Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Progressive Christians start O.C. chapter
The Southern California-based organization aims to counteract forces that are aligning evangelical churches with political interests.
By ANN PEPPER
The Orange County Register
A group of Orange County activists wants to recast the public voice of religion and base it on Christ's "radical" admonition to love your neighbor as yourself. This summer, hoping to attract believers who feel their faith has been hijacked by political interests, Progressive Christians Uniting, a 10-year-old Southern California-based organization, opened an Orange County chapter.
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The new chapter got going just as a July poll conducted among 2,003 adults by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life showed that "while the public remains more supportive of religion's role in public life than in the 1960s, Americans are uneasy with the approaches offered by both liberals and conservatives."
Fully 69 percent of Americans say that those who seek to keep religion out of schools and government have gone too far. But the proportion who express reservations about attempts by some Christians to impose their religious values has edged up in the past year, with about half the public, 49 percent, now expressing wariness about this.
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The voice of religion "I hear out there now says the most important things are to make sure we don't allow gay marriage," he said, "because somehow that's going to mess up marriage more than heterosexuals have done – although I don't know how – stopping illegal immigration, preventing abortion and looking forward to the Rapture and Armageddon. "But for me, the Christian faith is about serving others, loving others, loving your enemies and doing justice." His issues are ending hunger and poverty in the world and tackling problems such as affordable housing, homelessness and justice for the poor.
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http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1265478.php