God’s Politics

"It’s one of my favourite books. Jim helps progressives understand that the people we care about, the people we are fighting for, the working people of America, are spiritual – people who go to church, mosque or synagogue, people who understand themselves as creatures of the divine. Often our politics has been secular, even hostile to religion. Jim says you’ve got to take people where they are, and if they are in a church pew you’ve got to go to the church pew. Just as importantly, Jim points out that religious scriptures favour economic justice. In the book of Luke, Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor”. And the Torah talks about the Year of Jubilee, how every 50th year you should forgive the debts of the poor – another religious prescription for economic justice. In the Koran it says that if you acquire wealth but fail to help the poor, you can’t enter paradise. So all of these holy texts make a progressive argument about the shape that society should be in. And let’s not forget that progressive leaders of the past have been people of faith. Can you conceive of Martin Luther King without his Christianity? Can you conceive of Gandhi without his Hinduism? Can you conceive of Dorothy Day without her Catholicism? I think that a lot of progressives only see religion when it’s misapplied. We don’t let Martin Luther King be the face of Christianity, we let evangelical fundamentalist Jerry Falwell be the face of it. We should choose King. I really like the book because I think progressives should be the most patriotic and they should be the most spiritual. The progressive movement has a diversity of views, but in general progressives would say that religious values like love and generosity and forgiveness should animate our public policy, but that specific religious practices are private. So does it matter that on Friday I go to jumu’ah while my neighbour celebrates shabbat ? No. Don’t tell me what religion you are, tell me what you believe. Do you believe in preaching good news to the poor? Do you believe in forgiveness? Do you believe every human being is valuable? That’s what I believe and that’s what most progressives embrace. I’d say progressives are people who believe that government can and should help people."