Left wing religion

[pegkerr]

I have been doing a lot of comfort eating in the last few days, which is not my usual pattern, but it seems right. I walked to Kieran's over the lunch hour and gorged on their pot roast sandwich and bread pudding with whiskey sauce. I will doubtless fall asleep at my desk this afternoon.

As some of you know because I've been commenting in various people's journals, I have been brooding with a great deal of pain over this last election, and especially the set back to gay rights, which feels like a blow to the core of my Christian faith. I had taken along a copy of Lavender Magazine because I was hoping that Jacob Reitan's column might offer some comfort (Reitan writes about matters of faith for the gay community). The column was written before the election, but it was amazingly prescient. As I ate, I read the column, and Reitan's words were exactly what I needed. Talking about one of my greatest personal heroes, Paul Wellstone, Reitan wrote:

Wellstone’s faith focused on action. One need look only as far as his conception of the Almighty to understand why.

“I think the prophetic tradition of our faith is that to love God is to love justice. And, hey, I don’t meet that goal, but I try to do everything I can to live by it,” Wellstone once said to the Rabbi Laureate of Temple Aaron Synagogue in St. Paul.

That theistic understanding is the root of the religious left. Unlike the religious right, which focuses on what particular theistic tradition to believe in, and what citizens should not do, the religious left embraces different beliefs in the name and cause of justice.

The religious left is neither pious nor exclusionary. It does not damn or spread fear. Rather, it evokes hope and compassion.

Primarily, the religious left calls individuals to personal accountability, and criticizes persons only when they do not share the load of society’s burdens. It understands that all members of society are God’s children, and all deserve to experience and live out the glories of Her world.

That's the kind of faith I can believe in, that I can get behind. I want to find other believers who think the same way. Where are they, and what can we do together?

Comments

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

I want to find other believers who think the same way. Where are they, and what can we do together?

*raises hand* Here's one! I'm one! And I'm a pastor... not that this fact seems to help much. Mostly it just distances be from my congregation, but my hope is that bit by bit, earning their trust, I can coax them to move from religious right to at least the religious middle if not the left. I am hurt by all the "Christians voted for Bush" polls and statistics. Not *all* of us did. And in fact, it is precisely my religiously-held belief in God's inclusive love of all creatures that motivates me to vote against the republican agenda.

Thanks for finding this quote. It was what I need to hear, too.