{"id":92,"date":"2008-08-25T20:26:29","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T20:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/the-struggle-for-common-ideals.html"},"modified":"2008-08-25T20:26:29","modified_gmt":"2008-08-25T20:26:29","slug":"the-struggle-for-common-ideals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/the-struggle-for-common-ideals.html","title":{"rendered":"The Struggle for Common Ideals"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMON IDEALS<\/p>\n

As many of the present blogs indicate, religious leaders from every tradition, both Christian and not, are beginning to gather together–as distinct from the usual denominational gatherings of religious leaders common to most election seasons before this one-to articulate a common spiritual ideal for a nation in crisis at home and in question abroad.<\/p>\n

The very fact that religious leaders would attempt to do such a thing together has, in itself, the hint of revolution about it. It certainly carries the undertone of the American pluralistic vision. It has in it even a spark of real religion. This kind of common spiritual approach to a common social question sees the world as one and sets out together to make it so. <\/p>\n

The more ordinary insertion of religion into election campaigns in recent times has regularly confused two major issues: First, they have often been prone to equate religion with denominationalism and so set out to use elections to impose particular sectarian creeds, canons and culture on the rest of the society. Second, it has then come close to risking the creation of a contest within a contest-religious conservatives of every ilk against liberals of every ilk, including from their own traditions. This kind of political proselytizing does more than fuel the contest between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, between one candidate and another. It creates the more dangerous but unspoken question for a democracy that is founded upon separation of church and state: Which ‘religion’ will prevail in one election or another? <\/p>\n

Silently, secretly, the question becomes: Is religion part of the solution to this era’s social complexities or is it part of the problem? The question carries with it the haunting smell of the Wars of Religion all over again.<\/p>\n

Instead, the growing willingness of this era’s spiritual leaders to speak together in favor of an administration committed to the needs of the poor, the rights of minorities, and the good of the entire world as well as our own, is, in itself, an impacting religious witness worldwide. It moves the use of religion beyond both parochialism and nationalism. It takes responsibility for teaching morality to its own rather than demanding that the government legislate it. Finally, it gives universal witness to the very thing religions everywhere say they believe: that God loves the whole world, not simply the United States. <\/p>\n

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THE STRUGGLE FOR COMMON IDEALS As many of the present blogs indicate, religious leaders from every tradition, both Christian and not, are beginning to gather together–as distinct from the usual denominational gatherings of religious leaders common to most election seasons before this one-to articulate a common spiritual ideal for a nation in crisis at home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12,32,60,21,14,51,19,69],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhist","category-catholics","category-christians","category-environment","category-hate-crimes","category-mainline-protestants","category-media","category-poverty","category-terrorism","tag-religions"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Struggle for Common Ideals - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/08\/the-struggle-for-common-ideals.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Struggle for Common Ideals - 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A Benedictine Sister of Erie, PA, Sister Joan is an international lecturer and award-winning author of more than 40 books. She is the founder and executive director of Benetvision.: a resource and research center for contemporary spirituality located in Erie. Currently she serves as co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization of the UN, facilitating a worldwide network of women peace builders, particularly in Israel and Palestine. In March 2008 she was an organizer of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Making Way for the Feminine for the Benefit of the World Community,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a conference held in Jaipur, India. She is the co-chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives with Rabbi Michael Lerner and Cornel West. In April 2005, her commentary from Rome on the month-long papal events was aired on CNN, the BBC and all national US media networks. On Easter Sunday 2006, she was a guest on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Meet the Press with Tim Russert\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and in 2004, she was a guest of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153NOW with Bill Moyers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A regular columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, Sister Joan has received numerous awards and recognition for her work for justice, peace and equality, especially for women in the Church and in society. Eight of her books have received awards from the Catholic Press Association, including a First Place Award in 2008 for Welcome to the Wisdom of the World (Eerdmans). Her most recent book, The Gift of Years: growing older gracefully(BlueBridge 2008) has been a consistent best seller since its release. Her 1990 book on monastic spirituality, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, (Harper) is considered a classic in contemporary spirituality Sister Joan has appeared with the Dali Lama at the First Emory (University) Summit of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding last October and at Seeds of Compassion in April 2008. She attended the Fourth UN Conference of Women in Beijing and the 1999 Parliament of World Religions in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1996 she was an invited fellow and research associate at St. Edmund's College, Cambridge University. In 2001 she held the Brueggeman Chair of Ecumenical Theology at Xavier University. She was a member, from 2003-06, of the international and inter-religious Niwano Peace Foundation in Tokyo who award the prestigious annual Niwano Peace Prize. She has served as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, (an organization of the leaders\/superiors of the over 67,000 Catholic religious women in the US), president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses (1974-90), and was prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie for 12 years. Sister Joan received her doctorate from Penn State University in speech communications theory.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/jchittister"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}