It's Rabbi Michael Lerner "stirring up trouble again". In a nut shell:
Lerner wants to help forge a new alliance of "religious, secular and spiritual, but not religious, progressives." This alliance will someday expose and challenge the cancer of American consumerism. And it will oppose the religious Right's abuse of scripture to promote war, intolerance and ugly corporate agendas.
Yep, there is much to be skeptical about, yet...
But Attorney Van Jones, the national executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California, says amen, while acknowledging this:
By itself, those two goals would warrant full-throated support from all progressives. But don't be surprised if the good rabbi's efforts also draw some serious "boos" from many parts of the Left, as well. That's because Lerner's bravest and hardest work is aimed much closer to home.
He wants to do more than just minister to the mall-lobotomized masses or give the fundamentalists a well-deserved spanking. He also wants to challenge the Left's chronic and toxic bias against religious feeling, expression and people.
Lerner hopes to end "religio-phobia among progressives." And such efforts will not be welcome among a great many rabidly secular rogressives.
Hmmmmmmmm, a bit of background on Johnson follows.
As for me, I will be praying for the Rabbi's success. I am an African-American Christian who was raised in the American heartland. When I moved to the cosmopolitan coasts of Connecticut, and later California, I ran headlong into shocking levels of anti-religious bigotry among progressives.
iterally have had liberals laugh in my face when I told them I was a Christian. For awhile, I felt self-conscious about telling other activists that I preferred not to meet on Sunday mornings, because I wanted to go to church.
is still commonplace to hear so-called radicals stereotyping all religious people as stupid dupes -- and spitting out the word "Christian" as if it were an insult or the name of a disease. I thought progressives were supposed to be the standard-bearers of tolerance and inclusion.
I certainly know the monstrous crimes that have been committed through the ages in the name of religion, or with the blessings of religious people. But I know a few other things about religion, too.
More here.
I make no self-disclosures on this subject: it simply gives me pause and reminds me of this Kennedy speech Tolerance and Truth in America. It is all the more memorable because he delivered it to an audience at Chancellor Fallwells Liberty Baptist College, now University. In it he notes:
In drawing the line between imposed will and essential witness, we keep church and state separate, and at the same time we recognize that the City of God should speak to the civic duties of men and women.
There are four tests which draw that line and define the difference.
First, we must respect the integrity of religion itself...
Second, we must respect the independent judgments of conscience....
Third, in applying religious values, we must respect the integrity of public debate....
Fourth, and finally, we must respect the motives of those who exercise their right to disagree.
A question comes to mind...