But this was in danger of disappearing down the memory hole. It deserves better, so I'm posting it here, and may even provide commentary on it later (I'm mercurial in my retired years. Who knows what shiny object will catch my eye next?)
“The following has been banging around my to-do box for months. I was almost ready to delete it because I haven’t had the time to really flesh out my thoughts, but I will instead put it here in (several) comments mostly as a placeholder for myself to get back to it when life is slightly less chaotic
"I hope you will indulge me to touch upon this post, but to really comment on a number of related ideas of rights, politics and faith that have been running through my head this summer. Let me start with this post from Lawyers, Guns and Money that I have returned to a number of times in the last month. https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/07/neoliberalisms-90s-triumph
"The post is interesting for the main premise, but it was the last third, where it wandered away from the book review, that really caught my attention. "Democrats today fall into two general camps, to be overly broad for the purposes of this post. The first is the Bernie type, which, to be shallow about it, tries to bring back the old class politics and often gives social issues short shrift. " and "But what we talk about a lot less is the other side of this–the child of neoliberalism at the very least. That is the more common Democratic politician who is quite good on individual social issues–strongly pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-trans rights, pro a lot of things that we hold dear. But they are often actually pretty crappy on class-based issues."
"While overbroad, I do tend to agree that Democrats have two overlapping constellations of groups that can be very roughly divided into these two camps. The first tends to be very anti-establishment and looking for a revolution to tear it all down. The second, (and this describes a lot of my college friends) is often filled with what I think of as limousine liberals, great on LGBTQ+ rights, racial issues, pro-choice and such, but hostile to social welfare, public schools, unions and highly supportive of the current social order that supports their privilege and doesn’t increase their taxes.
"Adding to the swirling mix of my ideas was a sermon I attended a few weeks ago. Here is a link to the text,
http://pastorjohanna.blogspot.com/2022/08/sermon-prince-of-peace-or-king-of.html
“ 'Jesus and Ulysses Grant are somewhat on the same page about this: sometimes in order to achieve lasting peace, we must first go through a period of great disruption, destruction, or pain. When I say peace, I’m not talking about the sort of peace that comes from denial, or avoidance, or dishonesty, or harmful accommodation. Those things may provide a quick, but fleeting peace for us, which is why we gravitate there (we can agree that closing the blinds and watching something funny on TV can be a helpful escape). But such tactics do not bring lasting peace for us, nor for God’s people more broadly.'
"The third piece of this wandering thought process has been the discussions between the Thought Criminal and RMJ on rights. There are too many posts to cite but the discussions has been lively and enlightening.
"All of these have further energized the question I am have been pondering on the intersection of religious belief and political belief. Since both engage with moral discussions, there is inevitably overlap and interaction. None of this is new, and RMJ has many times discussed how we can bend our religious belief to match our political belief. When this happens, my general sense is that political belief almost always wins out. While it has been more obvious with Evangelicals and their embracing of Donald Trump, I don’t think this is solely something of the right wing. For myself, I came back to formal religion in my 30’s, long after I had established my political views. It’s natural that I would gravitate to a form of Christian belief that wasn’t substantially at odds with my then political views. This was further complicated by having returned to religious faith via a 12 step program. Having gained sustained sobriety with AA, it’s first not surprising I would hold with the belief of a higher power of one’s own understanding, along with a very ecumenical understanding of god, and second I would be more strongly drawn to a those denominations that are more tolerant of those first views.
"In other words, is my current religious belief merely a careful selection of denomination and home church to match my politics? Having started to attempt some form of self-examination of my motives and current beliefs, I think the answer is basically no. Through my 20’s I was easily the Bernie kind of liberal, sure that a 'revolution' (just go in and with a wave of a wand more than anything that involves violence) of some sort would just fix all these problems. It was big business, big government and the rich that was holding us all down. I returned to formalized faith at the same Congregational church (UCC) where I left it 15+ years before as a high school student that refused to be confirmed. That particular church wasn’t especially liberal and there was certainly a more conservative part of the congregation where I could have fit in had I chosen so. Instead, I gravitated to, and was motivated by a sense of faith that was more demanding of recognizing those that Jesus calls us to serve with a strong sense of social ministry. The same happened as we moved and found new churches, Presbyterian, then Lutheran, a stint with the Church of England on a 4 year overseas work assignment, back to the Lutherans and now a muddled mix of the Congregationalists again, along with the Unitarians. In each case I have gravitated to the much more liberal ends of these denominations even as many of the actual church congregations were solidly middle of the road (as an aside, I found almost all the clergy at the churches I have attended to be more liberal, even radical, than the congregations they served).
"My political views have changed, and on a number of issues I can directly see my faith as having influenced or even driven the change. The place I now occupy doesn’t fit well into either of the categories of the LGM post. It both values individual rights and also sees individuals as part of groups. The recent discussions by the Thought Criminal have hit at those places where non-religious liberalism completely fails. Putting the LGM post and the posts here together, for myself I am interested in by the failures of liberalism by both groups. What of having a religious faith, helps avoid the deficiencies of either of the groups? Here is where I have a few thoughts that need a lot more development and testing before I can be sure I am heading in the right direction, but I will throw them out for discussion.
"To really believe that we are called to love one another as commanded by God, is to engage in love not as an abstract matter but at the most personal. That means to love them, not their position, not their education, or money, or more, but just for being created by God. In such a case to not love because of race, political belief, sexual orientation or any of the other myriad of ways we divide ourselves, is to fail at that commandment. More though, is to recognize that to love someone is also to take some responsibility. If they are hungry, they need to be fed. If naked, they need to clothed. If they are oppressed, be that by other groups, government, institutions, we need to relieve that oppression. The Bernie group wants to put everyone in classes and relieve the oppression between the classes, but fails to see the individual and their individual needs. It’s why the Bernie-ites were pretty bad on racial issues, homophobia and other factors that are more individual. On the other hand, the limousine liberals send to be highly focused on only the individual and miss those needs that extend across groups such as poverty, lack of access to housing and decent education.
"Finally, the sermon by Pastor Johanna Rehbaum poked at a very real world example of these intersections of faith and politics. Amnesty International issued a report on supposed Ukrainian war crimes that was heavily, and rightly criticized for having completely missed what is happening in the war. Similarly, Noam Chomsky, a paragon of liberalism for many on the left (not me, there have been a number of times previously where I just could not agree with his positions) has been calling for peace, lobbying for NATO countries to deny weapons to Ukraine and taking positions that are effectively pro-Russian. I think in both cases, AI and Chomsky have elevated ideas of peace over actual people and how they experience peace. It’s peace from 10,000 feet, which looks nice. At the ground level, peace without justice is just various forms of oppression.
"As I said, there is a lot, lot more to work out but here is a bare start. I ask your grace and patience with my comments."
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