Given the recent news that the NDP is considering ‘Faith and Social Justice Caucus‘, I thought I would dig up a piece I wrong a few months ago – it was largely written for an American audience, but it references the NDP and can apply equally in Canada…

April 27, 2005

Where is the Christian Left?
By Gregory D. Morrow

In the wake of the gathering of Evangelical leaders (and Senate Majority leader Bill Frist) on Sunday – calling for the appointment of social conservatives to the Supreme Court – I can’t help but ask: where is the Christian Left? As one parishioner of the Living Hope Church in Laurel, MD said: “Democrats in this country are seeking vetoes for people of faith.” Focus of the Family leader Dr. James Dobson went on to link the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to Nazi death camps, claiming that decision has resulted in the murder of 44 million people – the “biggest holocaust in world history.” Such rhetoric contributes to a targeted campaign to erroneously label Democrats as anti-religion and Republicans as pro-religion (Recall the images from the 2004 campaign of Republican flyers on car windshields in Virginia church parking lots that claimed Democrats would ban the Bible). I think this is wrong in principle (because it turns Americans upon one another) and wrong in fact (79% of Democrats attend Church, according to George Barna, one of the leading religious pollsters). The Christian Left has a long history and needs to re-emerge as a voice for the Left in this country.

The Christian Left has been so absent over the past thirty years in America that “Christian” is now automatically assumed to be inseparable from “Right” (i.e. the Christian Right). Why has the Christian Left dropped from our collective consciousness? One factor might be attributed to McCarthyism. Beginning in the 1950s, the Christian Right successfully labeled their Left counterpart as “socialist”, on account of the Christian Left’s faith in social values. In an era of the second “Red Scare”, espousing social values was akin to “communist”, even though they are quite different. Socialism is, of course, an economic system (a way of distributing goods and services) while communism is a political system (one which is anti-democratic). By equating socialism and communism, the Christian Left was also equated to anti-democratic practices.

Part of this campaign, carried out in part by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), successfully labeled members of the Christian Left (with their social values) as un-American – a practice that today is being extended to a good portion of the Left, including many of those opposed to the Iraq War. If conservatives can label Democrats as secularists, and demonstrate how secularism is un-American, then it follows that Democrats are not ‘real’ Americans. This tactic was used effectively by Karl Rove in 2004.

This hijacking of faith by the Right constitutes a threat not only to the functioning of a democratic institutions (by discrediting the only opposition Party on the grounds they are anti-religion), but also the functioning of religious institutions (by equating religion with conservatives, thus driving the Christian Left from the Church).

This assault on the Christian Left is made even more possible by the complete absence of a ‘social democratic’ party in the United States – perhaps the only industrialized country lacking this important section of the political spectrum. In most developed Western countries, social democratic parties are associated with the Christian Left.

For example, Canada’s social democratic party, the NDP (the New Democratic Party), has traditionally been associated with the United Church of Canada. Moreover, the NDP is a credible social democratic party with a substantial base, having formed governments or official oppositions in 60% of Canadian Provinces or Territories. The ‘father’ of the NDP was a Baptist Minister (Tommy Douglas), who joining forces with another Party (CCF), itself founded by a Methodist Minister (J.S. Woodsworth). Today, one of its most prominent members (Bill Blaikie – the longest serving MP in Parliament) is a United Church of Canada minister. Thus, spanning across different Christian sects, the Christian Left in Canada has allied itself with a major political party.

What is interesting is that in Canada, the Christian Left has translated social (even religious) values into public policy. So despite Canada supposedly being a more ‘secular’ country than the U.S. (a lower percentage of people attend church), its public policies reflect the religious beliefs of the Christian Left. Thus, important principles of Christianity (“The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather, everything was held in common.” – Acts 4:32) are translated into public policy as universal public healthcare and universal public education, two pillars of the Canadian socio-economic system. Ironically, the over-hyped debate in the U.S. about the ‘separation between religion and government’ is not particularly pronounced in Canada. Debates about funding faith-based organizations are not present – the Canadian government has long funded faith-based organizations of all religious beliefs. Thus, I would argue that Canadian social values (and social programs) are built upon fundamental social values of the Christian Left.

By contrast, in the United States there is a deeply-rooted suspicion with social values, that is, with ideals about the common good (and the government’s role in ensuring the common good). What’s more is that conservatives have managed to equate capitalism with the religious Right and socialism with the secular Left. Obviously, one of the fundamental premises of capitalism is the action of individuals in a marketplace. Thus, by claiming ownership of capitalism (and labeling the Left as socialist), the Right has also staked claim to individualism (hard work, pursuit of happiness, etc) and individual freedoms, with the Left implicitly (if not explicitly) supposedly running counter to these basic American tenets. In so doing, conservatives have managed to make the link that conservatives = religion = capitalism = individual rights = democratic practices, while establishing the opposite association for the Left, that liberals = secular = socialism = anti-individual = anti-democratic practices. Thus ‘liberal’ has become a pejorative label that most Americans on the Left eschew.

This targeted campaign to discredit the Christian Left specifically (and the Left more generally) as socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-individual, and anti-democratic caused many on the Left to abandon faith as a central part of their platform, which has, over the past thirty years resulted in the gradual transformation of the South (with the highest percentage of people of faith) from Democrat territory to Republican territory. In its place, the Left has successfully used secular means – namely, legal proceedings involving Constitutional Rights – to achieve its social values. Given the ‘Biblical’ status (ironically) of the Constitution, progressive change has been achieved by so-called ‘activist’ judges who interpret Constitutional Rights differently than the Christian Right would like. This, of course, brings us back to the present day attack on the judiciary by House Majority leader Tom Delay and Senate Majority leader Bill Frist.

Political pundits like Bill O’Reilly would like to sell the current state of affairs in America as a ‘culture war’ between the “progressive secularists” and “traditionalists” like himself. By fusing ‘progressive’ with ‘secular’, O’Reilly fails to understand the history of the Progressive movement, which very much grew out of the Christian Left. This is especially true in Canada, where the “Progressive Era” as it is known in the U.S, was more commonly referred to as the “Social Gospel”. Thus, it is entirely possible to be ‘progressive’ (i.e. ensuring the common good) and be religious. O’Reilly’s misinformed campaign to link ‘progressive’ and ‘secular’ is entirely consistent with the conservative labeling machine over the past three decades.

By labeling the Left as ‘secular’, conservatives align Democrats with “big government” and thus hoping to tap into American mistrust of Federal power. Of course, the U.S. political system was established to effectively limit the role of government, particularly the Federal government (“Freedom is freedom from government”). This is reflected in the allocation of rights: in the U.S., all matters were deemed States rights unless otherwise specifically designated a Federal right. An interesting counter-point is Canada where all rights are Federal unless specifically designated a Provincial matter. In Canada, the Federal government was envisioned as strong and the provinces as weak, while in the U.S., the States were intended to be strong with a weak Federal government. Ironically, the two countries have “flip-flopped”: the Federal government in Canada is relatively ‘weak’ (despite what many Canadians might think) and the Provinces are strong (healthcare and education are delivered by the provinces) while the Federal government in the U.S. exacts much more influence on the daily lives of Americans than do States. So, despite the historical roots, the irony is that Canada has a weak Federal government yet has a stronger social system, while the strong U.S. Federal government (i.e. “bigger government”) has not ensured a strong social system.

Given Canada’s experience of delivering values of the Christian Left through the Province level, rather than explicitly at the Federal level, perhaps the most effective strategy for the Christian Left in the U.S. (and the Left more generally) is to simply let the conservatives have the Federal government and instead build a strong base at State levels. As the conservatives weaken the Federal role (i.e. weaken their own influence), liberals at State levels would become more important in delivering social programs. By all means, slash the Federal budget down to a few national departments and cut taxes to a minimum – and raise State taxes in order to deliver progressive social programs at the State level. Ironically, the Federal conservatives would have to trample over the States to overturn progressive legislation – and they would do so at their own peril. I am sure their own conservative base, let along the electorate as a whole – will not stand for running roughshod over States rights. But in order to build a strong base at the State level, Democrats must engage with communities at the local level and make a renewed commitment to include the Christian Left as part of its core principles.

Both the Left and Right are complicit in the present crisis: through a concerted effort to discredit their Christian counterparts, the Christian Right has co-opted religion for the Republican Party, leading the Democratic Party to abandon the Christian Left in favor of pursuing its political aims through a secular judiciary.

So, as we watch on the sidelines as conservatives lay claim to religion, to American values, to capitalism, to democracy and freedom, tossing their counterparts to the margins of American life, I ask again: where is the Christian Left? We need the Christian Left in this country to awake from its thirty-year hibernation and make its case to the people. And they need to do it from the ground up.

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King Jr.