Rekindling the Faithful Roots of Progress

When students study the Civil Rights Movement, our nation’s most storied progressive campaign, in their history classes they read about Dr. King’s role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott but their textbook will likely ignore that he got involved in the campaign through his role as pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.  They will read excerpts of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” reciting that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, but it is unlikely they will learn that this letter was a response not to those who upheld segregation, but to the hesitation of moderate white clergy to stand against these injustices.  Dr. King’s message cleared the way for droves of pastors, rabbis and imams of all races to play a powerful prophetic role in mobilizing their members and bringing new found energy to marches on Washington and Montgomery, and working across lines of race, denomination, religion and secularism to desegregate their own communities.  Still the prism with which we view Dr. King’s legacy too often omits the role of faith; and we tend to do the same when we consider other progressive heroes like Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothy Day and Cesar Chavez. 

This tendency to secularize progressive leaders and movements of the past reflects a reluctance on the part of many of today’s progressive leaders and organizations to recognize the potential for faith communities to be full partners in social justice campaigns. In D.C. think tanks and advocacy groups, across the blogosphere, or in the pages of the Nation, you are more likely to see disdain or distrust for today’s faithful activists – due to the “culture war” clashes over unresolvable issues like abortion and the definition of marriage – than praise for their efforts towards empowering the less fortunate. Faith and faithful activism, certainly not a monolith, over time has become more and more synonymous in our political debates with the social conservative activism of the so called “religious right.” As elements of the religious right began advocating not just social conservatism, but  publicly marrying these values to fiscal conservatism, the public disagreement grew beyond even issues of choice, gay rights, and stem cells creating what seemed like an irreconcilable gap between the progressive and conservative elements of the faith community. 

The ill will built up from these debates can be seen in what amounts to something between palpable hesitation and outright resistance to the role and the value of the faith community to progressive advocacy.  On the extreme of this development, HBO talk show host Bill Maher has made a cottage industry of lampooning religion. While promoting his new movie “Religulous” on a September 30th episode of the Daily Show, Maher commented that there are two Americas, one a secular “ progressive European” type and the other a “stupid redneck” (read religious) type. 

Sure a growing number of authors like E.J. Dionne, Amy Sullivan and Rev. Jim Wallis, and magazines such as TIKKUN and Sojourners are trying to close these gaps by supporting and prodding the faithful community’s growing involvement in progressive causes, but certain barriers still exist.  Some national progressive issue campaigns are beginning to work more with elements of the faith community, but these groups, typically from mainline Protestant communions or progressive Jewish or Catholic groups, only make up only a small minority of any coalition.  There is a growing pool of Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, across the spectrum of beliefs, including even a growing number of conservatives, who are now taking a renewed interest in human rights and social justice issues like poverty both at home and abroad.   However, the divisions and prejudices from years of antagonism have stopped either side from realizing the full power of their once broad, and still possible, national partnership on these common ground issues. 

As the culture wars raged on at the national level, churches, synagogues and mosques in communities across the country continued to respond to disasters, to run soup kitchens, to build affordable housing, to help prisoners re-enter society and find jobs, and perhaps most importantly to support community organizers.  Community organizers have long understood the value of partnerships with faith based organizations, perhaps better than others in the modern progressive movement.  Anyone who has worked on organizing at a local level knows the central importance of faith leaders as a voice in their communities, and the powerful role that places of worship play in bringing people together, creating meaningful coalitions and pushing for improved schools, affordable housing and creating more just communities.  If only these lessons at the grassroots level could be applied to national campaigns, our country’s progressive leaders could begin to work more closely with national church leadership to find common ground and ways to engage their members to work for justice. 

Even among socially conservative Evangelical protestants, faith leaders are beginning to look beyond the culture war and to engage on other issues of justice and human rights.  For instance, Dr. Joel C. Hunter, pastor at the Florida mega-church called Northland, reportedly stepped down from his position as President-Elect of the Christian Coalition when the organization’s board was reluctant to add “compassion issues” like human rights, poverty and the environment to their agenda.  Now he helps lead the Evangelical Environmental Network urging the faithful to act as proper stewards of God’s creation through personal action and advocating on environmental policy. And then there’s Dr. Sam Rodriguez, the leader of 20,000 congregations strong National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and a self professed conservative, who is currently touring churches across the country encouraging people of all faiths to work for comprehensive immigration reform as part of the America’s Voice Campaign.  An older generation may have sat out the Civil Rights Movement, but a growing number of today’s Evangelical leaders are picking up new banners, and sometimes even leading the march.

In times of national crisis, our nation’s diverse faith communions, be they liberal or conservative, have been known to respond generously.  Their vast networks of congregations proved crucial in mobilizing thousands and thousands of volunteers over the past three years in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and now Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Along the Gulf Coast, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have formed powerful new partnerships with local community leaders, non-profits, and other denominations, and have led some of the most successful efforts in the recovery. Still many faithful, as documented in the Institute for Southern Studies’ recent report Faith in the Gulf, left with a sense that acts of mercy alone, no matter how profound, cannot provide everything needed for the survivors of this on-going disaster.

Recently a diverse group of 109 Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders called on the federal government to support human rights by rebuilding schools, hospitals, vital infrastructure and affordable housing, addressing poverty and internal displacement, and confronting coastal erosion which threatens not just families across the Gulf Coast but also our nation’s energy infrastructure. They stated, “We believe it is a moral obligation for the federal government to fulfill its promises for Gulf Coast recovery:  empowering residents to return and participate in equitably rebuilding their communities.”  Specifically they urged Congress and the next Administration to support the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, a bill supported by national groups like ACORN and numerous community based organizations in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas as part of the Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign.  Signers included Rev. Richard Cizik, National Association of Evangelicals; Fr. Larry Snyder, Catholic Charities USA; Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, National Council of Churches; Richard Stearns, President, World Vision; Rabbi Steve Gutow, Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Dr. Ingrid Matterson, Islamic Society of North America; Rev. David Beckmann, Bread for the World; and Rev. Jim Wallis, Sojourners.

You can support this effort by taking this urgent action in support of HR 4048, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act:  http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5107/t/1578/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=522

This response to injustice experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is just one small example of the new kinds of coalition possible by building on the lessons of the Civil Rights Movement and embracing the idea of bringing faith and progressive communities together.  Rising economic inequality, the Iraq War, the threat of global warming, and the struggles of immigrants have created a growing area of concerns where progressive secularists and progressive people of faith find common ground.  While it might not work in every context, progressives need to explore respectfully setting aside our differences on those issues on which we don’t agree and taking seriously the growing possibilities to partner with our nation’s faithful voices to create a more just and equitable country and world.

Jeffrey Buchanan is a 2008 Taproots Fellow and a contributer to the Movement Vision Lab.  He also serves as information officer of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights.  The opinions expressed in this article represent the opinions of the author and not the positions of any organization.