Rise of the Christian left: Why the religious right’s moment may be ending

[bananas]

http://www.salon.com/2014/07/21/rise_of_the_christian_left_why_the_religious_rights_moment_may_be_ending/

Rise of the Christian left: Why the religious right’s moment may be ending

From Pope Francis to a generation with new priorities, the finest Christian traditions are being reinvigorated

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
Monday, Jul 21, 2014 04:45 AM PST

It’s hard to tell if the near-constant stream of millennial-centric political think-pieces are perpetuating or reflecting growing curmudgeonly fears about the future of the country. Maybe it’s a little of both, and Fox is probably observing within its competency when it pegs more than a handful of us as “deluded narcissists” – but it appears there’s room for some political optimism among all the moral panic and the reign of the religious right. With millennial religious and political attitudes in flux compared to our predecessors, the upcoming years could be the Christian left’s big moment.

Which isn’t to say the United States has no Christian left history — with Civil Rights and the heyday of Catholic labor in our past, there is healthy precedent — but for the millennial growing up in the age of Jesus Camp and ‘Teach the Controversy’, Christian political activity has almost always veered rightward. Yet if the Culture Wars are losing momentum in light of issues like unemployment — which 76% of millennials identified as a critical issue in a 2012 Public Religion Research Institute survey, compared with 22% who found abortion or same sex marriage critical — how will Christian millennials fall out politically?

One thing seems clear: however they align themselves, it won’t be along typical partisan lines. A recent Reason-Rupe poll of young Americans found millennials to be, in the words of Nick Gillespie, tired of “partisan crap,” which more or less covers it. The Reason-Rupe findings track well with the 2012 PRRI results linked above, which concluded that 45% of young people identify as independent, with only 33% calling themselves Democrats, and 23% Republican. While Reason-Rupe concludes its report hoping millennials’ anti-partisan tendencies will eventually lead them to a kind of libertarianism — socially liberal and fiscally conservative — as it stands, the young favor a variety of policies that tend to the economic left, with majorities generally favoring government guaranteed living wages, health insurance and food and shelter. Nonetheless, roughly a quarter consider themselves some kind of social conservative, and 40% call themselves socially liberal, with the remainder suspended somewhere in the murky middle.

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[whatthehey]

1. yeah, sure

let me know when Spong and Wallis and Robinson get a tenth of the media bandwidth of Robertson and Fischer and Warren

And all Frankie Photo-Op is reinvigorating is the same centuries old homophobia and misogyny. Driving a crap car and washing feet does what to change church policy and doctrine again?

[Doctor_J]

2. As soon as the Religious Left has 3-4 radio stations in every square inch of the US,

broadcasting political propaganda 24/7, I'll believe it.

[Paul Edward Snyder]

3. Delusions

Last edited Thu Aug 21, 2014, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Narcissism is an obsession with oneself. By focusing on the results of obsession, we are distracted from the cause, and as a result are unable to clearly see the real problem – obsession, a tendency to which we are all susceptible and which many who are aware of this vulnerability are more than willing to use to exploit those who yield to it.

The most common and effective tool for fanning the flames of obsession is fear, and following close behind is hatred, but there are countless other stimulants; ideology, religion, causes, loyalty, (even patriotism, family, community, city, state can become obsessive), all commendable in moderation, but potentially destructive of ones self and others should they become obsessive.

Obsession is often confused with commitment. In fact obsession often begins with commitment. You might say that it is at times commitment out of control. And it is not limited to the Christian right, nor is it limited to the Church or to any other religion nor even to religion in general. It seems to lurk in the background of all of us, but there seems to be those who just naturally obsess about something and everything. Those are the ones who at the moment dominate the Republican Party. And there was a time, in the late thirties and early forties, when they had a huge influence on the Democratic Party.

The amusing and somewhat sad fact is that Conservative Republicans deliberately recruited these fanatics, financed them, trained them as organizers and sent them into the mainstream churches and other civic organizations to challenge just about everything loudly (to overwhelm or stifle with sheer noise more thoughtful responses) and repetitively (to evangelize a paranoid view of the world). The assumption was that the Party Leaders could control those with extreme views and win their support for the largess of their Republican benefactors. They failed to realize that fanatics will trample friend and foe alike should they impede their blind, stumbling progress down their delusional path..

Republicans never imagined that these obsessive radicals (This is the term used by Republicans to vilify Liberals, and it is very effective, because at one time this was pretty much what many Liberals were. It is also interesting that much of Republican Rhetoric is the same as much of the rhetoric of Democrats in the distant past, almost as if the obsessive radicals who besmirched the reputation of the Liberals of one era have renamed themselves Conservatives and are now besmirching the reputation of the Republican Party in this era) would prove ungovernable.

The remnants of those of true Conservative inclination, and of Republicans who remember their past with pride, are now in an uncomfortable position. In order to save the Republican Party from extinction they must vote secretly a straight Democratic ticket in this next election (but just this next election).