A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on February 25th, 2008 in Progressive Faith

David Kuo has a piece in the Washington Times that’s worth a look, if for no other reason than the lingering suspicion that Mike Huckabee could very well end up, at the end of the 2008 election, as the de facto head of what we generally refer to as the “Religious Right“. Call it the consolation prize to the consolation prize - falling from Presidential candidate to VP candidate to “the next Jerry Falwell”. I think Huckabee is well suited to the task. Remember he started out public life as a televangelist.

He writes of this “New Religious Right”:

It will probably be more progressive — but not liberal.

Nice use of that hair-splitting device. Nice misuse of terms, as well. This is basically saying, “John McCain is going to be a lot more like Dennis Kucinich - but not like Hillary Clinton.” Okay, but pardon me while I scratch a baldspot trying to figure out what is being said.

Progressivism is to Liberalism what Libertarianism is to Conservatism. It is a distillation of ideology into a purer and simpler form. A person can be Conservative without being Libertarian; but not Libertarian without being Conservative. Similarly, Progressivism is a subset within a larger Liberal framework. All Progressives are Liberal; but not all Liberals are Progressive.

Look at the issues that Kuo identifies:

…protecting the environment, tackling HIV/AIDS, alleviating poverty and promoting human rights and less on abortion and homosexuality.” Among the issues most concerning them were reducing poverty, improving health care and education, and stopping torture.

Those are not Conservative positions. And Kuo is correct to identify them as Progressive positions - but they are also Liberal positions. Of course, since “Liberal” is something akin to “communist queer” to Conservatives, Kuo cannot use the correct language - on issues other than gay rights and abortion, the New Religious Right is more liberal than their predecessors. And, of course, that is only true on some issues. On abortion and gay rights - the litmus test issues for the Religious Right (school prayer is not a big issue - but vouchers and home schooling are) - they are just as extreme. They are just willing to reorganize priorities a bit to get some progress on other issues.

Now take a look at Amy Sullivan’s “How Would Jesus Vote?”. She has correctly identified:

a stampede of younger evangelicals away from the GOP. Christian colleges have become even bigger centers of political activism than secular universities, protesting the Iraq war and demanding that campuses “go green.” A recent Time magazine poll of voters ages 18 to 29 found that 35 percent of young Democrats and 35 percent of young independents identify themselves as born-again.

But I fear she may draw the wrong conclusions.

Allowing the last to be first, I’m not sure that 35 percent of old Democrats and Independents wouldn’t have self-identified as born-again. So the Time magazine poll, offering a snapshot, doesn’t indentify a trend. Sullivan’s gut - and her stories - seem to be saying that this is growth. If so, I think she’s wrong. But I don’t have the polling data to show it, so it’s just a theoretical challenge at this point.

The stampede of young evangelicals from the GOP doesn’t necessarily equal any growth for the Democratic Party. I think Sullivan is right that it indicates a great dis-satisfaction with the Republican Party on the issues of war-without-end-for-no-reason and environmentalism. But while war is often a dichotomous choice, environmentalism isn’t. There are, as it were, shades of gray over being green. Don’t mistake the bitchin’ use of solar panels or a wind generator - which can be justified means other than environmentalism (national/energy security, economics, etc.) - and the use of mini mass transit on campus as being a massive ideological shift.

Now hold your breath and wait for the kicker:

Most of these youthful evangelicals are still antiabortion, and many still oppose gay rights. But their priorities no longer stop with those two issues. And it is in large part because of changes in the Democratic approach to abortion that more moderate evangelicals are willing to give the party a chance.

Yikes! These are the same folks Kuo is talking about.

Now, just for good measure, read Samuel Rodriguez, Jr’s article. Faith voters hung up on immigration over abortion and/or gay rights? Call it the victory of identity politics over identity politics. “I am a Mexican before I am a Catholic,” in other words. Or as Rodriguez puts it:

So, with much trepidation, the Hispanic faith voter is looking to the Democratic Party for a viable alternative. Although Hispanic evangelicals align with the social values platform of the GOP, the Democrats can easily capitalize on a kindred constituency when it comes to economic and social justice issues. While most white evangelicals limit their political agenda to abortion and marriage issues, Hispanic evangelicals embrace a broader agenda that also includes health-care and education reform, alleviating poverty, help for Darfur and HIV/AIDS, climate change and immigration reform.

Hot damn, these are the same folks! They are against abortion and gay rights, but they don’t really care if those are the top issues - they want attention paid to these other traditionally liberal positions.

How many would self-identify as the “religious right” or “religious left”, I wonder. As Amy Sullivan says, there are Democrats out there who are Evangelical - and some who are even liberal on abortion and gay rights. But I think the majority of this large undefined group we are discussing would not say that they are the “religious left” or even liberal (remember the gay communist problem).

And why would abortion and gay rights be at the top of their issue chart right now? Many states have defined marriage as being between one man and one woman and DOMA allows them to unmarry gay couples as they travel across state lines. Abortion isn’t illegal, but it’s damn hard for poor women to get them in a whole lot of places. The rich women were always going to be able to get them - fly to Mexico, Canada, or Europe. In other words, they aren’t pushing those issues because they already have as much progress in that area (as they define “progress”) as they are likely to see for some time. They’ve won. They aren’t retreating, they’re just moving on to the next issue.

Let a true Progressive President get a governing majority and start public funding of abortions and see how fast they stampede away from the Democrats. Let a President say, “Discrimination is wrong, and I will make it a hallmark of my Presidency to gain full equality for same sex couples.” Yeah. Where did your “religious left” and “moderate faith voters” go? That’s right, they are David Kuo’s “New Religious Right” - and we are back along those same old familiar conservative-liberal faultlines.

This, by the way, is why Barack Obama can see room for healing. Because abortion and gay rights have been taken off the table and aren’t really in any threat of being back on the agenda, except perhaps in small ways. Abortion and gay rights are the third rail for President Obama. Sorry folks, wait another decade for a real Progressive.

But there is a real religious left. There are people of all kinds of faiths and traditions who believe that same sex couples do have the right to legally call their family “married”. And there are a whole lot of us who believe that abortion may not always be moral, but it should be legal and safe - maybe rare, too. That last condition depends on the circumstance of life faced by hundreds of millions of women. I have a sneaking suspicion that these folks may be, as Pastor Dan often says, already a hard-core part of the political left and just see no reason to jump up and down about their faith at a political rally. They get the Eucharist and enough psalm-ing and praying at church - they’d rather take their politics straight-up without the faith shooter.

Is it worth letting down the old barriers so we can make progress on HIV/AIDS, the environment, war, the pillaging of American society by corporate abuse, and the cynical Machiavellian application of torture by the American government? Hell, yes, it is! But the reason the Republican Revolution, fueled by the Religious Right (or perhaps just taken advantage of by them - and vice versa), was such a surprise to so many liberals is that they thought, “If they are with us on desegregation, they are with us all the way!” Surprise! No they aren’t!

If there is any real opportunity, it lies with folks like me who could potentially find and vocalize a faith-based support for gay rights and abortion. It lies with the short period of time for true religious leftists to reach out to moderates and show them that they have been misled on these issues as surely as they were misled on the others. It is worth our time and effort to do so - politically because it builds numbers and religiously because we are called to do so. It is worth building a temporary coalition in the political world, as Obama is doing, to make progress elsewhere.

We can work with the group of people identified by Kuo, Sullivan, and Rodriguez, but we cannot allow that group to redefine who we are. Unity is a worthy goal, but it is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is greater justice and equality, with meaningful opportunities available to all who will grasp them. I’m not willing to compromise on that.

Rodriguez ends with:

In the end, Hispanic evangelicals are married to neither the Christian right nor the Christian left. We are the standard-bearers of Christian equilibrium. And this fall, we may force both the Democrats and the Republicans to move to the center to capture the Latino vote.

This is, perhaps, the most astute observation of any of the three writers. What we are seeing is a maturing of the coverage of how faith influences politics. We were all here all along - conservative, moderate, liberal, and progressive people of faith. We just had to wait until the chattering classes figured out that it was worthwhile not to lump the praying classes together as one.

There’s a difference, after all, between an Episcopalian and a Southern Baptist! Who knew? You think that might be why they have different churches?

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