The influence of the Religious Right may overpower and obscure that of other faith groups, but a veteran religion sociologist says progressive believers promoting peace, justice and social reform have been an active and surprisingly effective force in the 21st century.
“The Religious Left has massively reinvented itself in recent decades,” writes Princeton sociologist of religion Robert Wuthnow in The Religious Left: What It Does and How It Can Do Better, his 44th and possibly last book, out June 9.
The book arrives as Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, the country’s best-known representative of the Christian left, runs for officer in ruby-red Texas and battles charges that his views make him a “freak.”
Today’s Religious Left descends from the Social Gospel movement of the early 1900s, which taught that social conditions matter to God as much as personal morality and that “the kingdom of God was an ideal to be worked toward on earth as well as to be enjoyed after death in heaven,” Wuthnow says.
With a theology based on Old Testament teachings on righteousness and “obligations toward strangers as well as neighbors,” combined with Jesus’ teachings on love for neighbor and care for the poor, the Religious Left helped fuel FDR’s New Deal and Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights advocacy.
But World War II and the Holocaust dampened the movement’s optimism about ushering in any heaven on earth, and leaders didn’t help themselves by “bearing witness” through lofty proclamations that had little practical effect and failed to connect with laity, he warns.
Robert Wuthnow
Wuthnow, who is 80, first researched the Religious Left in 1969. He says the movement has suffered declines since then and remains vibrant yet vulnerable.
Perhaps best known for his 1988 book, The Restructuring of American Religion, Wuthnow also has written on red state religion (Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State) and social class (American Misfits and the Making of Middle-Class Respectability).
The Religious Left examines what the movement has accomplished in the last quarter century in nine chapters that explore its role in these defining issues:
- Jubilee 2000, the campaign for international debt relief popularized by U2 frontman Bono
- Post-9/11 resistance to American military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan
- Support for immigrant rights and humanitarian relief
- Advocacy for environmental care and climate action
- Support of economic justice and fairness for workers
- Opposition to the profusion of guns and concern for victims of violence
- Promotion of equity in education by supporting public schools that serve all students rather than parochial schools that serve some
- Fighting for freedom in sexual identity and gender
- Battling for reproductive freedom.
These chapters illustrate how Christian faith groups with differing values systems seek differing outcomes.
In education, the Religious Right opposes instruction in Critical Race Theory and has hailed recent victories supporting “voucher programs in public schools and recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court favoring religious expression in public education,” Wuthnow notes.
Meanwhile, the Religious Left values the separation of church (and school) and state, wants taxes to support public schools that educate all, and says schools should teach about America’s history of racism and racial inequality.
When it comes to issues of gender identity and sexual orientation, the Religious Right’s insistence on prohibiting gender-affirming teaching and sports participation contrasts with the Religious Left’s “support for affirming and inclusive policies toward gender identity and sexual orientation.”
Wuthnow writes: “With anti-trans rhetoric focusing on ‘protecting’ children, faith leaders on the other side adopted similar language. Where the anti-trans side stressed that ‘all God’s children’ were created male or female and that Christianity needed to be inserted into school curricula to ensure that children learned the truth, the progressive side argued that ‘we are all God’s children’ and thus deserve love, care and the freedom to go about daily life without fear of discrimination.
“Protecting children to the anti-trans side meant keeping them away from predators who would groom them to violate God’s law, while to the progressive side it meant protecting transgender and cisgender children alike from bullying and discrimination.”
The issue of immigration rights shows the vulnerability of Religious Left activism, particularly when activism depends on government programs, the author says.
“Progressive faith groups’ efforts gained momentum in the 1980s, developed into a full-blown national movement during the congressional debates about immigration in 2006,” Wuthnow writes. But these gains have been “challenged as never before by the second Trump administration,” and efforts to push back “have been only marginally effective.”
The Religious Left faces daunting challenges in its efforts to see that God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, Wuthnow writes. “Rarely are the causes popular. Rarely do they succeed in mobilizing large numbers of followers.”
“From one perspective, the Religious Left has been weak and is becoming weaker because its numbers seem to be small and diminishing. But from another perspective, the Religious Left’s strength lies in its inclusiveness — its embrace of partnerships among faith communities and with secular organizations.”
Related:
“Stuck in the Middle with You” podcast: Adam Hamilton, James Talarico and the Return of the Religious Left
Journalists trace influence of ‘religious left’ organizing
Don’t miss the faith argument in Talarico v. Paxton | Opinion by Mark Wingfield