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August 31, 2007
IMPERIAL POLITICS, CHRISTIANITY, AND THE TRUE JESUS
Posted by Jesus Politics
David Korten, known for his bestseller, "When Corporations Rule the World", also has said some interesting things about Christianity and politics. Korten gave these remarks in 2004 after the election, but they are still relevant today. Some excerpts:
We meet here tonight with an awareness brought home by the events of the election last week that a particular segment of America's Christian faith community has moved to the center stage of American politics and is indeed reshaping America and its role in the world. Unfortunately, however, rather than advancing a vision of a world of justice, peace, and love for God's Creation, it is serving a political agenda sharply at odds with the moral teachings of Jesus. [ ]
Let's start with a crucial fact. Apart from members of the corporate plutocracy, most Bush voters did not vote their economic self-interest. Pundits say they voted their moral values. Actually, I suggest they voted their psychology: their longing for meaning, identity, and community in a world of family and community breakdown. Demagogues of the far right have turned this positive and healthy longing against feminists, gays, and lesbians as the scapegoats for a very real crisis caused by a brutally unjust economy in which a growing percentage of available jobs pay less than a family wage and offer no benefits.
For the media to suggest that only Bush voters were voting their moral values is surely quite odd. Economic justice is a moral issue. Leaving trillions of dollars of debt to our children to repay is a moral issue. Destroying God's creation to make money for rich people is a moral issue. Killing tens of thousands of innocent people for a lie is a moral issue. These are all moral issues at the heart of Christian teaching. Perhaps we should say so in our public discourse. [ ]
Since the early 1970s, a dedicated alliance of corporate plutocrats and religious theocrats has been laying the foundation of their takeover of U.S. political institutions by building a powerful network of right-wing think tanks, media outlets, and churches. The think tanks frame the language and the stories of the public discourse. The media outlets and churches disseminate the language and the stories. And the churches turn out voters. This infrastructure has proven a powerful vehicle for advancing a Politics of Empire based on division, fear, manipulation, and domination. It is a bullying politics reminiscent of a childish playground brawl that substitutes name-calling and character assassination for problem-solving and undermines the credibility of our political institutions. The challenge before us is to displace the politics of Empire with the politics of Earth Community based on inclusion, possibility, and partnership -- an authentic values-based, problem-solving politics of mature adulthood consistent with the moral teachings of Jesus.
We humans long for spiritual meaning. But the only voices most people hear speaking about values and spirit in the public discourse are those of the Far Right. Virtually every progressive leader I know is working from a deeply spiritual place, but we rarely speak openly in our environmental, peace, and justice work of values or the sacred. The time has come for the nation's mainstream churches to come out of the closet and speak publicly of values and the spiritual foundations of the progressive agenda and to articulate spiritually grounded stories of human possibility and the world that the living Jesus called us to create.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 07:09 PM | Comments (1)
August 24, 2007
Evangelicals Go Green
Posted by Jesus Politics
It is good to see a mainstream news outlet publish a thorough story about the emerging environmental conscience in the evangelical movement. Be sure to read this story at ABC News. It begins with this:
Nearly one-quarter of the nation's voters are evangelical Christians, and since the 1980s most of them have endorsed Republican candidates. They helped elect President George Bush to a second term, constituting more than one-third of his votes in 2004.
But today some evangelicals are saying their votes can't be taken for granted. Looking beyond traditional litmus test issues such as abortion or gay marriage, some young Christians say they are no longer calling themselves Republican.
"I'm ashamed to say it. ... I had a yard sign for 'Bush-Cheney 2000.' I was really going for those guys," said Brandon Rhodes, a 23-year-old graduate student at the Multnomah Biblical Seminary and an evangelical Christian.
Rhodes, who considers himself part of the emerging church, said he and his peers are rejecting an individualistic "Marlboro Man spirituality" in favor of a more inclusive faith. "Whereas maybe the fundamentalist in 1980 said, 'We can't do social programs for the poor&that sounds like communism,' this generation is like, 'So what?' If it's the right thing to do, we have to do it," he said. "It's politically ambidextrous."
This newfound communal faith doesn't just include people, but the environment as well.
"The first time I broke ranks with the right it was about the environment," Rhodes said. "What good was it to the unborn if my Republican votes saved them from the abortion clinics, only to deliver them into a resource-scraped world of want, devoid of wild places?"
Posted by Jesus Politics at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2007
US Sen. Sanders: Fox News Pushing for Iran War
Posted by Faithful Progressive
Things are getting very serious in the drum beat for an un-winnable and immoral war with Iran. This is something we all have to stay active on. Here are two excellent places to start: StopIran War.com includes many Iraq war Vets and is led by Gen. Wes Clark. Contact the media and tell them to be more skeptical here.
c/o NY Sun:
Fox Is Pushing For Iran War, Senator Says
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
August 23, 2007
Senator Sanders of Vermont is backing a campaign to warn Americans that Fox News is using jingoistic programming to push the nation into a military attack on Iran. Mr. Sanders, a self-described socialist who caucuses with the Democrats, joined with a liberal filmmaker yesterday to denounce the popular cable channel for leading a drumbeat in favor of a military strike against Tehran.
"The leader of that effort is Fox News, which, in many ways, is a propaganda machine," Mr. Sanders said during a conference call with reporters and bloggers. He said the network was echoing "increased rumblings" from President Bush and Vice President Cheney about the prospect of an attack on Iran.
"We have got to put pressure on the mass media not to play the same craven role that they played in Iraq, where they essentially collapsed and became a megaphone for Bush's policies," the senator said.
The call was arranged by Robert Greenwald, who skewered Fox for conservative bias in his 2004 film, "Outfoxed." He released a Web video yesterday juxtaposing stark warnings the network offered recently about Iran with similar clips about Iraq before and after the American-led invasion in 2003.
c/o Think Progress: Bolton: I ‘Absolutely’ Hope The U.S. Will Attack Iran In The Next ‘Six Months’
Yesterday, Raw Story pointed out that former CIA operative Bob Baer told Fox News that the Bush administration will likely attack Iran in the coming months. “Iran policy is on close hold, but the feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard corps sometime next six months or so,” said Baer.
Today, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton appeared on Fox News and responded. He said that while he couldn’t confirm Baer’s statements, he “absolutely” hoped they were true:
HEMMER: One final step here, too, that I want to take with you. You told one of our producers earlier today that you don’t know if it’s true — and you’ve made that clear in our interview here, that you don’t know what the odds are or are not against that — but you hope it’s true. Why do you hope it’s true?
BOLTON: Absolutely. I hope Iran understands that we are very serious, that we are determined they are not going to get a nuclear weapon capability, and unless they change the strategic decision they’ve been pursuing for close to 20 years, that that’s something they better factor into their calculations.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2007
Why Do All New Atheists Support Torturing Tibetan Buddhists and Killing Endangered Tigers?
Posted by Faithful Progressive
The oppression of Buddhists in Tibet was back in the news today, in this interesting NY Times piece detailing a subtle protest by Tibetans against draconian new restrictions on Buddhist lamas and religious freedom.
But, if I approached this story with all of the nuance of a New Atheist, I would have to conclude as follows: once again, moderate and progressive new atheists are secretly at fault because they assume that the Atheist viewpoint is entitled to automatic respect, when we all know that deep down, all new atheists love to torture Buddhist monks and nuns-- and to wear endangered tiger skins into the bargain. (That's right, the Chinese Government ordered Tibetans to wear animal skins and fur--because the Dalia Lama, who is sensitive to endangered animal issues, opposes their use in religious and cultural ceremonies.)
If I reasoned like a bestselling New Atheist, I'd have to say something profound and "reasonable" like: "The very ideal of aggressively pursuing a world without religious belief--born of the notion that no person can choose for themselves whether (or to what extent) they want to believe--is one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss." If pressed for proof, I would say something pithy like: "After all, the new atheist Christopher Hitchens has diminished the harm of torture at Abu Ghraib, and the atheist Chinese torture Buddhist monks, and besides, what about those endangered tiger skins?"
If I "reasoned" like a New Atheist...but I don't. So the answer to the the headline's question is: they don't. Not directly, not indirectly by some mystical connection known only to Sam Harris. People are judged by the content of their character, their choices in the face of history, and not by the color of their personal viewpoints.
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 02:19 AM | Comments (2)
August 10, 2007
Take Action on Children's Health Care Coverage
Posted by Faithful Progressive
Coalition on Human Needs:
YOUR WORK ON CHILDREN'S HEALTH PAID OFF!
LETS KEEP IT UP . . .
Thanks to your calls to Congress & our collective efforts we earned a major victory for children's health. Last week, before going on recess, the House and Senate each passed separate bills to renew the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Both bills commit additional funding for the program over five years and ensure that millions more children will have access to health care.
But our work is not over. The President has threatened to veto these bills and send millions of children to the ranks of the uninsured. We must keep this from happening by securing enough Congressional support to override a veto and by convincing the President that providing children health insurance is the right thing to do.
Build support for SCHIP and send a strong message to our leaders on children's health:
Sign an SEIU petition to Congress requesting full funding for children's health.
Join First Focus' letter writing campaign directed to the First Lady Laura Bush
Posted by Faithful Progressive at 02:49 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2007
Faith-based Politics
Posted by Jesus Politics
How should progressive Christians get involved with politics? The Christian Century magazine has published an interesting debate between Jan Linn and Jim Wallis.
An excerpt from Jan Linn:
That Republican strategist Karl Rove has pandered to the religious right is not a reason for his opponents to do their own pandering. I say this not to disparage the integrity of the candidates, but to name the nature of the game they are playing.
I was among those Christians who reacted to the Christian right by joining "People of Faith for Kerry." Our group met weekly, bought ads in newspapers across the state voicing our support for Kerry as Christians, and had T-shirts made that carried our message. I spent a large portion of my day at the Minnesota State Fair talking to people who stopped me because of the T-shirt I was wearing.
Looking back, I see this as a colossal blunder. I was committed to making a public statement that Christians could in fact be Democrats. But like members of the Christian right, we were aligning ourselves with partisan politics, leaving us vulnerable to the charge that what we believed in as Christians was nothing more than partisan politics. We ignored the fact that liberal politicians use religion to their political advantage just as conservatives do. The goal of the Kerry campaign in creating People of Faith for Kerry was to elect John Kerry. That, after all, is what political campaigns do.
Posted by Jesus Politics at 04:13 AM | Comments (0)
