Search for "evangelical left"

The Mother of Christian Feminist Ethics, Beverly Wildung Harrison: 1932–2012

By Mark Hulsether

…I had a fairly clear idea for my research: the study of transformations in left-liberal Protestantism (both its social thought and its concrete relationships to social movements and historical trends) focused through analyzing the rise of liberation approaches in Christianity and Crisis magazine. I nearly wrote this book under Bev’s direction, although in the end I opted to do it in the American Studies Program at Minnesota. This story is not impo…

What Liberals Want: A Response to Susan Thistlethwaite

By Frances Kissling

…with others on one issue. Progressives want to reach out to moderates and evangelicals on an issue by issue basis and at least try to build bridges on the larger divisive issues. I am not sure she correctly understands what liberals want. In order to understand that, it would be necessary for liberals and progressives to engage in reasonable sustained, respectful dialogue. We are told that some progressive religious leaders have invested that tim…

Idiot Wind: Stephen Strang’s “God and Donald Trump” Aims to Justify Christian Support

By Gordon Haber

…sident was eleven. More recently, there is the grave threat posed by “hard-left groups” like Black Lives Matter, which is “funded by Hungarian billionaire and former Nazi collaborator George Soros.” And what is their ultimate goal? The “one world order” perpetrated by that renowned lefty radical George H.W. Bush—a global government, I’m guessing, that dispenses abortions, pornography and same-sex marriage certificates like Pez. It’s no surprise th…

Peter Beinart’s Controversial The Crisis of Zionism: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment

By Shaul Magid

…issonance—but they may have to deal with it. While Beinart gestures to his leftist critics that he is aware of the argument that one cannot separate the settlements from the state, he never responds to them. Probably because he can’t. His suggestion that we should boycott the settlements and give that money (and more!) to the state belies the reality that the state funds the settlements, which is why no one I am familiar with ever suggested boycot…

Using Science to Diss Religion

By Evan Derkacz

…persistent myth associated with Democrats, liberals, progressives, and the Left that they’re “anti-religion.” This myth has been taken quite seriously by some in the liberal-Democratic establishment, who have responded with shallow religious proclamations, faith outreach campaigns and a cottage industry of groups and organizations whose raison d’etre is to declare that “yes, by golly, Democrats are religious!!” All this despite the lack of evidenc…

Rope of God: The Aceh Tsunami—Four Years On

By Mark Woodward

…em gone, most with out a trace or even bodies to bury and mourn. Many were left with literally only the clothes on their backs, and some did not have even that. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, suffer from disaster-induced psychological trauma. Nothing can replace family members and friends whose lives were swept away. In days and weeks following a calamity, the world focuses more on the material need of victims than it does on their psych…

Vivek Ramaswamy Represents the Convergence of White Supremacy and Hindu Supremacy — And He May Well Be Trump’s Running Mate

By Usha Kumar

…ized Hindu American and an uneasy Modi Democrat—into a MAGA Republican. If left unchecked, here in the U.S. we might well see a series of transnational far-rights manifest into a multi-racial far-right. If left unchecked, the Hindu supremacist movement could lead the Indian diaspora to the far-right, with an influence that will be deeply deleterious. Consider, to take just one example, the cover that will be offered to far-right and White supremac…

Anne Lamott is My Shepherd

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…whatever. This is the only way miracles ever happen—left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe. The great novelist E.L. Doctorow once said that writing a novel is like driving at night with the headlights on: You can only see a little ways in front of you, but you can make the whole journey this way. It is the truest of all things; the only way to write a book, raise a child, save the world. In the meanti…

The Year in Religion: A Ray of Hope Amid the Usual Fecklessness

By Peter Laarman

…gle and celebration. These spaces aren’t hard to find, and the God who has left the church building in disgust will always be found in the midst of them. For any awakening Christian, stepping out and thereby gaining perspective on one’s own colonized faith is liberating and life-giving. It parallels what Dr. King seems to have felt in writing his powerful letter from a Birmingham jail: not just deep dismay over the cowardice and corruption of the…

School of (Patriotic) Rock

By Mark Hulsether

…ation about how we should live, they lobby certain critics on the academic left to shift their emphasis. Rather than attack the narrowness of democratic discourse and the ways it has been used to justify oppression—a task that surely remains appropriate in many cases—they stress defending democracy at its best against its enemies. This essay is not the right place to unpack the details—suffice it to say that if you like the song, you’ll probably l…