Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506060009
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS AP RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With little apparent sense of contradiction, many liberal critics will, with great moral outrage, claim that groups such as the Christian Coalition imply by their names that there is only one Christian position on issues such as abortion and health care, and then turn around and pronounce the Christian Coalition position ``un-Christian.''
So when a group of leading evangelicals with liberal positions on many social issues recently decided to issue a statement urging a biblical approach to politics, they early on tried to make clear they were calling for a cease-fire rather than a heightening of the culture wars between liberals and conservatives.
The crisis facing the nation is a spiritual one, said the coalition of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox leaders who signed ``The Cry for Renewal.''
``We believe ... that the old political language and solutions of right and left are almost completely dysfunctional now and helpless to lead us into a different future,'' the statement says. ``But if politics will be renewed more by moral values than by partisan warfare, the religious community must play a more positive role.''
On a visit to New York to promote the statement, Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and Tony Campolo, founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education, said that while such prominent mainline religious leaders as Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning and National Council of Churches General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell were among the signatories, the driving force was largely evangelicals seeking an end to polarization in public policy debates.
``What we're saying is we have to move beyond the old categories'' and try to get to the spiritual roots of public issues, Wallis said.
The statement criticizes the Christian right for replacing the religious critique of power with the religious competition for power in the new Republican Congress. At the same time, religious liberals are criticized for their close identification with the Democratic Party.
``Liberal religious leaders have sought access and influence with those in power no less than their religious right counterparts. Neither right-wing religious nationalism nor left-wing religious lobbying will serve us at this critical historical juncture,'' the statement said.
Both moral values and concern for the poor are important parts of a meaningful faith, the religious leaders said.
``We must revive the lapsed virtues of personal responsibility and character, and repent for our social sins of racism, sexism and poverty,'' the statement said.
What practical effect the statement will have is unclear.
Campolo said he hopes that a progressive evangelical caucus seeking to bring public policy debates to a higher ground will form and make its presence known in groups from the National Association of Evangelicals to mainline Protestant denominations.
``What we are attempting to do is to establish the middle ground and say we want to put an end to polarization,'' he said in an interview.
But while the statement is a balanced call decrying the use of religion for political cheerleading, the accompanying press release declares the statement is promoting an alternative to the religious right and much of the rhetoric surrounding it already sounds like a familiar message that the nation would be better off if only the people who disagree with ``us'' would change.
And beating up on the religious right is not enough, according to the statement.
Change also has to come from the signers and the groups they represent, Wallis says.
The question he says each one must ask is: ``Are we all doing the self-examination and soul-searching to say we are generally committed to new approaches here?''
by CNB