On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Shane Taylor wrote:
> You make a persuasive case why liberal Christian's do not rush to the side
> of the secular left, and that European anti-clericalism is
> self-destructive for the American left. Yet, why don't liberal Christians
> do more for their own side, for their own sake?
To start with, so long as they keep quiet, both sides treat them like their friends. As soon as they stick their head above the parapet, they'll get fired at from both sides.
No rational person would mount an attack from that position. Only a zealot -- which is exactly what they aren't.
And it's not only the short term that's all downside. They also feel -- and they are quite right -- that they can't possibly win from that position. They are surrounded by enemies, both more implacable than themselves. And that makes their goal -- to reconcile religion and modernity -- clearly impossible.
Now imagine an alternative universe in which we fully supported them, in the sense that we identified with them, we considered them to be our side. That would entirely change the playing field. Then, inside of being surrounded by two enemies, both of whom were vehemently opposed to their goal -- instead of being the weakest and most irresolute party on a field of three -- they would become the vanguard of a large majority dedicated to exactly the sort of compromise they stand for, where individuals decide what they believe about ultimate things, and where they respect each other's right to their own choices.
That would change everything. But the first move -- the first ten moves -- would have to be ours. It is only us that can make this three way into a two way. They cannot.
And opportunistic support -- saying "We're with you even though we hate religion" -- is no use at all. It doesn't change the incentives to say "We wish you'd clobber those other guys. And then when you're done with them we'll come after you." That's exactly the position they're in now. Some incentive!
The connection between religion and politics doesn't happen by itself. It has to be made and fostered.
Fundamentalist took decades to convince that they belonged in politics. It seemed a danger to them to involve religion in such a corrupt world. And in a milder form, the same is true of religious moderates. They deeply feel religion is a private thing, an often ineffable thing. That's why we like them. But it means that in their milder way they have just as much instinctive aversion to entering politics as the fundies did at first. Parading their beliefs in public makes them instinctively cringe. The anti-war movement, the civil rights struggle -- those were political struggles about other things, where religion was not the object. This would be a historically new departure for them -- just as historically new as fundamentalism is.
And on a more mundane level, most religious moderates don't feel the same personal goad that atheists do. They agree that fundamentalists are benighted. But they don't feel their own personal beliefs have been insulted and trampled on the way atheists do. Their pride is not offended, the way atheists are, and they don't feel that their most cherished beliefs are under attack, the way atheists do. Atheists believe in reason the way fundies believe in god. Religious moderates believe both have their limits. So their immediate reaction to fundamentalist pronouncements is generally more one of quiet condescension. Why should they care? It doesn't affect their ultimate beliefs. It doesn't affect their relation to god. Where the atheists feel their idol has been insulted in a way they cannot stick.
The last answer to the question, "Why don't religious moderates fight back?" is they do. It only looks like its not happening because we're not supporting it. The groups we want already exist -- Catholics for a Free Choice, evangelicals who embrace gays. But because we don't support them, they don't exist in political terms. They're invisible, they don't reverberate, they don't affect the national discourse. We are the background that gives them political meaning -- or insignificance.
And our lack of support is not an accident. We don't support them because we have a fundamental, instinctive aversion to them. We regard them as somewhere between deluded, weak sisters and traitors. Until we change that idea -- until we really understand that they are the only ones who can help us in both in the short and long terms -- not only the only ones who can help us win elections, but the only ones who can turn back the fundamentalist movement by changing its worldview -- the playing field will not change. And they won't enter it.
And the path to embracing such practical conclusions is realizing that this is really what accords with our principles. That our enemy is intolerance, not religion. And that it can't be both.
Michael