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The Progressive Faith Movement
It's Back! - Highlights from
2004
The prophetic voice whose proud legacy includes inspired leadership championing abolition, women's suffrage and racial equality is once again raising a call in the face of moral crisis. Responding to a go-it-alone culture with a defense of the common good, the progressive faith movement has emerged with a strength not seen for three decades. Success has come in the struggles to combat global HIV/AIDS, reduce debt burden on poor countries, and unify religious opposition to the preemptive war in Iraq. Highlights from this year, so far, include:
During 2004, that momentum has increased. Here are a few recent highlights:
FaithfulAmerica.org
emerges as E-Advocacy Force - A
new e-advocacy "community of people of faith who want to build a more just
and compassionate nation" has has attracted over 120,000 members since
June. Campaigns include:
- Breaking new ground in "citizen-to-citizen diplomacy" by
making and airing an ad on Al-Jazeera of American faith leaders expressing
regret to the Muslim world over the “sinful and systemic” abuses
committed in Iraqi prisons. Watch
the Ad
- Creating and funding a camera crew to visit Sudan for footage of
the genocide.
- Generating 50,000 faxes to Congress to force a last-minute, unanimous
vote on the Sudan Congressional Joint Resolution the day before the
July recess
"God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat" Reclaims
God From Partisan Politics - Responding to
claims from some Religious Right leaders that President Bush is 'God's Candidate,'
faith leaders from across the theological spectrum placed a full-page statement
in the New York Times at the start of the Republican Convention stating "God
is Not a Republican...Or a Democrat".
Over 60,000 people of faith endorsed the ad, including 50 prominent Evangelical,
Catholic and Protestant leaders.
Raising the Prophetic Voice at the Political Conventions -The
progressive faith community generated the strongest prophetic presence in
decades during the Democratic and Republican
Conventions.
- In Boston, 1,200 activists and delegates attended the interfaith,
anti-poverty service at Old South Church, before which Senator Nelson
and Rep. DeLauro responded for the Kerry campaign. In New York, over
2,000 people of faith gathered at the Riverside Church for a keynote
from Rev. James Forbes. The Bush campaign was invited to send a surrogate
but did not respond.
- After the service, people of faith from more
than 50 houses of worship circled upper Manhattan with flashlights
to “shed light on America’s
moral crisis.”
- The movement invited both parties to provide speaking space for a
representative of this community. In response, Rev.
Forbes was invited
to address the Boston Convention and lay out his Prophetic
Justice Principles as a new moral litmus test for the nation’s
politics.
- Wesley Theological Seminary hosted Red
God, Blue God panels during each Convention, providing a debate
on the real “faith and values” issues this year.
Let Justice Roll Events Organized in 17 States - This
interfaith tour challenges voters, public officials and candidates to make
poverty eradication a national priority. The campaign has already held events
in over a dozen communities, reaching over 10,000 people. There services at
the Democratic and Republican Conventions were each attended by over 1,000
people of faith, activists, and party delegates.
Darfur Genocide Campaign Calls for US Moral Leadership - Faith groups from across the spectrum are unified in demanding immediate intervention to stop genocide in Western Sudan. Recent actions include:
Unity Statement on Overcoming Poverty Signed by Broadest Religious Coalition- Call to Renewal convened the most diverse and expansive faith coalition in the country to endorse a statement that poverty is a religious and political issue in 2004. Call to Renewal is a faith-based movement against poverty that includes evangelicals, Catholics, and mainline Protestants.
- The National Association of Evangelicals produced an ‘historic document this year that called evangelicals to expand public engagement with global poverty, genocide and other social justice issues, and to look beyond any one party. This results from years of internal deliberation during which moderate & progressive evangelicals pushed NAE beyond their traditional focus on personal piety.
Progressive Leaders Renew Bonds with Faith Community - The Center for American Progress launched a multi-year project on faith with their June policy forum "Faith
and Progressive Policy: Proud History, Promising Future." Similarly, this year's Take Back America conference, a mecca for thousands of progressive leaders, included a keynote from Rev. James Forbes. Both reinforced America's historic alliance between progressive and prophetic voices.
Defending Religious Freedom - The Interfaith Alliance and the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism have been a persistent voices in the press and Congress defending the proper relationship between church and state during a year in which religious conservatives and some campaigns have gone as far as to share church directories.
"Sanctified Seven Program" Trains Thousands - The African American Ministers in Action program of People for the American Way has trained over 2000 religious and lay leaders to participate in public education, voter mobilization, and "Election Protection" efforts. The program is "driven by pastors and other leaders who understand the need to tap the deep and abiding faith that has long been a source of liberation and empowerment within the African American community."
"Faithful Democracy" Calls People of Faith to Vote - A broad interfaith coalition aimed at increasing engagement and turnout among people of faith at the November elections. Their "Have Faith and Vote" campaign provides congregations with materials and guidance to conduct voter registration, education and mobilization according to common religious values.
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The Progressive Faith Movement - Background
"What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
- Book of Micah 6:8
"[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
During our dark moments of moral failing as a nation, religious leaders and people
of faith have found inspiration in the words of prophets like Isaiah, Micah,
and Amos who called their peoples and leaders back to the ideals of justice,
love, and righteousness. The millennial-old tradition has continued in the spirit
of America's great reformers like William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony, Martin
Luther King, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Cesar Chavez, and Dorothy Day. Their progressive
movements were profoundly spiritual and transformed all who witnessed the words "love
thy neighbor as thyself" becoming deed. In them, we saw each human being treated
as a creation in the image of God.
Today, the progressive faith community has resurfaced, called by the grave injustices to challenge our leaders with a new litmus test of moral leadership. We will measure them by the standards of justice and righteousness, of integrity and moral courage, of compassion and commitment to the human community. This movement is not centralized, but it is energized.
The media too often frames debates on faith and values as face-offs between religious arch-conservatives and secular liberals. This ignores the moderate and progressive religious voice that resonates with most Americans of faith. These faith voices are beginning to emerge (see "Highlights" above) and "take back our faith".
Progressive Faith Media is designed to correct the misrepresentation of faith and values and reclaim the prophet's call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before God.
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