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March 17, 2004

On Being Socially Liberal

I started out in life as a Black Nationalist, and a partially militant one at that. It was the Catholicism of the Jesuits and the Social Responsibility of the Episcopalians that broke through that Nationalism and made me an essentially tolerant and even charitable individual after the model of Jesus Christ.

These days I am seeking to express my Christian ethics more explicitly. I do so for a number of reasons. Firstly in the context of my Republicanism I need to distinguish myself from the reactionary Right. Although many religious Republicans are painted as fundamentalists I think most are not. In fact, I believe that I am in direct conflict with Christian Fundamentalists and all those who would seek to replace laws established democratically with those unilaterally recieved on faith. At the same time, I have a great deal of respect for the consistency of dogma in ever directing us to heed the moral lessons of religion which have been established and maintained for centuries.

Over the next few months, a great deal of Cobb will be dedicated to exploring the themes of religion in society. I am thinking in particular why America has difficulty replicating MLK and why our Archbishops are not so heroic as Romero or Tutu. Why is it that the liberalism that is Christianity, from my point of view, has become so divorced from the liberalism we associate with National Public Radio? Why is it that the public accepts scolds like Dr. Laura from a religious perspective but not like the faculty of Notre Dame University from an intellectual perspective? Why is it when we know that Democrats and Republicans are both distorting the truth for partisan reasons that we do not seek the perspective of Imams? Why is it that we cannot discuss religious differences in the absence of conflict?

I will be bringing forth parts and pieces of discussion from a private forum here and I hope to engage folks here as well. The journey is both personal and public, and again it starts with the Nationalist, the militant, the ethnic enclave. It ends much more universally, but does it stop at the line of other religions? I think that's a reaction expected condescendingly by those who have judged religions millenia old by the ugliness of their religious neighbors and heresay. We shall see.

Posted by mbowen at March 17, 2004 09:08 PM

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Posted by: bleedingbrain at March 23, 2004 05:05 PM