From left, religious figures make a push

[Rose Siding]

Liberal religious figures, concerned about broad moral issues such as world poverty as well as the perception that ''moral values" helped win the election for President Bush, are stepping up their organizational efforts to support left-leaning candidates and their causes to prepare for the 2006 midterms and the 2008 presidential election.

For some, the goal is to recruit Democratic candidates who, like Bush, seem comfortable talking about their faith and its role in making public policy. But for others, the aim is to challenge Republicans who -- opponents say -- favor narrowing debate about religious values and ethics to hot-button issues such as abortion, while ignoring church views on the death penalty or broader moral questions such as responding to the world AIDS epidemic and a US economy increasingly reliant on low-wage labor from abroad.
..........
''The religious right has been effectively organizing for 35 years, and as I always say, it took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of the wilderness, and it's going to take us a few years more to catch up," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA and a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania.

Edgar is part of a group that holds a conference call each Thursday to discuss the liberal response to national and world affairs, a telephonic gathering convened last year in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq.

''While we didn't stop the war, we began to talk and work cooperatively together," he said.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/11/27/from_left_religious_figures_make_a_push/

[The Zanti Regent]

1. Thanks for Nothing, Bob Edgar!

You left Pennsylvania when we needed you the most and ran away. Why????

[Joy Anne]

24. Edgar

He was a Democrat winning congressional races by a whisker in the Republican suburbs of Philadelphia. Maybe 15 years ago, he either was gerrymandered into an even less favorable district and lost his reelection bid or else ran for the Senate and lost. He's been out of elective politics for quite a few years.

[The Zanti Regent]

26. He ran a very inept campaign against Specter.

If he had only run a real campaign against Specter, instead of playing into his hands as an "ultra-liberal" we wouldn't have that incompetent whore as chairman of the Judiciary committee!

He came out to California in 1986 after he lost and he wrote a very nasty article in the LA Times about Pennsylvania. He decided to hide at the Fullerton Theological Seminary ever since.

The ineptness of Pennsylvania Democrats NEVER fails to disappoint me!

[Joy Anne]

28. Pitiful but still blue

Half our Pennsylvania Democrats are, unfortunately, to the right of Specter.

[TexasBushwhacker]

2. A day late and a dollar short, BUT

it's about time (I almost said it's about d@mn time - LOL) that the NON-EVANGELICALS spoke up about their political views. One thing I noticed:

"Wallis, who edits Sojourners magazine in addition to leading Call to Renewal, said the most urgent challenge for Democrats is to open up about their moral values, as well as their faith, where appropriate. Wallis said abortion offers one such opportunity.

''They say, 'Keep abortion safe, legal, and rare,' but they do nothing but try to keep it legal; they do nothing to make it rare," he said. ''The Democrats ought to say, 'Let's work on reducing abortion rates, adoption reform, helping low-income women.' We could work on that together, prolife and prochoice, and reduce the abortion rate in the process."

I'm sorry, but I beg to differ on this issue. It's not the Democrats that are pushing for abstinence only sex education in the schools. It's not the Democrats that refuse to fund family planning education in other countries ONLY if there is no discussion of abortion. My guess is that it's not Democrats pressuring the FDA to keep Plan B (morning after pill) a prescription drug, even though the majority of the FDA panel agrees that it is safe and effective enough to be over the counter.

[sandnsea]

5. This is just outrageous

Who signed adoption reform legislation? Clinton. Who added day care monies, after school programs, health care for pregnant women, and even fought for the increase in child tax credit? Clinton and Democrats. I hate when people do this shit. Are they just stupid, what is their purpose in distorting the Democratic record. I don't get it.

[yellowdogintexas]

7. hear hear!!!!

They just don't get it do they

[leQ]

10. we are the enemy, haven't you gotten the memo yet? (eom)

.

[JerseygirlCT]

13. Here's the but, but, but

if that's a perception out there (that all we're after is safeguarding legality) it's important that we fight it -- even -- especially -- if it's an incorrect perception.

This sounds crass but it's as much about how we "market" ourselves... we need to blow our own horns more about the efforts being made for adoption reform, birth control, assistance for young mothers, etc. We need to aggressively frame the debate using those things as well as the issues of privacy. We've allowed ourselves to be put onto their playing field, arguing on their terms.

[sandnsea]

15. Well hello

Wallis is supposed to be on our side, he wants to correct the perception of the Democratic Party. He's supposed to be helping blow our horn. I honestly can't believe 90% of Democrats/Liberals/Progressives/whatevers just don't know what Democrats have been doing for 10, 20, 100 years. Feminist groups complain John Kerry didn't court women. Well where were they? If they didn't know his record, they should have and they should have done whatever they could to get that information out there. One person cannot do ALL the work. They don't do it that way on the right.

I honestly don't know what it is about these Democratic hornblowers; pompous pundits who think they have nothing to say unless they're criticizing, or just stupid.

[JerseygirlCT]

21. I agree!

Obviously, there's still plenty of work to be done. And it would appear we can't allow ourselves too much luxury of assuming everyone understands how much has been done already. Sometimes repetition seems to be the only thing that works, I guess!

[w4rma]

12. You mean

fundamentalist. Not evangelical. Fundamentalism is about how the Bible is interpreted. Evangelicalism is about signing up other folks to your religion. VERY DIFFERENT TERMS.

[TexasBushwhacker]

16. Very different yes

although I don't particularly approve of either one, but point taken.

[jamesinca]

18. On Meet the Press tomorrow he is scheduled

The guy from sojourners will be on with either Swaggart or Fallwell, I forget which one. Maybe it is neither, but it is one of the religious right, moral majority, Christian coalition types. Hopefully it will be the religious right meets the religious left and the right will be exposed. A lot of potential for fireworks there.

[loudsue]

3. I hope these churches get some media time...all the wingnut churces have

their Sunday church services on teevee, but damned if they're going to allow some REAL Christian ministers any air time.

:argh: I'm sick to death of the Talibornagains in this country. They're friggin' idiots!! Throwbacks from the dark ages.

:kick::kick:

[yellowdogintexas]

6. The airtime is there if you are

(a) able to purchase it
(b) in a market that has enough non network affiliates that they have a slot to run your live service.

First United Methodist (Fort Worth TX) and First Baptist (Dallas) ..and talk about two extremes, you have no idea, unless you live here...we are about as liberal as it gets in mainstream denominations and First Baptist, is .. well..First Baptist pretty far the OTHER way.

anyway both churches were broadcast live, back to back (FUMC @ 9:30 and First Baptist @ 11:00) on Channel 11 Fort Worth for many years. Channel 11 was a BIG independent station, like WGN in Chicago, and both these broadcasts were sent out to various cable affiliates around the country. FUMC regularly received donations and "absentee" memberships from some distant cities, just because of these broadcasts. I know for a fact that many of my friends "discovered" FUMC through these broadcasts; I had no idea I could find a church home that fulfilled me until I started watching those broadcasts.

Well, Fox came along and purchased the station that WAS the CBS affiliate, leaving CBS with no home in Dallas FtWorth...so CBS comes along and purchases channel 11. Next thing you know, both the church services are looking for a new home, because the cost of doing the broadcasts skyrocketed AND channel 11 had all these network things they had to broadcast. The Baptists fell before we did, due to the football pregame shows ..(I love THAT irony)

We (FUMC) ended up on PAX for a while, through their local affiliate, live broadcast etc. Don't know what happened to First Baptist Dallas.
(don't care either).

Ultimately, we could not afford the live weekly broadcast, due to fall off in donations, loss of revenue in our trust funds and endowment etc. so now we tape the service, and the local access channel runs it three times a week, plus we are streamed live on the internet.

So the stock market drop, and other things caused us to not have the wonderful outreach we once had via TV. Our board (wisely I think,even though it hurts) decided the money needed to go to our mission, food bank, infant formula program, back to school clothes, underwriting daycare at the YWCA for kids who live in the homeless shelters, etc.

What this means is that your strong voices of reason in the religious community are not getting the exposure they once did, while the wingnuts like Benny Hinn, and Jan and Paul Crouch and all the others who bilk old ladies out of their money are owning networks and buying $5 million homes.

I know what MY ministers would do with the $5 mil if somebody said to them, split it up and buy new houses for your family...they would turn it over to our Foundation, securing FUMC's future and get us back on live TV!!!!!!!

I know that there is always a committee working in the background, trying to find us a tv home that we can afford, seeking donations to the TV ministry so we can keep the broadcast going if we get it back on. Aside from costs, the main difficulty is finding the station that will block you the time..remember it is commercial free from start to finish, so that jacks the cost.

Which brings us back to the old community service thing the stations used to do, and church broadcasts were part of that.

OR WE COULD JUST LAY ALL THE BLAME ON FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If they had not come along, we would not have lost our slot on Channel 11 in the first place....

[intheflow]

19. My friend and are are going to try to get on radio.

He's United Church of Christ (UCC) minister and I'm studying to be a Unitarian Universalist (UU) minister. We want to start with a 2 minute filler piece series, like NPR's The Writer's Almanac, except our show will be called something like This Day in Social Justice. A Pacifica station in our area offers workshops, so we're going to take one and see what comes of it. So some of us clergy are out here working on it.

I don't think I'm as nutty as Falwell, but I bet the religious right thinks I am. Of course, that only supports the argument for my sanity.

Peace out. :hippie:

[Joy Anne]

22. Still Speaking

That sounds like a great idea. Is your friend involved with Still Speaking? I've signed up to do online response.

[intheflow]

23. He's never mentioned Still Speaking.

What is it? Do you have link?

[Joy Anne]

25. Still Speaking

It's an open doors campaign, with TV commercials: http://www.ucc.org/ucnews/nov04/across.htm
The theme is to never see a period where God put a comma, that this church welcomes everyone, no matter where they are in life.

[intheflow]

27. Thanks Joy Anne.

This is very helpful. I'll pass it along to him and all my UCC friends.

[Imperialism Inc.]

4. Good luck to them.

I'm not a big fan of more politicians talking about their faiths, but their help is desperately needed at this point.

[et in Arcadia ego...]

8. Yeah, let's just 'out pray' them,

Maybe the next Dem candidate can just get on tv and claim Christ as his/her favorite political thinker. Sure, that'll work. Or maybe the Dems can market themselves as the Party of the Patriarch Abraham, as opposed to that heathen Party of Lincoln. Halle-freakin-lujah :eyes:

[0007]

9. Evangelicals is the same as the basic fundamentalist?

So how can how Democrats can talk more effectively about religious issues without sounding as stupid as the fundies?

[w4rma]

14. no.

Forget the name of that association. Being "evangelical" has nothing to do with interpreting the Bible.

[sonicx]

20. it has more to do with spreading the word of God to people.

the ones that get alot of attention nowawdays just happen to be conservative nutjobs.

I think clinton, gore, and carter are evans.

[SoCalDem]

11. I do not want to even know WHAT religion politicians are

We are not electing our pastor/priest/reverend/imam/rabbi/etc.. We are ostensibly electing a PUBLIC figure who will tend to the laws of the nation, of which we are ALL members. I do not wnat ANY politician to be overtly supporting ANY ONE religious slant. By doing that, he is in effect, blowiing off any who are NOT of that persuasion..

The very definition of public servant is one who legislates for the public good, without preference to the few..

If a pollitician wants to worship a toad, that's fine with me..just so I don't have to listen to him tell about it.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

17. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!!!! Jeez! n/t