The Importance of Spiritual Activism- a report on the recent DC conference

[JudyM]

I attended the "Spiritual Activism Conference" in DC last week and left feeling inspired with hope that if we on the Left improve our efforts to talk "values" in the public sphere we can win over a lot of voters. The basic premise of the conference (put on by a new grassroots movement The Network of Spiritual Progressives) is that politicians who believe in progressive values should be putting those values right out there for everyone to hear, and that we should be doing our part to support them in that effort. Politicians have difficulty articulating these values (compassion, kindness, ecological conservation, peace, etc) because they are 'soft' rather than 'tough,' and so are fodder for ridicule from politicians on the Right, who couch their 'values' in terms that are based on the 'realities' of a bottom line based on economic efficiency and the like.

We've all heard the Right's rap about how the Left doesn't stand for anything, we're flip-floppers, etc so many voters in the middle feel that only the Right is really concerned about values, and they vote for those politicians who at least seem to stand for something. This seems idiotic to me, but apparently a lot of people vote republican for this reason. However, as we all know, the Religious Right is not really articulating authentic spiritual values; those values instead underlie the policies of the Left.

The conference was an effort to articulate a "new bottom line" and empower and mobilize people to 1) effectively lobby their elected representatives to vote according to progressive values and 2) form groups within their own communities to disseminate info and become activists in promoting candidates and legislation consistent with these new bottom line values.

In fact, most of the 1200 conference attendees went to their representatives' offices on Thursday for face to face meetings set up in advance by the conference organizers. I observed this to have been a powerful transition point for most everyone, few of whom had ever even contacted their elected reps in the past.

In the various speeches there was actually little talk of religion -- just emphasis on those values of compassion, etc. This was appealing to me, as a pretty much secular person. Yet there was a broad diversity of spiritual background represented both among the speakers and attendees: from evangelist to secularists to native American and other earth-based religions. Everyone was speaking the same language of peace and compassion.

A Jewish woman from Iran spoke about her hardships, another native woman from the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge area (for whom English was a second language) talked about the vanishing animal life, a hip-hop rapper touched the crowd with periodic interludes focusing on these values issues and war, global warming, etc., a guitarist and conga player sang rousing rhythmic stories of experiences in war-torn Iraq, Arun Gandhi, Holly Near, Cindy Sheehan, and others urged us to think about how we can change the world one step at a time if we work together. There was such an inspired feeling of hope. Of starting to believe that we have not gone too far down the path with * to make it hopeless to take steps to return. A sense of a possible global community of peace, of caring for the environment, of turning part of our GNP toward the problems of poverty and hunger rather than feeding it all into the military.

Ultimately, the conference was about focusing each of us on having the courage to maintain a high moral vision, and to work for this despite the cynical Right's argument that it's not realistic to run the world on compassionate principles, that efficiency is instead paramount. My own hope is that enough people will still believe these values matter -- enough to join this grassroots movement.

You can read more of the specifics of the group's platform at www.spiritualprogressives.org or in the book that's the blueprint for the organization, The Left Hand of God -- Taking Back Our Country fromt he Religious Right by Rabbi Michael Lerner. Cornell West and a Benedictine nun, Sister Joan Chittister, are the other 2 founders.

[MountainLaurel]

1. I was there on Sunday!

:hi:

I was blown away by Rabbi Lerner's speech that day. I had never considered the issue of religion so directly as they relate to paradigms of denomination.

BTW, I just found that the Sunday presentations were posted online at the All Souls site:

http://www.all-souls.org/sermons/mp3/06.05.21TheLeftHandOfGod.mp3

[JudyM]

2. Yep, it was terrific. And what an inspired group of people.

Nothing like being in the midst of a bunch of liberals enthusiastically cheering a leader who tells it like it is.

Thanks for the link, too - I wasn't aware of it.

I'm going to be starting a monthly casual dinner get-together for metro-DC folks who would like to keep moving along this path - whether for mutual support and ideas or for anything else folks would like to get out of such a group. If you (or any other DUers reading this) are interested, please let me know and I'll keep you in the loop.

:hi: :patriot: