Finally! Progressive religious leaders are becoming fed up with the hijacking of our banner of faith by the religious right!
For those of you who didn't see it, there was an amazing piece on last week's NOW in which Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph C. Hough, head of the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. Hough spoke on current issues from the point of view of a man of faith who expresses righteous outrage at what he perceives to be actions in opposition to basic "Abrahamic" religious traditions (referring to Judaism, Christianity and Islam) by figures on the religious right.
In my opinion, what Hough says is what ALL of the religious/spiritual community that doesn't agree with what the right wing is doing needs to be saying. It is also a prime example of how enlightened people of faith are not just allies, but important members of the progressive community. For those who do not believe, please note that at no point during the interview does Hough make any condemnation of any other religion (or lack thereof), but rather presents his religion as his moral basis for his beliefs -- and calls upon other people of faith to come to the same realization.
Bill Moyers talks to Joseph C. Hough on the intersection of politics and religion, and why he thinks it is the duty of Christians, Jews and Muslims to join to fight growing economic inequality, why he’s critical of how some political pundits are using Christianity to justify their actions, and why he suspects that the time for a non-destructive, civil disobedience may be near.Some choice excerpts:
It appears also in the Sermon on the Mount. It appears indirectly in the feeding of the five thousand or four thousand, whichever you want. It's reported four times in the Gospel, more than any other single event in the life of Jesus. In every case, and it also, in a way, it foreshadows the Eucharist. Because the Eucharistic meal was first a meal for the people who were the followers of Jesus. And if you look it Acts 3, you will see that those followers of Jesus saw to it that people who didn't have enough to eat could come to that table and get enough to eat. That was the radical model they put out there. Nobody likes to talk about that very much. But there it is. Right in the middle of Acts.
And they continued to worship in the temple. This is a continuity with the best in the Jewish tradition, and it is also no accident that there's some strong similarities in the Koran. And that is why I think all of us in the Abrahamic traditions who share this conviction about care for the least fortunate should simply make some kind of public declaration that enough is enough. We've gone far enough. SNIP...
But, you know, the Lord Jesus said, "By their fruits, you shall know them." And speaking as a humble fruit inspector of the Lord, I'd say that if this person is a Born Again Christian, there's a mixed signal somewhere." I feel the same way.
If Tom Delay is acting out of his Born Again Christian convictions in pushing legislation that disadvantages the poor every time he opens his mouth, I'm not saying he's not a Born Again Christian, but as a the Lord's humble fruit inspector, it sure looks suspicious to me. And anybody who claims in the name of God they're gonna run over people of other nations, and just willy-nilly, by your own free will, reshape the world in your own image, and claim that you're acting on behalf of God, that sounds a lot like Caesar to me. These are just two short snips, but I implore you to read the entire piece. It is THAT good. And it presents a compelling case of the need of religious/spiritual progressives to spread this message through their religious communities. The time of allowing the Christian Right to hijack the spirit of religion needs to come to an end, and WE religious/spiritual progressives need to gather the righteous indignation necessary to take our mantle of faith BACK!
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