WI: religious left, secular right?

burmafrd

Banned
Psychologists for years have claimed that Religion is something that fills a need; Liberals just substitute something else; atheists as well.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The left has always had a religion, it's call Marxism. It's largly been replaced by Enviromentalsim these days.

The left has its religion- its called Liberalism. Environmentalism extemism is just a part of it.
Listen to those like Sharpton, Dean, etc. They are as fervent and as fanatical about liberalism as any born again christian is about their religion.
Are we done with the nonsense? Good.

There is no objection in principle to the left being more religious than the right, Marxism or no Marxism. While the Church as a body tends to be on the side of conservatism in those countries where it enjoys prominence, for obvious reasons of vested interest, many individual Christians have historically leaned to the left in order to reconcile their ideals of justice and equality with the society they live in. In the case of the US, the impetus could come from such denominations as the Methodists and Lutherans figuring out during the Gilded Age that the moral evils they denounce are largely the byproducts of an exploitative social order. Then of course there's the involvement of liberal Christianity in the civil rights struggle, epitomized by Martin Luther King.
 

No, it's not wrong. Removing church influence and abolishing it's political basis was a major tennet of the revolution which was pretty much universally agreed upon by the whole spectrum of revolutionary opinion - even Napoleon, the arch counter-revolutionary, didn't go back on that. (Notably, he crowned himself, albeit with papal blessing) There may have been disagreements on how to implement this through things like the civil constitution, land seizure, etc, but the general thrust of secularism was pretty much a universal consensus.

You get entirely the same thing in America, albeit on a much less radical basis - but then again, the founding fathers probably didn't need to be as radical as the French revolutionaries did - they weren't dealing with the same sort of situation.

Religious does not equal a state church.

No, but in this case it would equal non-secularism. Which clearly supposes some element of direct (or semi-direct) political involvement.

Then there is the fact that almost any reform movement in the US has had a religious arm.

Show me any sort of political movement before the contemporary period that hasn't had some sort of religious aspect. All those movements that you state may have had religious influences, and certain principles derived from religious morality, but they weren't religious movements. In fact the only one of those that you listed which came close to being overtly religious was prohibition in it's early stages.

My point being, you are not going to get politics aligned in the way supposed by the original poster without serious, serious disruption. The left may have drawn it's principles from religious inspiration from time to time, but that is a damn sight different to having a left dominated by religion and a right opposing that and championing secularism. That is in contradition of at least two hundred years of history.
 
Last edited:
A lot of anarchists are religious. Theres Jewish anarchists, Christian anarchists, Muslim anarchists, Buddhist anarchists, Taoist anarchists and UU anarchists. Even so, their religion doesn't always influence their politics.
 

HueyLong

Banned
Show me any sort of political movement before the contemporary period that hasn't had some sort of religious aspect. All those movements that you state may have had religious influences, and certain principles derived from religious morality, but they weren't religious movements. In fact the only one of those that you listed which came close to being overtly religious was prohibition in it's early stages.

My point being, you are not going to get politics aligned in the way supposed by the original poster without serious, serious disruption. The left may have drawn it's principles from religious inspiration from time to time, but that is a damn sight different to having a left dominated by religion and a right opposing that and championing secularism. That is in contradition of at least two hundred years of history.

Just dealing with America, one of the most religious Western world societies, the abolition of state churches actually followed a period of greater religious fervor across the populace, as well as more direct church involvement in politics. Perhaps you are confusing hierarchy for religiosity, because that is one expression of religion we have largely shied away from.

Prohibition was not the only such movement. In fact, it was a movement where churches were less involved. It mainly got hijacked by suffragettes and later on, businessmen. It started however, in one of the Great Awakenings.

Abolitionism was very much a movement of the churches and by clergymen. In fact, the often zealous tone and nature of abolitionist churches led to a Southern condemnation of that very type- because abolitionism was a primarily church-led movement of fanatics, it was thus a flawed and irrational idea. Besides which, ever hear of Beecher's Bibles? I imagine the folks who distributed those would disagree that it was not a religious movement.

An argument could be made that much of the work that lasted during Reconstruction was due to the zeal of the above movement. (Churches were made and became the centers of black communities, school teachers were more often than not, from abolitionist backgrounds, etc....)

Populism, once again, did involve the churches all across the South. Many of their early orators and rabble rousers were churchmen. William Jennings Bryan was a frontier preacher at a time, and used ideals of Christian equality and justice while on the campaign trail. The Populists championed good church values, a day of rest on Sundays and enjoyed a wide range of support from the religious and the church institutions, especially in the South.

Progressivism's religious arm grew out of a condemnation of the "gospel of wealth" and the early settlement houses used and cooperated with the churches to spread their message and do their work. The Progressive Era was highlighted by a growth in inner-city churches and an expansion of social work by the churches. American Christianity grew condemnatory of capitalism.

The New Deal (well, the Great Depression) saw yet another growth in the style of the Progressive Era. There is a reason that Jimmy Carter's election was the last gasp of the religious Southern Democrats- they had been indebted to the Democratic Party since the New Deal. There are of course, counter examples here: Charles Coughlin and the like, but many churches fell behind the New Deal.

And if you are to claim that Civil Rights did not involve churches well...... :rolleyes:
 
An early POD for this scenario would be the 4th Century when Constintine converted to Christianity. If Christianity never become the State religion of Rome it remains radical and counter-cultural.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
The left has always had a religion, it's call Marxism. It's largly been replaced by Enviromentalsim these days.

This is a completely off-topic political troll in a non-political forum. Keep your opinions in chat where they belong.

The left has its religion- its called Liberalism. Environmentalism extemism is just a part of it.
Listen to those like Sharpton, Dean, etc. They are as fervent and as fanatical about liberalism as any born again christian is about their religion.

And that goes for you too. Stop trolling.
 
I think there must be a POD for this sometime in the 60s. There were many left leaning churches (black & white) at the time that were involved in Civil Rights and the War on Poverty. Those churches seemed to have faded and/or been replaced by more right-leaning/evangelical churches in the 70s and 80s.

Perhaps the Civil Rights struggle is more drawn out and welfare does not pass requiring a larger and long-term involvement by liberal churches.
 
This may very well have been mentioned already, but a major problem with the left being the religious side of politics is that they would need to compromise their feelings regarding gays.
 
Maybe they'd allow marriage in order to stop homosexuality from remaining a subculture on the fringes that results in AIDS? I mean, 1980s gay culture in America I believe.
 
How do we reverse the current trend in the united states to the point where we have the left being mostly christian moralists, who want health care, socal security, ect because "it's the christian thing to do" and a group of secular corporate intersts being the entirty of the right. Basicly, this is an america without a religous right. Moralism instead of fundyism.
FIVE Words, "Christian Democrats," and "Barack Hussein Obama" ...

European-Style Christian Democratic Parties, Occupy a Centre-Right Position, that Often Puts them at Odds with Both Political Wings ...

If Brought to The United States by Politicians like Barack Obama, However, Christian Democracy has The Opportunity to Return Jesus to his Radical Roots, by Again Making His Religion, a Mouthpiece for The Moderate Left!

:D
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
This isn't that difficult. The abolitionists were overwhelmingly what people like Andrew Sullivan would call "Christianists". So were the Suffragettes, though not to the same extent and much of the populist and progressive movements.

Moreover, look at Eugenics. Definetly a secular philosophy and who were among it's only opponents; Billy Sunday and William Jennings Bryan.

In fact, look at the Scopes monkey trial. What was the name of the textbook Scopes supposedly taught? "Civic Biology". And who produced it? The American Eugenics society. In fact, IIRC, I think every scientist Darrow intended to call as an expert, before the judge halted him, was, without exception, a member of a Eugenics society.
 

Xen

Banned
Its not too hard really have the left and the right swap a couple of positions where the left continues its big government ideals including those on morale issues such as abortion, the right simply takes a more Libertarian stand where the government has no business in anybodies affairs including those of abortion and gay marriages, etc. These seem to be the hot button issues when it comes to the Christian evangalists and the right wing, other right wing issues are just there, if the left stood against abortion and gay marriages while the right supported those rights, then many "conservative" ministers will suddenly be in the liberal camp.
 
Perhaps the evangelicals and conservative religious types stay with Carter and the Democrats while the more secular country club set stays in control of the GOP?

That's a more recent POD. Simply butterfly the "New Right" away.

I'm a Christian, but I have the political beliefs I have for secular reasons. If I adopted another faith tomorrow, my politics would largely stay the same.
 
The NDP in Canada is pretty Christian Lorne Calvert was a minister and Tommy Douglous' memoirs are the Road to Jeruselem.
 
Actually religion and liberalism have a lot of strong links. Catholic charity worker Dorothy Day was an active member of the labor union movement in the 1930s. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, and to a lesser extent Al Sharpton all are members of the SCLC, and its religious advocacy of civil rights. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta of the UFW used the Catholic Church to advocate for labor rights. Also, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy certainly invoked the Bible and their Christian faith while addressing the civil rights movement, the nuclear arms race, and the issue of colonial independence...
 

burmafrd

Banned
Most so called religious leaders frankly do not walk the walk. Jesse Jackson is notorious for having affairs; Al Sharpton frankly is a con man.
Pat Robertson really believes what he says; Oral Roberts- probably a con man who actually came to believe in his con. Jerry Fallwell was more of a politician then a religious leader for most of the last 25 years of his life.
And the politicians who start using god in their speeches after frankly seeming to forget about him in most other areas.
There is not one person of any of those groups of which it can be said that he/she truly walks the walk.
 
Most so called religious leaders frankly do not walk the walk. Jesse Jackson is notorious for having affairs; Al Sharpton frankly is a con man.
Pat Robertson really believes what he says; Oral Roberts- probably a con man who actually came to believe in his con. Jerry Fallwell was more of a politician then a religious leader for most of the last 25 years of his life.
And the politicians who start using god in their speeches after frankly seeming to forget about him in most other areas.
There is not one person of any of those groups of which it can be said that he/she truly walks the walk.
Barack Obama ...

:p
 
Top