Progressive reflections after the election

Rabbi Michael Lerner offers some help for progressives dealing with post-election depression, urging a spirit-based framework for progressive political action.

[11-11-02]

Among the many laments among progressives after the recent elections, one of the most thoughtful I've seen has come from Rabbi Michael Lerner, noted author and editor of Tikkun magazine.

With the approaching seasons of Chanukah and Christmas each including lights as a part of their rich symbolism, Lerner says that it's time to get beyond the laments, and to offer some new light to our society and our political life.

Just as the Republicans, after a major defeat in 1964, turned to Christian evangelicals to find a new spiritual focus for a reframed ideological foundation. They built slowly on that foundation, with their efforts bearing fruit in the rightist presidencies of Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

"That's exactly what liberals and progressives need to do," he says. "And then they need to put forward an equivalent to the 'Contract for America' that won the Republicans control of the House of Representatives in 1994, which they've held ever since. They need to offer A New Light for America."

Like those conservatives, progressives must now "challenge the dominant values" in ways that President Clinton and other "moderates" have refused to do, in the name of practical politics.

"So what the forces for peace, justice and ecological sanity need is a whole new kind of voice and worldview. And that's what we've been developing in our new national organization The Tikkun Community."

This "New Light for America" would include elements like these:

1. "A New Bottom Line." We should shift from judging policies and institutions by their financial profits to considering how well they "produce loving and caring human beings, ethical and ecological consciousness, and a capacity to respond to the universe with awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation."

2. "Generosity and Open-heartedness as the Path to Security." Our insecurity, he says, stems from the huge gap between the wealth and power of the U.S. and the poverty and despair of much of the world. Wars will not erase the the anger that is fueled by our "selfishness." "The only way to change this picture is for the U.S. to have a new foreign policy whose central goal is to make the world the primary force seeking to end world hunger and homelessness, create a global system of health care accessible and affordable by everyone, and participate in a worldwide crusade to save and enhance the natural environment (rather than, as now, participate in its destruction)."

3. "Education for Caring, Gratitude and Awe." Our educational system must teach more than "productive skills." Our schools need to teach three central values: "an attitude of caring for others, an ability to feel and express gratitude for the many blessings we have received from past generations, from parents, from social movements that struggled for social justice, and from the goodness of the Universe, and a sense of awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation (to replace a merely utilitarian attitude being taught today)."

4. "Nature is too precious to be sold. Our task is to honor it, preserve it, restore it. And stand in awe of it. This is a spiritual attitude toward the universe----and it stands in sharp contrast to those who primarily want to sell nature for private profit."

Lerner offers this as just the beginning for a new "politics of meaning or an Emancipatory Spirituality that could become the source of a New Light for America."

This "New Light" would provide a new intellectual framework for progressive politics, while also speaking to the heart, as it invites people to share in working for "a world based on love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity."

Read the whole essay on the Tikkun website!

And please share your own thoughts on how progressives might move beyond the defeats of the recent election.  
Just send a note!

GA actions ratified (or not) by  the presbyteries   

A number of the most important actions of the 219^th General Assembly have now been acted upon by the presbyteries, confirming most of them as amendments to the PC(USA) Book of Order.

We provided resources to help inform the reflection and debate, along with updates on the voting.

Our three areas of primary interest have been:

If you like what you find here,
we hope you'll help us keep Voices for Justice going ... and growing!

Please consider making a special contribution -- large or small -- to help us continue and improve this service.

Click here to send a gift online, using your credit card, through PayPal.

Or send your check, made out to "Presbyterian Voices for Justice" and marked "web site," to our PVJ Treasurer:

PVJ's Facebook page

Mitch Trigger, PVJ's Secretary/Communicator, has created a Facebook page where Witherspoon members and others can gather to exchange news and views. Mitch and a few others have posted bits of news, both personal and organizational. But there’s room for more!

Voices of Sophia blog

Heather Reichgott, who has created this new blog for Voices of Sophia, introduces it:

John Harris’ Summit to Shore blogspot

John Shuck’s Shuck and Jive

Got more blogs to recommend?