Hmmm.
Pardon my disconnect, but a few days ago I thought you had an article
that said that the conservative Christians were losing the Millennials.
This seems to say that they aren't going to the religious left either.
So where the heck are they going?
David
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free."*---P. J. O'Rourke*
On 4/24/2014 5:53 PM, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical
Centrist Community wrote:
*The religious left is struggling. Can the cause of economic justice
help it rise again?*
Michelle Boorstein ("The Washington Post," April 24, 2014)
The religious left was never as powerful and cohesive as the religious
right. But a new report based on many interviews with religious
progressive leaders finds that the Obama era may have further weakened
DemocratsâEUR^(TM) interest in the non-secular.
The report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution argues that
religious progressives could be heading for a renaissance if they can
focus on what some see as the civil rights issue of our time: economic
justice.
The report, by the instituteâEUR^(TM)s Governance Studies Program, is
based on polling and interviews with many of the top players of
WashingtonâEUR^(TM)s religious left. This includes John Carr, formerly
of the U.S. Bishops Conference, evangelical writer Jim Wallis and
Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform Jewish movement.
It starkly lays out the challenges facing religious activists and
voters who work for causes such as immigration reform and limiting
budget cuts for the poor.
Their movement played a massive role in everything from the New Deal
to ending slavery. Can it again be as impactful?
The report, co-written by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr.,
finds that todayâEUR^(TM)s religious progressives âEUR" like their
predecessors âEUR" have not played a central role in organizing for
Democrats the way religious conservatives do and did for the GOP. The
success of Obama and the Democrats in 2008, it argues, âEURoeled not
to a redoubling of interest on the progressive side religion, but
quite the opposite. .âEUR0/00.âEUR0/00. Engagement with religion
atrophied.âEUR? Many saw 2012 as widening the gap between secular and
religious progressives because Obama and other Democrats had gained so
much traction by pushing on socially liberal issues such as abortion
and contraception âEUR" areas on which there is not unanimity among
religious progressives.
The report lays out the key challenges for religious progressives:
â---? The numbers. Even as the religious conservative movement is
failing to attract younger people, 56 percent of Republicans call
themselves religious conservatives, while only 28 percent of Democrats
call themselves religious progressives.
â---? Religious progressives are not homogenous and thus not as
cohesive. Their views on abortion and gay marriage can vary, and their
congregations are more politically diverse and thus harder to rally.
â---? Religious progressives are sometimes viewed suspiciously by
their secular allies, in part because of skepticism about religion,
but âEURoe[d]ifferences on social issues are almost always at the root
of this secular mistrust,âEUR? the report says.
â---? Democrats are ambivalent about the role of religion in politics.
â---? Religious people are divided on whether the poor are helped more
through the work of churches and other private charities or through
government programs.
â---? The decline of the unions, a key partner for religious progressives.
â---? Growing divisions within the Catholic Church, the
countryâEUR^(TM)s largest source of money for grass-roots, faith-based
organizing, over priorities and whether the church can work with
liberal groups on something such as food stamps if they disagree on
something such as gay marriage.
But amid the long list of problems, the report sees perhaps a bright
future for the religious left.
One reason is demographics. A far bigger share of younger Americans
call themselves religious progressives (34 percent of those ages 18 to
33) than religious conservatives (16 percent of the same group).
Another is a comparison to the Civil Rights movement, which the report
says âEURoeinterwove religious and civic themesâEUR? such as struggle,
organizing and movement-building and was so successful because it was
so ecumenical. We may be at such a moment, the report argues.
âEURoe[T]hereâEUR^(TM)s a strong case that the current moment looks
far more like the era leading up to civil rights activism than to the
period that ushered in the religious right. Just as the civil rights
movement spoke to a widespread desire in the nation to perfect the
post-war social contract to include African-Americans, so do new
social movements on behalf of greater equality and mobility speak to a
broadly felt need for a new social contract. .âEUR0/00.âEUR0/00.
Economic justice may prove to be the fertile ground of this era.âEUR?
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