Obama Speaks to Voters of Faith...Will Extend Faith Based Office
The uproar over Sen. Obama’s plan to keep President Bush’s White House Office of Community and Faith Based Initiatives from the left of the Democratic Party shows the growing split in the nation’s largest political party. This is a split between the vocal and to their credit active liberal wing that icons like Howard Dean, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Russ Feingold, and more. It is clear that they are at odds with their inter-party rivals who are quickly gaining attention as progressives with leaders like Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and more.
This week while progressives, who use to call themselves moderates, praised the new position of the Junior Senator from Illinois to make outreach and involvement with communities of faith a cornerstone of his campaign and if elected administration, liberals led by the Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State took it to the trash. However Obama’s plan and the reaction by the very group that propelled him to the forefront of the parties nomination for President who why so many people refuse to own the liberal label. They are wrong!
I must be up front and remind some that I was a very vocal and supportive advocate for Senator Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House. We refuse to be called moderates because we believe that our values and our politics are what built the party to the strength we have today. A party that is center left as opposed to one that is far left. The reaction to Sen. Obama saying that he intends to reform and revitalize an office that believes that organizations of faith don’t deserve equal funding opportunities to serve their communities instead of special treatment.
The sad opposition from the liberals on the far left can be summed up in the fact that this is a failed Bush Administration policy as Rev. Berry Lynn said. What their opposition refuses to hear is the reform and change that during the primary they belted was a call to unite behind and what the Senator is proposing. A gut opposition rooted in being the opposition for the sake of opposition instead of listening and hearing the change and positive services these programs can provide is why liberals lose out to progressives on a number of issues that include: education reform, the economy, FISA, healthcare, and the list goes on. It is hard for many of the most passionate liberals to get past the ideology and compare it with the very real lives of the American.
An example of this disconnect with their reality verses real reality is their unwillingness to view Sen. Obama’s plan for faith outreach compared with our knowledge of the Bush Administration. As I see it the new President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will from the plan the campaign released, “work to engage faith-based organizations and help them abide by the principals that federal funds cannot be used to proselytize, that they should not discriminate in providing their services, and they should be held to the same standards as other federal grant recipients.”
Liberals like Rev. Berry Lynn and others who are up in arms about Sen. Obama’s plan have offered no real alternative for the communities that the plan was created to reach out to. Communities like mine. Communities that have been underserved by the government in the past and some that have an unwelcoming attitude towards government authority. It is communities like these that are held up by these very churches who provide in some instances education, health advice, legal counsel, and so much more. Examples below the fold:
1. It was the white protestants in need of religious independence from the British Crown that fought for American independence and risked their lives for the freedoms we have today (I will eagerly acknowledge that some founding fathers weren’t religious at all)
2. It was the northern leaders of faith who took on the powerful southerners to fight for both emancipation for slaves and the right to vote for women
3. It was the black religious elders joined with white northern men of God who organized people into the streets for civil rights
4. And now today it is houses of God in inner-cities that are first to respond to natural disasters, the uprising in crime that has gotten cease fires in urban cities all over, host job trainings, ex-offender reentry services, and services that other organizations just don’t have the power to be successful at.
Once ideological liberals can get off their high stool that allows a seat at the tall table of the concept for American democracy and actually started to live in the American nation is when and how a united party can see just how right Obama’s plan (if put into practice as it is written) is right for America.
It was once said that America was founded by people hungry for their own freedom of religion. Freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion.
Tha-Kid JK
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In the US, there are few contexts which exclude people of faith.
Bill you write,
"In the US, there are few contexts which exclude people of faith. I think the dangers run in the other direction."
I think that things have gotten better, but I remember that it was only a few years ago that people of faith were no longer seen as a part of the progressive picture. It was not that we were not, just that the context had shifted such that we were thought to be otherwise...
Faith in progressive contexts
Even in just the progressive context, my experience has always been that people of faith have been seen as an integral part of the picture. Certainly that was true of the Civil Rights Movement. And the anti-Vietnam War movement. During the Bicentennial period, the Peoples Bicentennial Commission included a strong emphasis on religion. In my traveling and speaking for the PBC, the religious foundation for opposition to the corporate world order was always a basic and featured element. In my 25 years in Illinois, what would now be called the Religious Left was prominent in local activism -- the Sanctuary Movement was just one example. After moving back east, I got involved in the Labor-Religion Coalition and have had a decade of experiencing close linkage between the labor movement and faith communities.
Even though the Religious Right has had a dominating influence on how faith has been perceived in recent years, every community and political organizing effort that I've been involved with in the last 40-50 years has sought and found support from religious groups. Aside from people griping about the influence of the Religious Right, I've not seen any instances of progressives writing off the constructive role of religion.
Bill
Bill the Historical Context You Speak of is Right On
Bill, The historical context you speak of is right on. I always speak of the critical role that Christianity has played in the Abolitionist, the Civil Rights and the Sanctuary movement. That is our history. In truth a history which existed before I reached political awareness. During the Sanctuary movement I was at most 15. That being said, the historical reality also shows that the rise of the religious right during the Bush administration presented a different kind of Christianity to the American and world psychee. So much so that during this period of time Christian voices were no longer seen as the progressive voices that they were in the movements cited above. Were there still pockets of progressive Christians operating as such? Yes. But the political manifestation of Christianity on the national scale was no longer a progressive but rather that of the Christian right. It was out of this context that CrossLeft.org was born to reclaim our past and our roots. After all, Jesus was a revolutionary preaching the Golden Rule. BUT, Christianity was no longer being seen as such in the media, on the streets and in the political halls. We had been relegated to a community who focused on crusading against two issues: abortion and homosexuality. We have been reclaiming the truth of who we are in the last few years. However, I remember a point in time where non-Christian progressives did not think we belonged in the movement. I remember many a times having to remind people of the critical role that Christians had played in solidarity with others during the movements you reference. As recently as 2004, however, we were fighting to be heard in political campaigns. Whereas now most people get it and understand that progressive Christians are as committed to many of the same values that other progressives are, this was not always the case.
Contexts, historical and present, national and local
Kety, you wrote: "However, I remember a point in time where non-Christian progressives did not think we belonged in the movement." True enough, I suppose, at the national scale that you're referring to.
My point was, however, that my experience has been different at the level of local organizing. I've never ever run into that attitude, even in these recent years when the Religious Right was most successful in projecting its definition of Christianity into the public's consciousness.
I think it's an indication of the disconnection between the media and the national 'political halls' on the one hand and 'the streets' and the local political and community organizers on the other hand.
So it seems that where we disagree is in how to characterize the attitudes of, or in, "the streets". At street level, as I've experienced it, 'progressives' and 'progressive Christians' haven't had any problems in seeing and feeling their connection with each other. For example, the contexts in which I've worked at least a little bit in the last decade include, in no particular order, labor, peace/anti-war, the environment, anti-racism, pro-immigrant rights, anti-corporatism, poverty/welfare/hunger, civil liberties/human rights, feminism, GLBT rights, and the Green Party (which also includes all of those issues). The participation of Christians and other religious people was always welcomed and sought. Eagerly sought.
So perhaps this is another example of how the media and the punditry promulgate myths that sound good but just confuse people -- and don't have any real empirical basis.
Thus, I've seen CrossLeft primarily as a needed outreach to Christians, to clear away the fog generated by the Religious Right and to remind those who haven't thought a lot about it that the Jesus Way and the Religious Right are at cross purposes with each other. You could think of it as doing evangelism with Christians for a "really full gospel". I also think we're doing evangelism of a sort with non-progressive secular people to counteract the right's misleading definition of Christianity. Progressive secular people have been the least of my concerns, beyond, of course, wanting to do the best "witnessing" that I can.
Bill
I think it's an indication of the disconnection between...
Bill you write, "I think it's an indication of the disconnection between the media and the national 'political halls' on the one hand and 'the streets' and the local political and community organizers on the other hand."
I think that you make a good point and that disconnect definitely happens. I also agree that much of this has happened at the national level and that media has fueled that reality beyond how it would exist without the PR.
That being said, I know from first hand experience that four years ago in some local communities Christian progressives had been forgotten. Perhaps not in all communities and perhaps not in all contexts, but it did happen. I was witness to that. That's all I'm saying. I acknowledge your reality. & can understand that you saw history from that vantage point, but I know what I saw and what I heard as it relates to Christian progressives just a few years ago where I stood.
As for the purpose of CrossLeft, I couldn't agree more with what you write.
When we first launched the site we had a conversation of what we wanted to accomplish and how we wanted to position it. We saw three audiences where we could make a difference: 1.) progressive Christians who craved such a space; 2.) conservative Christians who might be surprised to find that we share many of the same values as it relates to Jesus and the gospels focus on social justice; 3.) secular progressives who might not remember the fundamental role that we played in solidarity with them during previous movements.
We decided that the first audience was probably the one where we should start- thus the site has evolved as you now see it. However, in the background, the hope to reach the other two communities still remains.
First hand experience
That's helpful -- your first hand experience is different from mine. That's good to know and your testimony enlarges my understanding.
I wonder about the experiences that others have had. Are mine atypical? Were yours common or rare? Anecdotes might be enlightening.
Bill
re: Religion: freedom of/freedom from
Rev. JK, in contrast with what Kety wrote, I think that "Freedom of Religion" has to include "Freedom from Religion".
There are those who don't want religion imposed on them. Free choice in matters of religion is both a constitutional and theological imperative. Free discussion of religion in the public square is one thing -- and a good and necessary thing -- but government-funded "faith initiatives" require very close scrutiny. In addition to posing constitutional issues, they have the potential to damage the independence of religious bodies.
Before Bush, faith-based organizations could receive government funding simply by setting up separate non-sectarian non-profit organizations. Thus, Catholic Charities got 2/3 of its funding from government and the Jewish Board of Family and Social Services received about 3/4 of its funding from that source. Obama's proposal seems to be going back to a less politicized pre-Bush situation, but with some enhancements designed to assist religious groups in applying for and receiving federal funds and evidently without the requirement to set up separate organizations to receive and "sanitize" the money. There's been a perception, however, borne out by some of Obama's statments but not borne out by the proposal shown on his website, that religious discrimination could be allowed in the hiring of staff for these faith-based programs. That seems to be the most contentious issue.
Opposition to Obama's proposal, like opposition to Bush's, isn't a simple matter of left vs. moderates, or the far left vs. the center left. Conservatives have objected to that sort of thing, too. A good example is a Cato Institute Briefing Paper, "Corrupting Charity: Why Government Should Not Fund Faith-Based Charities", by Michael Tanner, March 22, 2001.
A note on the left and the far left: I don't think the term "far left" really applies to any Democrats. Considered from a world perspective, I'd say that the Democrats generally run from center right to center left. To use "far left" to describe them is to play into, inadvertently, the Republican's demonization of liberals. (They should be encouraged to demonize people like me, instead -- aiming at the real, or at least farther, left might broaden the range of political discourse and provide some relief for unjustly maligned liberals, progressives, moderates or what have you.)
As I see it, the useful criteria for left/right aren't really the "social issues". We can find paleo-conservatives and free market libertarians in agreement with liberals on many of those issues. I think the basic left/right issues have to do with free markets, world trade, capitalism, corporations, and what can loosely be called imperialism, or the use of the military to maintain and extend our system's global reach.
Bill
Bill- Please Do Not Misunderstand/Misquote Me
Freedom of Religion means that people get to choose. They can choose to have religion. They can choose not to have it. My point was not that everyone has to be religious but rather that freedom of religion does not mean the freedom from religion. People have the freedom to embrace the religion and theology that they choose- even if that is the absence of such. The issue, I think is when people begin to think that the freedom of religion means the freedom from religion- in other words a context which excludes those of us who choose to embrace religion. Hope that clarifies my point for you Bill. Just wanted to make sure that I had been crystal clear. Thanks, Kety
clarification noted
Got it. I do think that the sentence in question is susceptible to being easily misunderstood. To me, freedom from religion means not only the right to reject religion, but the freedom from having religious observances foisted upon one in public contexts that are, or should be, strictly secular. As a Jew, I found it both offensive and counterproductive to mutual respect to have Christian prayers included in compulsory school events. It got my back up. I might even have become a Christian sooner if it hadn't been for that kind of thing.
In the US, there are few contexts which exclude people of faith. I think the dangers run in the other direction.
Bill
Freedom of Religion doesn't mean freedom from religion
That's a great quote JK. Mind if I use it on occasion? Is that yours? (& by the way I couldn't agree more- freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion!)