progressives

the Web Editors 6-27-2017

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) at the Aspen Ideas Festival June 26.

Identifying as a "progressive Christian and Democrat," Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware offered what he believes is the answer to hyperpartisanship and a deadocked Congress: prayer. 

Coons, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, pointed to the Senate's weekly prayer breakfast he attends each week as something that gives him hope for progress through partisan division. He said about two dozen people of all faiths gather for an hour to do two uncommon things: "We trust each other and we listen ... And out of that experience has come the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship and progress that I've had in seven years."

Karen Huber 5-17-2017

Image via RNS/Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Ireland metaphorically barred the door on the church’s influence on public policy when citizens voted overwhelmingly for the legalization of gay marriage in 2015, making it the first country in the world to do so by national referendum. Now some devout Catholics fear that door may be locked after a Citizens’ Assembly — a deliberative body of people randomly selected from across the country — recently recommended liberal changes to Ireland’s abortion laws.

Image via RNS/St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church in Honolulu

“That’s why we really want to shift, and that’s our next goal if we can find a parcel,” said Fernandez, a member of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy. “The owner, along with some of the neighbors, would work with Interfaith to say: ‘This is a religious right to take care of our homeless people.’”

 

4-24-2014
The report, by the institute’s Governance Studies Program, is based on polling and interviews with many of the top players of Washington’s religious left. This includes John Carr, formerly of the U.S. Bishops Conference, evangelical writer Jim Wallis and Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform Jewish movement.
4-07-2014
The last forty years — basically, ever since Roe vs. Wade — the Christian right has so dominated the way Christianity’s politics and social identity is understood in America, that when the new generation of “the Christian left” — folks like Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Shane Claiborne — came along in the last fifteen to twenty years, it felt like they were truly pioneers. But Walter Wink and Walter Sullivan are, like other “old timers” like Dorothy Day and Jim Wallis, wonderful reminders that progressive Christianity, while always somewhat marginal in America, is hardly an invention of the internet age. On the contrary, Christianity’s quest for peace and justice has deep roots indeed, and both of these men are exemplars worth remembering.
Photo by Paul Haring/Catholic News Service

Pope Francis answers journalist questions after the World Youth Gathering. Photo by Paul Haring/Catholic News Service

For more than three decades, the Vatican of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI operated on a version of the conservative maxim, “No enemies to the right.”

While left-wing theologians were silenced and liberal-to-moderate bishops were shunted aside in favor of hard-liners, liturgical traditionalists and cultural conservatives were diligently courted and given direct access to the apostolic palace.

But in a few short months, Pope Francis has upended that dynamic, alienating many on the Catholic right by refusing to play favorites and ignoring their preferred agenda items even as he stressed the kind of social justice issues that are near and dear to progressives.

Pope Francis waves during his inauguration Mass at St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday at the Vatican. Photo courtesy RNS.

Since the moment of his election on March 13, Pope Francis has been warmly embraced by his own flock and even the media and the wider public in a way his bookish predecessor, Benedict XVI, was not.

Such an effusive welcome is especially good news for Catholic leaders who spent years fending off criticism of Vatican dysfunction under Benedict and a cloud of scandal and crisis at home. And the hot start for Francis is also crucial in building up a reservoir of good will that will be needed when the new pope refuses to bend on unpopular teachings or commits a gaffe of his own. Polls show that anywhere from 73 percent to 88 percent of American Catholics say they are happy with the selection of Francis, as opposed to about 60 percent who were happy with the choice of Benedict — and many of those are extremely pleased with the new pope.

We have come to an impasse in the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling because of several conceptual errors in our public discourse. These errors were most glaring in the remarks recently delivered by Speaker of the House John Boehner in his response to President Obama. The largest conceptual error is the idea that the government of a constitutional representative democracy is different from the people. Boehner said, "You know I've always believed the bigger the government, the smaller the people."

What does this mean? The government is composed of the people, and if people are paying attention and voting according to their own interests, the government ought to work toward the happiness of the people. The problem is that too many Americans have bought into this conceptual error that the government is some kind of leviathan, a monster that exists to take away their liberties. This is nonsense. A correction of another conceptual error in Boehner's presentation makes my point.

Brian McLaren 5-13-2011
On my personal blog, I traced my journey on the issue of homosexuality and explored the cha
It is the time it takes to say the Lord's Prayer three times. Sixty seconds. One minute. On September 21, 2010, U.N.
Ruth Hawley-Lowry 8-20-2010
On August 28, 1963 the mastermind of the historic March on Washington, A.
Johnathan Smith 8-16-2010
Remember January 2009? That month, the country witnessed the historic inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America.
Melvin Bray 8-04-2010
One day I'd love to understand why conservatives seem so good at public relations, while liberals, at ridicule.
Becky Garrison 6-04-2010
In my research into how to build grassroots ministries that are sustainable and Christ-centered for my books, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310292891?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwbeckygarri-20&a
Jim Wallis 5-20-2010

I thought Glenn Beck must have moved on to other things, but the other night, he went back to his attack on social justice churches. This time the issue was climate change.

 

Cesar Baldelomar 4-08-2010

The Catholic church is reeling from the several sexual abuse allegations that have come to light over the past three months. Downplaying the severity of this scandal will only further damage the already beleaguered church's image and credibility. Many in the media blame Pope Benedict XVI for the mismanagement of the sexual abuse crisis.

Ernesto Tinajero 3-30-2010
The other has been a philosophical idea with a rich history.