{"id":1482,"date":"2004-07-28T20:37:22","date_gmt":"2004-07-29T00:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/07\/28\/religion-and-the-democrats\/"},"modified":"2004-07-28T20:37:22","modified_gmt":"2004-07-29T00:37:22","slug":"religion-and-the-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/07\/28\/religion-and-the-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and the Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

So I spent a decent amount of today at the “People of Faith” caucus
\nluncheon, talking with a number of delegates and party people about how
\nthe Democrats are attempting to make a renewed connection with faith
\ncommunities.<\/p>\n

The speakers outlined in a variety of ways how the Democratic party
\ncould try to make a connection with “communities of faith.”  (N.B.
\n“Community” has got to be the most overused word in modern civic
\nculture discourse.  It’s so overused as to have lost
\nmeaning.)  Although the caucus luncheon was meant to include
\npeople of all the monotheistic faiths (well, at least Jews and Muslims
\nwere the only ones mentioned besides the obvious), the focus was
\noverwhelmingly upon the Christian side of the problem.  At least
\nin our contemporary political discourse, the significant divide over
\nreligion occurs with the Christians.  There’s the right and
\nthere’s the rest of us.<\/p>\n


\nJim Wallis<\/a>, the editor of Sojourners magazine, noted in his speech, “We
\nneed to take back the idea that faith and God are a province of the
\nreligious right.”<\/p>\n

He continued, “The media is filled with stories of the divided
\nchurch.  Others say that religion doesn’t have a place in
\npolitics.  We think that it does.  Some of us feel that our
\nvoice of faith has been stolen.”<\/p>\n

Sojourners <\/a>is a magazine and an
\norganization dedicated “to proclaim and practice the
\nbiblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice.” 
\nWallis focused a lot on his comments on the poor in this country and
\nabroad, and that seems to be at the heart of much of what he’s worked
\non in his life.  He also encouraged the people present to remember
\nthat the care of the environment, prejudice and discrimination, and war
\nare all issues that faith can inform, and not just in the way portrayed
\nby the right.  “My evangelical tradition has been distorted such
\nthat it
\nseems the faith of Jesus has become pro-rich, pro-war,
\npro-American.”<\/p>\n

He finished, “‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.'”  The
\ncountry is terrified by fear; we need the healing of the nation that is
\ndeeper than politics.  The most frequent words of Jesus are ‘Be
\nnot afraid.’  if your political commitments are rooted in your
\nmoral values, in your faith, you need to let your values, your faith
\nshine through.”<\/p>\n

More later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I spent a decent amount of today at the “People of Faith” caucus luncheon, talking with a number of delegates and party people about how the Democrats are attempting to make a renewed connection with faith communities. The speakers outlined in a variety of ways how the Democratic party could try to make a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[661],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deeencee"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-nU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}