I’ve begun to feel empathy for Jim Wallis. First he was unable to persuade enough of his fellow evangelicals that abortion and gay rights should not have been determining issues in the 2004 presidential vote. Now he’s taking flak from the left — specifically Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, writing in the Dec. 13 issue of The Nation.

Kissling writes:

In the case of abortion, schizophrenia abounds: First Jim Wallis, the moderate evangelical preacher who speaks frequently on behalf of religious progressives, tells us we shouldn’t focus on this issue at all; then he expounds on what the Democrats should do to attract “‘centrist’ Catholic and evangelical voters.” Wallis says the Democrats should “welcome pro-life Democrats — Catholics and evangelicals — and have a serious conversation with them” about how to reduce teen pregnancy, make adoption easier and conditions for low-income women better. It is odd for a progressive religious leader to suggest that Democrats, rather than Republicans, are the obstacle to helping teens and low-income women but perhaps not surprising from a man whose personal commitment to dialogue has included demonstrating at a nuclear plant and an abortion clinic on the same day.

That closing sentence is especially interesting. It’s not clear (to met, at least) whether Kissling intends the wording as a backhanded compliment or as further evidence of schizophrenia on abortion. For introverts who don’t readily attend political demonstrations, there’s something admirable and heroic about Wallis’ day of Seamless Garment-style activism.

Wallis is sticking to his campaign argument that Christian political engagement means being just as concerned about war and peace as about abortion, In an op-ed published Monday in USA Today, Wallis criticized both parties:

Right now, neither party gets the values question right. The Democrats seem uncomfortable with the language of faith and values, preferring in recent decades the secular approach of restricting such matters to the private sphere. But where would we be if Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his faith to himself? The separation of church and state does not require the segregation of moral language and values from public life. The Republicans are comfortable with the language of religion and values. But the GOP wants to narrow the focus to hot-button social issues it then uses as wedges in political campaigns, while ignoring or obstructing the application of such values where they would threaten its agenda.

Steve Taylor skewered the insularity of Christian Yellow Pages back in 1984 with his song “Guilty By Association”:

So you need a new car? Let your fingers take a walk
through the business guide for the “born again” flock.
You’ll be keeping all your money in the kingdom now
and you’ll only drink milk from a Christian cow.

Taylor’s song came to mind as I read Jennifer Skalka’s report for the Chicago Tribune about the websites Choose the Blue and Buy Blue, which both encourage frustrated John Kerry supporters to let their politics shape where they spend money.

Skalka explains that Ann and Bill Duvall used records from the Federal Election Commission and the Center for Responsive Politics to document donations by leading American companies and their employees.

“This is not a boycott,” said Bill Duvall, a software creator who was involved in the transmission of the first e-mail message 35 years ago. “. . . It’s just that we believe it’s possible to direct some of your spending so we can begin to at least even the playing field.”

A link on Buy Blue’s website describes the mission more bluntly: “Find out which businesses have been naughty . . . and which have been nice. Shop accordingly!”

The numbers on Choose the Blue point to some surprises. Who would have thought that Arby’s, with its talking oven-mitt mascot, is pure blue but Taco Bell is mostly Republican? Say it isn’t so, Taco Bell Chihuahua!

On the media front, Choose the Blue devotes a front-page link to News Corp., which shows that Rupert Murdoch’s employees are not nearly as predictable in their politics as one might expect.

Here are some other numbers from Choose the Blue:

Skalka spoke with two scholars who are skeptical about how well the strategy will work:

“The question that remains then is which side does a better job of spreading the word to those who are most likely to act on it,” said Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University and a faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research.

Richard Feinberg of Purdue University said most people don’t make their shopping decisions based on personal ideology. They look for the best bargains or the most convenient stores.

“The handful of people that it might influence are already boycotting or not spending money on businesses that they think go against their political grain,” said Feinberg, director of the school’s Center for Customer Driven Quality. “It’s not going to change a neutral person.”

Happy shopping to all Americans, especially during the holy season of Christmahanukwanza!

As state by heartland state turned red on the night of 11/2, a few brave Democratic strategists began hinting that something would have to be done to move their party closer to the center of American life and, in particular, to lessen its hostility to traditional religious believers who once were part of the FDR-Truman coalition.

Ever since, GetReligion has been watching for signs of compromise on the lifestyle left, especially on the big issues — abortion and the redefinition of marriage. Clearly the debates have begun behind the scenes and they are seeping into public view. Richard Cohen’s op-ed this week in the Washington Post — "Democrats, Abortion and ‘Alfie’ " — is one sign of this, but there are others.

We’ll get to his take on the "Alfie" movies in a minute. His key political statement is that the Democratic Party simply has to make room for people who — for intellectual, moral, scientific and even theological reasons — are convinced that abortion is a complex life-and-death issue that is hard to reduce to a bullet-proof slogan. He writes:

Yet the party insists otherwise. It entertains no doubts and counters reasonable questions and qualms with slogans — a woman’s right to choose, for instance. The party is downright inhospitable to abortion opponents. Therefore, it was good Sunday to hear Howard Dean — both a physician and pro-choice — say on "Meet the Press" that "I have long believed that we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats."

Dean may make a run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and so what he says could matter. As it is now, being pro-choice is a litmus test for all Democrats, especially their presidential candidates. It is almost inconceivable that a Democratic candidate could voice qualms about abortion. It’s almost inconceivable, though, that the candidates don’t have them.

In this entertainment-drenched culture, Cohen has structured his column as a clash between the classic ’60s movie "Alfie" and the current remake. The former, he notes, included a strong reference to abortion. The latter does not. He sees this as a sign — with a nod to those values voters — that times have changed and that abortion opponents have changed some minds.

What he seems to have missed is that the abortion in the older film is treated as a soul-searing tragedy, not as a triumph for individualism. The new film veers around a possible abortion, yet strongly hints that life would have been better if a problem pregnancy had been ended. (Tip of the hat to views expressed in a personal email from Frederica Mathewes-Green of Beliefnet.)

So Cohen may have the movies backward, but that does not negate his political point. (By the way, the Weekly Standard has a fine essay that notes that Bill Naughton’s 1966 novel "Alfie" was even more complex and — gasp — rooted in a Catholic worldview.) You could make a case that the new "Alfie" tried to soft-sell its moral worldview, rather than face up to it. This may not have worked with blue consumers or with all of those alleged red-culture consumers.

Meanwhile, back to the main point. Apparently, Howard Dean is not the only Democrat who is thinking it may make sense to let a few more pro-life congress-persons in the side door of the once big tent. According to Newsweek, Sen. John Kerry has asked the same question. Here’s the lead from Debra Rosenberg’s report:

The week after Thanksgiving, dozens of Democratic Party loyalists gathered at AFL-CIO headquarters for a closed-door confab on the election. John Kerry dropped by to thank members of the liberal 527 coalition America Votes. When Ellen Malcolm, president of the pro-choice political network EMILY’s List, asked about the future direction of the party, Kerry tackled one of the Democrats’ core tenets: abortion rights. He told the group they needed new ways to make people understand they didn’t like abortion. Democrats also needed to welcome more pro-life candidates into the party, he said. "There was a gasp in the room," says Nancy Keenan, the new president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The freak out will not end soon. However, there was an interesting news peg in the body of the story. It seems that a small group of red-zone Democrats — Newsweek names Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh — have joined a "a new progressive advocacy group" called Third Way that wants to discuss compromises on the hot cultural issues.

How will we know that this is serious? Reporters can start by watching for signs of a Democrats For Life link on mainstream party websites — ending the existing ban. We can also listen for louder screams in party publications such as the New York Times.

UPDATE: Friend of the blog Peggy Noonan has suggested another possible battle front in this war of the symbols in the Democratic Party. Want to send a signal to pew-gap Americans? Why not come out in favor of Christmas?

Consider this a short update from down here in South Florida, where people continue to struggle with the results of the 2004 election. On one level, this is a Jay Leno talking point. On another level, this story is actually rather interesting.

You may have seen the initial report about the Boca Raton group therapy sessions that are being held for supporters of Sen. John Kerry who are having trouble moving on. Actually, you get the impression that they are haters of President Bush more than they are Kerry supporters.

I think we have another chance, in this little story, to see into the heart of the anti-fundamentalist voter phenomenon.

Anyway, the Boca News update by reporter Sean Salai covers predictable ground and then hits what certainly seems to be the heart of the matter for these liberals who are suffering from Post Election Selection Trauma — religion.

For starters, the story notes that the “predominantly Jewish support group members, almost all of them Palm Beach County Democrats” over the age of 50, kept shouting down the therapy leader, who tried to guide them away from discussions of conspiracy theories about how the election was rigged.

There was lots of anger at the news media, which is now under the control of right-wing corporations. The Iraqi war was, of course, another hot topic. Bit it was not the hottest topic.

On the issue of religion, the elderly PEST sufferers were especially animated.

“The Republicans have gotten away with phony spirituality,” said Alfred.

“The Jeffersonian ideal of separation between church and state is going to hell.”

“There’s more of them than us,” said a woman named Joyce, referring to “red state” voters. “That’s scary.”

I don’t think this is an Onion story, but it might be.

The story stressed that the Boca Raton-based American Health Association is treating a total of 60 Palm Beach County liberals in three different weekly support groups. However, only one of the groups has allowed reporters to sit in on its sessions — with the understanding that no full names are used and no clues are provided about the location. No photos are allowed, either.

Has anyone seen any reports of similar groups elsewhere in the nation, or is this just a South Florida thing?

And this just in from the “values” wars. Sen. Edward Kennedy has asked member of his staff to investigate how liberals can talk about God. They may even need to do a better job of talking about God on television and the Internet, in order to compete with those mass-media superstars Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Say what?

It is a bit hard to make sense out of the recent Boston Globe report by Glen Johnson, which ran under the rather weak headline, “From left, religious figures make a push.” The big news seems to be that (a) the religious left exists, (b) it believes that moral values affect topics other than gay rights and abortion, (c) that religious liberals are very, very mad about the outcome of the Nov. 2 elections and (d) they need another Bill Clinton who knows how to sin, confess and preach and sound like he knows what he’s doing.

Of course, regular readers of GetReligion, The Revealer or any major newspaper with a solid religion reporter already knew all of this. What is interesting about Johnson’s report is its clear assumption that the mainstream left is ready to get down to business and crack this God thing in time for the 2006 elections. I mean, brace yourself, they are holding conference calls about it.

It appears that the dreaded religious right is not going to quit on its own, even if its old guard has all but vanished from the national scene. The Globe report notes:

‘The religious right has been effectively organizing for 35 years, and as I always say, it took Moses 40 years to lead his people out of the wilderness, and it’s going to take us a few years more to catch up,” said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA and a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania.

Edgar is part of a group that holds a conference call each Thursday to discuss the liberal response to national and world affairs, a telephonic gathering convened last year in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq. . . .

Among as many as 40 people on the line any Thursday are Jim Wallis, who convened Call to Renewal, a faith-based response to world poverty; the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance; the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., pastor of the Riverside Church in New York; and Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund.

There’s a lot more to report, including the interesting details about Kennedy’s staff plunging into research into how Democrats can get religion. It also notes some complex poll results that show just how small the true “values vote” impact was in the election. It was strategic, but small.

Meanwhile, one of the most outspoken voices on the religious left openly asked — once again — if progressives would be willing to make any kind of compromises in order to walk their talk on cultural issues such as abortion.

Wallis, who edits Sojourners magazine in addition to leading Call to Renewal, said the most urgent challenge for Democrats is to open up about their moral values, as well as their faith, where appropriate. Wallis said abortion offers one such opportunity.

‘They say, ‘Keep abortion safe, legal, and rare,’ but they do nothing but try to keep it legal; they do nothing to make it rare,” he said. ‘The Democrats ought to say, ‘Let’s work on reducing abortion rates, adoption reform, helping low-income women.’ We could work on that together, prolife and prochoice, and reduce the abortion rate in the process.”

Here is the question that I have yet to see asked in one of these valid and timely reports on the religious left. How many of these clerics represent denominations, churches or movements that are growing? The whole oldline world represented by the National Council of Churches has lost about a third of its members in the past generation or so and its membership lists contain a high percentage of older Americans. Meanwhile, the churches on the moral right are either holding their own or continuing to grow, especially in all of those red zip codes.

Meanwhile, the number of secular or post-Judeo-Christian Christian believers is rising — the segment of the population that I like to refer to as the Da Vinci Vote. However, these voters will not be found in the facing sanctuaries of the oldline world. You are more likely to find them at the multiplex or at the mall.

The problem for the Democrats is trying to find a message that appeals to those who cherish traditional religious values, while appealing at the same time to those who sincerely hate traditional religious values. That will be hard to do. Where is Oprah when you need her?

Here’s another story from the tidal wave just after the election that has continued to bother me a bit. The headline was “G.O.P. Adviser Says Bush’s Evangelical Strategy Split Country” and the basic concept was that the Christian right has totally taken control of the Republican Party, according to veteran GOP consultant Arthur Finkelstein. It now has veto power over the party’s choice for president. (Hear that, Rudy?) Early on, he says: “From now on, anyone who belongs to the Republican Party will automatically find himself in the same group as the opponents of abortion, and anyone who supports abortion will automatically be labeled a Democrat.” Actually, if you read that statement in a mirror, you’d have a pretty good summary of the 2004 Democratic Party platform.