Yesterday the Wall Street Journal wroteabout labor advocacy on the part of liberal/mainline Christian leaders in America:
Religious left leaders blindly refuse to acknowledge the considerable academic research showing that mandated wage hikes often eliminate the jobs of low-skilled workers — the very people whom it seeks to help. David Neumark, for example — a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley’s Institute of Business and Economics Research and one of the world’s foremost authorities on wage laws — has found that while living-wage laws do boost the income of some low-wage workers, they also have "strong negative employment effects." That is, they vaporize jobs. In one study, Mr. Neumark noted that a 50% boost in the living wage produced a decline in employment for the lowest-skilled workers of between 6% and 8%.
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In any event, the religious left’s sympathies do not seem to be those of churchgoers. While the NCC and its member churches pursue a variety of left-wing causes — even partnering with the activist organization MoveOn.org and featuring speakers like Michael Moore at events — a Pew poll found that 54% of white, mainline Protestants and 50% of Catholics voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections. Those who attended church regularly voted Republican even more heavily — at nearly the same rate as evangelical Christians, in fact.
For four decades, as the leadership of America’s mainline churches has moved steadily leftward, those churches’ memberships declined as a percentage of the U.S. population while the number of Christian evangelicals exploded. Left-wing clerics may be buying greater political influence with their alliance through organized labor, but the price may be further alienating their shrinking flock
The rise of the religious left should not be a welcome development for those who’d prefer to keep religion out of politics and vice versa. One could argue it challenges the religious right. But can’t we do that from a secular standpoint? I don’t like the idea of politics devolving into a match between the religious right and the religious left over who represents ‘true Christianity’. Additionally, the demographics show people are more and more turning away from liberal/mainline religions to more conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist religion, so there’s questions over the real political pull this movement might have.
Further, even if one is sympathetic to the causes supported by the religious left, this development should be troubling. Surely religion does add fervor to any cause. But it also interjects the cloudiness of idealism into a discussion that should be about the concrete realities of what actually works in helping people in need.
There was also a bitfrom Comment is Free on the rise of the Muslim Left--interesting to compare