Democrats need a Religious Left

An artile for your enjoyment...

Rabbi Michael Lerner on why Democrats need a religious left (Beliefnet.com 11/04/2004)

 

Interesting website DesElms. I took the spirituality test and here are my results:

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (97%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (94%)
4. Mahayana Buddhism (90%)
5. New Age (89%)
6. Bahá'í Faith (82%)
7. Jainism (80%)
8. Sikhism (80%)
9. Reform Judaism (80%)
10. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (74%)
11. Theravada Buddhism (73%)
12. Secular Humanism (70%)
13. Hinduism (68%)
14. New Thought (63%)
15. Taoism (60%)
16. Orthodox Judaism (59%)
17. Scientology (54%)
18. Islam (51%)
19. Orthodox Quaker (51%)
20. Nontheist (46%)
21. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (38%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (28%)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (26%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (24%)
25. Roman Catholic (24%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (24%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (16%)


BTW: I was raised a Roman Catholic and now am a Diest. Funny how low I scored in the Roman Catholic range

 

What's Your Spiritual Type?





You scored 47, on a scale of 25 to 100. Here's how to interpret your score:
25 - 29
Hardcore Skeptic -- but interested or you wouldn't be here!
30 - 39
Spiritual Dabbler -- Open to spiritual matters but far from impressed
40 - 49
Active Spiritual Seeker – Spiritual but turned off by organized religion
50 - 59
Spiritual Straddler – One foot in traditional religion, one foot in free-form spirituality
60 - 69
Old-fashioned Seeker -- Happy with my religion but searching for the right expression of it
70 - 79
Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff
80 - 89
Confident Believer – You have little doubt you’ve found the right path
90 - 100
Candidate for Clergy

 

Very, very strange results! Probably about as scientific as asking teenage boys if they've ever had sex!

SPIRITUAL TYPE

70 - 79
Questioning Believer – You have doubts about the particulars but not the Big Stuff

TYPE OF CHRISTIAN

330 - 400
You are a Jerry Falwell Christian (a.k.a "Historicist").

FAITH

1. Orthodox Judaism (100%)
2. Islam (96%)
3. Sikhism (94%)
4. Bahá'í Faith (90%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (88%)
6. Reform Judaism (86%)
7. Seventh Day Adventist (80%)
8. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (79%)
9. Jainism (76%)
10. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (75%)
11. Hinduism (75%)
12. Liberal Quakers (74%)
13. Eastern Orthodox (69%)
14. Roman Catholic (69%)
15. Unitarian Universalism (62%)
16. Mahayana Buddhism (61%)
17. Neo-Pagan (58%)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (53%)
19. Jehovah's Witness (49%)
20. Theravada Buddhism (48%)
21. Scientology (46%)
22. New Age (45%)
23. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (43%)
24. New Thought (40%)
25. Secular Humanism (39%)
26. Nontheist (30%)
27. Taoism (28%)

 

Watching you two, here, is like watching a mom take her two kids to the art museum, and they can't stop being fascinated by the revolving door.

How 'bout some comments about the article... hmmm?

I'll say one thing, though: It's nice to see you two playing so well together...

...er... you know...

...considering.


__________________
Gregg

 

Jimmy

Funny, you don't come across like a Jerry Falwell Christian.

Which religious beleif do you think best describes you? I think the test illustrated my religious beliefs pretty closely.

 

Hi Gregg:

Interesting and thoughtful article, as one expects from R. Lerner.

While I would reject his stereotypes of conservatives, in particular the notion that only conservatives "demean" those "outside" (in my theologically misspent youth I recall nonstop demeaning of anybody, done by local clergy and denominational authorities alike, who did not share the progressive agenda of the religious organization in which I spent my drab and pointless childhood), he says much that anybody on what passes for the American left ought to heed.

The political and social positions/statements taken by virtually all mainline Protestant bodies, the left half of American Judaism, NCR-type Roman Catholics, Unitarian Universalists, and other bodies of liberal religion and ethical humanism consistently support an American-left Weltanschauung. What the Democratic Party does with that indisputable fact is, I guess, a matter for the Democrats to work out.

While most of my Jewish coconspirators gag at Lerner's sometimes cloying piety, his call for the respiritualization of American life, generalized from his earlier call for that within American Judaism, has much to commend it. One needn't share the views to commend the impulse.

Thank you for posting the article, which I will not discuss further on open forum for reasons which I am sure are obvious to you.

Cordially, Janko

 

Somewhere between

"Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (79%)"

and

"Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (75%)."

 

I had to try this out for myself and here are my results

SPIRITUAL TYPE (90 out of 100) - Candidate for the Clergy

TYPE OF CHRISTIAN (394 out of 400) - Jerry Falwell Christian (a.k.a "Historicist").

FAITH (I was surprised Secular Humanist was last )
1. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (100%)
2. Seventh Day Adventist (93%)
3. Eastern Orthodox (88%)
4. Roman Catholic (88%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (85%)
6. Islam (61%)
7. Orthodox Judaism (61%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%)
9. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (53%)
10. Hinduism (52%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (44%)
12. Jehovah's Witness (44%)
13. Sikhism (39%)
14. Jainism (37%)
15. Liberal Quakers (36%)
16. Reform Judaism (33%)
17. Mahayana Buddhism (29%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (29%)
19. Unitarian Universalism (29%)
20. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (28%)
21. Nontheist (26%)
22. Scientology (24%)
23. New Thought (18%)
24. Neo-Pagan (17%)
25. New Age (14%)
26. Taoism (12%)
27. Secular Humanism (11%)

 

I can't agree, and yet I do...

Uncle-

I alsways find Lerner employing the most conventionalized Dickensian altruism imaginable. Call this "cloying" is you must; I find the term unobjectionable.

My problem is with the title - "Dems need a Religious Left?" - my God, how much more do they "need" besides most mainline religions!?!?! And besides those discredited organizations, they have the pagans, environmentalists, animal-rights crowd and veg-riods.

These people don't need to get religious - far from it. They need reality testing!

Tqlk about a misleading, deceptively mistitled piece of tendentious bovi excrement! - same old Lerner as in the Clintonist years.

-Orson

 

BULL..........................................................................(Moose)

1) It wasn't my title, so why are you grousing at me?

2) Some conservatives are environmentalists and even vegetarians.
If I were a Republican--which I am not--I would be a Roosevelt Republican.

3) You don't read carefully. I said R. Lerner's impulse toward respiritualization was commendable; I think his views are not. I admire Mordecai Kaplan's method and liturgics*, but my taste in Jewish theology runs more toward the Vilna Gaon and S.R. Hirsch--assuredly not to Michael Lerner.


*Sort of the Jewish Bishop Grundtvig.

 

Re: I can't agree, and yet I do...

[Self-control, Gregg. S E L F - C O N T R O L !]

What Democrats -- even the pagan, environmentalist, animial-rights, veg-roids, as you call them -- need is to learn from the mistakes they (actually, I should saw "we") made in this most recent election; to not be so damned afraid that non-secular Americana will somehow, without our ever-present vigilance, make small inroads into our otherwise secular everyday lives; and to not be so fearful of embracing the notion either that God might actually exist, or that even if he doesn't the values espoused by those who believe he does are worth not necessarily rejecting on their face just because they're part of the religious right's misleading battle cry.

The Right has done a good job of misleading at least 51% of American voters (which, by the way, is a far cry from a mandate) that Democrats don't love Jesus.

Bill Clinton -- the very president you clearly despise -- clearly loves Jesus... and figured out how to deftly articulate that in a way that neither offended Democrats nor alienated middle-grounders and even moderate conservatives. He did, after all, get elected twice... or do need even more evidence than that of the success of his message?

Republicans made Democrats take their eye off the ball... and we'll now pay the price for it by having to endure an even more sinister and oppresive Bush administration than either of the two we've already had. You just watch.

 

Is it just me, Orson and Janko, or do you, too, feel like we're three adults standing in an arcade at the mall having a real discussion while the children play video games in the background?

 

The posts you are dismissing are the people talking about their results with Beliefnet's 'Belief-o-Matic'.

While I understand your frustration at having your thread hijacked, the Belief-o-Matic really is kind of fascinating. While no crude and simple quiz like that can completely capture a person's religiosity, it does provide a credible list of religious groupings whose ideas resemble the pattern of our answers.

Sometimes the results are surprising. Belief-o-Matic 'thinks' that I might find the Quakers congenial. I had never given them much thought, but upon looking at them more closely, the machine might actually be right.

I notice that the two times I took it, I got different scores for Mahayana and Theravada. I think that reflects the different weight that I put on compassion each time, and compassion is definitely a personal issue for me. So the machine caught something as subtle as that.

Frankly, I think that it might be instructive if everyone who makes posts on the subject of religion posted their results.

We could actually compare empirical (albeit extremely crude) data measuring how the religiosity of our left-partisans differs from the religiosity of our right-partisans.

That would directly speak to the subject of your thread, by providing us clues about how a religious-left might differ in real life from a religious-right.

 

People always seem to forget

That Bill Clinton got elected with fewer votes than the either of the last 2 winners or losers got. He was in 3 way races both times and never achieved a majority. In fact, it is very easy to assume that absent Perot, her would have never been President in the first place.

When it comes to Clinton, he appears to love many things, such as religion (and interns ), and that is the problem. People began to believe his goal was to appear to be whatever it took to get him elected and not what he really was. I voted for him the first time because of what he said he was. However, it rapidly became apparent that the facade was false so he lost the trust forever.

 

Spiritual Type: 47 (Active Spiritual Seeker)

1. Liberal Quakers (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (89%)
4. Neo-Pagan (85%)
5. Secular Humanism (85%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (77%)
7. Orthodox Quaker (75%)
8. Bahá'í Faith (74%)
9. Mahayana Buddhism (72%)
10. New Age (70%)
11. Taoism (66%)
12. Jainism (65%)
13. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (62%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (61%)
15. Nontheist (58%)
16. Sikhism (55%)
17. Hinduism (55%)
18. Reform Judaism (51%)
19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (48%)
20. Jehovah's Witness (47%)
21. New Thought (46%)
22. Scientology (45%)
23. Seventh Day Adventist (44%)
24. Islam (33%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (33%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (27%)
27. Roman Catholic (27%)

I've always admired Quakers, now it turns out I might be one!

 

Oh, I know. I'm just screwin' around. Actually, I think it's cute that Jimmy and Mr. Engineer are getting along so well.

Oh, yeah... I know. Believe me, just 'cause I'm poking fun at the children, I'm not above it. I did that belief-o-matic thing on some other web site... um... lemmee think... I guess it was a couple years ago. And, indeed, it was exactly as you describe it: "...kind of fascinating."

I worked for a Quaker once, years ago. Helluva' nice guy; married to a woman I'm fairly convinced was (hopefully still is) an angel sent from heaven... heart-o'-gold. Their kid was a butthead, though. What can I say. Of course, you know how that always seems to work out: The kid's a nightmare as a kid... and later becomes a senator. Um... where... now that I think about it, he can continue to be a butthead... with impunity.

Didn't Alan Contreras write somewhere in here that he's a Quaker -- or at least had that upbringing?

And they make a hell-of-an-oatmeal, too, don't they? (Just kidding. Actually, the Quakers couldn't have had less to do with Quaker Oats! Click here for its history.)

So if you might find the Quakers congenial, you must be a hater of war (or maybe the glass-is-half-full way of saying it: A lover of peace). Ya' gotta' like that about the Quakers. I liked their official statement against the war in Iraq back in March of 2003.

The best two web sites I've found for kinda' gettin' ta' know the Quakers are here and here. There are others.

Hmm. That is interesting, isn't it? Seriously. (I kid around and/or do the sarcasm thing so much, sometimes, that I thought I'd add the "seriously" just to make sure you knew I was... er... you know... serious.)

Ha! There's an idea. I like it. It should be part of the TOS: "If you make any posts about religion, you must post your Belief-o-matic score in your signature." Kidding around though I may be, I think there might actually something to that idea.

A notion particularly apropos in this thread, no? Hmm. All of a sudden what the children are doing doesn't seem so much like "play" anymore. Man, do I ever hate it when I learn something from Jimmy! [kidding... er... well... ya' know... mostly]

Okay, I sweartogod I wrote essentially that, above, before I read your words to which I'm replying right now. Sort of a great minds, thing, eh? [grin]

I love it! How do we get everyone to participate? Plus, one thing I fear is that lefties will be outnumbered by righties... since I think that's pretty much the make-up of this forum anyway. It's not that I mind being outnumbered; it's that I fear we won't learn as much from it as we might have had the lefty sampling been more abundant.

Back to Quakers for a moment: If you really want an interesting experience -- or at least I thought it was interesting -- you need to go to a Meeting. If you know nothing about it, and if you have the sort of sensibilities and sensitivity and just general curiosity that I kinda' think you do, then you won't regret it.

• "Ye are called to peace, therefore follow it; that peace is in Christ, not in Adam in the fall. All that pretend to fight for Christ are deceived; for his kingdom is not of this world, therefore his servants do not fight. Fighters are not of Christ’s kingdom, but are without Christ’s kingdom: for his kingdom stands in peace and righteousness, but fighters are in the lust: and all that would destroy men’s lives are not of Christ’s mind, who came to save men’s lives. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world; it is peaceable: and all that are in strife are not of his kingdom. All that pretend to fight for the gospel are deceived; for the gospel is the power of God, which was before the devil or fall of man was: and the gospel of peace was before fighting was. Therefore they that pretend fighting, and talk of fighting so, are ignorant of the gospel.
  
  [...]
  
  "All such as pretend Christ Jesus, and confess him, yet run into the use of carnal weapons, wrestling with flesh and blood, throw away the spiritual weapons. They that would be wrestlers with flesh and blood, throw away Christ’s doctrine; the flesh is got upon them, and they are weary of their sufferings. Such as would revenge themselves are out of Christ’s doctrine. Such as being stricken on one cheek would not turn the other are out of Christ’s doctrine. Such as do not love one another, nor love enemies, are out of Christ’s doctrine.
  
  [...]
  
  "So live in the peaceable kingdom of Christ Jesus. Live in the peace of God, and not in the lusts from whence wars arise. [...] Ye that are heirs of grace, heirs of the kingdom, heirs of the gospel, heirs of salvation, saints of the Most High, and children of God, whose conversation is in heaven, that is above the combustions of the earth; let your conversation preach to all men, and your innocent lives, that those who speak evil of you, beholding your godly conversation, may glorify your Father which is in heaven.
  
  [...]
  
  "Friends everywhere, this I charge you, which is the word of the Lord God unto you all, "Live in peace, in Christ the way of peace;" therein seek the peace of all men and no man’s hurt. In Adam in the fall is no peace; but in Adam out of the fall is the peace: So ye being in [Christ, the] Adam which never fell, it is love that overcomes, not hatred with hatred, nor strife with strife. Therefore live all in the peaceable life, doing good to all men, and seeking the good and welfare of all men."
  
  George Fox, from his 1658 epistle, "Ye Are Called to Peace." Excerpted from "The Works of George Fox," 1990 reprint of the 1831 edition, Vol. 1 (Journal I), pp. 387-389

 

Re: People always seem to forget

Geez! Eat one baby, and you're marked for life!

That's KennethStarrspeak. Step back and take a longer view.

I'd argue with you further, but I'm still basking in the light of George Fox's words.

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

1._Theravada Buddhism (100%)
2._Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3._Liberal Quakers (93%)
4._Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (86%)
5._Mahayana Buddhism (83%)
6._Secular Humanism (76%)
7._Taoism (75%)
8._Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (74%)
9._Neo-Pagan (72%)
10._New Age (64%)
11._Bahá'í Faith (62%)
12._Jainism (62%)
13._Hinduism (61%)
14._New Thought (60%)
15._Nontheist (58%)
16._Orthodox Quaker (58%)
17._Scientology (58%)
18._Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (48%)
19._Reform Judaism (45%)
20._Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (43%)
21._Sikhism (42%)
22._Jehovah's Witness (35%)
23._Seventh Day Adventist (33%)
24._Islam (31%)
25._Orthodox Judaism (31%)
26._Eastern Orthodox (17%)
27._Roman Catholic (17%)

I voted for George Bush in the November election. But my results above probably don't conform in any way to the popular stereotype of a Republican. (Of course, I consider myself a political independent, so maybe that's why.)

The results are generally pretty accurate in my case.

I guess that I consider myself a religious agnostic, currently with a distinct leaning towards a modernist and probably rather Westernized and intellectualized sort of Theravada.

I weight the earlier, more philosophical, questions about ultimate reality, and the nature and destiny of the self very highly.

And I weight the later socio-political questions much more lightly. While issues like abortion, homosexuality and women's roles are clearly important, I don't see them as specifically religious. These questions stand on their own merits. They aren't what makes me feel a personal need for religion.

I think that there may be a real difference between those who weight the later social questions heavily and those like myself who don't. But I don't think that difference in weighting really corresponds to the left-right split.

It's probably more closely associated with a split between those on both the left and the right whose religious vision motivates their political passion, and those of us who are more emotionally distant from politics, taking a more analytical view of it.

 

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html
WARNING: Before going there, turn on your pop-up stopper! Now we
know what religious web sites would look like if Section 501(c)3 of the
U.S. tax code didn't exist! Sheesh!

Here are my Belief-o-Matic results:

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Orthodox Quaker (88%)
3. Liberal Quakers (84%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (76%)
5. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (72%)
6. Seventh Day Adventist (70%)
7. Reform Judaism (69%)
8. Eastern Orthodox (59%)
9. Roman Catholic (59%)
10. Bahá'í Faith (55%)
11. New Age (51%)
12. Neo-Pagan (48%)
13. Orthodox Judaism (47%)
14. Secular Humanism (43%)
15. Islam (43%)
16. Mahayana Buddhism (43%)
17. Theravada Buddhism (43%)
18. Sikhism (42%)
19. New Thought (40%)
20. Taoism (38%)
21. Hinduism (35%)
22. Scientology (34%)
23. Jainism (33%)
24. Nontheist (32%)
25. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (31%)
26. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (31%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (22%)[/list=1]I voted for John Kerry in the November election; and I have, in fact, never pulled a Repulican lever in my life! (A few chains, maybe, but no levers.) I consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and am proud of it!
    
    I'd say the results are generally pretty accurate in my case.
    
    I am decidedly not a religious agnostic, either currently or previously (or, likely, futurely, too). And what the hell is Theravada? [kidding]
    
    I left all the weights at their "medium" default in the belief that until one knows all the questions it's folly to try to ascribe any "weight" to any of them. Weight relative to what? That's Statistics 101. It might be interesting, I suppose, now that I know all the questions, to go back through and answer tham all exactly the same except changing their relative weights. But not that interesting.
    
    Ultimate reality? Destiny of the self? Sure... whatever. [shrug] [kidding... again]
    
    And I (would have) weight(ed) the latter socio-political questions a bit more heavily. Issues like abortion, homosexuality and women's roles are clearly important -- maybe or maybe not with respect to religion, but certainly because the religious Right has put them on the table. Indeed, these questions should stand on their own merits, but those who think God commands them to make it their f_cking business encumber those questions and, therefore, call for my support -- be it religious or not -- so that others may find their own answers. Those questions aren't what makes me feel a personal need for religion, either; but through my view of religion they can be answered either way.
    
    I think that there is most certainly a real difference between those who weight the latter social questions heavily because they're dead set on answering them for others, and those like myself who don't because we aren't. Sadly, because the religious Right insists on interrupting the very free will that God gifted to us, I think that difference really does correspond to the left/right split... among other things.
    
    As for left and right political passions being motivated by religious visions, I think in that contrast lies an intriguingly telling difference. It is, I would argue, the Right's religious vision which motivates its political passion; but it should be the Left's political vision which motivates its religious passion. Think about it... analytically, and with emotional distance.
    
    Hey... Democrats really do need a Religious Left!
    
    
    Okay... so... like... picture this: Jimmy, kansasbaptist and Mr. Engineer standing near the arcade entrance with their arms folded and shaking their heads in disbelief; while me and Dayson, completely oblivious to their presence, play with the video games.
    
    My, how the tables turn.