[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: Left. Right. Left, Right, Left. Marching toward what?

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Posted by The Night Writer:
Left. Right. Left, Right, Left. Marching toward what?
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1205778952.shtml


   [1]Rich Karlgaard is among those pondering a return of the religious
   left:

     Yet while secular politics are unwelcome in our church, I have
     noticed subtle shifts of late. The mood of the ministry and
     congregation is moving left. The music is moving toward a folk-rock
     sound of the 1960s and 1970s. Youth ministers wear berets and soul
     patches. The younger ministers donât identify themselves as
     âChristiansâ but as âJesus followers.â I would guess that most of
     them are Obama supporters, but I donât ask.

   To my thinking, "Christian" is ideally something that other people
   should call you because of what they see in you, rather than something
   you'd necessarily call yourself. "Follower of Christ" doesn't do much
   for me, since Jesus had a lot of people following him around during
   his ministry, perhaps just for the food. Personally, I like "Imitator
   of Christ" myself (more on that later).

     Americaâs religious left seems to be mounting a comeback. Iâm happy
     for this development, even though my own tilt is to the right.
     The religious left has a distinguished past in American history. It
     led the abolition fight in the 19th century. It led the civil
     rights movement in the 20th century. Organizations like the Red
     Cross grew out of progressive Christianity.

   Yes, and I think the basis of America's welfare program appealed to
   our country's Christian heritage and the well-meaning desire to do
   good and to help the poor. That welfare has had the un-Christian
   effect of destroying families and perpetuating multi-generational
   poverty also has to be acknowledged -- something the religious left is
   loathe to do. It has also been, at best, ambivalent about abortion,
   and its infatuation and even outright embrace of communist and
   socialist totalitarianism from the Soviets to Castro, Ortega on
   through Chavez, and it's apparent commitment to replacing God with
   Government throughout U.S. policy is also disturbing. (That's not to
   say the Religious Right hasn't supported it's share of dictators and
   made its own alliances of convenience).

     The strange disappearance of Americaâs religious left during the
     1970s has been noted but not examined much. My own guess is that
     drugs, music, sex, New Age religions, body worship, tree worship,
     earth worship and so forth, siphoned off an entire generation of
     seekers who had previously found their mystic/activist fulfillment
     in the left hemisphere of Christianity.
     Now one detects that many old hippies, and sons and daughters of
     hippies, are returning to progressive Christianity.
     Weâll see how this plays out politically. If there must be a left,
     then let's cheer for a religious and not an atheistic left.
     However, I do think the trend benefits Democrats and is one reason
     why Democratic primary voter turnout has far excelled Republican
     voter turnout this year. The mainstream secular media, as usual,
     has utterly missed this story.

   I think I agree with Karlgaard that if there's going to be a left let
   it be a religious left rather than an atheistic one. My caveat, and
   especially my prayer (for both the left and the right) is that the
   focus is on seeking and doing God's will, ideally by trying to be like
   Christ.
   Earlier I mentioned being an "imitator" of Christ. Because we're all
   human (left and right), it is an easy step to try and move from
   "imitator" to "impersonator", wherein we try to rule by proclamation
   as if we, ourselves, were God. That's certainly long been a fear and a
   warning from the left side of the church aisle regarding the
   motivations of the right, while the left's own similar tendencies are
   ignored or attributed to "doing good" or "meaning well."
   My belief is that any "theocracy", whether left or right, is fatally
   flawed by our own human imperfections and tendency to turn moves into
   movements; movements into monuments; and, ultimately, monuments into
   mausoleums. By all means, we should pursue faith in our lives and we
   should hope that our personal beliefs will be reflected in our public
   behavior individually and through policy. Our responsibilities to the
   poor (and the poor's responsibilities to God and others); to be
   stewards of the earth; to deal ethically and compassionately with
   others are all things that must be done and honored by individuals,
   not discharged to a collective or government to be taken care of while
   we blithely go our own selfish way. As I've written here before, if
   God asks me if I helped the poor (as if He doesn't already know) I
   don't think He's going to be impressed if I say, "Well, I paid my
   taxes." Being religiously left or right, highly taxed or not, doesn't
   lessen our responsibilities to do something on an individual basis, no
   matter how many marches, protests or church services we go to.
   We often hear the phrase, "What would Jesus do?" as a guide to
   behavior. I suppose that's all right as far as it goes. A better
   statement might be, "What is Jesus doing?" and then trying to line up
   with that. If we believe Jesus is still at work around us, and not
   that He's gone off and left us to our own freedom-eroding devices, we
   can purpose to look for those things and and align ourselves
   accordingly. I urge those of the religious left, and my friends on the
   religious, to put our focus on glorifying God, not our own group or
   idealogy. If we can do that -- though we may disagree from time to
   time -- I think we'll be all right.

References

   1. http://blogs.forbes.com/digitalrules/2008/03/the-religious-l.html