Tuesday, September 06, 2005

The Religious Left

You hear a lot, in fact, far too much about the religious right, especially in America. But where is the religious left, the party of Jesus, if you like? I'm a little tired of the right's myopic political agendas. I'm even more tired of their conflation of issues like abortion, homosexuality, prayer in schools and the like with genuine religious principles.

Correct me if I'm wrong (no really, go ahead) but I can find precious little that Jesus had to say to about sex (yes, he told a prostitute that she should give it up), though I can find a great deal that he said about religious hypocrisy and cant. Religious leaders of his time copped a bit of stick, as we say here. Nor did he ever ask his followers to get involved in politics; rather, the opposite('Render unto Caesar...)

So where is the assembly of voices of the religious left? The voices that will talk about tolerance, compassion and love. The voices that will repeat the Sermon on the Mount as if it were a manifesto that can be acted upon here and now.

They are somewhere surely. Stand up and speak out against the dark punishers, the pious naysayers..........

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