In our walk-through of James Davison Hunter’s To Change The World, we’re up to the fourth chapter of the second essay. This essay is entitled “The Christian Left.” Here’s the abstract from Hunter’s website:

Progressives have always been animated by the myth of equality and community and therefore see history as an ongoing struggle to realize these ideals. The key word in the progressive lexicon is justice. The biblical tradition that Christian progressives appeal to is the prophetic tradition in its condemnation of the wealthy for their abuse of the poor, the weak, and the marginalized. However, in its commitment to social change through politics and politically oriented social movements, in its conflation of the public with the political, in its own selective use of Scripture to justify political interests, and in its confusion of theology with national interests and identity, the Christian Left imitates the Christian Right.

http://jamesdavisonhunter.com/to-change-the-world/chapter-abstracts/

Within the U.S., the Christian Left has not been particularly strong, at least compared with its overseas success in movements like liberation theology. Inside the U.S., politically progressive Christians were principally found within the mainline denominations, although there is now a growing number of evangelicals that align themselves with the political left.

Whereas conservatives are angry over the harm done to their nation, progressives focus on the harm done to the weak and disadvantaged. They show great hostility toward the leaders of the Christian Right, feeling that these men have hijacked the Christian faith. Not only that, but those of the Christian Left feel that the Christian Right has severely damaged their country through their actions. The ressentiment of the Left is not directed toward non-Christians but toward the Christian Right.

The Christian Left also has its own quest for power, first for “reclaiming the Christian faith,” then spreading into the political arena. Though the Christian Left often claims to be non-partisan, their opposition to the Right typically leads them to support the agenda of the Democratic party, and many progressives, in fact, are active within that party.

The grand irony is that, in opposing the Christian Right, the Christian Left ends up using the same methods of their opponents. As Hunter says at the end of this chapter: “The political goals are different, but the realpolitik is, in essence, identical to the long-standing instrumentalization of the Christian conservative constituency by the Republican party—control over the power of the State.” (p. 149)