{"id":297,"date":"2014-11-22T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T16:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/11\/the-politics-of-love.html"},"modified":"2014-11-22T16:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T16:37:00","slug":"the-politics-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/11\/the-politics-of-love.html","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
For a long period in the history of the United States, Christians understood that progressive political action for structural social change was a necessary means toward the end of living out the gospel.\u00a0 They understood that charity would never solve the nation\u2019s social ills.\u00a0 Their religious faith translated into a faith in democracy as the means to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Today the Salvation Army is hardly associated with progressive politics.\u00a0 But in the 1890\u2019s, Barrington Booth, commander of the Salvation Army in the United States, said that \u201cTo right the social wrong by charity is like bailing out the ocean with a thimble\u2026 We must readjust our social machinery so that the producers of wealth become also owners of wealth.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n
Many fundamentalist Christians in America in the late 19th<\/span>\u00a0and early 20th<\/span>\u00a0century were political leftists, and did not hesitate to use religious rhetoric in political support of the labor movement and legislative efforts to reign in the runaway power of corporate trusts and monopoly capital.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
William Jennings Bryan was a fundamentalist Presbyterian who ran unsuccessfully three times for the presidency as the Democratic nominee.\u00a0 Hard to imagine today, but then he was attacked by the Republicans for being strident and public about his traditional religious beliefs.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

His most notable uses of religious rhetoric were not based on fundamentalist dogma, however, but on spiritual imagery that could resonate with most Americans.\u00a0 He was a vigorous advocate of \u201cbi-metallism,\u201d which would have allowed the U.S. central bank more flexibility in monetary policy that would have benefited farmers and workers.\u00a0 The business elite defended the gold standard.\u00a0 He famously declaimed:\u00a0 \u201cIf they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
In the \u201980s, a revitalized conservative political movement allied itself with evangelical Christianity.\u00a0 This alliance began in earnest when fundamentalist colleges that refused to admit black students were penalized by the Internal Revenue Service, prompting a backlash against this perceived government intrusion against religion.\u00a0 Religion in politics became identified with fundamentalist Christian doctrine and the \u201cpelvic issues\u201d of opposition to abortion and homosexuality. Many political progressives abandoned religious rhetoric altogether, for fear of being identified as biblical literalists.\u00a0 Meanwhile, conservatives began a relentless campaign to condemn and dismantle government as the enemy of freedom.\u00a0 The Republican Party backed up this characterization by governing badly when in power.\u00a0 The result?\u00a0 The demoralization of the electorate.\u00a0 A loss of faith in democracy.\u00a0 And, over time, a loss of faith in faith itself.\u00a0 2014 marked the lowest voter turnout in midterm elections in 72 years, at 36.3 percent of the electorate.\u00a0 There is a corresponding exodus from evangelical and fundamentalist churches in America as young people in particular are dropping out in record numbers.\u00a0 This past weekend, I had long chats with two young women who graduated from a nearby evangelical Christian college.\u00a0 They were so disgusted by their college\u2019s discrimination against gays and lesbians that they have turned their backs on evangelical culture altogether.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a long period in the history of the United States, Christians understood that progressive political action for structural social change was a necessary means toward the end of living out the gospel.\u00a0 They understood that charity would never solve the nation\u2019s social ills.\u00a0 Their religious faith translated into a faith in democracy as the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Politics of Love<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For a long period in the history of the United States, Christians understood that progressive political action for structural social change was a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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