DALLAS – Left-leaning Christians are preparing to take on the religious right.
They have formed groups, appealed for members and announced their presence in the political arena. Their goal: to advance a different view of Christianity.
Leaders of these fledgling groups acknowledge that they can’t compete yet with their battle-tested conservative counterparts. The National Association of Evangelicals counts 30 million members.
Exit polls after the 2004 election estimated that evangelicals constituted about a quarter of those voting, and nearly 80 percent went for President Bush.
“It will take years to really get organized,” said the Rev. Eric Folkerth, senior pastor of Dallas’ Northaven United Methodist Church. “You don’t just announce a group and, presto, next week you’re doing well.”
William Martin, a senior fellow in religion and public policy at Rice University and author of “With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America,” characterized progressive groups as promising but small. And he cautioned against underestimating evangelicals’ resilience.
“To counter that, progressives are going to have to do the organizing and not just wring their hands and say they’re the ones who are right,” he said.
The religious right has provided the road map.
“They have done an incredible job of organizing,” said the Rev. Tim Simpson, who helped launch the Christian Alliance for Progress.
For the new alliance, the to-do list is long. The group is signing up field organizers in cities across the country, organizing e-mail lists and communicating its message on a Web log.
The idea, organizers said, is to build a network of active and well-informed progressives. Then, when an issue comes to the fore, the structure will already be in place, allowing people to communicate with lawmakers and to speak with one voice.
The fact that these new groups are being built from the ground up is a good sign, said Glenn Smith, a Texas political consultant and an organizer of the Freedom and Faith Forum, an umbrella group for progressive organizations.
“It ought to truly be grassroots,” he said, not organized by “a genius political consultant in Washington.”
Simpson said his group is starting with church basements and office water coolers to spread the word.
“We want to be loud and proud about our faith,” he said.
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LEADING THE CHARGE
The religious right has become a powerful political force. Now, left-leaning Christians are trying to emulate conservatives’ success by organizing grassroots groups. Here’s a look at organizations from both ends of the political spectrum.
ON THE LEFT:
Christian Alliance for Progress (www.christianalliance.org)
The Center for Progressive Christianity (www.tcpc.org)
ON THE RIGHT:
Christian Coalition of America (www.cc.org)
Focus on the Family (www.family.org)
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