Strengthening the progressive movement through liberal entrepreneurship
Zack Exley has a short piece up about the phenomenon of evangelical Christian house meetings - informal extra-church prayer meetings that create a kind of secondary structure in religious communities.
Exley is interested in the nature of praying and other activities at these meetings, which I suppose is interesting. But what I find intriguing is the striking similarity between this kind of activity and the political awareness-spreading/fundraising house parties made famous by progressive trailblazers like Howard Dean and MoveOn. At the time, these meetings were hailed as a new kind of community, perhaps capable of replacing some of the social capital which Robert Putnam claims we've lost over the past generation.
It's clear there are important differences between Christian house meetings and progressive ones. The former have a long-term goal of fellowship and religious activism, whereas the latter are usually organized around a fundraising or volunteer recruitment goal. The former are not centrally organized - sometimes not even supervised by religious leadership - while the latter are usually initiated by a central organizing committee, e.g. the Dean campaign or MoveOn's online house party tools. The former, at least in the case Exley points to, are regularly-occurring meetings that build community among a relatively stable group of people, while the latter are sporadic meetings that feature a loose group of strangers.
Still, I wonder why it's not possible for progressives to imitate these house meetings - particulalry, why it's not possible for religious progressives to imitate them. This reminds me to some degree of some of the more interesting organizational proposals in Michael Lerner's Left Hand of G-d. In that book, Lerner suggests building neighborhood groups of spiritual progressives across the country, who gather to discuss current events, pray together, etc.
I'm not sure if anyone in the religious progressive movement, aside from Lerner, is thinking about this kind of thing seriously, or how to foment this kind of activity, but I'd certainly welcome hearing more about it.
This Sunday marked the last day of Evolution Weekend 2008. Held in honor of Charles Darwin's birthday, the weekend is an effort on the behalf of the Clergy Letter Project to demonstrate that religion and science are not incompatible. Over 800 religious communities throughout the world participated, and over 500 scientists signed on as consultants to work with clergy on accurately addressing the idea of evolution in a religious context. (The church my wife belongs to participated, although we were out of town and didn't attend.)
I think this is an important project, and I'm glad to see that it's picking up steam. From reports in the Dallas Morning News to my very brief perusal of the project's extensive evolution sermon archive, it appears that participating clergy are using this weekend to explore the theological meaning of evolution, and more generally, the importance of science within a religious worldview. The sermon archive includes sermons with a wide variety of theological points of view on the meaning of religion - including suggestions that evolution is proof of divine presence and creativity, not rejection of it; thoughts about the different kinds of knowledge which science and religion can illuminate; and remarks about the different ways of understanding the story of creation and the theory of evolution.
My point here isn't to explore or evaluate these various points of view, although I think some of them are intriguing. Rather, I think this project is an example of something which we don't see very often: religious liberals providing a theological underpinning for a progressive point of view. This is an important role for religious liberals, for a number of reasons. First, it accurately reflects the principal factor (faith) which actually motivate some liberals. Second, it provides an alternative to the religious conservative worldview. Third, it may be a useful tool in motivating religious people who are not politically active to join a progressive cause. Finally, it may help us understand the motivations of conservatives - the heartfelt beliefs and anxieties on the other side of the debate, whether the debate be centered on evolution or another topic.
Evolution Weekend isn't the only example of such an effort. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice offers a similar breadth of religious infrastructure for issues related to reproductive choice, as the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry does for the issue of marriage equality. Religious liberals are steadily building a wealth of resources for explaining elements of the progressive worldview from a religious point of view. This kind of religious infrastructure is incredibly important in competing with the Religious Right. Instead of pandering to this crowd or attempting to imitate them while papering over substantive political differences, our leaders should be drawing on these kinds of resources, to the degree that those resources help them communicate with religious communities. I'm glad to see the Clergy Letter Project, RCRC, RCFM, and others like them laying the groundwork for this new approach to liberal religious politics, and I hope that we see more in the future.
There's been a lot of interesting news in the world of labor and in religion and politics lately. In case you're paying no attention at all to the Super Bowl tonight, some of this might prove interesting:
Well, it's mostly religion news, but I thought the writers' strike news was pretty interesting too. So, is there anything interesting on TV tonight?
The Christian Science Monitor today notes the beginning of the meeting of the New Baptist Covenant, convened by President Carter in Atlanta this week. The stated goal of the covenant is to bring Baptists together - the theme is "Unity in Christ" - to work on spreading the gospel and supporting social justice projects.
Politics is strictly prohibited at the meeting, although I find it a little difficult to view this meeting as purely apolitical. Any group headlined by two Presidents (Carter and Clinton) and two Senators (Graham and Grassley) is not apolitical. After all, if this meeting were purely about theological and denominational unity, it could be composed entirely without the help of these politicians who are - excepting perhaps Carter - not really leaders within their denomination.
Moreover, the topics chosen for discussion, chiefly peace and poverty, are acutely political. Even suggesting that they should be the main issues for discussion at a Baptist meeting is a political statement (although, in better times, it would not be.) There's a reason Southern Baptist Convention leaders have chosen to stay away from the meeting - they know it is an unsubtle swipe at their intensive focus on conservative orthodoxy, their focus on theological issues which align neatly with political social conservatism.
Carter is leading a deliberate effort to "re-brand" Baptism as a religion focused on social justice as well as evangelism, and that means that he doesn't want it to be a religion focused on evangelism and social conservatism. Fine, I applaud that. But what will the New Baptist Covenant need to do, in pragmatic terms, to actually wrest control of the Baptist identity out of the SBC's hands? Meetings, as prominent SBC leader Albert Mohler notes, are not enough.
My reading of intra-Baptist denominational politics is extremely fuzzy, so I don't have a particularly good answer to offer. But my guess is that, despite reform efforts within the SBC, the conservative "resurgence" within the convention is not getting much weaker anytime soon, and that the upper echelons of the SBC leadership won't be joining the New Baptists in the near future. Instead, the New Baptist Covenant will have to offer a clear alternative to the grassroots of the SBC, at both an individual and a congregational level. They will probably want to offer some kind of formal affiliation program to individual SBC congregations. SBC congregations do, after all, have a high degree of autonomy. If the New Baptist Covenant were willing to provide a certification program under which any Baptist congregation were free to apply for, let's say, a "Unity in Christ" certificate, individual SBC congregations should be free to do so without interference from the larger convention.
The result would be a patchwork of Baptist denominations and congregations, all theoretically united in a common theological vision of evangelism and social justice, who might be able to speak and organize in a cohesive voice, thereby undermining the conservative orthodoxy of the SBC. Moreover, such a program would give aspiring Baptist preachers who are interested in social justice an idea of where to seek their calling. It would also allow socially-minded Baptists an opportunity to find a home congregation which matches their own theological vision. At the end of the day, it would give the social justice voices within the SBC something to rally around.
In light of the extreme unpopularity of the war in Iraq, and the newfound popularity of social justice work in evangelical circles of late, this should not be an extremely difficult sell. It will take a bit of legwork and, I think, some aggressive marketing, but it is eminently feasible. Indeed, such a program might actually be a lifeline for many congregations, SBC and non-SBC alike. After all, as Bill Leonard points out in the Monitor article, nondenominational churches (which overlap a good deal with, but are not strictly the same as, the well-known megachurches) are offering Baptist congregations pretty stiff competition. A new focus on social justice work might be a way to build cohesion among Baptists, or to attract new congregants from nondenominational churches.
It'll be interesting to see what Carter and the New Baptists come up with. The challenge to the conservative orthodoxy of SBC leadership must come both from within and without.
Update: You can follow news from the covenant meeting at Baptist reform blog Mainstream Baptist, or the more conservative SBC Outpost. So far, from early reports, there have been nice speeches and references to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of racial unity, but no action plans. (h/t Melissa Rogers)
Update 2: With a tip of the hat to Melissa Rogers again, don't hold your breath for the New Baptist Covenant to aggressively compete with the SBC. From the Dalls Morning News:
At a Friday news conference, Mr. Carter said he and other organizers of the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant will be meeting in the next few weeks to consider how best to follow up.
No new organization is foreseen. But Jimmy Allen, coordinator of the event, said another mass meeting is likely "in two or three years," and meanwhile, ways will be explored to help foster collaborations by the groups that came together this time.
We'll find out more in a couple of months, I guess.