Critiquing the Religious Left

Because liberals and progressive can't resist the temptation to start criticizing a painting before it has even been painted, there's a lot of discussion about how the religious left has it wrong. It seems that maybe it would be helpful to have an actual movement or philosophy before the criticizing begins, but these are liberals we are talking about. With that off my chest, there is a smart piece in HighPlainsMessenger by Jeff Sharlet that asks important questions abotu the image of the religious left and what it can potentially be.

Power matters. The religious right knows that but doesn’t like to say it, since doing so would involve confessing how much it already possesses. The religious left, as seen on TV, knows it, too, but doesn’t like to believe it, since doing so would involve admitting it doesn’t have any. The real religious left — the one yet to be organized — will recognize the reality of power and appreciate its nuances; its applications.

Another contributor to Getting on Message, Rev. Vivian Denise Nixon, an ex-con who’s now an African Methodist Episcopal pastor, quotes James Cone, author of a modern classic, A Black Theology for Liberation: “‘authentic love is not ‘help’ — not giving Christmas baskets — but working for political, social, and economic justice, which always means a redistribution of power. It is a kind of power which enables [the oppressed] to fight their own battles and thus keep their dignity.’”

Too much of what passes for the contemporary religious left speaks in terms of “help,” in no small part because that's the only story most media will listen to. And yet, here's another irony — “help” of the sort Cone disdains is what the Christian Right is best at. The media does Christian conservatives a disservice when it fails to notice that their movement is organized around the idea of helping people.

Sharlet goes on to suggest that "caring" isn't enough and that instead it needs to translate into action. He also suggests that the religious left doesn't need "fresh" ideas as much as it needs to look at what liberals and progressives have already proposed and done.

Sharlet's piece is long on criticism and short on answers, offering more "don't do this" advice instead of offering direction and solutions. That's the problem with armchair quarterbacking, in many ways, because it says "I would do it better" but often fails to explain how.

Still, the comments are intriguing and worth consideration.