Religious left gears up to face right counterpart

[Rose Siding]

With a faith-based agenda of their own, liberal and progressive clergy from various denominations are lobbying lawmakers, holding rallies and publicizing their positions. They want to end the Iraq war, ease global warming, combat poverty, raise the minimum wage, revamp immigration laws, and prevent "immoral" cuts in federal social programs.

Some, like the Rev. Robin Meyers of the United Church of Christ in Oklahoma, marry gay couples and seek to reduce abortions while rejecting calls by the right to outlaw them.

"I join the ranks of those who are angry because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian," declared Meyers, who has written a new book, "Why the Christian Right is Wrong.

According to scholars, the religious left has become its most active since the 1960s when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy -- black and white -- were key figures in the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam war movements.
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"The call of the gospel is to help the poor," Meyers said. "The strong ought to help the weak, instead of the strong helping the strong get stronger, which the Bush administration is all about."
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"I'm an evangelical Christian who thinks that justice is a biblical imperative," said Wallis." The monologue of the religious right is finally over and a new dialogue has just begun."

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=12953007&pageNumber=0