Somehow I missed Frederick Clarkson’s very long, fascinating post at Talk To Action in late July about why there still is no Christian Left in the US. It’s well worth the time if you’re wondering the same thing. These two paragraphs alone were worth the price of admission, but read the whole thing here:
“It remains disturbing to me that the mainline Protestant churches–communions that have always been a political mix–have been under sustained attack by the religious and political right for a generation with little to no acknowledgment from anyone in American public life–including leading politicians who are members of the denominations under attack. (Let the record show for example, that Hillary Clinton, George Bush and Dick Cheney are all members of the United Methodist Church.) It is preposterous to think that the mainline churches can organize themselves to take on the religious right, when they cannot even acknowledge that they are and have been under concerted attack by the right from within and without. I hope that this changes. . . .
“It’s not unlike when Buffy’s friends are in total denial about the way that kids in school are turning up dead, and legions of vampires are snacking on their former classmates. Dance committee and cheerleading practice are their top priorities. And Buffy is ostracized for trying to explain to them what has happened to her, and what is going on around the school.”
(Talk to Action is best known for its investigative report earlier this year in which Jonathan Hutson exposed the connection between the creators of a loathsome Left Behind video game due out this fall and the empire of megachurch pastor Rick Warren, bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life.)