Stories the Religious Left Must Tell Itself

Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century, by Daniel Schultz. Ig Publishing (2010) $15.95

Reviewed by Brent  A. R. Hege

For as long as there has been a religious right barging its way into Americans’ lives, bedrooms, pocketbooks and polling places, there have been religious progressives wondering how perceptions of their faith had been hijacked and twisted into something virtually unrecognizable. The record of the religious right is as long as it is upsetting: from creationism in public schools ( the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925 to the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case of 2005) to Judge Roy Moore and efforts to eliminate the wall between church and state; from the Terri Schiavo fiasco to Proposition 8, the tendrils of Christian conservatism have reached into virtually every corner of American life. Many critics ask, often with exasperation and even resignation, where is the religious left? Where is the alternative vision, the principled opposition, the united voice of a sane and progressive religious movement raised in righteous protest?

Yet the voice of the religious left is present; in the church, in the academy, and in the public square. Continue Reading →