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

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

Publisher's Weekly has published a good review of Progressive & Religious in its latest "Book Line" newsletter:

Much attention has been paid to the role of the religious right in American politics, but this work offers an account of religious progressives who are seeking to make their own impact on public life. Jones, a scholar at the Center for American Progress, interviewed nearly 100 leaders from the four religious groups enumerated in the subtitle and discovered a diverse and vibrant community committed to issues like social justice, inclusion and economic fairness—a pluralistic hodgepodge Jones describes as "the other religious America." The author briefly depicts the long history of religious progressivism in America, but his book concentrates on contemporary activists, such as Jewish Funds for Justice or the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Each faith has its own distinctive theological basis for its progressive politics, yet Jones also shows common characteristics, including a relational approach to truth and a belief in the unity of all humanity. This book will cheer religious progressives who believe their voices are underrepresented in the current conversation about faith and politics in America. (Oct.)

I think the review does a good job of highlighting one of the things I tried to do in the book--show the distinctive theological approaches of each religious tradition and also identifying some common threads that hold the fabric of the new progressive religious movement together.

Labels: progressive religious movement, reviews