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… return to article
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Reader Comments (7)Page 1 of 1 pagesI’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 2:22 PM 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 4:44 PM 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 5, 2006 at 1:36 AM 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.
I think religion is great stuff. It’s the institutionalization of it all that kills the spirit, that fosters the tax-deductible, top-down degeneracy that passes for religion wherever the fanatics gain control, whether it be in Afghanistan, Israel or the USA.
And the silence of the “mainstream religions” is deafening.
If they don’t stand up against racism and murder, and they don’t, then what the hell good are they at all?
What is organized religion then, other than prhaps an ermine suit and tiara, certainly a “special arrangement” with whomever happens to be in power?
Posted by John Francis Lee on Mar 5, 2006 at 2:52 PM 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 9:20 AM Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jimmy Carter are but two examples of progressive Christians. We could use at least two more.
Posted by opeluboy on Mar 10, 2006 at 3:59 AM Tony Benn makes a very good point about media as religion at Democracy Now. Amy Goodman as Martin Luther. It doesn’t get better than that.
AMY GOODMAN: Perhaps one thing that has changed more than most other things has been the power of the media. What role do you see it playing now, as the sword or the shield?
TONY BENN: Well, I’m an old broadcaster myself. My first job was in the BBC as a producer in the North American Service in 1949, and I think the media have replaced religion, because, in the old days in Britain, you see, Henry VIII had a row with the Pope about one of his weddings. I can’t remember; he married six times. So he nationalized the Church of England. The Church of England is a nationalized institution. The bishops are appointed by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister in Britain could be a Muslim or a Jew, an atheist; he would still appoint the Archbishop of Canterbury.
So, what the king recognized was that you have to have the church as a media on his side. So you went to church and the bishop would say, ‘God wants to you do what the king wants you to do,’ and now, with all the multinational corporations, Rupert Murdoch and all that, they’re in effect saying, ‘You must do what the President tells you to do,’ and in the interest of commercial interests as well. And so, what we need is a free media.
That’s why I’m so interested in the democracy movement. I think of you as the Martin Luther of the media, somebody who is able to hammer something, with a hammer on the Church in Rheims, I think, or wherever it was, proclaiming the right to think for ourselves. If we think for ourselves, we’re safe, but if we allow religion, if we allow the mullahs or the rabbis or the bishops to control what you think, or if you allow Rupert Murdoch to control what you think, then truthfully, we become slaves in a society, which we ought to control, because it belongs to us.
Thomas Paine said, “God didn’t make rich or poor. He made men and women, and he gave the earth to be their inheritance,” and he also said, “My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.” You can’t do better than that.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Mar 11, 2006 at 2:33 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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