[Mb-civic] Church Folks for a Better America

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Hi folks.  Altho I myself am not currently a particpant in any 
organized religion or religious organization, my readings of how the 
right wing has taken power in America by co-opting Christians has 
led me to believe that a key component of progressive renewal must 
be a powerful progressive faith-based movement.  This of course 
has a long history in this country, going back to Abolitionists and 
forward to Martin Luther King Jr and many many others.  And there 
are many seeds sprouting now.  Below is one which I found 
encouraging and inspirational.... Mha Atma

Church Folks for a Better America
02/18/2005 

http://www.thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7&pid=2206

George Hunsinger gives the lie to the Right's caricature of 
progressives as anti-religious zealots. As a minister, the McCord 
professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, and 
coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America (CBFA), Hunsinger 
is working hard to reframe the "moral values" debate by raising 
tough questions about how torture, pre-emption, unjust war, and 
poverty can be tolerated by people of moral and religious conviction.

Hunsinger has tapped into a rich tradition of religious progressive 
activism--from Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Father Robert 
Drinan to Rev. William Sloane Coffin. He shared his thoughts on 
Iraq, torture, and the challenges facing progressive religious leaders 
in a recent email interview.

******

Torture is not a divisive issue for religious people. No religious 
person, and no person of conscience, can possibly justify it morally. 
An example of this is an emerging new network of religious 
progressives which recently published an "Open Letter to Alberto 
Gonzales."

My fledgling organization, Church Folks for a Better America, took 
the lead. In a short time we garnered over 225 signatures from a 
wide variety of religious leaders: Not only Catholics, Protestants and 
Jews, but also Muslims and Sikhs. We also made inroads among 
leading evangelicals.

The Open Letter got some good coverage. We were often 
mentioned alongside the ex-military lawyers who came out against 
Gonzales in press accounts. In the final Gonzales debate, our letter 
was quoted on the Senate floor.

Church Folks for a Better America (http://www.cfba.info/) came into 
existence almost by accident. On September 12, 2001, I found 
myself spending more time on the Internet than I care to remember 
trying to get a handle on what was really happening. I could see the 
ominous implications for war as well as for a crackdown on liberty at 
home. I wrote an Urgent Appeal opposing the invasion of Iraq on 
just-war grounds, signed by prominent academic theologians like 
Sarah Coakley, Stanley Hauerwas and Nicholas Wolterstorff as well 
as activists like Jim Wallis and William Sloane Coffin, Jr., and 
published in Sojourners. I started flooding the inboxes of my friends 
each day with what I found by scouring the net.

Until the Abu Ghraib torture scandal I was pretty much just a guy 
alone in his office with a computer. By that time I had an enormous 
backlog of files. I wrote a new statement that I hoped we could run 
in the New York Times. I wanted to get it out there before the 
"transfer" of power in Iraq on June 30, 2004. When I was unable to 
raise the handsome sum the Times requires, a colleague suggested 
setting up a website a la Howard Dean. One thing led to another, 
and by August CFBA came online. And, with a few large donations 
and many smaller ones, An Appeal to Recover America's Moral 
Character"--the Dove Ad, as we called it--finally ran in the Times as 
a quarter-page ad on the Sunday Op-Ed page just prior to the 
presidential election. We also had enough funds to publish the letter 
in papers in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

I try to keep the website up-to-date, though as a professor I also 
have a day job. The site keeps abreast of Iraq news, in-depth 
analysis, good sermons, antiwar poetry and little-known websites.

It used to be said that the right had the wallet but the left had the 
pen. But then the Right discovered that if you had the wallet you 
could buy the pen. The rightwing take-over of religious discourse in 
America is part of a larger trend that has developed over the last 25 
to 30 years. The right has learned to be extremely effective in 
shaping the political agenda and exploiting religious sensibilities.

Meanwhile, the liberal left has not always been hospitable to 
religious people. The renewal of a progressive movement in our 
country may well hinge on whether that can change. The Solidarity 
movement in Poland, where dissident intellectuals joined hands with 
the Catholic Church, is suggestive of what we need here. Jeffrey 
Stout's new book Democracy and Tradition is also seminal for the 
future of religion and politics in America.

Church Folks for a Better America is dedicated to the idea that the 
word "Christian" does not necessarily go with the word "Right." Our 
motto, taken from Martin Luther King, is addressed first to the 
churches: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." We are a 
rallying point for many Christians who are appalled when the 
churches remain silent. If the churches cannot speak out against 
something like torture, what good is it to have tongues?

The confirmation of Alberto Gonzales was, in effect, a national 
referendum on torture. No one in high places has been held 
accountable, the Republican-dominated Senate has acquiesced, 
and not enough people seem to care. Enormities like torture are 
increasingly papered over with democratic rhetoric and pious 
falsehoods. Anti-democratic forces in America tighten their grip, 
while we suffer from a will to ignorance. The elements of atrocity, 
manipulation and indifference add up to a spiritual crisis.

Let me add, however, that to some extent I was heartened by the 
quality of opposition to Gonzales. Senators Kennedy, Byrd, Durbin, 
and Reed, for example, all made distinguished speeches. They 
remind me of the hopes we once had, and might still have, for our 
beloved country.

Karl Barth (1886-1968), regarded by many as the 20th century's 
greatest theologian [and whom Hunsinger has studied], is, in one 
sense, something like Noam Chomsky. He does not fit neatly into 
familiar categories. Theologically traditional, he stood on the political 
left. Generous orthodoxy, as he represented it, inspires my 
intellectual and religious life.

Barth was the theological leader of the confessing church, the 
grouping of Protestant churches that resisted Hitler. He was a life-
long democratic socialist. On the war question, he went back and 
forth between just-war pacifism and chastened non-pacifism. These 
are the parameters of my political views.

As a divinity student at Harvard years ago, I pounded the pavement 
for Father [Robert] Drinan during his campaign for the House of 
Representatives. It was a particular pleasure for me when, just 
recently, he volunteered his signature for The Dove Ad. In 1978-79, 
with the Riverside Church Disarmament Program, I served as an 
assistant to [Rev.] William Sloane Coffin, Jr. The loose-leaf 
anthology and course syllabus I developed on nuclear disarmament, 
which we called the Red Notebook, was widely distributed at the 
time. You might say that Church Folks for a Better America online is 
a successor to the Red Notebook.

Church Folks for a Better America owes a debt to great figures who 
have gone before us like Karl Barth, Martin Luther King, and Bill 
Coffin. You could look at it as my modest attempt to pay them 
tribute.

As for what's next, a larger anti-torture campaign is now in the 
works with the following goals: 1) Congressional action to stop 
exempting intelligence services from the torture ban imposed on 
military services; 2) Congressional action to outlaw the horrifying 
practice of extraordinary rendition/torture by proxy; 3) A clear 
statement from Bush that US policy does not condone torture in any 
form or under any circumstances; 4) The appointment of a special 
prosecutor to get to the bottom of the issue.

Our work will also continue against the Iraq war. Destroying entire 
cities, as happened with Fallujah, is a form of terrorism, just as 
torture is a form of terrorism. Fighting terrorism by terrorism is at 
once immoral and futile. It has been clear since Abu Ghraib that the 
war cannot be won. The 14 new military bases planned for Iraq 
must be exposed and opposed along with the shameless 
profiteering still taking place. We join with all who call for an early 
and orderly exit, and for reparations for Iraq's long-suffering people.

As our list of supporters grows, we will combine Internet activism 
with direct mail and political action. Last fall the Dove Ad campaign 
saw seminary students raising money on 12 campuses across the 
country. Model sermons and prayers appear on our website along 
with alternative news and analysis. Congregations need a deeper 
understanding of the just-war tradition. Ordinary believers need to 
see the progressive implications of ordinary faith. They need 
powerful alternatives to the Religious Right.

We will work in concentric circles, beginning with the community of 
faith. Our efforts will be modest. Remember that we have only been 
around for six months. Though we will of course join in coalitions 
with anyone who shares our concerns, our particular calling is 
reaching out to people of faith, including elected officials. 
Republican Senators who profess to be believers, for example, 
have no business voting for torture. Through creative new faith-
based initiatives, perhaps they too can be reached
-- 
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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