Progressive Faith Con Blog

I smiled to see Thurman’s post here this morning about what led to the creation of this gathering, since I made my own post over at Velveteen Rabbi about that last night ("The night before blog con.")

The folks on the planning committee have delightfully complementary interests in the broad realms of faith and politics. I suspect the same will be true of the broader group that’s gathering this weekend.

Some of us may be more passionate about creating conversations between and among people of faith; others may be more passionate about social action and working in the political sphere. May the interplay between these two conversations be fruitful for all of us.

Travel safely, gang. See you soon!

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

This evening, the curtain will go up on the first ever Progressive Faith BlogCon.  The concept started six months ago when Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi and myself both looked at the GodBlogCon and found it to be far too oriented on Conservative Christians to be representative of our faiths.  Rather than sit and fume and feel left out, I  asked who among the many liberal of people of faith would step out to organize and energize a movement among us.  I found the answer first in my own mirror, then in an enthusiastic reply to my first email to Rachel.

Naively, we began reaching out to other bloggers who write about their faith and the way it addresses the world.  Muslim and Jewish, Christian and Buddhist, and even a Pagan or two found themselves aligning with our simple goal: To make the public voice of faith in America more representative of America.  We are not all marching in lockstep with the Christian Right and we refuse to be shouted down or to have our faith questioned for that reason.

We are part of the “moral values” crowd.  Our moral values lead us to oppose unjust war, the misuse of power, the victimization of children, women and minorities through systematic disenfranchisement and misrepresentation of their interests.  We raise our voices against the dangers of unparalleled greed and avarice, the craven lust to control world resources, the refusal to acknowledge mankind’s negative impact on our beautiful world, and the cynical use of our faith for political gain.

Faith is personal, but never private.  At its best, it urges people to engage the world around them and make it better for them having been a part of it.  At its worst, it divides, closes people’s minds, and insulates itself from the world.  The American public is exposed on a daily basis to too much of the latter and not enough of the former.

Our goal is not to proselytize.  We will argue that our faith should have a voice in public life, but it is not a voice that shouts down any who speak in a different tongue.  Our goal is not ecumenicism.  We will not pare down our beliefs and confine our faith to any lowest common denominator.  Our goal is the simple fulfillment of American pluralism.  We will raise our voice and let it be joined in the marketplace of ideas.  

As I wrote yesterday, there are many among the group widely labled as the "Christian Right" who are much less than thrilled about the "sudden" appearance of a loosely oranized group of liberals/progressives (is there any other kind of group of liberals/progressives?) who are speaking openly about their faith and how it informs their politics.  In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not surprised.  It was largely the vitriolic hatred that spews from this group that orginally made me question whether or not I actually wanted to be a member of organized religion in the first place.  Their motto often appears to be "Who Would Jesus Hate?". But it was the answering levels of hate and mistrust from the opposite direction that really overcame my impetus and caused me to step forward and speak about my faith and my politics.  It was the same type of vitriol from the secular left that really shocked me out of my comfort zone.  I’ve sit in rooms filled with what can only be called the elite of society - people with some level of power, with high levels of education, with some amount of money at their disposal.  I’ve listened to people of faith - all people of all faiths - be lumped together and smeared with a broad brush of derision.

Take for example, the fallout from Senator Barak Obama’s recent speech to Call for Renewal.  Some of the criticism may be valid, but it’s clumsy and it tends to alienate the very people to whom Sen. Obama was talking.  The obvious answer for many is, "So what?"

Well, I’m one of those people, so "So what?" is a big deal to me.  It’s a defense used by conservatives against such things as Affirmative Action.  "I haven’t deprived a black person of opportunity, and many black people are successful, so Affirmative Action must be a farce."  Well, just as is true with Affirmative Action, all you have to do is to open your eyes to know why it is needed.  There are, indeed, a lot of people who want to stifle all discussion of faith and politics.  

In a recent conversation with my brother, he got rather hot under the collar when he spoke about the way his faith was received by atheists - calling it "superstition" and refering to him as a "deluded fool", among other things.  Even many liberals and progressives that do believe and practice religion are too busy condemning it from the public sphere to give a straight answer about it - something that doomed John Kerry’s answer on abortion and what Barak Obama was trying to address.  "I don’t believe religion should have any place in politics."  If I had a dime for everytime I’ve heard that, I’d be a very rich man.

The suspicion and hate from the Religious Right, I can accept and understand.  We are challenging the core beliefs of their faith system.  It’s a frightening thing to have to contemplate the possibility of being very wrong about so much that means so much.  But that is actually the reason for faith - to look into the abyss of man’s soul and find a redeeming answer.

The suspicion and hate from the left, though, is much harder to take.  I understand it as a gutteral reaction against the very public voice of the Christian Right.  But I don’t understand the insistance that anyone who believes anything is a priori wrong, misguided, and ignorant.  I also understand that their insistence that faith be left out of politics is an inherent statement that they don’t understand what they are talking about.

Politics is nothing more or less than the methods people use to make collective decisions.  That’s it.  It isn’t holy.  It’s simply an agreement within a group to abide by the rules for making group decisions.  If you live in a monarchy or dictatorship, then your beliefs are irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter to Fidel Castro if the people think he is a good Catholic.  In Cuba, truly, your faith has no place in politics.

But what is faith?  When put into action, faith is a means of guiding your behavior - including a set of ethical and moral precepts by which you determine your personal course of action.  In simplest terms, faith is a means of making decisions.  It can’t possibly tell you immediately what the preferable course of action is in many circumstances, but it can help define what the acceptable limits of behavior are.

So are we really to believe that we should take this system for making decisions and avoid using it when we try to make decisions that effect everyone around us?  That’s insane!

The problem with faith in the public square isn’t that it shouldn’t be there, the problem is that it isn’t fully represented. But to live in the public square, liberal faith must be able to articulate a meaningful dialogue.  It must reach people where they live and breathe and motivate them to work for a better, more just society.

Faith should not dominate the public square, but it must have a place there.  To fight that is to embrace defeat.  This does not mean that faith should have an elevated position in the public square.  No, it must join the battle of ideas and be met on its merits.  It must carve out a sphere where it can show itself plainly.

This is why I called for - and reached out for the help of good people to produce - the Progressive Faith BlogCon.  Starting tomorrow night, we will look into each other’s face and find, not ecumenicism, but plurality.  We do not seek to hide our differences for the sake of our similarities, but to celebrate our similarities for the sake of preserving our differences.

Untested faith is not faith, it is hope.  A faith unwilling to encounter ideas that do not mesh with it fully is not the bright candle to guide mankind, but the fearful candle that is hidden under a bushel.  Similarly, a plurality that is unwilling to allow all people to speak freely of their beliefs and actions is not a plurality, it is a dictatorship.