People of Good Faith pt. 2

I missed this in yesterday's Washington Post. Seems perhaps the sins of Bush have achieved critical mass. As always, it's good to see John Podesta is involved. What he's made of the Center for American Progress in the short time it has existed is pretty phenomenal.

More than 350 political liberals of many faiths gathered in Washington yesterday to begin what some pollsters say is a quixotic task: restoring the voice of the religious left in the nation's political debate.

"Progressive religious voices, which historically have fueled so much social change in this country, seem to have been washed out of the public dialogue in recent years," said John D. Podesta, a Roman Catholic who was White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton. Podesta now heads the Center for American Progress, the Democratic think tank that organized the conference to highlight the "proud past" and "promising future" of the religious left.

Speakers celebrated the role of religious liberals in the civil rights movement, protests against the Vietnam War, the nuclear freeze campaign and sanctions against South Africa's former apartheid system. They called for a stronger, more clearly religious voice against the Bush administration's foreign policy and for environmental stewardship, universal health insurance, and efforts to fight poverty at home and abroad.

Yes. The history of religious folks standing up against oppression and for progressive values is very long indeed. The entire prophetic tradition of Judaism is rooted in a deep morality; justice, caretaking, and lifting up, particularly, the poorest among us, and understanding that this is what God expects of us. I do believe Jesus preached much the same philosophy. Progressive values are thousands of years old. Note, however:

But some of the Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims at the conference also said they have felt excluded or even disdained by the secular left. The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister at the Riverside Church in New York City, told the audience in his keynote address that "we have got to find a way not to be embarrassed" to speak about religion with secular progressives.

And there was no lack of hand-wringing among the conferees about what the religious left has done wrong.

"Part of it is our fault. We should take back the Bible, take back the theological principles and not just cede them to the religious right," said the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, a minister in the United Church of Christ and president of the Chicago Theological Seminary. "It's not good enough to talk in vague terms about values. We can do better than that. We can make the theological arguments."

We can do better. We must. It's what God expects of us. To heal the world. Tikkun Olam