Critics have been largely silent about religious reasoning toward progressive causes, despite politicians like Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia arguing for expanding abortion access on religious grounds and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico claiming there’s no conflict between his politically progressive views and Christianity. Meanwhile, publishers have pumped out dozens of books critiquing the Religious Right for bringing their first principles into politics.
In The Religious Left: What It Does and How It Can Do Better, Robert Wuthnow, professor emeritus of sociology at Princeton University, examines the history of religiously motivated political progressivism in the United States. Though he makes some references to Jewish and Muslim progressives, his primary focus is to cast a positive light on Christians on the political left and to offer suggestions that can strengthen the movement in the future.
Wuthnow has invested much of his career tracing the influence of religion in American culture. Like his previous works, this book has an academic tone. However, he’s openly cheerleading for progressive political causes in what is likely to be his final project. As he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the Religious Left, Wuthnow unintentionally offers a clear picture of the ways our culture’s dominant narratives can drive Christians to reshape their doctrine to justify political advocacy. It’s a helpful window into the way political power can become idolatrous.
Theology of the Religious Left
In 1917, Walter Rauschenbusch warned, “If theology stops growing or is unable to adjust itself to its modern environment and meet its present tasks, it will die.” The opposite seems to be the case. He thought that progressives could hold on to Christian ethics without distinctly Christian theology. When the Social Gospel abandoned historical Christian theology, it also lost its discernibly Christian ethics and the vitality that inspired numerical growth.
Though the Religious Left often uses biblical language to support their policy proposals, the link between the text of Scripture and the policy in view is often tenuous. For example, arguments to cancel international debts at the end of the 20th century relied on “the biblical concept of jubilee [which] was grounded in [an] understanding of the Bible’s prophetic calls for righteousness and concern for the oppressed” (35). As a foreign policy, international debt forgiveness might have made political sense, but that’s a faulty interpretation of Leviticus 25, which has to do with establishing terms of loans rather than revising them post hoc.
The hermeneutic of the Religious Left relies on critical reinterpretation of Scripture according to contemporary ideologies. According to Wuthnow, such “historicized views of biblical authority in progressive statements have stressed that scriptural passages traditionally taken as condemnations of homosexuality [need] to be reinterpreted” just like “customs about animal sacrifice, mass slaughter, and slavery” (186–87). Animal sacrifice is out because history has advanced, but somehow the year of Jubilee is back in when it supports a preferred political cause. The motivated reasoning is obvious.
The hermeneutic of the Religious Left relies on critical reinterpretation of Scripture according to contemporary ideologies.
Though he’s intending to celebrate the faithfulness of leaders on the Religious Left, Wuthnow more clearly highlights ways those leaders are willing to misuse Scripture for their own ends. It’s clarifying to see the revisionist methodology laid bare by an advocate. As he makes his case, he demonstrates that the gap between most Christians and the Religious Left isn’t just partisan; it’s often deeply theological.
Progressive Social Dominance
According to Wuthnow, “The Religious Left is in many ways vulnerable” (viii). He sees the overturning of Roe v. Wade and “the lack of any effective passage of gun control legislation” as evidence that “the Religious Left today is a mere shadow of what it once was” (9–10). His complaints about decline mirror those often issued by the Religious Right.
Yet Wuthnow’s complaints ring hollow, especially as he admits the ways that progressivism dominates American institutions. He observes, “The Religious Left has had the advantage that many of its progressive views are either embraced implicitly by the public or are built into the norms of existing institutions, at least to a point” (11). They may have lost a few battles in recent years, but the overwhelming cultural tide still seems to be flowing toward progressivism.
Establishing progressive political dominance is paramount for the Religious Left: “Much of what it has accomplished has been done through government funding and with the support of favorable legislation and court decisions. A regime that cuts off these resources seriously weakens its efforts” (viii).
This helps explain why national politics in the United States so often eclipses the local issues that affect our daily lives more significantly. “The Religious Left has had to function without wide support in the pews” (11). Thus, the movement often relies on financial support from sources more interested in national issues than local ones.
As Wuthnow argues, the mission of the Religious Left is to use political advocacy to bring about “something resembling the ‘Kingdom of God’” on earth, even if achieving those ends requires revising traditional Christian theology to match dominant cultural narratives (217).
Cultural Narratives
A careful study of the Religious Left quickly reveals how cultural narratives shape the movement. For example, Wuthnow writes,
Progressive faith leaders in recent years have emphasized a view of human personhood that foregrounds expressivity and fulfillment. . . . Behind this view of personhood is an optimistic assumption about human nature that focuses less on sin and more on releasing individuals from false understandings of themselves and other barriers that limit their capacity to achieve their desires. (182)
I’ve rarely seen a clearer description of expressive individualism stated by a proponent.
One central lesson from this book is that countercultural catechesis is vital if we’re going to shift the cultural tide against the celebration of abortion, sexual immorality, and other injustices.
Countercultural catechesis is vital if we’re going to shift the cultural tide against the celebration of abortion, sexual immorality, and other injustices.
It’s not enough to say that the Religious Left’s arguments are unbiblical. Church leaders have to teach people to recognize the underlying cultural narratives that often enable the Religious Left’s use of scriptural language to advocate for sin. If churches are to guard against politics becoming idolatrous, they need to ensure their discipleship exalts the gospel of Christ, not an updated version of the Social Gospel.
Whatever one makes of Wuthnow’s conclusions, his careful survey of the Religious Left fills a gap in the sociology of religion. The Religious Left offers a clear view into the reasoning behind and tactics of a movement that misuses Scripture for its own ends. That view can help leaders equip church members to resist conformity to the world as they pursue a renewed mind (Rom. 12:2).
