Anyway, she says:
Who Are You Calling A Religious Centrist?
Blogs and other media outlets have recently been buzzing with stories about "rifts" on the religious left.
There is some vigorous give-and-take, that's for sure. Some self-identified liberals are charging that especially some newer, progressive organizations are really "centrists" in disguise.
NB: when a liberal calls you a centrist, ordinarily that's not a compliment.
Some of the current jockeying for position on the religious left is due to our growing pains. Our views have been without any kind of influence in public policy for so long that the dramatic change in impact and influence since 2004 is disconcerting. And fragmenting.
The main struggle seems to be about strategy. One view is that there should be complete agreement on all positions before entering into a strategic alliance. This tends to be the perspective of those who self-identify as liberals. Another view, most often labeled progressive, is that we should be reaching out to moderates and evangelicals on an issue-by-issue basis, and even trying to build bridges across the biggest divides.
I'll be clear. I'm in favor of reaching out and I am less interested in labels. To me as a person of faith, I believe we should be engaging the public square in order to effect change. In order to effect change, you have to engage in the broadest possible coalition-building. To use a sports metaphor, the point of a football game is not to perfect the huddle, it's to move the ball down the field.
Also, in a more spiritual sense, increasing tolerance and building pluralistic community is the right thing to do. There is true joy in finding the unexpected ally, the better position that benefits more people. Sure there are roadblocks, and temptations to confuse common ground with lowest common denominator. But true change is possible. And religious faith is all about possibility, unexpected joy and the movement of grace.
Here's the reality check. Before you accuse someone of being a "centrist" and use that as code for lack of faith commitment, ask these questions: Does it matter at all where the center is? Does it matter at all where the center could and should be?
In the last 25 years, religious and political conservatives succeeded in moving the center to the right, especially by manipulating so-called wedge issues like homophobia and abortion. They did this so well that mainstream Americans ended up voting for economic policies that benefited only the top 1-2% of the citizenry. Huge numbers of Americans approved of pre-emptive war, suspension of legal rights for "enemy combatants", and even torture. Poverty increased dramatically in the United States, and collectively we are responsible for horrible human rights violations, unnecessary deaths and maiming in wars that should never have been waged. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Americans are still denied equal rights, rights that as citizens they must and should have. Women's privacy about their reproductive choices has been under systematic attack. We are now effectively both fiscally and morally bankrupt from this shift to the right.
So, isn't it a good idea to try to move the center back more toward, well, the center? How do you do that? You do that by building bridges, building trust and building a movement. Movements move. It's risky, it doesn't always work out, but it's how change happens.
Among people who self-identify as liberal or progressive, there should be room for diversity of opinion on how to best effect the change we need. And really, if we can't honor diversity, aren't we betraying that fundamental principle of historic liberalism?
2 comments:
It's good to hear a kind word for "centrists", but I regret that Ms. Thistlewaite confuses religious belief and political position. In religious terms I regard myself as an "Anglican centrist", because I favor increasing the inclusiveness of our church, while also favoring making every effort (consistent with conscience) to maintain communion with Anglicans in the US and elsewhere who have different views. This has nothing to do with my political views or how I vote.
And it's simply foolish to claim that "religious . . . conservatives" are uniquely responsible for "pre-emptive war", "suspension of legal rights for 'enemy combatants'", "horrible human rights violations", and "unnecessary deaths and maiming in wars that should never have been waged". These tendentious descriptions refer to political, not religious, decisions, that were initially supported by a broad consensus within the US, from the (political) moderate left to the (political) right, and so far our new left-leaning president has made no substantive changes in them.
Please, please, please! There's enough disagreement about religious matters within our communion. Let's leave our politics out of our religious discussions.
Bravo, godfather. I had a hard time getting through that because of the political overtones. Being an Anglican Centrist is about an entirely different thing altogether, at least in my view. I also don't think those that the author impliedly takes to task for being "religious conservatives" agree with what the author states is the result of that belief. I know a lot of people (as do you) who have strong beliefs against "women's reproductive rights" if it means voluntary termination of the pregnancy and I don't think a single one is "for" the litany of things you mention in paragraph two of your post. More to the point, they have not had anything to do with creating or contributing to create those things--assuming for a moment that all the author writes is, in fact, the case.
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