Dear Kos,<\/p>\n
I read your piece, Religion, values, and politics<\/a>, and liked a lot of what you said. But I have a few responses to it. You and I have discussed this before, and you are clearly not attacking religion per se, as too many secular progressives have done for a long time<\/a>. As a progressive Christian, I always wondered why many on the secular Left felt it necessary to cut off potential political alliances with progressive religious people, to alienate most of America with nasty anti-faith diatribes, and to choose to ignore the history of most of the social reform movements in this country, where religion often served as a powerful motivator and driving force \u2013 as in the abolition of slavery, women\u2019s suffrage, establishing child labor laws and social safety nets and, of course, the civil rights movement. In recent years, the Left and even the Democrats managed to appear hostile to faith and to people in faith communities. Regardless of what one\u2019s views of the divine are, that\u2019s called shooting yourself in the foot.<\/p>\n And nobody has been more critical of the Religious Right and their \u201cperverted\u201d use of biblical texts, as you rightly put it, than progressive religious leaders themselves. But the mainstream media and the secular Left appeared to have one very odd thing in common. They both seemed to want Americans to believe they had only two choices: the Religious Right OR the secular Left. There were always millions of religious moderates and progressives who didn\u2019t fit either category, and felt left out of the discussion. My book, God\u2019s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn\u2019t Get It<\/em><\/a>, served to bring many of those folks out of the closet. A book about progressive faith in America became a best-seller only because it revealed what was already there \u2013 lots of unrepresented people, including a new generation of evangelicals who now had a broader agenda than just two issues. But, frankly, the response to the book has been mixed in secular Left circles. Some are quite pleased that the Religious Right\u2019s political dominance was finally being challenged, and Tim Russert and Jon Stewart<\/a> were now featuring other, more progressive religious voices. They also saw the electoral results of Democrats learning to make the connection between issues and values, as you suggested they should, and from becoming more faith-friendly. But others felt, and still feel, quite threatened by all that, fearing any kind of faith talk among progressive people, and objecting to Democrats \u201cgetting religion\u201d \u2013 something they regard as foreign and hostile to their political agenda.<\/p>\n I\u2019m also on record against Democrats’ \u201cgetting,\u201d using, or manipulating religion for political purposes, simply mimicking what the Republicans have done so shamelessly. I\u2019ve continuously said that \u201creligion has no monopoly on morality<\/a>,\u201d agreeing with your point that \u201cmorality and ethics don\u2019t have to come from religion.\u201d But values can come from religion, and it\u2019s important that Left seculars really embrace that reality too. I\u2019ve said that religion must be disciplined by democracy<\/a>, and publicly expressed in ways that are consistent with both pluralism and diversity. That means you don\u2019t say (as the Religious Right often has) that this is a Judeo-Christian country and so we get to win! Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. never did that. He invoked Jesus and Isaiah as the roots of his political convictions and held out his spiritual vision of the \u201cbeloved community,\u201d but then made moral and political arguments (not religious ones) on behalf of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and a Voting Rights Act in 1965. He had to persuade all Americans, not just the religious citizens, that civil rights legislation was best for the common good, not just for the black Baptists like him. When we get to the public square, religious communities and candidates motivated by their faith must make a moral turn, and speak in a language accessible to all of our citizens, religious or not. You said it well; the real political conversation is one about values, no matter what their source. Indeed, the country is hungry for a new moral discourse on politics \u2013 it\u2019s one that we all need and are all needed for. Nobody gets kicked to the curb.<\/p>\n But for some, faith is part of \u201cwhat makes a candidate tick,\u201d as you put it. And that has to be okay, too. You were pretty tough on Harold Ford, and seemed to blame his faith for his views that you don\u2019t like. I disagree with some of Ford\u2019s views too, but don\u2019t think his faith is the problem. You like Tester of Montana and Webb of Virginia better, and seem to suggest their lack of expressed faith gives them better views. But I like Barack Obama too, and he and I have been talking about the connection between progressive faith and politics for 10 years. And I recently met Tim Kaine, also of Virginia and a strong person of faith, who seems to be at least as progressive, if not more so, than Webb or Tester. My point is, agree or disagree with a candidate\u2019s positions, but don\u2019t blame their faith for them. The same day your piece came out, The Wall Street Journal<\/em> (of course) ran an editorial castigating secular leftists one more time, suggesting that those who disagreed with the Religious Right were showing their hostility to religion. Again, the assumption was that the only choice is between right-wing faith or militant secularism. And yesterday, I battled with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC<\/a>, who once more insisted that the real moral issue is still abortion, and the Democrats will always find that to be the obstacle to becoming truly religious. It\u2019s time to change the conversation on all sides.<\/p>\n So Kos, let\u2019s made a deal. How about if progressive religious folks, like me, make real sure that we never say, or even suggest, that values have to come from faith \u2013 and progressive secular folks, like you, never suggest that progressive values can\u2019t come from faith (and perhaps concede that, in fact, they often do). If we progressives, religious and secular, could stop fighting among ourselves (shooting ourselves in the foot) and join together on some really big values issues \u2013 like economic fairness, health care, and a more just foreign policy \u2013 think of the difference we could make. How about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Kos, I read your piece, Religion, values, and politics, and liked a lot of what you said. But I have a few responses to it. You and I have discussed this before, and you are clearly not attacking religion per se, as too many secular progressives have done for a long time. As a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n