Your approach is problematic. Any "progressive" or "liberal" could be militantly for a woman's right to choose (including many Catholics), or for the rights of lesbians/gays/bisexuals/transsexuals, and any number of other single issues (or multiple ones) without questioning the relationship of those forms of oppression to the capitalist system. On the other hand, it is possible to be part of those struggles and see them as integral to the larger fight to transform society in fundamental ways (cooperative communities, utopian schemes, socialist forms, etc.). So identifying a grouping within the faith community as "left" merely on the basis of those issues without identifying their world view regarding the system and the connection of those issue struggles to changing it offers a pretty muddy definition of "left."
I suppose one could argue that these groups are "objectively" part of the left in the sense that their struggles serve the larger objectives of a more explicitly anti-capitalist movement, but that's no better than saying that every worker who organizes for recognition or goes out on a militant strike is "objectively" anti-capitalist or "objectively left."
Let's keep honing this so that we can come to some agreement that we all (or most of us) accept, at least for purposes of our exchanges about these issues.
In solidarity, Michael
At 11:01 PM 6/9/98 -0400, Frances Bolton (PHI) wrote:
>
>Michael,
>
>I think you're right to suggest we should examine how we are using thesese
>terms, and I think you make a good start. I wonder, though, if a critque
>of capitalism need be the starting point, or primary focus, of the groups
>we're terming the christian left. There are catholics whose primary focus
>is challenging church abortion policy, or fighting for the ordination of
>women. There are protestant groups that are fighting for the ordination
>and/or full inclusion of l/g/b/t people in their congregations.
>Others are working to publicize human rights abuses in Rwanda or
>challenfging the privatization of social entitlement programs. Now, many
>of these groups are implicitly challenging
>patriarchal/heterosexist/militaristic capitalist systems. But that is not
>the way they are framing their challenges to these systems.
>
>So, I might want to say of the christian left that they are offering a
>critique of *exclusive* systesm, and want a society modeled along
>inclusive, egalitarian lines. That would include critiques of capitalism,
>but would also include to challenges such as those I mentioned above.
>
>It is possible that my formulation is too vague, though--I don't know.
>
>Yours,
>Frances
>
>
>On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Michael Eisenscher wrote:
>>
>> Maybe we need to stop and agree on some common definitions of terms.
>> When I refer to "the Left," it is generally to folks who self-identify as
>> socialists, anarchists, communists, marxists, maoists, troskyists, and all
>> the other -ists who share some form of radical critique of capitalism and
>> see the need for a fundamental transformation of society and political
>> economy along non-capitalist lines -- although they may disagree on what
>> that means and how to get there.
>> When I refer the "religious left," I am speaking about people with a
>> comparable critique of capitalism, but who approach that critique from a
>> faith-based, as opposed or in addition to a political/economic or
>> materialist, perspective. They too do not all agree on what should replace
>> it or how to get there, and have the added disagreements between them over
>> theological issues.
>
>