Author: Weaver-Swartz

The CCDA, an evangelical organization that addresses holistic concerns of poverty, race, and spirituality, has its roots in the evangelical left generally and in John Perkins particularly. Here’s a brief excerpt from Moral Minority on Perkins:

Perkins, one of the earliest contributors to Freedom Now, was born in 1930 on a cotton plantation in rural New Hebron, Mississippi. After witnessing his brother’s shooting death at the hands of a white deputy marshal, Perkins and his wife Vera Mae moved to California, vowing never to return to the South. After a 1957 conversion in a black holiness church and then growing prominence as an evangelist in the mushrooming evangelical subculture of southern California, Perkins felt an irresistible call to evangelize poor blacks in the rural areas surrounding Jackson, Mississippi. His 1960 homecoming came as the civil rights movement was in full swing. Concentrating on building a new congregation, Perkins at first dismissed racial agitation. He had come, after all, to save souls, not stamp out Jim Crow. But as he toured poor black areas like “Baptist Bottom,” “Sullivan’s Holler,” and “Rabbit Road” in a beat-up old Volkswagen wearing ragged blue jeans, faded sports shirt, and dusty black shoes, Perkins noticed the “desperate physical needs of many of our people.” He discovered that “real evangelism brings a person face to face with all the needs of a person. We had to see people not just as souls but as whole people.” Perkins adjusted his approach, and by 1965 he had built a thriving mission called Voice of Calvary that included a day-care center, a gym, a playground, a cooperative farming store, and a church. As Perkins addressed the spiritual and social needs of his parishioners, he could not escape the unmistakable link between economic degradation and the southern caste system. His assessment of the civil rights movement softened, and he began to allow activists to stay at Voice of Calvary during Freedom Summer in 1964. After he himself suffered a brutal beating by a white policeman, Perkins became a more thoroughgoing activist. Faith was politics, he began to argue. “’New birth in Jesus,” he said, “meant waging war against segregation just as much as it meant putting the honky-tonks and juke joints out of business.” Racism, in fact, “is satanic, and I knew it would take a supernatural force to defeat it.”

CCDA’s national conference is meeting this weekend in Minneapolis. Check out the schedule here. And check out the video promo below:

A few days ago, I offered some positive reports from peace summit participants. Here’s a report from a less impressed observer. In “Evangelicals for Peace Eye Return to Eden,” a representative from the Institute for Religion and Democracy repeats accusations that evangelicals interested in nonviolence are starry-eyed idealists who lack a realistic sense of this world’s violence. Here’s a taste:

The conference highlighted many current weaknesses both in Middle- East policy and in perceived Evangelical attitudes towards Muslims. Speakers cautioned against the sustained military-industrial complex because of its financial risk, and they advocated for faith-based diplomacy. However, the conference at times strayed towards an oversimplification of theological principles surrounding war and its justification and tended to neglect the role of prudence in policy.This overarching attitude of the “Evangelicals for Peace” conference presupposed that war is never the “answer” without considering deeply the theological and prudential processes that lead to such a conclusion. Such an oversight is an affront to the traditions of both pacifism and just war.

It’s worth noting, as does the author of the article, that a new “just peacemaking” paradigm, which attempts to marry pacifist and just-war perspectives using pragmatic techniques, is emerging under the leadership of Glenn Stassen of Fuller Seminary. Check out his books here and here.

The official publication date is still ten days away, but Moral Minority is now in stock! Be among the first to take a look at this first comprehensive history of the evangelical left. Buy your copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the University of Pennsylvania Press.

If you have a few moments, could you help spread the word? Use the buttons at the bottom of this post to share on Facebook and Twitter. And you can “Like” the book on Amazon. Thanks!

–David

There are a raft of biographical narratives describing departures from the religious right. Here are two: Craig Weidman and Richard Cizik.

I’m still struggling with my own personal political theology, and it continues to be a work in process. What I’m finding is that faithfulness to Christ has little to do with whom I vote for, which party (if any) I belong to, or what cultural issues I’m against. Faithfulness to Christ is most primarily worked out at the ground level of personal engagement in my neighborhood and community, with my family, and among the motivations and attitude of my own heart with respect to the impact of the issues of our day on people individually and society as a whole. –Weidman

That’s why the evangelical church in America is in big trouble. It has lost its center: the Gospel. It is a movement that has been captured by conservative politics and treats that message as more important than the Gospel. It will do anything, literally anything, to maintain the conservative status quo. Throw anyone overboard. Avoid taking a stand on controversial topics, such as climate change. Even refuse to confront racism, Islamophobia, or antigay bigotry. No matter the heresy, or bad judgment, organizations such as the National Association of Evangelicals will choose to walk away from a controversy before they will confront the major figures of the Religious Right. –Cizik

International Justice Mission’s meteoric rise over the last decade or so has been heartening for many evangelicals who care about social justice. I recently read that about 90% of IJM’s foreign staff are nationals, which is a powerful reminder of global evangelicalism’s significance. Meet some of them in this short video:

Over at Faith and the Common Good today, Greg Metzger congratulates Mark Tooley “for his extraordinary ability to read code words and translate them into their actual meaning.” They’re clashing over the Evangelicals for Peace Summit (for their active Facebook page, click here) that is being held this weekend at Georgetown University. Tooley sees the gathering as “determined to neutralize historically pro-national security evangelicals.” Metzger, a former editor at InterVarsity Press, wants to “gather with other followers of the One who blessed peacemakers and to pray for a more faithful witness to Him.” Who’s right? Well, that’s the difference between the religious right and the evangelical left.

If you’re in the D.C. area, head on over to Georgetown and send a report my way.

If you click on the top menu of this blog, you can check out some interesting evangelical left links. Since we’re in the middle of the culture wars, I figure the “Stuff progressive evangelicals don’t like” will get more hits. But I also have lots of links to “Stuff progressive evangelicals do like.” Check them all out here. And let me know if you have more to add!

I’ve already blogged about the difficulties of being a pro-life Democrat. This issue made the news quite often during last week’s DNC. Here are a few of the more interesting articles and blog posts:

• “Democrats Out of Touch on Abortion, Hurt Election Chances”
• “A Plea to Pro-Life Voters”
• “The Republican and Democratic Party Platforms on Abortion (1976-2012)”
• “Anti-Abortion Democrats Argue for More Inclusion”
• “Democratic Pro-Life Group: It Is GOP That Threatens the Unborn”
• And slightly off topic, but still on how Democratic elites are often tone-deaf toward people of faith concerned about abortion: “The Other Power in the West Wing”

Here’s another reason the evangelical left has failed to gain traction as an organized movement: discomfort with their label. Over at “Q,” Lisa Sharon Harper explains why her views don’t fit on the political continuum. She writes, “So, I reject the moniker “Christian Left.” It is a moniker drawn in hasty response to the “Religious Right” a political movement (not a theological one). I do not set the standards of my political engagement in response to some random political point on a line. No. Rather than anchoring my politics on the shifting sand of a linear continuum, I ask a higher question: “What is my axis?” What does my political engagement revolve around? Is it political ideology? Is it political party? Is it biblical theology? I choose the later.” You can read the rest of Harper’s interesting post here.

This sentiment reflects a significant direction for evangelicals. Those who are leaving the religious right are often unwilling to join the evangelical left. Many, as I describe in an excerpt of Moral Minority,are headed for political independence:

Such obstacles suggested that the bulk of evangelicals were likely headed for less partisan identification. The 15% drop in Republican identification resulted in a mere 5% rise in Democratic affiliation, but a 10% jump for independence. Political scientist John Green called these new evangelical non-rightists “freestyle evangelicals.” Michael Lindsay called them “cosmopolitan evangelicals.” . . . Bill Hybels, pastor of the megachurch Willow Creek outside of Chicago, told the New York Times that he considered politics a path to “heartache and disappointment.” He envisioned a less political (at least electorally), but no-less-socially engaged path that, according to the Times, “would warm a liberal’s heart.” “We have just pounded the drum again and again that, for churches to reach their full redemptive potential, they have to do more than hold services — they have to try to transform their communities,” Hybels said. “If there is racial injustice in your community, you have to speak to that. If there is educational injustice, you have to do something there. If the poor are being neglected by the government or being oppressed in some way, then you have to stand up for the poor.” Progressive social action outside of electoral structures stands as one of the principle legacies of the evangelical left. Its political relevance goes well beyond its marginal influence on the Democrats or Republicans. It has helped to launch engagement around a much broader array of issues—from African poverty to peacemaking to simple living—to which neither party pays much attention.