{"id":7428,"date":"2006-05-16T14:39:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-16T18:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7428"},"modified":"2006-05-16T14:39:42","modified_gmt":"2006-05-16T18:39:42","slug":"unveiling-a-spiritual-covenant-with-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/unveiling-a-spiritual-covenant-with-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Unveiling a ‘spiritual covenant with America’"},"content":{"rendered":"

We haven’t heard much from the burgeoning “[tag]religious left[\/tag]” in the context of the midterm elections, but there’s at least one group that hopes to change this — starting tomorrow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A conference geared to help [tag]Democrats[\/tag] infuse [tag]God[\/tag] into their politics begins tomorrow at All Souls Unitarian Church in [DC] with the unveiling of a “[tag]spiritual covenant with America[\/tag].”<\/p>\n

The “Spiritual Activism Conference” aims to equip liberals to operate in a political arena where religion has played a more prominent role since 2000, says Rabbi [tag]Michael Lerner[\/tag], founder of the Jewish magazine Tikkun and a chief conference organizer.<\/p>\n

“While we support the liberal agenda, we are going to a much deeper level with this spiritual critique,” he said. “We want to bring in a nonutilitarian framework that sees other human beings as embodiments of the sacred.”<\/p>\n

After some 1,200 conferees receive copies of the covenant — an alternative to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s successful 1994 “Contract With America” that led to a [tag]Republican[\/tag] takeover of the House later that year — they are expected to discuss it Thursday in meetings with members of Congress.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not, [tag]Lerner[\/tag] says, “taking the liberal agenda and sticking on some Bible quotes.” Instead, it’s about putting a liberal ideology in a religious context.<\/p>\n

The “covenant” is not yet available, so I don’t know exactly what’s in it or whether the document is any good, but apparently it includes policy tenants (national health care, public campaign financing), and societal goals (members of Congress are urged to “spend part of one day a week feeding hungry people at a shelter or other … hands-on service activity”).<\/p>\n

We’ll see how it’s received and whether any Dems take it seriously. Frankly, I’m not sure if a “spiritual covenant with America” is exactly what “spiritual progressives” need to breakthrough and serve as a counterbalance to the religious right. Having said that, I do like the fact that they’re moving the ball forward.<\/p>\n

Right now, “religious” is too often a synonym for “conservative.” That won’t change over night, but it’s encouraging to see the “religious left” make a good-[tag]faith[\/tag] effort (pun intended) to change the landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We haven’t heard much from the burgeoning “[tag]religious left[\/tag]” in the context of the midterm elections, but there’s at least one group that hopes to change this — starting tomorrow. A conference geared to help [tag]Democrats[\/tag] infuse [tag]God[\/tag] into their politics begins tomorrow at All Souls Unitarian Church in [DC] with the unveiling of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}