US Christian leader faces down the religious right
-21/09/06
A new book by the general
US Christian leader faces down the religious right
-21/09/06
A new book by the general secretary of the US National Council of Churches (NCC USA) is a call to reclaim US religious life from the “far religious right”, says its author, the Rev Dr Robert Edgar ñ writes Chris Herlinger for Ecumenical News International.
“The politics of faith have been co-opted in the service of a political agenda defined by fascination with war, indifference toward poverty, and exploitation of God’s creation for the benefit of a relative few,” Edgar writes in an introduction to his book, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right.
In the book, Dr Edgar asserts that the vast majority of Christians, Jews and Muslims in the United States are to be found in what he calls “Middle Church, Middle Synagogue, and Middle Mosque”.
He writes, “It is time for Middle Church – an umbrella term I use to refer to mainstream people of all faiths – to stand up to the far religious right and to embrace Christianity no less sincerely.”
Such mainstream people of faith, he says, tend to agree on the need to promote peace, justice for the poor and to protect the earth from environmental destruction. But such groups are not acknowledged in media attention focused on the power of the US religious right and in controversies over socially and theologically divisive issues such as homosexuality.
Edgar is an ordained Methodist minister who also served as a Democratic Party member of the US House of Representatives from 1974 to 1987. The book draws on these experiences as well as those of being a young seminary student who met Martin Luther King Jr before his 1968 assassination.
But the book, published by Simon & Schuster, is also intended as a challenge to those who Edgar asserts are in the “middle” of their denominations. “This faithful majority must have the courage to confront their government when it makes bad decisions,” writes Edgar, a self-described liberal who pays homage in his book to King as well as to figures such as President John F. Kennedy.
In an interview with Ecumenical News International following the launch of the book on 14 September at the NCC USA’s New York offices, Edgar said he fully expects the book to be criticised by US Christian conservatives who have asserted that he and the NCC are bent on liberal political agendas. “I hope they do their reviews,” Dr Edgar said. “I welcome them.”
See: Robert Edgar, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0743289498, 25.00 US dollars (hardback).
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Jim Wallis warns against religious right in Australia; US public deplores too secular liberals and too dominant religious right; ‘British Christians not only on religious right’ says campaigner; Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right (book); US evangelical argues for radical Democrat agenda; Evangelical bashes the ‘Bible bashers’; Christian Left alliance launched in the USA; British unsure about moral issues, broadcast suggests; Supreme Court battle raises concerns about faith-based politics]
US Christian leader faces down the religious right
-21/09/06
A new book by the general secretary of the US National Council of Churches (NCC USA) is a call to reclaim US religious life from the “far religious right”, says its author, the Rev Dr Robert Edgar ñ writes Chris Herlinger for Ecumenical News International.
“The politics of faith have been co-opted in the service of a political agenda defined by fascination with war, indifference toward poverty, and exploitation of God’s creation for the benefit of a relative few,” Edgar writes in an introduction to his book, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right.
In the book, Dr Edgar asserts that the vast majority of Christians, Jews and Muslims in the United States are to be found in what he calls “Middle Church, Middle Synagogue, and Middle Mosque”.
He writes, “It is time for Middle Church – an umbrella term I use to refer to mainstream people of all faiths – to stand up to the far religious right and to embrace Christianity no less sincerely.”
Such mainstream people of faith, he says, tend to agree on the need to promote peace, justice for the poor and to protect the earth from environmental destruction. But such groups are not acknowledged in media attention focused on the power of the US religious right and in controversies over socially and theologically divisive issues such as homosexuality.
Edgar is an ordained Methodist minister who also served as a Democratic Party member of the US House of Representatives from 1974 to 1987. The book draws on these experiences as well as those of being a young seminary student who met Martin Luther King Jr before his 1968 assassination.
But the book, published by Simon & Schuster, is also intended as a challenge to those who Edgar asserts are in the “middle” of their denominations. “This faithful majority must have the courage to confront their government when it makes bad decisions,” writes Edgar, a self-described liberal who pays homage in his book to King as well as to figures such as President John F. Kennedy.
In an interview with Ecumenical News International following the launch of the book on 14 September at the NCC USA’s New York offices, Edgar said he fully expects the book to be criticised by US Christian conservatives who have asserted that he and the NCC are bent on liberal political agendas. “I hope they do their reviews,” Dr Edgar said. “I welcome them.”
See: Robert Edgar, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0743289498, 25.00 US dollars (hardback).
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Jim Wallis warns against religious right in Australia; US public deplores too secular liberals and too dominant religious right; ‘British Christians not only on religious right’ says campaigner; Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right (book); US evangelical argues for radical Democrat agenda; Evangelical bashes the ‘Bible bashers’; Christian Left alliance launched in the USA; British unsure about moral issues, broadcast suggests; Supreme Court battle raises concerns about faith-based politics]