Loconte on the Religious Left

Peter Edman

Moderator Joe Loconte has an article in the Wall Street Journal for 1 July 2005 on the latest resurgence of politically liberal Christians. 

In “From Gospel to Government,” Loconte discusses the current “Christian Alliance for Progress” and gives some context from recent history.

It proffers an agenda “founded firmly on the teachings of the Gospel.” Some students of the Gospel may be surprised at how neatly such an agenda fits the Democratic Party platform . . .

They can at least be comforted that they are not alone—the sermon from Tom Wright I linked to earlier included comments that in the UK, the people pushing for religion in public life are more on the left.

Loconte helps me articulate something I’ve been struggling with for a few weeks now: 

A final weakness of Christian progressives is one shared by some Christian conservatives: the impulse to leap directly from the Bible to contemporary politics. . . .

In all of it, there is little room for political philosophy, or civil society, or even an appreciation of the different roles of church and state. Whatever the argument--whether it’s a big government approach to poverty or a pacifist stance on terrorism--Bible verses are at the ready. Call it fundamentalism from the left.

And that seems to be a large part of the problem. Peace in the Middle East, to take an example not at random, is all well and good, but where is the prudential argumentation on how to achieve it? Martin Peretz at The New Republic has some well-deserved and extremely pointed criticism of the latest Anglican initiative in that region, which, he notes, “ignores so many facts that it boggles the mind.”

Granted this is difficult, but the response to one fundamentalism is not a different kind of fundamentalism—nor is it secularism. Wright’s sermon helps point in the right direction. But it looks, to put it mildly, like we’ve still got work to do here. 

Sightings, Faiths and Worldviews, Public Square, Thu 30 Jun 2005