I've done my best to limit my consumption of the impeachment hearings this week. They are historical events happening live, and in no way do I wish to diminish their importance, but I just know that for my own mental and spiritual health, I can only take so much. I'm a news junkie, and often you can find me with my nose buried in my phone scrolling through the latest headlines. Yet, I have realized I'm also sensitive to the negativity and hyper partisanship of our times. I tend to soak it up like a sponge, and there is a spiritual cost to carrying a sack of outrage through one's days.
I believe Christians must be involved in the political process of our culture, but I think how we go about it matters more than anything. I think the "how" is especially important for progressive/liberal Christians, because it is so easy to remain in a state of reaction to the Religious Right without offering anything positive in return. Furthermore, because we who are Christian and liberal/progressive can too easily in our determination to not repeat the sins of the Religious Right simply disregard how our faith impacts our politics altogether. So as not to be perceived as connected with hatemongers like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and so on we cede the entire religious dimension of politics to them as if our own progressive faith has nothing to offer.
The Religious Right has its roots in the 1970's with Jerry Falwell's so-called Moral Majority and was followed in the 80's and 90's by the Christian Coalition of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson. Since I was old enough to be aware of such things, I've always assumed the hypocrisy and blatant hunger for power would result in the failure of this movement. Surely, I thought, so many well-meaning Christians would see the error of their ways and abandon such a hypocritical and power hungry movement. So far, I've been proven wrong.
Although all churches, left, right and center, are declining in numbers, the steepest decline of all has been among liberal/progressive Protestant churches. This past September, an article ran in The Atlantic about the secularization of America over the last three decades. The result of the Religious Right's efforts has been for liberal/progressive young people to abandon organized religion altogether. In other words, for younger Americans (and maybe older Americans too) to be progressive is to be secular (or at least unaffiliated with organized religion). I've always thought that the sins of the Religious Right would drive progressive-leaning Christians to churches like ours, but they have left their conservative evangelical churches and never gone back to any church at all (at least not yet).
So what's a Progressive Christian to do about being involved with politics? Is the only answer to leave your faith at the door when you volunteer to help a progressive political campaign?
A common tactic I've seen repeated again and again in my lifetime is to attempt to create a "Religious Left" to counter the Religious Right. I confess to being cynical about such efforts. I've watched such movements come and go over the years. Jim Wallis from Sojourners led such a movement with his book "God's Politics" during the George W. Bush years. After that came Red Letter Christians, so named because they claimed to be following the words of Jesus (which are printed in red in the King James Bibles of fundamentalists) rather than a right-wing ideology. The most recent incarnation seems to be one called Vote Common Good.
I found out about Vote Common Good by listening to an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour where one of its founders, Doug Padgitt was interviewed. I've met Padgitt and respect him. He led workshops at one of our Missouri Mid-South Conference UCC meetings a few years back. I have some of his books on change in the church, and unlike most stuff in that category of books, I actually like his stuff. Yet, this new thing sounds to me like something that has already been tried and found wanting. Though Padgit, like the other efforts before his own, claims, I think sincerely, that their goal is to move beyond the right-left dichotomy, I just don't see anybody budging on the Religious Right side of the equation. If someone picks candidates based on their beliefs that abortion under all circumstances is murder and anything other than conservative gender roles and sexuality is a threat to civilization, then they don't seem likely to care much about the common good.
I don't have an answer to progressives leaving organized religion, and I don't think anyone else does either. Yet, in the face of such a shift in culture, I maintain that the life and teachings of Jesus Christ profoundly shape my progressive politics. I believe loving God and loving my neighbor means working for the common good of everyone, especially those who are disenfranchised from sharing power and wealth like ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ people and so many others. I'm up for working with anyone who shares those goals whether or not they share my religious beliefs. Most of all, I believe one can be Christian and progressive without having to choose between them.
At heart, despite the cynicism I may espouse, I am really an optimist and an idealist. I believe progressive Christianity isn't dying but rather God is transforming it into something we have not seen before. We may experience pain and grief as the ways of doing church we have known die and become things of the past, but God always creates new life.
At the top of this post, I inserted a picture from the great cathedral, the Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, Turkey. The great mural inside shows Christ in the garb of a Roman Emperor with the earthly emperor and empress to ether side of him. In this picture, there is no daylight between the government and Christ. That cathedral today is a museum, and on my sabbatical I saw the ruins of cathedrals, churches and monasteries from one end of Europe to the other. The tension over Christianity's relationship with power has existed since the beginning of the religion. During his ministry, Paul told the readers of his Letter to the Romans to obey earthly authorities, but half a century later, the book of Revelation calls Rome the Whore of Babylon. A few centuries later, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, but a millennium later reformers would question the equation of church and state. Throughout Christian history, God has always transformed the church and raised up voices who challenged the church's lust for earthly power bringing new life into a hypocritical religion. God always raises up people to be prophets who reject Christ being made into the image of an earthly ruler. If the past is any guide, God will do the same in our future. The question for us in the uncertain present is do we have enough faith in God and one another to stick it out until that future occurs?
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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