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The Christian Left

http://xianleft.blogspot.com


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Language: English

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The Christian Left  

We will discuss the days news and the news of the future from a Christian Left perspective.

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    What is the Christian Left

    The Christian Left means many things to many people.  For some, it is Jim Wallis and Sojourners.  For others, it is the Maryknolls and the Catholic Worker movement or liberation theology.  For others, it is the Jesuits and America Magazine or Commonweal.  For me, it is the left wing of Christianity and indeed a leftist way of looking at being a believer within the Church - to hold progressive attitudes about the message of Christ and how the Church should be governed.

    When I first began writing and trying to get on broadcast radio in the late nineties, there was nary a Christian Left voice to counteract the Christian Right and its attempt to align Jesus with the Republican Party and authoritarianism - or rather no one was noticing it (as America, Sojourners and the Maryknolls have been around for quite a while).  

    I welcome the chance to join what is now a chorus, as my attempt to cry out in the wilderness  was not bearing fruit.  

    With the rise of George W. Bush, the left wing of Christianity has grown more vocal in oppossition and people have begun to notice.

    One reason the left wing of Christianity was ignored before Bush was the attitude of the Democrat Party lower level leadership - the activists in the street.  Many in NARAL Pro-Choice America, NOW and the NEA feared what we may bring to the party in terms of oppossition to abortion (they booed Governor Casey off the stage) and school choice.  Some of that resistence seems to be melting away although I am not sure that the Democrats are yet our true home.

    Republican Mike Huckabee has been called one of us, at least by Robert Novak.  Anyone who Novak disses I tend to view favorably, although some of his later pandering to the GOP base began to turn me off at the end.

    It may be that we may eventually start are own movement.  I know some former Libertarians who are looking for a centrist party and would love to include our brand of philosophy in such a coalition.  It all depends on what happens to the Democratic and Republican coalitions.  If the Democratic fight gets much uglier or if the Clintons appear to steal the nomination from Obama, the Democrats may be damaged forever.  Conversely, if Huckabee is not treated well his voters may go elsewhere.  They are certainly low hanging fruit for a Christian Left based party.

    There is no time to pull something off this election cycle, but if either or both parties crash and burn something new may rise from the ashes.  What we are all doing here lays the groundwork for that.

    What might a Christian Left party look like?

    In my view and the view of some others, it would be centrist - to the left of the Republicans and the right of the Democratic secularlists and Greens.  It would not be as statist as the party on the left or as authoritarian as the party on the right.  It would also be more interventionists than the center-right libertarian and Peroist (Reform Party) movements.  It would certainly not abandon redistribution in tax and retirement policy although it might shrink government and let non-governmental religious organizations provide more of the services, like education, mental health care and corrections, that the state provides now.  It would also have a bias toward peace and internationalism.  The movement would not stop at politics either.  It will have something to say about the rights of workers and corporate governance, as well as the governance of the Church itself.

    Its defining issue will likely be abortion and the need to compromise, since the current stalemate on the subject does much to make the left and right wings rich but does nothing to protect innocent life.  That is all I am going to say on this issue for now, but you know I will be coming back to it.  I am sure we will be spending quite a few hours on the topic in the months and years to come.

    So welcome to my take on the Christian Left.  I think we will have fun.  We certainly won't be bored (and if you are, say so and I will throw out some red meat).


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