A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of speaking at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, as a guest of Tom Krattenmaker, frequent contributor to USA Today and Associate Vice President at Lewis & Clark. (Tom, by the way, has a great piece up today at USA Today on recent books that give a new perspective on Jesus and the church by New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Marcus Borg and church historian Diana Butler Bass). After the event, I talked at length with George Rede, Sunday opinion editor at the Oregonian, who focused his Easter Sunday column on my recent book, Progressive & Religious. In the piece, entitled “Religious progressives find new acceptance”, Rede talks about the resurrection of progressive religious voices in American public life.

Religious Progressives find new acceptance

by George Rede

Judging from recent headlines, you might think conservatives have a lock on religion. Whether the topic is same-sex marriage, stem cell research or President Barack Obama’s invitation to speak at Notre Dame’s commencement, the same sources from the religious right get top billing.

What’s going on? Robert P. Jones, a professor and ordained minister, has an idea.

Last month at Portland’s Lewis & Clark College, Jones talked about his new book, “Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist Leaders Are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).

In the book, Jones cuts through the assumption that religion in America — and religious politics — are the domain of the religious right. (Think Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority; Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition; James Dobson and Focus on the Family. Recall their efforts to legislate morality on issues of abortion, sex education and gay rights.)

In reporting these hot-button issues, Jones found, the mainstream media fell into the trap of presenting a distorted picture, virtually defining religion and the public square in conservative terms. Jones’ research shows that for every progressive voice cited in the news media, three conservative religious voices were quoted.

That doesn’t match reality. After all, 14 percent of Americans define themselves as religious progressives versus 15 percent who self-identify as religious conservatives, according to the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey.

Jones spent three years crisscrossing the country doing 96 interviews with progressive religious leaders representing Christianity (both mainline and evangelical Protestant), Judaism (Reform) and Islam. From those interviews, several themes emerged: an emphasis on social justice, a fundamental belief in humanity, a vision for America as a more generous country, an active role in community organizing — plus a conviction that “truth” isn’t the exclusive realm of religious conservatives…

Continue reading the full article from The Oregonian here.

You can also read a longer piece on Progressive & Religious by George Rede, Sunday Opinion Editor for the Oregonian, here.

Progressive & Religious is 50% off in April. Rowman & Littlefield has made my book available at the best price so far ($12.48 for hardcover, expires 4/27). To buy the book at this sale price, click here, and enter promotion code “4S9PROG50″ at checkout.

Labels: book review, progressive and religious

Wanted to give a few updates from the road and let everyone know that if you've wanted a copy of my recent book, Progressive & Religious, the publisher's spring sale is on!

1. Progressive & Religious 50% off in April. Rowman & Littlefield has made my book available at the best price so far ($12.48 for hardcover, expires 4/27). To buy the book at this sale price, click here, and enter promotion code "4S9PROG50" at checkout.

Feel free to pass this along to friends and colleagues.

2. We've had a successful launch of the book and book tour. I've been the recipient of the hospitality of several universities and seminaries (Emory University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School, MIT, Oregon State University, Lewis and Clark College), academic conferences (American Academy of Religion, Christian Scholars Conference), and local congregations (Oseh Shalom in MD, Oakhurst Baptist Church in GA, and the Interfaith Families Project in MD). I've also had the opportunity to do some engaging media talks, ranging from being Rev. Welton Gaddy's guest on Air America to an appearance on Fox & Friends (!). I'm continuing to book engagements for the second half of the year to tell the story of the emerging progressive religious movement.

3. We also continue to publish compelling "Progressive Religious Voices podcasts series with progressive religious leaders. You can find them on iTunes or at www.progressiveandreligious.org/podcasts. They're free--come check them out.

Labels: progressive and religious, progressive politics, progressive religion

I wanted to flag for everyone this article in the National Catholic Reporter that mentions my new book, Progressive and Religious, and role of religion in the 2008 election.

"I think what the emerging progressive religious movement is poised to do is to help us move from the culture wars, where religion is the tip of the spear that divided Americans," said Robert Jones, a sociologist and author of "Progressive & Religious."

"What we're really seeing is a rebalancing in many ways in this election," said Jones. "In 2004, we had the artificial constriction of religion to a couple of hot-button issues and one party."

The full article is available here.

Labels: catholics, election, progressive and religious

Check out this newest review of Progressive and Religious from the Baptist Studies Bulletin of Mercer University. You can access the full article here.

Progressive and Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist
Leaders Are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming
American Public Life
by Robert P. Jones
Reviewed by Wil Platt

Having lived through a decade or more of supremacy by the Christian right, some will be tempted to interpret the short title of this month’s selection as an oxymoron. How could any movement be both progressive and religious? As Rosemary Radford Reuther observes in her recommendation for the book, we have been presented with “the falsehood that only conservative evangelicals are seriously religious.” The basic purpose of the author is to “paint a compelling portrait of an emerging progressive religious movement in America.” I believe he succeeds in his task.

Robert P. Jones (Robby to his friends) describes himself as “a speaker, scholar, and consultant on religion and progressive politics.” He is president of Public Religion Research, a consulting firm advising advocacy groups, and visiting fellow in religion at Third Way, a progressive think tank. He completed his M. Div. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; the fundamentalist takeover of that institution occurred in his final semester and definitely influenced his outlook. He went on to earn a doctorate at Emory University in Atlanta. After a brief period of teaching in the Religious Studies Department of Missouri State University, he accepted a position as the founding director and senior fellow at the Center for American Values in Public Life at People for the American Way Foundation in Washington, D. C. While there and during the year following his departure, he completed the work for the book. Since 2007, he has been working as an independent consultant in progressive circles in Washington. Additional information about his background and activities can be found on his Web site.

Progressive and Religious is based upon nearly one hundred interviews with progressive religious leaders from synagogues, churches, mosques, meditation halls, and homes across the United States. Protestants who were interviewed include Tony Campolo, evangelical scholar, speaker, and writer; James Forbes, former senior pastor of the The Riverside Church in New York; Welton Gaddy, Director of the Interfaith Alliance; Brian McLaren, speaker, pastor, and leader in the Emerging Church movement; and Jim Wallis, President of Sojourners/Call to Renewal. Three chapters of the book are devoted to the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The final chapter covers progressive Buddhists. The book contains a complete list of interviewees divided according to their religious or professional affiliation, extensive notes, and a generous bibliography.

Jones states that there were two meta-narratives that dominated late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century thought in regard to religion in America. One was the belief among mainline Protestants that the twentieth century would witness the “the full blossoming of Christian principles” and the Christianizing of the culture. On the other hand, some predicted the demise of religion in the face of an assault by science and reason. As things happened, neither of these visions came to pass. Buffeted by two world wars, economic collapse, the Holocaust, and the Cold War, the vision of a Christianized culture never came to fruition. The vision of secularization did not come to pass either; religion persisted, and continued to challenge science and rationalism. By the end of the twentieth century, in the place of these “exhausted visions,” two other forces emerged: “a defiant, rejectionist form of religion represented by the religious right and an equally militant condemnation of religion by the angry neoatheists. . . .” The religious right focused on a narrow range of issues: abortion, same-sex marriage, and stem cell research. As a result of his research, Jones believes that the majority of Americans are looking beyond the culture wars toward religious and political progress. He sees the progressive voices that he interviewed as “the vanguard of a new public face of religion in American public life.”

In the conclusion to the book, Jones discusses the “shared principles and values” of people who are both progressive and religious. First, these individuals and groups place an emphasis on social justice. They do not see this as optional; it is central to their faith. The Jewish concept of tikku olam, “healing the world,” is a way to express this concept. Second, progressives follow a relational approach to truth. Strong emphasis is given to experience in community, the use of human faculties in discerning truth, and humility. Third, progressives emphasize a “rigorous engagement with tradition” not a break with tradition. The past must be revered and respected, but it cannot supplant the present. Fourth, progressives have a belief in the unity of all humanity. In the Abrahamic faiths, this is based upon the belief that all have been created in the image of God. All people have not only a common origin but also a shared fate. Fifthly and finally, progressives have a new vision of America that emphasizes interdependence and generosity instead of unilateralism.

While some Baptists seem to be “circling the wagons,” Robert P. Jones paints a picture of a future characterized by openness, attention to issues of social justice, and religious cooperation. The progressive voices he has identified give us cause for hope.

The full article is available from the Baptist Studies Bulletin.

Labels: progressive and religious, reviews

I wanted to highlight this most recent positive review of Progressive and Religious. You can access the full text from the Spirituality and Practice website here.

Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Progressive & Religious
How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders Are Moving beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Life
Robert P. Jones

Robert P. Jones is president of Public Religion Research, a consulting firm advising national advocacy groups, and visiting fellow in religion at Third Way, a progressive think tank. With great elan and spunk, he has completed a three-year project of interviewing 100 Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist leaders. The result is a book that presents a glimpse of the emerging face of religion in a new era in America which E. J. Dionne and others have dubbed "a post-religious right America." Here are progressives who are deeply rooted in religious traditions, "voices that unite rather than divide; and voices that demand attention to a broader agenda of peace, social justice, care for the environment, respect for pluralism, and the common good."

For years, the religious right, comprised mainly of white evangelicals within the Republican Party, have dominated the media with their political views and wedge issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and embryonic stem cell research. The excesses of the Christian right have spawned a series of vitriolic antireligious books. Conspicuously absent are liberal religious voices. Jones maintains that an authentic new movement has arisen that is very different from the still vocal Christian right and the reactionary antirelgious left.

In a chapter titled "Lifting the Line of History: How Progressive Jews Are Healing the World," the author claims that Judaism presently has "the strongest and most engaged progressive voice." He talks about tikkun olam and the challenge of repairing the broken world. The sacred texts used to energize social justice issues are Genesis 1 (Creation in the Image of God), the Exodus story of liberation, and Isaiah 58 where holiness refers to an ethical orientation toward just acts. In addition to working for the alleviation of poverty and the support for LGBT equality, many Jews have joined Rabbi Michael Lerner's Network of Spiritual Progressives. On the international front, this organization calls for a "Global Marshall Plan" and "an ethical way to end the war in Iraq."

In other chapters, Jones covers three other religions: "More Truth Breaking Out: How Progressive Christians Are Seeking the Reign of God on Earth"; "Knowing One Another: How Progressive Muslims Are Fostering Justice, Beauty, and Pluralism"; and "Just Sitting Down: How Progressive Buddhists Are Being Peace and Embodying Justice." The author shares five common characteristics of a progressive religious orientation:

• An emphasis on social justice
• A relational approach to truth
• A rigorous and critical engagement with tradition
• A belief in the unity of all humanity
• A new vision of America that emphasizes interdependence, generosity, and prophetic critique

Jim Wallis has called the new energy among progressive voices a "great awakening." Jones does a fine job of mapping this new movement which offers an alternative to the present day national mood of fear and self-interest.

You can also access the full review here.

Labels: progressive and religious, reviews

Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite talks about the importance of religious education, Biblical literalism, and the emerging progressive religious movement that she calls a 'Second Reformation.'

In this new episode of Progressive Religious Voices, Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, emphasizes critical thought and thorough Bible study as the backbone of progressive religious education and talks about the "divine human project" of helping to heal the world.

Here's a short excerpt from the podcast:
That’s the divine human project, to heal the world. And you contribute your piece. King was right, it may be slow, but 'the arc of history bends towards justice.' Isaiah 58 says, `You shall be called the re-builders of the walls, the restorers of houses in ruins.’ Our country is in ruins. I mean, seriously. And so Isaiah 58 calls us, `I despise your feasts, your solemn assemblies.’ [And God says], 'What are you doing? You’re over here, you’re wasting my time with all of this religious ritual when the world is broken, and it’s the world that I care about. It’s the world I created as God, and so your job as a human being is to work with me in the re-building of the world, the healing of the world.' That’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to help with others the world heal itself. So for me, it is the healing of the world, that’s the human project.

Click here to listen to the podcast.




About Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite
Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is professor of theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. She was president of CTS from 1998-2008. Her area of expertise is contextual theologies of liberation, specializing in issues of violence and violation. An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ since 1974, she is the author or editor of thirteen books and has been a translator for two translations of the Bible. Her works include Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States (1996) and The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Translation (1995).

About the Podcasts
Progressive Religious Voices is a bi-monthly podcast of interviews gleaned from nearly 100 interviews with progressive religious leaders. You can subscribe to the podcast feed directly or on iTunes to get all the exciting interviews that we will feature throughout 2008.

Other Resources
If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy our podcast featuring Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Jr., President and Founder of the Healing of the Nations Foundation of New York and Senior Minister Emeritus of Riverside Church.

You can also read more about the growing progressive religious movement in my new book, Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life.

Labels: Christian, podcast, progressive and religious, progressive christianity, progressive religious voices, susan thistlethwaite

Check out this piece from National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" that talks about the work of my firm, Public Religion Research, my new book, Progressive and Religious, and the change in the political landscape from 2004 to 2008. You can read the full text here.


How McCain Shed Pariah Status Among Evangelicals
by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

When it comes to evangelicals, John McCain has remade himself in eight short years. The Republican candidate was a pariah to religious conservatives during his run for the White House in 2000. This time around, he's not exactly a Messiah but he has won over his base...

"I think 2004 really was the high-water mark of the religious right in America," says Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research and author of Progressive and Religious.

Jones says the culture wars do not excite religious voters the way they used to.

"What we had in 2004 was a very artificial constriction of religion to be about abortion and same-sex marriage," he says. "We also had in a way we hadn't seen before an artificial constriction of religion to be about one political party. And it's not sustainable."

Jones' polls show abortion and same-sex marriage don't even rank in the top five issues for evangelicals, much less other religious voters.

Continue reading the full piece here.

Labels: campaign, mccain, npr, progressive and religious, public religion research

'And For the Sin Of Greed That We Have Committed...'
by Rabbi Jennie C. Rosenn

I wanted to highlight for everyone this recent editorial by Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, a contributor to my new book, Progressive and Religious. She uses Yom Kippur liturgy to challenge Jews not only to respond individually to the needs of their communities, but also to work collectively with social justice groups to fight for systemic transformation. You can read the full piece here.

This is a strategic moment for the broader Jewish community to join with Jewish social justice organizations around shared values and collective action. Jewish social justice organizations, as reported in our recently published research, “Visioning Justice and the American Jewish Community,” stand on the forefront of organizing across religious, ethnic, and class lines to fight for some of the systemic changes we need — fair labor practices, universal healthcare, affordable housing and immigrant rights. In recent times we have witnessed solid examples of alliances between broader Jewish communal agencies and Jewish social justice organizations — in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; in the face of genocide in Darfur; and on behalf of abused workers in Postville, Iowa. This is another such moment of need.

The broader Jewish community, together with Jewish social justice groups, can bring a compelling Jewish voice to every media outlet and decision-making table to help bring an end the war on the poor and middle class and to affirm the basic rights of housing, healthcare, education and pensions. In broader terms, they can define the values and principles that should determine governmental policies going forward. It is time to reframe our role as Jewish citizens and to take collective responsibility for making our values manifest in our policies.

Jews of every generation and affiliation — from those active in secular social change to those devoted to their local federations — can also act individually on this responsibility. Congregants can engage their synagogues in congregation-based community organizing. Jews of every generation can do volunteer service that addresses real needs in poor communities and speaks to the root causes of poverty. Professionals in transition from the private sector can bring their intelligence and skills to the Jewish social justice field. And we all can ensure that our tzedakah remains robust; these are days that call for shoring up, not scaling back, our giving.

Continue reading here.

Labels: guest voices, jewish, progressive and religious, progressive judaism

Check out this story in the Nation that talks about the work of my firm, Public Religion Research, to work for a broader religious agenda of social justice and the common good. You can view the full article here.

Democrats Chase Evangelical Votes
Sarah Posner

When Barack Obama proclaimed that "we worship an awesome God in the blue states" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he sent a tingle through many young evangelical Democrats. The party was set to nominate John Kerry, considered by many evangelical activists to be religiously tone-deaf, but these Democratic faithful were already eyeing Obama as the un-Kerry, an unabashed believer ready to praise God in public...

Peeling away moderate and conservative evangelicals with a message of public service and social justice may prove to be a challenge, even with evangelical discontent with the GOP. But Robert Jones, author of the new book Progressive and Religious, maintains that "the real numbers are yet to be seen...there are still double-digit uncommitted voters. Those folks who aren't knee-jerk partisan voters will wait it out." Jones admitted that in 2006 "most of those evangelicals came home to the Republican Party," but he is not so sure this year. "The story will be where the uncommitted evangelicals break...I think we will see numbers breaking in a way that will surprise people."

Creating such a surprise has been the goal of Jones and some of the clients of his consulting firm, Public Religion Research, which has worked with new organizations in Washington to promote a broader religious agenda. One of his clients, Faith in Public Life (FPL), a nonprofit incubated at the Center for American Progress after the 2004 election, was at the forefront of promoting a more robust discussion of faith in this year's presidential campaign. Throughout the season, FPL has advanced the story line that less conservative religious voters are not only keen on having their voices heard in the public square but also on hearing about how presidential candidates' values guide their policy decisions. FPL organized the Compassion Forum at Messiah College in April, at which Obama and Hillary Clinton were put to the test of establishing their religious credentials, and pressed for the one at Warren's Saddleback Church.

Another one of Jones's clients, the centrist think tank Third Way, partnered with prominent evangelicals to produce an October 2007 white paper, "Come Let Us Reason Together," on how progressives and evangelicals could find common ground on divisive culture-war issues like abortion and gay rights. (Jones was a co-author.) FPL played a key role in promoting its signers, evangelical centrists like David Gushee, president of Evangelicals for Human Rights and professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University; Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, who moderated two of the four Faith Caucus panels at the DNC; and Joel Hunter, the Florida mega-church pastor and registered Republican who gave the benediction on the closing day of the DNC. All three have been promoting evangelical interests in non-culture-war issues, with Gushee focused on environmental issues and ending torture, Wallis emphasizing fighting poverty and Hunter addressing environmental issues.

"Come Let Us Reason Together" focuses on an issue that is anathema to the religious right, and may also spoil Democratic chances to peel off moderate evangelicals and Catholics--abortion. The white paper stresses the value of abortion reduction, and while no reproductive rights groups were openly critical of it, none endorsed it. Wallis and Hunter lauded the adoption of the abortion reduction plank in the Democratic platform, hailing language that they said was included after religious leaders' input. (Reproductive rights advocates also declared victory, claiming the strongest prochoice plank in party history.) In his acceptance speech, Obama tried to straddle the line between his prochoice base and the religious abortion-reduction advocates: "We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country."

Continue reading the full text here.

Labels: faith in public life, progressive and religious, public religion research

Just yesterday (09/21/2008), the Firedoglake.com book salon hosted a 2-hour discussion about my new book, Progressive and Religious. Sarah Posner, author of God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters and journalist for The American Prospect and Alternet, moderated the discussion.

I've included Sarah's review of the book below. You can check out the full review and discussion thread at Firedoglake.com. I want to extend my gratitude to the Lake for the great discussion.
_____________________

By Sarah Posner
Welcome to the FDL Book Salon on Robert P. Jones' new book, Progressive and Religious: How Christian Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders Are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life. It’s a really interesting and engaging read, and offers some valuable insights into how politically progressive religious people find the source of their progressive values in their religious traditions.

Because we are in the throes of the presidential campaign, peoples' minds (including my own) tend to be calibrated toward well-known and highly politicized religious movements like the religious right, which emerged with the expressed purpose of influencing elections, or the less easily defined religious center/left, which seems to seek to influence candidates' and parties' positions on issues but hasn't organized, as the right has, as a reliable voting bloc for either party. Recalibrate your thinking for this discussion, though: it has nothing to do with electoral politics, and everything to do with community organizing.

Robby opens the book with interviews of Jewish leaders, and the central concept they lay out -- that of tikkun olam, or repairing the world -- is a guiding principle even for most secular Jews (and Jews, both religious and secular, tend to be politically progressive). God made the world imperfect, messy, broken, and it’s our job to fix it. That principle informs the imperative to help the poor not just as an act of charity, but to question authority, raise hell, and transform society. It is, as Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, tells Robby, “establishing the conditions for justice.”

It’s not a huge leap from that concept to the underlying principles of Christianity, of course, but that central element of Jesus’ teachings has been so warped by judgmental, condemnatory fundamentalism and the political rise of the religious right that many people don’t associate it with our country’s majority religion. I know I promised not to talk about the election, but Sarah Palin’s RNC speech was emblematic of religious right disdain for the social justice Jesus. As was pointed out by many after her speech, Jesus was a community organizer, but you might forget that if you listen to the religious right too long. In those circles, Jesus’ teachings on poverty have been eclipsed by a handful of bible verses that have been twisted to condemn homosexuality.

Alleviating poverty by radicalizing social, economic, and political institutions is central to the social action of the Christian leaders in Robby’s book, as well as the Jewish ones. I was struck by the discussion in the book of the “extravagant welcome” these Christian thinkers find in Jesus’ teachings, and the imperative of welcoming all to an “open table.” (Similar concept in Judaism is how it is a mitzvah, a blessing, to welcome guests into your home.) But the “extravagant welcome” is not just into one’s literal home, it’s about, again, transforming the world to subvert the conditions and institutions in which inequality -- of wealth, of opportunity, of education -- persists.

While poverty is at the fore of these activists’ teachings, they extend that “extravagant welcome” to people marginalized and shunned by the religious right. In John 3:16, the verse cited by religious right activists to emphasize the imperative of salvation (“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”) these activists find “whosoever” to include everyone, and especially the LGBTQ people the religious right has condemned to hell.

The holistic theme of transforming the world, of course, runs through all three Abrahamic traditions, and Robby’s interviews with Muslim leaders reflect this view as well. Muslims in America must combat terrible stereotypes about not only their religion but themselves, and as a tiny minority -- less than one percent -- of the American public, that is surely daunting. Yet for the leaders profiled in the book, the principles of justice, goodness, and beauty are central to their teaching, as well as the imperative of ijtihad, or the independent thinking required to link centuries-old traditions to democracy and human rights. In denouncing the extremism of some Muslims, progressive Muslims say, in language that would resonate with Christians and Jews, “that what you do to my fellow human beings, you do to me.”

Robby also briefly explores American Buddhism, which, unlike the other religious traditions, is not based on monotheism and sacred texts. I have to admit to a paltry understanding of this religion, but Robby’s exploration of “Engaged Buddhism,” or the “interbeing” of all things, was a nice primer.

Many people think of religion as a set of principles, rules, or ceremonies, or possibly a way of connecting to a community with a shared place or tradition. But Jones' book casts it as something else, as well: a philosophy for social change that challenges authority, and that is often elegant and revelatory, even for secular allies.

Labels: book salon, progressive and religious, reviews