Provoked By Trump, The Religious Left Is Finding Its Voice

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Religious conservatives have rarely faced much competition in the political realm from faith-based groups on the left.
The provocations of President Trump may finally be changing that.
Nearly 40 years after some prominent evangelical Christians organized a Moral Majority movement to promote a conservative political agenda, a comparable effort by liberal religious leaders is coalescing in support of immigrant rights, universal health care, LGBTQ rights and racial justice.

To read more:

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/24/684435743/provoked-by-trump-the-religious-left-is-finding-its-voice

[MineralMan]

1. Since you neglected to name or link to this group, I will:

The group is Faith in Public Life:

https://www.faithinpubliclife.org

[guillaumeb]

2. It was in the next paragraph,

but thank you for the link.

[MineralMan]

3. Not everyone cares to click links.

Why not simply include the name of the group and a link in your post, as a service to DUers?

[guillaumeb]

4. I prefer to encourage exploration.

But yes, some prefer to look briefly.

Again, thank you for the link and the suggestion.

[Major Nikon]

5. Who?

Never heard of them. I doubt very many random people on the street have ever heard of them either.

I get that there are groups out there doing this sort of thing, but they aren't what I would call "a comparable effort" to several wingnut groups, and there's no reason to suspect they ever will be.

[MineralMan]

6. Neither had I heard of them.

I was just naming and linking to them because guillaumeb neglected to do so in his post. I was trying to save other DUers the time needed to visit the NPR site to find out what he was talking about.

I find posts that include such information to be more useful than posts that require an additional click-through to get actual useful info.

[Voltaire2]

7. Typically the links lead to appalling

nonsense or a complete contradiction of whatever point was trying to be made.

In this case you have to get to the last few paragraphs to understand that the “religious left” isn’t even in the game.

[MineralMan]

9. That's true. This group is waffling on reproductive choice,

we learn near the end of the story. But then, some who claim to be on the left sometimes are ambivalent about reproductive choice, aren't they?

Perhaps the OP would have done better to link directly to the group's website...

[Voltaire2]

11. It's worse than that, they have no clue

how to compete with the religious right as a political force. They aren’t even in the game. They aren’t organizing voters and putting pressure on candidates, they are organizing protest rallies.

Protests are fine, but they aren’t competition for the massive and hugely successful political pressure machine on the right.

From the part the op left out:
“The religious left, having been largely eclipsed in recent years, has a ways to go before it can match the clout of the religious right. Butler's group and those allied with it have primarily kept their focus on protest rallies and social media campaigns. Conservative religious groups, with 40 years of organizing experience, conduct sophisticated campaigns in support of those candidates whose views align with their own.”

[Bretton Garcia]

26. The Right has the 24/7 Fox media outlet; that dwarfs any left output

Not to mention AM. radio; which is heavily right wing.

Not until the left has the same thing, answering Fox point by point, will it be effective.

[marylandblue]

8. It's good to have a counterweight to the religious right

Even if it is never as large as the religious right it ends their monopoly over religious political action.

[guillaumeb]

10. And it broadens the dialogue.

Far too much of the media focus is on the conservative religious right. And as progressives, we need to reach out to natural allies.

[Voltaire2]

12. Read the article.

It is made explicit that this “counterweight” currently has zero mass.

[marylandblue]

13. I read it, mass is small but non-zero

Have to start somewhere.

[Voltaire2]

14. Zero.

They are organizing protests not voters.

Protest politics is fine but it generally doesn’t elect anyone.

And also I object to “have to start somewhere”. There are many existing political organizations seriously organizing voters around progressive issues and candidates. They just aren’t explicitly religious.

[marylandblue]

15. So your entire objection is just that this group only organizes protests

which are actually "fine," but don't meet your criteria for effectiveness? Somehow I doubt that is your real concern.

[Voltaire2]

16. The "concern" about effectiveness was spelled out clearly

in the article. It isn’t “my” criteria. I didn’t write the article. The article, again not written by me, clearly notes that the current religious left is not an effective counter force to the religious right because it is not even involved in electoral politics.

My concern, not the article’s, is indeed about the role of religious based political activism in a secular society. You appear, through your comment that we “Have to start somewhere“, to believe that religious based political activism is required. I not only disagree, but think it is dangerous and wrong.

[Major Nikon]

17. We just need more gun nuts to keep us safe from the gun nuts

The answer to irrationality isn't more irrationality.

[marylandblue]

19. People are irrational

If you wait for them to become rational before they are allowed to organize themselves and do something, you'll be waiting a long time. And they won't be asking for your permission or seek your advice.

[Major Nikon]

20. You have this exactly backwards

The religious right dipshits aren't seeking their advice and if you think that's going to change you will be waiting a long time. Meanwhile the left is apathetic at best to what they are preaching and won't be seeking their advice anytime soon either.

[marylandblue]

21. Not really looking to reach the unreachable

There's always a few who looking for a change or are undecided. Usually younger and not so set in their ways. Or sometimes a life event changes their point of view.

[Major Nikon]

22. They aren't going to reach the reachable either

It's not going to be any group nobody has ever heard of that reaches those who haven't closed their mind completely. It's going to be for other reasons, as you say.

[marylandblue]

23. If not this group, then there are others I heard of

There is the Poor People's Project Campaign led by Reverend Barber,
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/

there are the Red Letter Christians
https://www.redletterchristians.org/

I've read articles about students in evangelical seminaries who don't want to follow their racist, misogynistic, homophobic elders.

I think there is sharp leftward shift happening in the country, and it's even being felt in churches.

[Major Nikon]

24. I have no doubt it's being felt in churches

Younger people are far less likely to hate, but this is not because of the efforts of the groups you mentioned.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/

[marylandblue]

18. Yes, I think having a religious leftism is beneficial

Many people aren't giving up religion any time soon. There are more atheists than there used to be, but still not many. For religious people, most of the religion-based political messaging comes from the right. I think if there were more such messages coming from the religious left, it would attract some people away from the right.

My position has always been that progressive religion is not harmful. Most of the harm from religion comes from conservative and fundamentalist religion.

[Igel]

25. The "religious left" is often overlooked

because it's both diverse (not in lockstep, so part of the left will deal with abortion and another, overlapping, part, with civil rights) and because it doesn't have a big flashing neon sign that says, "Religious Left."

Objections have been noted that the religious left isn't organizing voters.

Would people consider civil rights to be a bigger issue on the left than the right?

Are black churches religious?

Do black churches mobilize voters-registering them, having GOTV drives, even driving voters to the polls?

In many ways, they are part of the religious left. But only part and partially.

It's largely the same with a lot of the "religious right". They don't march in lockstep. They have this nifty PR campaign that ended a couple of decades ago to convince outsiders that they do march in lockstep. It's an exaggeration. But it was so successful that not only do people did believe the exaggeration, but 20 years later they still parrot it.

Note that in some ways, many black churches are also part of the "religious right." But again, branding isn't always accurate so they're not "religious right" for branding purposes--and the branding is deceitful in that it masks a lot of diversity.

[Act_of_Reparation]

27. Newsflash:

The RR doesn't dominate the news cycle because they have a "PR firm". It's because they have the numbers. The religious left does not. End of story.

[trotsky]

28. Shh, that doesn't fit the preferred narrative.

You know, the belief that the religious right is just a tiny vocal minority and the vast majority of Christians in this country are ultra-liberal and also btw they won't vote for Democrats if atheists say bad things about religion on an anonymous Internet message board so STOP SCARING THEM AWAY YOU FILTHY ATHEIST.