The Christian Left Part Deaux

I got a lot of response to my post on the Christian Left, so I thought I would add to it and throw in some clarification about what I am talking about. My impetus for writing the first go around comes from three different and unique inspirations. The first comes in my personal view of history. All teachers that teach history have their own slant on the subject. My personal slant looks at the five major religions and their influence on history. Right or wrong, people's religious beliefs have shaped history in a very profound way. To ignore the role that religion plays on people's political beliefs is to ignore the very core of people. In fact, people's religious beliefs (or lack of belief) can be the core issue in politics.

When I taught history, I tried to help students understand the perspective that people come from when they are Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, or Christian. This perspective helped to shape events in those parts of the world that practice those religions. Understanding their belief system can be very helpful when trying to figure out why certain events occur. Naturally, the understanding of Islam is very helpful when looking at the events of the past decade, two decades, or even half century. So, remembering and focusing on the Christian roots of our own nation is not necessarily giving into fundamentalism, but using what currently exists to your advantage.

My second experience came in a class I took at UHCL. The class was religious counseling. The idea of the course was to adapt your counseling methods to the religious (or non-religious) beliefs of the client. If you have a Muslim client, you must familiarize yourself with the tenets of Islam to make your client feel more at home. In essence, the message doesn't change as much as how the message is phrased changes. Similarly, when Democrats want to attract middle america they must phrase their message in a way that will be in tune with the way middle america talks and thinks. That includes their religious beliefs. Framing your message with Christian undertones doesn't make you pro-life or pro-gun. It simply takes the progressive message and makes it resonate in the moderate Christian voter.

The third and final experience that hit home for me was when I went to a Bay Area Democrats meeting following the 2004 election. People were there talking about how it was stolen and about all of the stupid Christian right initiatives on the ballots. People there talked about their atheism and did so proudly. In fact, anyone in the room (including myself) that mentioned that we were Christians were looked at with a bit of skepticism. I felt alienated in my own party. Many in their comments talked about how a church had made them feel unwelcome. Non-religious people have done the same in many circles probably unwittingly. I understand why. You can't bother but be sick when you hear some fundamentalists blather on about values and then get caught sleeping around of embezzling funds.

As hard as it is to believe, the do as I say and not as I do Christians do not dominate Christianity. They want you to think that they do, but more people fit into the decent category. They don't believe in discrimination against gays or lesbians. Heck, some may even be pro choice. When you paint religious fundamentalists as the keepers of Christianity we also shun those good and decent people that agree with our agenda, but feel we have excluded them as well. Most people are good and decent people. Unfortunately, most of the loud ones are not. In the end, I'm not asking people to believe what I believe. I just ask that we frame our message to include those people.