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AlterNet has an article and a downloadable podcast by George Lakoff about how moral and spiritual beliefs affect political beliefs and actions:

As part of Tikkun’s Spiritual Activism Conference in Berkeley yesterday, UC Berkeley psychology professor George Lakoff spoke to the nearly 1,200 attendees about moral politics, spiritual beliefs, and some of the fundamental differences between right-wing and left-wing politics.

“Lots of people are partial progressives, and those are people that we can talk to,” Lakoff told the conference. He continued:

“The way to talk to them is to find out what they share with you, that is, what the nurturing parts of their lives are. What’s particularly interesting is communities. In the red states -- I lived in the midwest for 4 1/2 years -- one of the most striking things to me was Midwestern communities. They were nurturing communities. They were communities where they had leaders who cared about members of those communities, where people cared about each other, where there were projections of the nurturant family on the communities. And that’s always a place to start conversations, if you want to talk about values.”

Lakoff went on to talk about progressive Christianity versus conservative Christianity, and how that too is informing not only today’s politics, but also many of our past struggles, including the anti-slavery movement, women’s suffrage and the fight for civil rights.

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Common Dreams has a great essay which reminds us how far from Jesus' teachings the 'righteous' Right has strayed:

A Voice from the Christian Left
By Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Among those who are mournful and angry about the outcome of this election, doubtful about the integrity of the process, and opposed to the neoconservative agenda are Christians who believe the name of Christ is being pressed into service to market a political agenda impossible to align with the ethics, mission, or character of Jesus. Here are some of the identifying features of that agenda: -- suppression of authentic diversity and debate in the name of “unity” -- fearmongering and secret surveillance in the name of “safety” -- wanton military aggression in the name of “liberation” -- triumphalist rewriting of recent history to justify unprecedented economic imperialism -- use of religious language to persuade a poorly informed public to accept political control by the few -- literalistic and selective use of biblical texts to legitimate that control -- sale of government to big business to consolidate that control -- sloganeering, anti-intellectualism, and oversimplification to forestall reflection, analysis, and debate -- expropriation of public media to insure the success of all the above.( Read more... )

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Religious Right Watch does an interesting comparison of what Christ asks of his followers, and what the Religious Right asks:

The least Jesus asks is not what the Religious Right asks

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-46, Jesus tells a parable in which admittance to heaven depends on a person's demonstrated ability to have done six things in life:

1) Fed the hungry
2) Gave drink to the thirsty
3) Welcomed the stranger
4) Clothed the naked
5) Cared for the sick
6) Visited prisoners

Listening to the typical conservative evangelical or, especially, Fundamentalist sermon in 10,000's of churches in America, you would seldom get the sense that Jesus will care more about the above than he will that you:

1) Remained a virgin until your wedding night
2) Supported pro-Israel foreign policy on the belief that Israel basically can't do anything wrong
3) Refrained from ever touching a member of the same sex in any but an utterly chaste manner
4) Voted for "Godly," "Bible-believing," or "values" candidates--i.e. Republicans per the Religious Right's definitions of "Godly," "Bible-believing," or "values"
5) Believed that Jesus would be returning in the sky soon, quite possibly within your lifetime
6) Kept yourself and your children from listening to "secular" music or viewing "secular" films or TV

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From AlterNet: Even conservative Christian Republicans are alarmed at the triumphalism of the Dominionists.

The Wages of Intolerance
By Marci Hamilton, AlterNet

Posted on July 12, 2005, Printed on July 12, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/23468/

The immediate reaction to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation was so strident from both sides that the President has asked everyone to tone it down. Senate leaders are also asking groups to be more cordial. The problem with silence, though, is that we need to know what agendas are out there, and one of the cardinal problems in American politics is that too many times religious political pressure happens behind closed doors.

Before the calls for civility, though, plenty of groups were able to show their hands in this emotional debate over who to choose to replace Justice O'Connor, a moderate Goldwater Republican. Litmus tests abound, with conservative evangelical Christians claiming an entitlement to have a Supreme Court appointee who reflects their singular religious values. In the end, the President simply cannot choose a Justice based on their religious criteria.( Read more... )

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Z Magazine has an article about the NYC conference about the Christian Right:

Taking on the Christian Right
By Susan Chenelle


Less than a week after religious conservatives held “Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith,” a nationally televised rally featuring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in Louisville, Kentucky, more than 500 activists, academics, clergy, journalists and other concerned individuals gathered in New York for a conference called “Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right.” ( Read more... )

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This was to be expected: after the launch of the Christian Alliance for Progress (on the links list at left), the World Net Daily has decided that because they are 'leftist', they're not "Christian" enough.

The Christian Alliance for Progress describes its as "progressive," but its leaders' so-called broad-minded efforts toward tolerance have blinded them to how the Bible instructs us to live.

Finally, the Alliance calls for peace and an end to war, but they cannot understand that the only true peace that man can know comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He was not a hippie do-gooder, but rather the Son of the Living God who came to Earth to pave the one way to heaven for mankind. To present Him as anything less is an outrage.

Dr. Ed Hindson, renowned theologian and Liberty University professor, writing in the August issue of National Liberty Journal, stated: "If liberals want to debate these issues on biblical grounds, let them go right ahead. Because they will lose, not only the debate, but also any influence they might hope to have among spiritually minded people. They are correct when they insist we do not speak for them, and they certainly don't speak for us. Their new Alliance for Progress will simply result in one more organization in regress."

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The Slactivist talks about why the "Left Behind" series are the worst books ever written:

When we were first putting together the Evangelical Environmental Network, I was kind of jealous of our partners forming similar groups among Catholics, mainline Protestants and Jewish congregations. They all had structures to work with. Those groups had organizations and hierarchies that allowed our partners to quickly and officially establish legitimacy with the constituencies they were trying to reach.

Evangelicals have no such structures. Instead of church polity, we have a marketplace. Influence and authority are not determined by tradition, by hierarchy, by spiritual discernment or democratic election embodying collective wisdom. Instead, they are determined by book sales, TV ratings, fund-raising acumen, and how many radio stations one owns.

This is a hell of a way to run a church.

Some of these market mechanisms can, I suppose, be passable proxies for a democratic form of church governance. Take for example the recent rise to national prominence of the Rev. Rick Warren. One could argue that the success of his book, The Purpose-Driven LIfe, represents the wisdom of the people -- that the body of believers has voted with their dollars to elect Warren as a pseudo-bishop in our market-driven church. But this kind of "election" usually has more to do with the flim-flammery of marketing than it does with the will of the Holy Spirit. I'd trust the system more if we just cast lots like the early church did in selecting a replacement for Judas.

This market-driven ecclesiology gets more disturbing the more you learn about the cynical, pragmatic outlook of groups like the NRB and the CBA. That would be the National Religious Broadcasters and the Christian Booksellers Association (although books account for less than a fifth of their sales). Think of them as our colleges of pseudo-cardinals, or the pseudo-archbishops who with their money and marketing appoint our pseudo-bishops.

This is part of what frightens and angers me about the phenomenal popularity of the Worst Books Ever Written. LaHaye and Jenkins are spreading their political agenda and worldview -- their triumphalist, Jonah-like delight in the damnation of their enemies, their sociopathic lack of empathy -- and the popularity of this agenda in turn lends it a kind of spiritual authority. And that is part of why this quixotic, elliptical-but-thorough assault on these awful books means more to me than simply a diverting way to spend my Fridays.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gothic_oreo)

How to be a Pro-choice Christian

“The Christian Left” are three words that go together as well as “Hillary and evangelical.” If you have ever scratched your pro-life head and pondered, "How can millions of professing Christians be pro-choice?” I would like to answer that question in an effort to keep you from exploding the next time you site a “Jesus was a Liberal” bumber sticker.
( Read more... )

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The blog Lieter Reports has a downloadable (.doc file) of 95 theses of the Religious Right written by philosopher Peter Ludlow. An excerpt:

Here's something you may not have known or suspected. When I grew up my family went to a conservative Christian church and I subsequently went to a Swedish Baptist college in Minnesota. I recently went back to my home town and was sickened by what became of the family church over the last 20 years. The received view is that the conservative christians have taken over the Republican Party. I think the reverse happened. The right wing of the Republican Party has taken over the church. Nothing could be more clear to me. In a fit of revulsion, and with a nod to Marty Luther, I wrote up the following 95 theses on the relighous right: Download ludlows_95_theses_on_the_religious_right.doc In lieu of nailing it to the door of the Wittenburg Church I'm sending it to you instead. Not exactly the same thing, I realize. I'm not saying I'm a believer and I'm not saying I'm not, but I am saying that what has happened to the fundamentalist church is revolting.

Professor Ludlow invites readers to redistribute it as widely as they'd like.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY kalibex)

The Moderate Christians Strike Back

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Thought you might be interested.

A mainstream voice to counter the Religious Right in Texas

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This NYT op-ed reminds us that there's a sleeping giant of moderate Christians who are stirring awake:

Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH
June 17, 2005

St. Louis

IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.

It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.( Read more... )

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Chuck Currie talks about an attempt by fundementalists to creedify this progressive and currently creedless church:

United Church Of Christ Will Consider Fundamentalist-backed Resolution Concerning Jesus

In the coming weeks you’ll read a lot about the United Church of Christ in the media. Our General Synod begins July 1st in Atlanta and many of the issues considered will be difficult and controversial. I’ve written about several of those issues – including gay marriage and divestment from companies that profit from the occupation of Palestine. But there are other issues that will also cause a stir in the media and among critics of the UCC in the religious right.

One headline you’ll likely see will read something like:

United Church of Christ Rejects Divinity of Jesus

***

A small group of UCC members are pushing a resolution declaring support for the divinity of Jesus. The resolution reads in part:

The greatest issue facing our denomination is whether or not to acknowledge the Lordship and divinity of Jesus, which is the most basic of all Christian teachings. A pastor or church cannot deny the divinity of Jesus and claim to be Christian. Our status as a Christian denomination and our loyalty to Jesus as Lord needs to be clarified since it is well known that there are UCC pastors and churches that do not adhere to the Lordship and divinity of Jesus, so much so in fact that the UCC is often referred to as “Unitarians Considering Christ.” It is highly detrimental to the health and growth of UCC churches and extremely embarrassing for UCC pastors and members to be viewed as non-Christians. This resolution provides us with the opportunity to vigorously dispel any notions that we allow non-Christian and/or anti-Christian doctrines, while at the same time providing us the opportunity to boldly declare and celebrate that we are indeed a Christian denomination requiring that all of our pastors and churches adhere to the most essential, indispensable Christian doctrine of all, namely that Jesus is Lord.

What the backers of this resolution are actually after is a fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture and it is true that such an interpretation is widely rejected in our denomination. The UCC is also not a creedal or doctrinal church.

The United Church of Christ embraces a theological heritage that affirms the Bible as the authoritative witness to the Word of God, the creeds of the ecumenical councils, and the confessions of the Reformation. The UCC has roots in the "covenantal" tradition—meaning there is no centralized authority or hierarchy that can impose any doctrine or form of worship on its members. Christ alone is Head of the church. We seek a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the apostolic faith. The UCC therefore receives the historic creeds and confessions of our ancestors as testimonies, but not tests of the faith.

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Reconstructionist crusaders don't fool God

THE LAST WORD
By Ole Anthony & Skippy R.
Issue #162 January/February 1999

King John of England made an unusual request on his deathbed.

John, an unsavory character, even for medieval royalty, had amassed a fortune in other people's gold. Yet he was so stingy that he allowed his wife only two dresses and a cape, while he dressed in finery and had jewels stitched onto his riding gloves.

His greedy land grabs made the barons so mad they forced him to sign the Magna Carta, forever limiting royal power. For a time he was excommunicated by the Church. Needless to say, the guy didn't have many friends.

As his life drew to a close, tradition says, he asked his attendants to dress him in a white crusader's tunic emblazoned with a red cross, in hopes of tricking St. Peter and sneaking into heaven incognito.

No doubt the ruse failed.

But a similar plan is alive among Reconstructionist Christians and other groups working for a "return to America's Christian heritage."
Their plan is to camouflage the whole United States of America and smuggle it into the Kingdom of God – all 50 states, from sea to shining sea, everything – including New Jersey and Congress – even our offshore oil rights and the interstate highway system.( Read more... )

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"My Thoughts, exactly" has an entry about how, even though he teaches Sunday School, he isn't really a Christian:

I then paused (yeah, for effect) and then announced to the class that I am not a Christian. I told them I knew they must be shocked since I was a Sunday School teacher and I desperately want to be in the ministry full-time, but I simply was not a Christian (again, a pause for effect). The term “Christian is used three times in Scripture (see here, here, and here). The context of each of these uses indicates that the name “Christian” was applied and therefore defined by those who were not “Christians”. In other words, non-Christians define what it means to be a Christian. At this, some in my class gave me knowing looks as if they knew where I was headed. After my dramatic pause, I told them that to be a Christian in America means four things. A Christian is one who (1) opposes gay marriage, (2) opposes abortion, (3) is pro-war, and (4) is Republican. I then proceeded to shock the class even more by announcing that I could not be a Christian because I am not a Republican.

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I found another interesting progressive Christian blog that I think you might enjoy:

Off The Beaten Track

And the Occult Investigator steps in with a scriptural challenge.

"19 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil."

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY multiclassgeek)

'Lo all!

Just found my way here via a discussion on a friend's LJ, and I've got to say that I'm impressed.

Most communities of this sort, in my experience, tend to swing one way or the other, and thus descend into Troll Wars - As the Community Abstract states, that's not the way here.

So, now, I have a question... How many people here would consider themselves to be a Non-Dominionist Christian? Because I look at all the crap that's going down in the US, and I just can't see how it has any connection to the faith I follow. It boggles the mind, it really does.

Oh, I won't deny that the Dominionists are entirely wrong; it's just that they've gone OTT, and lost the plot.

Side-note: Biblical scholars, particularly, might be interested to note the fact that the only time Jesus ever condoned violence was when he overturned the Temple trader's tables... Which was him making the point about how people at the time had become so tied up in The Rules And Regulations (specifically, their own small-minded interpretation of the aforementioned rules) that they'd missed the Bigger Picture. Sound familiar? It's why I've taken to referring to the Extreme Religious Right as "Neo-Pharisees"

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Although the church-state situation is grim and getting grimmer (especially if the Senate Republicans trigger the nuclear optionConstitutional option, there are Christians who are still practicing what Jesus preached. Here are a couple of sites where they do:

Jesus on the Family
The Wittenburg Door

I want to see if Barns & Yarns has the latest issue of the magazine- there are some articles in the current issue that look quite interesting: "Why should you spend four years and $100,000 when Jesus will probably return before you graduate?" and "Christian Bookstore Survival Tips: Be careful around the ceramic baby Jesuses. Breaking one is bad karma."

Yep, levelheaded and humorous, too!

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"One-third of the professors at an evangelical Christian college in Grand Rapids, Mich., are taking out a large ad in a local newspaper Saturday to protest President Bush's commencement speech..."

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There is an ongoing forum about Spiritual Progressives that has a great many interesting topics under the 'religion' category. One of them asks if we should treat Right Wing Religion as an addiction. It's a fascinating discussion.

An excerpt:

"Treat Right Wing Religion as an Addiction"
Religion Professor Says

(Kansas City, MO) In his latest national monthly column, Dr. Robert N. Minor, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, charges that much of the religious right wing is addicted to their religion. "Dealing with the right-wing's religious/political lifestyle and its evangelistic agenda," says Minor, "is like dealing with an alcoholic or hard drug user."

"Like all addictions, when right-wing religion dominates one's life obsessively, it tells people how to feel rather than getting in touch with their real problems," says Minor. "It also prevents the addicts from understanding the harm they are doing to those around them."

Minor advises readers in his "Minor Details" column that "no matter how hard this might be to accept, strategies that try to embrace, excuse, or move toward the religious right-wing are the actions of enablers." Enabling is a common response by family members to addicts that reinforces their addiction.

"While addicts are expected to be in denial about their addiction, creating a mythological view of the world to maintain it and 'protecting their stash,'" Minor said in an interview about his column, "enablers are the ones making excuses, arguing with the addict, covering up for their addiction, and refusing to do the unpopular, confrontational work of intervention."