Progressive religion in the blogosphere
There's a dust-up among us politically progressive Christians in the blogosphere. First Jim Wallis from Sojourners writes this, and he's answered by Kos and then Pastor Dan at Street Prophets twice. So I've got a few thoughts about it ...
- Wallis is kinda of a self-promoter. I mean, he named his blog after his book, so there's that. And I do think his original post did come out of nowhere, particularly following extensive discussion from a variety of middle-to-left blogs regarding the role of religion, specifically Christianity, in the political progressive movement.
- Some secular progressives are hostile to any mention of religion, specifically Christianity. One commenter at Street Prophets accused folks like me of desiring to push party politics aside if the need arose for me to defend my God and faith ... to which I replied, well, yeah. My faith heavily influences my political views and not the other way around.
- I do think us politically progressive Christians owe Wallis a little bit of leeway here considering he is, quite literally, the founder of this modern version of this movement. What frustrates me about Kos's response was not any of his particular details, but rather this claim that his guys have been doing this better and Wallis is just obtuse in not noticing. Well, he might be, but this, to me, is merely an extension of the liberal blogosphere just trying to take credit for every positive thing that has happened in progressive politics as of late, proceeding to stomp all over all the hard work done by trailblazers like Wallis.
- I'm still not really sure what we're arguing about. I'm not really sure why Wallis felt the need to bring this up again, particularly after the positive dialogue a few weeks back.
- Chuck at Street Prophets penned this appropriate response which, more or less, sums up my feelings on the matter.
- Wallis is kinda of a self-promoter. I mean, he named his blog after his book, so there's that. And I do think his original post did come out of nowhere, particularly following extensive discussion from a variety of middle-to-left blogs regarding the role of religion, specifically Christianity, in the political progressive movement.
- Some secular progressives are hostile to any mention of religion, specifically Christianity. One commenter at Street Prophets accused folks like me of desiring to push party politics aside if the need arose for me to defend my God and faith ... to which I replied, well, yeah. My faith heavily influences my political views and not the other way around.
- I do think us politically progressive Christians owe Wallis a little bit of leeway here considering he is, quite literally, the founder of this modern version of this movement. What frustrates me about Kos's response was not any of his particular details, but rather this claim that his guys have been doing this better and Wallis is just obtuse in not noticing. Well, he might be, but this, to me, is merely an extension of the liberal blogosphere just trying to take credit for every positive thing that has happened in progressive politics as of late, proceeding to stomp all over all the hard work done by trailblazers like Wallis.
- I'm still not really sure what we're arguing about. I'm not really sure why Wallis felt the need to bring this up again, particularly after the positive dialogue a few weeks back.
- Chuck at Street Prophets penned this appropriate response which, more or less, sums up my feelings on the matter.
posted by Jmac at 7:00 AM
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