For example, a common liberal mantra, mindlessly accepted by their minions, is that conservatives are racist. The truth is, the ones who are constantly stirring up race issues (see the latest example with Professor Gates) are liberals.
So, when a liberal like Brian McLaren tries to tell us about the Religious Right, I think it is rather revealing--about himself and his fellow lefties.
Four Lessons from the Religious Right
First, we need to learn from the mistakes of the Religious Right, which were legion. That requires us to get serious about a theology of civic responsibility and the common good, which, thankfully, groups like Sojourners, Faith in Public Life, Center for Public Justice, and others are (in their various ways) eager to help us do if more of us will pay attention. It’s not just the RR tactics that were amiss, and not just the strategy: On a deeper level it’s the theology that undergirded the whole affair that needs to be rethought.
Postmoderns like McLaren (I really think pomo and liberal are synonymous) love to "rethink" things, or at least pretend that they are.
But let's look at these groups he references. Sojo is already linked to, visit if you can stomach it. Here's a bit about the misnamed Faith in Public Life.
Pro-choice and pro-life faith leaders find common ground, shared values on abortion
Faith in Public Life has worked for years to build common ground on abortion among ideologically diverse religious leaders. Several of these courageous advocates gathered on Capitol Hill along with secular groups and Members of Congress Thursday to express support for The Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act, and numerous others -- pro-choice and pro-life alike -- issued statements endorsing it.
There may be issues out there about which a degree of compromise is acceptable, but abortion is not one of them. If abortion is truly murder, then to compromise in the hopes of not having as many (a vain hope, I think) will not cut it. The legel recognition of the murder of one unborn child through abortion is unacceptable, and compromise is cowardly and disgusting.
The Center for Public Justice seems along the same lines, though to their credit they take a bit stronger stance against abortion. Still, their economic rhetoric has a tinge of the left to it.
Second, we need to seek — prayerfully and humbly, and rooted in more seasoned theological reflection — more constructive and wise ways to invest civic energy for the common good, because the antidote to bad political engagement is not no political engagement, but rather wise and effective political engagement.
Yeah, like I consider his and Sojo's political engagement "wise and effective".
Third, we need to avoid overreacting, baptizing an agenda of the left (or center, or whatever) with the same kind of naivete that the right’s agenda previously embraced. The temptation to overreact will grow greater as the Religious Right II re-forms (as it will no doubt do), perhaps as a more extreme, fractious, reactionary, and perhaps even militant group than before.
For one, he's a bit late if he thinks Sojo and the pseudo-christian left hasn't already baptized the left's agenda, and I mean him, too.
The think that stuck out to me in first reading this, though, was his last sentence, because far from describing any Religious Right II, it perfectly describes the left.
Extreme? Do names like ACORN and Rev. Wright ring a bell?
Fractious? Ask Joe Liebermann about how they handle dissent.
Reactionary? Watch the news talk show on cable over this recent Prof. Gates dust-up. Assumption of the officer's guilt is already rampant among them.
Militant? Consider how they try to make soem opposing views "hate speech".
As I said, McLaren looked in a mirror, and accused the other side of what his side is doing.
Fourth, we need to avoid shaming those who now realize their efforts in the Religious Right were misguided.
Thanks, but keep your pity, please. Some of us want nothing to do with your religious left, Mr. McLaren. It's stinks to lowest hell.
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