The New Religious Left: Who they are and What they do
How do we understand the political implications of the faith?
This is important. Take a look and listen to this: The Rise (And Eventual Downfall) of the New Religious Left
Rev. Robert Sirico looks at a resurgent movement in religious circles to advance big government programs behind a so-called “social justice” agenda. The Religious Left has aligned with Big Labor, pacifist groups and liberal politicians to promote collectivist alternatives to the free market. Can anyone stop them?
It is one of the most penetrating ironies of the religious left; that in the name of liberation and freedom, they end up being agitators for the aggrandizement of institutions that are responsible for vast amounts of evil in history, the history of human affairs.
Yet, who are the American Religious Left? What do they espouse?
Here are Sirico’s seven signs:
1) A tendency to believe that the Kingdom of God is not something essentially eschatological; it is a state of being that can and should be achieved on earth through human effort.
2) A loathing of the economically successful rooted in the assumption that wealth is generally unjustly acquired even and especially if it has been accumulated through market means.
3) A conviction that the cause of material inequality is due to injustice that must be rectified, usually by a forced redistribution of the wealth.
4) A reliable bias against commerce and the merchant classes, their products, their marketing, and their cultural presence.
5) A fixation on government programs that purport to do good for others and a pronounced preference for public policy (that is political) solutions instead of voluntary individual or communal efforts.
6) A judgment that unless physical states of social well being are realized, issues such as faith and morals are somehow invalidated.
7) An attachment to the idea that the natural environment represents a source of moral light in the world that is darkened by the activities of human beings.
Do you know anyone who's an advocate for these principles?
By the way, Pope Benedict XVI’s third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, will discuss Catholic social teaching, touching on issues as varied as poverty, peace, wars, international cooperation, energy sources, and globalization. Stay tuned for more.
UPDATE: The Rise and Downfall of the New Religious Left Kresta in the Afternoon Robert Sirico, 2008-03-14
3 comments:
Something like the so-called "Christian Socialist" movement?
It's so very sad that many intelligent, well-meaning Catholics - religious and lay alike - push for these principles without spending nearly the same kind of time and effort in promoting the interior life, a life of prayer, sacrifice, and cooperative suffering with Christ. All the more so because by neglecting the idea of the interior life they ensure that none of these temporal goals will ever be attained, thus defeating themselves, AND they put souls - their own and others'- into very real spiritual danger.
No saint has ever emphasized temporal goods at the expense of spiritual goods, nor do they ever put the two on the same plane. Priority is always given to the interior life and then on the corporal works of mercy secondarily, only as these charitable deeds naturally flow from a life of deep and intense prayer and union with Jesus Christ.
I'm eager to read this next encyclical, especially in light of the previous social encyclicals.
So, something like most every post on Vox-Nova?
Matt,
That was funny!
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