Web Only// Culture » March 1, 2006
Organizing the Religious Left
Berkeley polymath Rabbi Michael Lerner returns with his latest book, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. Lerner’s raison d’etre is to catalyze “a movement with a progressive spiritual vision [which] would provide an alternative solution to” the Religious Right. With the book weighing in at 408 pages, Lerner has ample space to demonstrate his erudition in psychology, philosophy and politics.
The Left Hand of God begins with a description of America’s “Spiritual Crisis,” both in terms of its historical origins and its psychodynamics. Lerner follows with his prescription for this malaise, a new moral agenda–one that stems from “a new bottom line” that values each person for their intrinsic worth rather than what they have to offer as a cog in a vast global assembly line.
Lerner argues that the social organization of the United States, dominated as it is by capitalism, has sucked meaning out of the daily lives of most people. Restating the thesis of his most famous book, the 1996 The Politics of Meaning, he deplores “a bottom-line mentality that judges every activity, every institution, every social practices as rational, productive, or efficient only to the extent that it produces money or power.” He argues that such a mentality creates a spiritual vacuum that has been exploited by the Religious Right. “Many very decent Americans,” he writes, “get attracted to the Religious Right because it is the only voice that they encounter that is willing to challenge the despiritualization of daily life.”
Lerner writes that the Religious Right has a theological view, “the Right Hand of God,” that “sees the universe as a fundamentally scary place filled with evil forces. … God is the avenger … who can be invoked to use violence to overcome those evil forces.” His alternative view features a compassionate God with “loving, kind, and generous energy”–“the Left Hand of God.”
Rabbi Lerner maintains that the intellectual framework of the American Left is ineffectual. “Many on the Left have had no intellectual categories with which to understand their own spiritual foundations,” he writes. “They have become addicted to a narrowly technocratic pragmatism.” Therefore, a new movement must “challenge the values of the marketplace and call for a new bottom line of love and generosity,” as well as “challenge the attempt by the Religious Right to impose its values on the society and its attempts to break down the separation between church and state.”
Lerner outlines a “Spiritual Covenant with America” that would emphasize families, personal and social responsibility, “values-based education,” “environmental stewardship,” and “building a safer world.”
The Berkeley Rabbi’s objective is to transform the Democratic Party. “We will build the Network of Spiritual Progressives,” he writes, “composed of secular, ‘spiritual but not religious,’ and progressive religious people who will … affirm a vision of a world of love and generosity, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sanity.”
There are two vexing problems with the The Left Hand of God. First, Lerner talks a lot about values such as “love, generosity, kindness, responsibility, respect, gratitude, humility, honesty, awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe.” However, these terms are never precisely defined in a way that mainstream Christians would find familiar. Awe and wonder are not traditional Christian values; most believers regard them as emotions.
Second, Lerner is writing for an American audience that is overwhelmingly Christian, but in terms that most Christians will not relate to. An August Zogby poll found that 85 percent of Americans self-identified as Christian. Approximately one-third of Christians are firmly in the camp of the religious right. Estimates vary, but many observers believe that another one-third can be regarded as members of the religious left. This book is not aiming for an audience that is primarily Jewish (one percent of the population) or secular (somewhere between 6 and 10 percent) but rather one composed of left-leaning Christians.
The question is: How observant are these lefty Christians? No one knows for sure. The one thing that demographers agree on is that they don’t go to church nearly as often as their right-wing counterparts. Lerner seems to feel that they fall into the values pattern that demographer Paul Ray describes as “cultural creatives”–they find God in nature and relationships. In other words, their religious beliefs can be loosely defined as “new age.”
Perhaps Lerner is right and the Network of Spiritual Progressives will not include those who identify themselves rigorously as Christians. But Steven Waldman and John Green, writing in the January/February Atlantic Monthly, argue that the “religious left” is about 12 percent of the electorate, the largest segment of the “Blue” vote in the 2004 Presidential election, and “draws members from many Christian denominations.” If this observation is correct, and other recent analyses appear to reinforce it, The Left Hand of God will miss a large portion of its potential audience.
Lerner seems to have circumscribed his message by largely ignoring the teachings of Jesus. Yet the Gospels directly address what Lerner describes as the right and the left “hands” of God. In the Book of Matthew, Jesus teaches, “We were once told, ‘An eye for an eye’ and ‘A tooth for a tooth’ [the right hand of God]. But I tell you: Don’t react violently against the one who is evil: when someone slaps you on the right check, turn the other as well [the left hand of God].” Progressive Christian theologians argue that Jesus transformed Old Testament laws by replacing the dominant vision of the “right hand of God,” the warrior God, with the “left hand of God,” the compassionate God. And Jesus taught a series of values that Lerner either overlooks or minimizes: equality, simplicity and care for the needy, to name only a few. One shouldn’t expect Lerner to dismiss all of the Old Testament, but he could have strengthened his case, and expanded his audience, by pointing out the similarities between his viewpoint and that of progressive Christians. After all, they comprise the majority of his potential audience.
Lerner’s book should be read by progressives, and anyone who seeks a deep understanding of American politics. Its suggestions for “A Spiritual Covenant for America” need to be taken seriously by Democratic leaders and progressives seeking to revitalize democracy and protect all Americans. It is not, however, an answer to the moral agenda of the religious right. It doesn’t represent a comprehensive morality that can be embraced by voters, both Christians and non-Christians, who are inspired by the social gospel of Jesus of Nazareth–the vast majority of progressive activists.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Bob Burnett is a writer in Berkeley, Calif., and Quaker activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.
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Reader Comments
I’m sorry but I think that organized religion has shown itself to be just large, another corrupt institution. The only voice heard from “Christianity” has been that of the Christian Taleban.
The problem was well addressed by Doris ‘Granny D’ Haddock in her essay We Are Resolved to Follow Our National Dream
’ Where authority and power flow down from above, from heaven to the White House to husbands and ayatollahs, the free and joyful living of people can be quite the enemy. ‘
And that’s what organized religion is about… authority flowing down from above, and the resultant self-oppression of the “faithful”.
’ Here it is: those in the clan of authority are not given the privilege—the natural right—of living their own lives. They do as they are told, say and think what they are told. Smothered is their curiosity and their healthy skepticism, and also their imagination, joy, freedom, and lust for life itself. When they see others actually living lives, they react with anger, as if someone had cut to the front of a line that, for them, never moves. ‘
It is the folks who have seized power here in the USof A who hate our freedoms.
When I was young one’s religious beliefs were one’s own private business. And that’s the way it must become again if America is to stumble back from the shocking, awful reality if has willfully abandoned itself to.
No “progressive religion” for me thanks.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Mar 4, 2006 at 6:22 AM
Speaking as an anti-clericist in the great tradition of the French Revolution and the Spanish (not US) Republicans, I must humbly disagree that all organized religion is evil. Some organized religion can be quite charitable as well as socially active.
You also gloss over the fact that Lerner is a Jew and speaking as one myself I can tell you that we are a highly secularized people. Though there are many Jewish conservatives these days (some put the estimate at about 25%) mainstream religion is never inculcated in a way that predisposes one toward political conservatism as is the case with mainstream Christianity. Jewish political values tend to reflect a kind cosmopolitan secular humanism rather than strict religious doctrines conservatively interpreted by establishment clerics. The unfortunate exception is in the case of Israel which for most Jews is a survival not a religious issue. Despite this fact, many Jews are bringing themselves to oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and listen to the message of the Jewish peace movement.
Also, pretty much all Jews oppose theocracy as do progressive Christians who work with them and other faiths for progressive social agenda. Church and state SHOULD be separate but not necessarity Church and politics. Think about Martin Luther King and the US Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. Many civil rights and national liberation movements the world over have had significant religious leadership. Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa and Archbishop Oscar Ramero in El Salvador are historic examples. This is called Liberation Theology! It has a noble history!
Religion is inherently a conservative force because of its general world view and political alliegances. Yet, in todays diverse political landscape it is quite hard to make sweeping generalizations
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Mar 4, 2006 at 8:44 AM
It’s unfortunate that the a-religious on the left succeeded in forcing their psuedo-religious “beliefs” in regards to religion on the whole left side of the spectrum.
Religion is neither bad nor good. It’s what a person or group does with their religion that makes it so.
For all the evil that anti-religious fanatics blame on religion, there has been equal if not more good from it.
For most of history, religion was the only source of hope in a thoroughly destitute existance. Our existance our reality is mostly a product of your mind, our thoughts our perceptions.
A wonderful life can seem like a living hell, if we believe it to be so. A aestetic life, with minimal pleasure can seem a life in paradise if we make ourselves believe it to be true.
In this lies the power of religion. It’s the power to make what we feel define religion separately from the material.
FRight wingers harness this to make the masses vote “against their interests.” But who says this.
Well the “left-winger” materialist for whom everything of value has a price tag.
In truth the FRight wing voter does what makes him happy. What brings him joy.
It makes no sense to judge them stupid for not being as materialistic as you. In the end their religion provides them the means of obtaining rewards that provide them greater joy than the simple material.
FRight wingers know this. Thus their avid and successful attempts to manipulate religion to serve their goals.
The proper response of the secular, rigidly anti-religious lefty should be to understand that the importance of religion needs to be recognized and respected. Whether it is true. Whether it reflects great intellgience is completely irrelevant. What’s important is that it means a lot to people in their lives.
By respecting it, the left can learn to work within a framework that will allow the left to more honestly make religion reflect the goals of the left. Ironically the goals of the lef are much more naturally aligned with the general goals of all religions. They go hand in hand. It is said, that Jesus was the first communist. And no one can argue that Judiasm’s strong tenants in regards to providing for the poor and common man are the foundations of secular socialism.
The coup de tete by the religious loathing lefty’s in regards to what role religion is allowed to play in the left wing has been devastatingly distructive for the left.
Having little respect or regard for religion. The left leaders have proven inept in demonstrating even the smallest token of regard for the religious. This inability has led to a total breakdown and separation between the left and religion.
Until the problem of the opressive, dictatorial athiest-type ideologues secularists in the left wing are removed from control, the left will continue to languish as an inneffective force in American politics.
No matter how stupid someone may think religion is, no matter how worthless someone may think it is. BELIEVING that gives no one the right to hold another person’s equally fervent views in contempt, and you will win no converts by laughing or ridiculing another person’s beliefs. Yet all too often these are the tactics used by the left to win over potential religious people. Despite it failing over and over, the left just doesn’t get it.
People do NOT want freedom from religion. They want help in living their lives, adhereing to good principals. They know they need help. They know they are not perfect. Religion rightly or wrongly steps willingly into the void. The left realize that acceptance “personal responsibility"in place of G-d or Faith will never cut it.
Posted by johnnyincentx on Mar 4, 2006 at 5:36 PM
When I was young one
Posted by John Francis Lee on Mar 5, 2006 at 6:52 AM
I quite agree with the above comments pointing out that the broad condemnation of religion as an unequivocally bad influence are wrong. It defies the evidence of people’s gains in wisdom and compassion once they’ve been inspired by religion; even “organized” religion. It ignores the role of religion in a host of social and legal advances that are too numerous to list here.
However, I would not include with these generous statements the codification of a particular religion’s doctrines into law. Regardless of majority or minority status.
Unless we’re talking about a perfectly homogenous society in which everyone holds the same values, the same prohibitions, the same spiritual understandings, I think it is impossible for the law to avoid unjust discrimination when it is based on religious doctrine. This is because religious doctrine is not, as a rule, encouraging of debate or tolerant of alternative values. And unlike secular philosophies, disagreement does not automatically put you athwart the Cosmic Power.
When religion (or atheism, for that matter) is personal, with all organized versions of it having a voluntary character, no harm. But when cops, courts, and judicial punishments are involved, as they must be when talking about law, the rigidity and absolutism associated with religion makes it disqualified to be the law’s basis.
If, that is, one believes that authority ought to be limited, and that minorities ought to have their rights protected, and that debate in a public forum is the proper mechanism for identifying what should be allowed and what should be restricted in a society of people who presume to think of themselves as having rights at all.
Religion gives a priori answers to these questions. This is a perfectly suitable basis for personal discipline and behavioral conformity to values that one holds to have a cosmic source. But since disobedience to law is punishable, and there is no such thing as an absolutely homogenous society of citizens with precisely the same values, religion-as-law is guaranteed to oppress and unjustly punish.
The law really must be religiously neutral, if it is ever to be able to evolve into better forms. When religion has had the force of law, the result has been a long, dismal period of social and intellectual stagnation.
Posted by Kuya on Mar 7, 2006 at 1:20 AM
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