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Unusual Allies: In social action and helping the poor, theology is becoming less of a divider

When evangelicals took center stage at an interfaith "Make Poverty History" rally, the Rev. Chloe Breyer was uneasy. A progressive Episcopal priest and a staunch defender of abortion rights, she expressed concern that evangelicals might upset a left-leaning coalition of religious activists lobbying the U.N. World Summit.

She became impressed, however, with stories of evangelical relief work in Sierra Leone, quick responses to Hurricane Katrina and even a willingness to criticize President Bush on a handful of issues, such as foreign aid. "It was eye-opening for me," said Breyer, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

On a small but widening spectrum of topics ranging from genocide in Sudan to global warming around the world, liberal religious groups are beginning to see evangelical Christians as allies. As evangelicals exert increasing political influence, particularly with the White House, progressive religious activists are looking for ways to collaborate - without compromising their principles.

"They believe we have access," said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, who attended the September street rally with Breyer outside the United Nations.

Cizik is courted more by liberal activists since Bush took office, and he's happy to help on issues of common ground.

"It doesn't bother me at all," he said.

Working out of Washington, Cizik said that his interfaith collaboration dates back 10 years, but no one wanted to write about it then.

"Is it new? No. Is it broadening? Yes. Is everyone happy about it? No,"Cizik said.

He has taken some flak from conservative evangelicals, who caution him against being seduced by Washington, the left and the media. But he insisted that he was not easily swayed. He remains adamantly opposed to abortion, gay marriage and embryonic-stem-cell research.

But Cizik works with several interfaith groups such as Save Darfur and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. He recently slammed Bush for making little progress in Sudan a year after Colin Powell called the killings there genocide.

Immediately after the U.N. rally, Cizik led a coalition to U.N. Ambassador John Bolton's office.

Speaking for Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu leaders, he urged Bolton's staff to commit more money to developing nations.

"I was dead set against John Bolton personally," Breyer said. "He (Cizik) had endorsed John Bolton, but he was sitting at the table with us saying that the U.S. wasn't doing enough."

Many credit evangelical lobbying for Bush's unexpected verbal support for the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve poverty by 2015.

Evangelicals are distinguished, among other things, by their belief that the Bible is infallible, that they must spread their faith, and that Christ is the only way to eternal salvation.

Estimates of the number of evangelicals in the U.S. vary widely, ranging from 44 million to 126 million, depending on who does the survey and how they define evangelical.

Sixty percent identify as Republicans or leaning Republican, according to an extensive 2004 survey commissioned for the PBS show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

Though the media often associate evangelicals with such outspoken conservatives as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, only 55 percent and 44 percent of evangelicals, respectively, gave these preachers a marginally favorable rating in the survey.

And that was before Robertson's highly publicized comments this year calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

When discussing their uneasy alliance, liberal religious leaders are careful to make these same distinctions.

"It's not quite accurate to say I've been critical of the religious right. I have been really critical of the far religious right," said Robert Edgar, the general secretary of the left-leaning National Council of Churches.

Edgar places evangelicals on a spectrum of conservatism.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, the editor of the progressive Sojourners magazine and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, is at the "left of the right," according to Edgar. Cizik, he said, is in the middle, and Falwell and Robertson on the far right.

President Joseph Hough of Union Theological Seminary in New York, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, recently invited two evangelical academics to speak at Union, where he praised the humanitarian efforts of evangelicals.

In the religious community, "no one has done as much on Katrina as Rick Warren," said Hough.

Warren, an evangelical and the author of the best-seller The Purpose-Driven Life, raised $1 million at his Saddleback megachurch in California the weekend after the hurricane hit.

At the Time Global Health Summit in New York on Nov. 2, Warren publicized his P.E.A.C.E. plan to send thousands of Saddleback relief volunteers to local churches in developing nations - a model that he has already piloted in Rwanda. Their health-care work complements his wife's international AIDS ministry.

Evangelicals can find common ground with liberal Christians in the thousands of Scripture passages about caring for the poor and world peace, Edgar said.

And he is quick to point out that it was evangelicals who started the popular "What Would Jesus Drive" campaign against gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles.

Wallis' anti-poverty group Call to Renewal mobilized opposition to proposed post-Katrina budget cuts and celebrated Oct. 19 when the Senate voted to reverse $574 million in food-stamp cuts.

Wallis' anti-abortion position can be challenging for some liberal religious collaborators, such as Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Los Angeles.

"We wish he would be more sensitive to women's rights," said Jacobs of Wallis. But Jacobs praises Wallis' humanitarian efforts and would have joined other Sojourners staff on a recent post-Katrina interfaith listening tour in Baton Rouge, La., if not for his High Holy Day commitments.

Jacobs, like Cizik, takes some heat for his unconventional alliances.

"The Jews have a great problem with the evangelicals because there is a great deal of distrust there," he said, citing a history of proselytizing.

Eighty-four percent of evangelicals, according to the 2004 poll, believe that salvation is possible only through faith in Jesus Christ.

And 48 percent believe only born-again Christians go to heaven.

But, said Jacobs, "we are beginning to build a relationship."

© 2005 Winston-Salem Journal.