policies that uphold progressive moral ideals."
If there's anything more annoying than a lie, it's a transparent lie.
"Pope John Paul II ordered Fox to leave the church, and he eventually converted to the Episcopalian faith. At the conference, the Catholic Church critic will discuss his belief that the climate is ripe for a new Reformation."
It isn't enough that he disagrees. In his pride, he has determined that the Catholic Church is not only wrong, but needs to be changed according to his design.
I guess Christ's isn't good enough.
AND--with the overwhelming success liberals/progressives/leftists have had on Free Republic with their inane, bizarre "gospel" in flooding out the actual people of God and conservatives, they've won this battle.
I wouldn't count us out, liberals, just because you've taken over an internet forum. WE ARE STILL JUST AS DANGEROUS AS WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN! :o)
That partially explains the "cleansing" of history by northern writers (liberals), one to remove their own culpability, and two, remove all traces of Christianity from Southerners, having them become infidels and stupid, backwoods brutes.
I'd advise watching "Warriors of Honor", that does a wonderful job of depicting the Christianity of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. A book that I want to obtain is "Christ in the Camp", which adresses the revivals in the armies.
Station??
Remember, "We say grace, we say ma'am, if you're not into that--we don't give a daaaaaaaaaamn." [Hank, Jr.]
LOL at Hank - hits the nail on the head as usual.
And bending society toward...what? These tiresome old commies are trying to create spirituality based on a negation.
Kind of like the way they approach politics.
Being unselfishness is not a commie trait.
Welcome to Fr.
But isn't communism really just all about sharing? </sarcasm>
Thanks for the welcome.
I knew my mother was nothing but a red commie...always trying to teach me to share....
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