What does “secular left” even mean?

A debate about the “religious left” has raged in the blogosphere for a little over a day now, incited by a post at Beliefnet by Sojourners president Jim Wallis. 

Wallis, in response to a piece by Kos, argued that religious progressives and secular progressives should unite in common cause rather than undermine each other.  That’s a fine suggestion.  I’m all for it.

The problem, as numerous blogs pointed out (see here and here, e.g.), is that Wallis himself has contributed mightily to the division between the two camps by bashing  not just the religious right, but also his political allies on the “secular left” — claiming that the right needs to understand the progressive nature of the Bible, and the left needs to be OK with faith-based arguments being presented in the public square.  He doesn’t really detail exactly which left-leaning individuals and organizations he objects to, and why.  But he makes the argument.  Which is why, to many ears, Wallis’s olive branch felt contrived.

Now unlike a lot of bloggers, I’m a fan of Jim Wallis.  He has done an awful lot to draw attention in this country to a progressive Christian vision.  Many Americans know the message of Matthew 25 (and the like) because of him.  Our co-chair Romal Tune does some great work with Sojourners, and our other co-chair Roy Herron is about to join their board.  So I’m basically for the guy.

I think Wallis’s critics have a point, though, when they ask him to stop bashing the secular left — or at least, if he’s going to keep doing it, provide some evidence of how the left has made things difficult for people of faith.  If Wallis is trying to help build a progressive movement in America, aren’t there bigger fish to fry than the secular left?

Either way, one subtext to this whole debate is that no one is quite sure what Wallis even means when he refers to the “secular left.”  Liberals who aren’t religious?  Liberals who, religious or not, don’t like expressions of faith in the public square?  People who hate religion on principle?  I’m really not sure.

So here’s my view.  There is indeed a secular left, but it’s not filled primarily with people who despise religion and lack respect for religious folks.  People like that do exist — Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins come to mind — but they really don’t have much political power, at least not with respect to religion.

No, the “secular left” I’m referring to isn’t malicious like that.  This group is comprised of the numerous bloggers and activists on the left who speak in a way that (inadvertently) tells many moderate-conservative religious voters, “You’re not welcome here.”

On the comment thread to Wallis’s Beliefnet piece, I cited Atrios and Matt Stoller of MyDD as examples.  I mentioned, as one example, the time that Atrios said that religious language sounded like “gibberish” to him.  I know he didn’t mean to be insulting; in fact, he specifically said in the same post that that wasn’t his intent.  And as Atrios points out here, he is under no obligation to understand my religious traditions.  I entirely agree with him on that, and I never said otherwise.  My point is that people who do see their life through the prism of religion aren’t going to feel at home at Eschaton.  They’ll feel dismissed.

I’m also sure that Stoller, for his part, isn’t sitting at home, twirling a scary-looking moustache, laughing diabolically about his plan to destroy people of faith.  (Dawkins, perhaps, but not Stoller.)  Again, the message is far more subtle and, presumably, unintentional.  Here’s an example.  During the flap over John Edwards’s bloggers, when the entire liberal blogosphere was four-square behind the bloggers despite their having made obnoxious comments about Catholics, there were a small number of folks in the religious progressive community who felt a bit torn.  Yes, we said, Bill Donohue (the guy who unearthed the bloggers’ anti-Catholic remarks) is a blowhard with a partisan agenda.  But we still don’t like anti-Catholic attitudes and won’t defend them.

In response to one such piece on this site, Stoller hammered us for not presenting a cut-and-dry, pro-blogger argument.  To him, we were either with the bloggers or with Donohue.  I understand and even respect that approach, and I never attacked him for it.  But to us, things were more complicated.  And my sense is that a devout Christian who’s surfing the Internet wouldn’t read Stoller’s post and say, “Hey, this looks like a blog where I’d fit in — they appreciate me here!”  It simply doesn’t work that way.

There are countless other examples in the liberal blogosphere.  I’m not knocking it; I’m just stating what to me is the obvious.

Now before the attacks start rolling in, let me make something clear: I am not condemning, attacking, whatever-ing, the secular outlook of many liberal bloggers.  I’m really not.  Nor am I saying that national politics, writ large, is somehow filled with vicious critics of religion.  To my knowledge, every single politician at the national level is careful not to offend religious voters.  They often have no idea how to reach out effectively, which can come across as aloof.  But they’re nothing if not careful.

No, what I’m saying is there’s a significant group out there that speaks a political language that is neither understandable nor comfortable for many (not all) Christians.  That, to me, is the nature of the “secular left,” at least in the blogosphere.  And that, indeed, is why FaithfulDemocrats.com exists: to provide a place where Christians can feel at home in the progressive movement and the Democratic Party.  That’s the essence of it.  I have little interest in “secular baiting” or in bashing my secular progressive allies.  We can’t afford the intra-party squabbling.

Instead, I hope we can co-exist — or better yet, support each other.  FaithfulProgressive has a great post on that here.  I really get the sense that neither side ultimately wants to keep having this debate, nor do I think there’s nearly as much disrespect both sides fear. 

As these secular-religious discussions progress, I hope we can eventually come to a point where we don’t have to keep talking about our attitude toward each other — like one of those relationships where all you talk about is the relationship itself.  Soon, I hope, we’ll understand each other and march on. 

Unless, of course, another post comes along that’s kind of insulting to either side — then all hell is free to break loose.