The Rise Of The Religious Left Part II

This is a continuation of the letter I started to write yesterday.

I was envisioning a site using Scoop like Daily Kos. To my knowledge, Scoop is the only software out there that allows literally anyone who registers to not only become a member, but in fact a blogger with the same possibility of holding the top blogger spot as anyone else. I am also a huge fan of the nested comments which really allow you to follow who said what to whom and in relation to what in a thread.

If we could get prominent members of the religious left to contribute to this hypothetical site, ordinary members would have the chance to interact and have conversations with them. You can see this at work on Talking Points Memo Cafe where former Vice-Presidential Candidate John Edwards spent a week talking with visitors to the site.

Again, the thing that would distinguish this site from others would be that it would be explicitly political in nature. When our enemy screams special rights for homosexuals we immediately formulate a response of equal rights for all people under law! When they say internment is okay in times of national crisis we say we stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters and insist they be treated like all other faiths!

In between crisis such as the ones mentioned above, we can work together to create a long term agenda for the Religious Left. Social justice, equality, poverty, education... all these issues the right has a coodinated plan of attack for. Now it is our turn.

As I see it, it is crucial that progressive Christians be central to this enterprise; after all, the majority of the nation is Christian. I think that issues of unity could be resolved around a committment to three principles:

All members honor the Creator as they understand that Creator.

All members seek to treat others as they themselves would wish to be treated. This is actually a more complex challenge than it initially appears to be. The obvious aspect of that is to treat others well. The not so obvious and more difficult aspect is that it becomes a duty to confront those who are a threat to the community at large; much as it is necessary to confront a drunk and take away the car keys before something terrible happens.

All members honor the fact that others perceive the Creator differently from themselves.

And this is where I stop for the day because I am very sick and returning to bed.