The religious left is easy to ignore, for reasons that are hard to fathom. While a protest by Fred Phelps is instantly recognized as having something to do with religion, probably because he’s so well associated with homophobia, how many people know that one of the plaintiffs in the recent landmark marriage equality case in California was The Rev. Troy Perry (founder and former moderator of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches)? Oh, and he’s also the guy who performed the first public same-sex marriage in the Untied States, way back in 1969. Oh, and the MCC underwrote the filing fees for the case (and the lawyers worked pro bono).
How many people know that religious folks, including a student from my alma mater, are still going to jail for protesting at the School of the Americas?
How many people know that Christian Peacemaker Teams are still working in Iraq, Palestine, Colombia, the Mexican border, and elsewhere to give the oppressed and underprivileged what they need to survive?
How many people know that Catholic Worker Houses are still providing communities around the United States with tens of thousands of meals every week, along with toiletries, blankets, transitional housing, other needed items, listening ears, and connections to social services?
How many people know about the Center for Progressive Christianity or The Christian Alliance for Progress and their work on progressive issues like economic justice, peacemaking, environmental stewardship, and LGBTQ equality? Of course, those are just Christian organizations, but there are progressive organizations and movements in every religion.
How many people know that the church, the synagogue, the mosque, or the temple in their neighborhood is running a homeless shelter or a food pantry or a free clinic? While we’re at it, how many people know how much of the budget of their local religious community goes towards supporting those in need? How many people know that the person standing next to them at their last protest or rally was a member of a religious community?
It would be far too laborious a task to list everything that those in the religious left do, because it gets done everyday and in a variety of ways. The religious left is made up of bloggers and activists and lobbyists and front-liners. We write, we call congress, we ladle out soup. There are religious people involved in every aspect of the broader progressive movement – sometimes for the same reasons as the secular people involved, sometimes for different reasons.
So why don’t people know? What do we do about it?
I’ll get to that over the next few weeks.
Minor Update: Since this is a post in a series, I suppose I should link it to the previous post.
Kind of Important Update: Fixed the links.
I’d prefer to take the ‘left/right’ out of the equation, but I suspect the answer is this: some people want to have a whinge, and others want to do something useful. When it’s a matter of other people’s private morality, you can only really complain. The media likes to pick up on that.
On the other hand, if you see a problem and do something to help, it doesn’t generate the sound bites the media wants. In religious terms, this is about pleasing God, not the media. So when we do see these folk letting their light shine, we can praise our Father in heaven for their good work (Matt. 5:16)
Most of these activities are simple consequences of the Golden Rule. I think the problem lies in the fact that ‘the left’ has become (in the popular mind) synonymous with ‘anyone who shares.’ I suspect it’s more to do with the way ‘left’ and ‘right’ are delineated in the media.
Cameron,
Thanks for your comment. I also have issues with the left/right divide when it is a divide, but think it’s a useful way of descriptor of political positions most of the time, and that’s where my concern lies right now.
It’s also probably true that the media doesn’t dig the lack of soundbites when it comes to helping people – though they do cover helping when there’s a national emergency.
What I find a bit odd is that you and Pastor Dan over at Street Prophets both focused on media attention. A lot of the work that the religious left does, though, is done in local communities, so why does it remain unknown?
My suspicion is that it’s really one part media silence and one part silence on the part of the people in the religious left. I also suspect that we can change the former by changing the latter – not through shameless self promotion, but by learning to better connect and speak about our political and theological commitments.
There’s certainly a problem with the marketing of the religious left, but I think it has to do with the nature of the beast more than anything else. The religious right (in America, anyway—I’m posting from Australia, so forgive me if I don’t know what I’m talking about!) has had a fairly unified face for decades, helped along by the money the right has so much access to. They have an identity which the media can pick up on.
The religious left, on the other hand, hasn’t been so good at organising itself. They’ve been concentrating on local issues. The local paper isn’t going to do a story about how the religious left has opened a shelter downtown, but they will run a story about a church that opens a shelter. Shelters don’t attract big media attention the same way Pat Robertson does.
Actually, I wonder if part of the media love of the right has been a deep down recognition that the right is somehow aberrant. Everyone knows Christians should be helping the poor. When they call on the government to bomb some heathen country or bring in the death penalty for homosexuals, we know something’s up. We identify the religious right because it’s wrong. The ‘religious left’ seems to normative.
I mean, just ask any non-Christian what the church’s response should be on any particular matter. A huge majority will give you the same answer the left’s been saying for years. So ‘the left’ is a secular term. Authentic (and thus normative) Christianity just happens to have a lot in common with it.
It’s no coincidence, though, that the religious left started to gain an identity with the rise of the internet. These days the left is blogging like crazy, signing up to facebook and so on.
Here in Australia the situation has always been a little different. The church has always been a little lefty, and the religious (especially Catholic) left played a large part in national politics in the sixties. In fact, the big political news here in the last decade or so has been the rise of a religious right. Even then, they’re only morally conservative. On economic issues they’re right across the board.
I just wanted you to know that I gave you a shout out on my blog. However, I think some of your links need to be updated.:) Cheers!
Fred, thanks for the shout out. I don’t know what happened with the links… I’ll fix them when I have the opportunity!
I still do not know what the religious left is, or any leftist group is. Among the conservative clergy of my community I am known as a flaming liberal teetering dangerously on the edge of hell and damnation. Among our small lectionary study group I am known as an orthodox conservative who can barely tolerate anything associated with the Jesus Seminar. My Republican friends assume I am a card carrying pinko, and my Democratic friends are deeply suspicious of my long ago and very modest credentials as a business lobbyist. I once posed a question on one of the larger religious listserves asking for definitions of liberal and conservative, left and right, from the point of view of those who self-identify as one or the other. What I got back was a small stream of intolerant invective sprinkled with a few scandalous definitions of liberal and conservative by those who self-identified as the opposite. Needless to say, we westerners are deeply suspicious of anyone who lives east of the Mississippi or west of the Cascades and Sierras.
Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are.
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