Health and Diet Scottish Recipes Ferret for Ferrets


[pf] Christianity/Progressivism
by Julia Grella
03 December 2000 17:34 UTC

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My mom became a born-again Christian 15 years ago, when my father had a 
really miraculous healing from lung cancer, without benefit of radiation or 
chemo (he's in great health today).  She was raised in a 
Jewish-atheist-Communist family.  She had her first child at 17 and her 
fourth at 37, and I used to be annoyed at her when I was little for not 
being more of a radical feminist, but I see now how the exigencies of family 
life and work often turned her attention to just getting by.  She has always 
been progressive.  The only change now is that she is vocally anti-abortion 
- although she made an exception when one of her daughters got pregnant at 
15.  She considers her anti-abortion beliefs consistent with a true 
"pro-life" stance that includes opposition to the death penalty, mandatory 
sentencing and the explosion of new prisions, a national income subsidy that 
will guarantee a living wage, universal health care, and equal access to 
education and opportunity for all people.  In fact, she's spent most of her 
life working for improved education for disadvantaged children, and now 
works for a private foundation to prevent elder abuse.

Knowing her has given me a different perspective on so-called faith-based 
community action.  My mother's evangelical church goes into underserved 
neighborhoods every week to pick up garbage and tend vacant lots.  They also 
go door to door, introduce themselves to the neighbors, and find out if 
there's anything they need.  If someone needs a lawyer, a social worker, an 
advocate, etc., the church people have a whole network of specialists who 
provide these things free of charge.  They're doing the work that many 
progressives shun, getting down and dirty and coming face to face with 
people as complicated and at times exasperating individuals rather than as 
idealized groups.

I really admire the work she and her church are doing.  They are really 
trying to live out what Jesus instructed.  Their values don't always 
coincide with mine, but, although they often seem to judge (or, perhaps, use 
discrimination), they also practice forgiveness.  The faith-based 
organizations that George W. Bush proposes seem to lack this latter detail.

It bothers me that Christianity has become associated with a right-wing 
political agenda.  My mother is proof that this is not so.  My father, who 
was involved with the Catholic Worker as a young man, often says that Jesus 
was a radical and a socialist.  Even the Pope is consistently 
anti-capitalist.  While my mother guessed that many Christians in her church 
voted for Bush (though not her), I can't understand how Christians would 
believe that W. flies the flag of their values -- except that he *seems* to 
be anti-abortion -- in the interest of getting the female vote, of course, 
he didn't have the courage to come out and say so in his campaign.  He is 
disingenuous at best.  Christians believe that God appointed them to be 
stewards of the earth - at least my mother, who is a member of an Assembly 
of God church - says so.  How can anyone, Christian or not, look at what 
Bush proposes - essentially, a government whose sole purpose is enriching 
his already filthy rich pals - and believe that he is living out Christian 
values?

I don't understand how it's come to pass that Christians choose to identify 
themselves with selfishness, insularity, shunning their less-fortunate 
neighbors, diverting largesse from the public welfare toward aggression and 
the instruments of war, murdering prisoners, casting out the orphans and the 
widows.  Having read the Bible, I can only believe that this is an obscene 
perversion of what Christ preached.  The bible-thumpers adhere to the God of 
the Torah/Old Testament, the god of vengeance.  But Jesus was very explicit 
about creating a new covenant based not on the law, but on grace.  Where is 
that grace?  He said he came to free the prisoners.  Fundamentalists must 
take that literally.  I am saddened by what is going on.

Julia