Ask Auntie Pinko
May 22, 2003

Dear Auntie Pinko,

I consider myself to be a left-wing Christian. But I often feel that my kind are not accepted in the "liberal" circuit. Whenever I come across articles that are anti-conservative, they often blame Christian ideals for the corruption of the right-wing. I definitely recognize that there are those who use the Christian faith as a front for some other cause. But I am hurt when those whom I feel to be politically aligned with group every Christian in this category. I guess my question is, do I have a place in the liberal effort or does my faith automatically make me the bad guy? Isn't there a way to make diversity in (liberal) politics a reality? Please give me some insight.

Ellen,
Grants Pass, OR

Dear Ellen,

Jesus himself was up against the same problem - people making assumptions about who he was and what he thought, because of his faith. He was also up against pretty stiff opposition from other Jews about how he lived his faith. So take heart, Ellen. It's not a new issue, and it's something many of us have learned to turn to our advantage.

In Auntie Pinko's experience, there is a terrific amount of diversity in liberal politics - we never agree with each other on everything! So, if you don't mind, Ellen, I'm going to use your question as a springboard for a little musing on just what "liberal" and "liberalism" mean. Then I promise I'll circle back around and talk a little more specifically about the challenges connected to Christianity.

Since no two people who self-identify as "liberal" will ever give the same ten answers to ten questions about where they stand on various issues, does that mean that "liberalism" is meaningless? That unity is impossible; accord an impractical ideal? Just what does "liberalism" mean, when so many liberals disagree on what constitutes "liberal" politics? Recent history gives us some pretty clear indications, by providing a vivid backdrop of what is the opposite of liberal. So let's start there.

The opposite of liberal can be seen on both ends of the political spectrum - in the authoritarian regimes of Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. But it is not limited to these examples from familiar "western European"-based or influenced states. It can be seen in the tribalist movements in Africa that produced waves of genocide among Tutsis and Hutus, in the sectarian conflicts in the Near and Middle East.

All of these examples have one thing in common: a willingness - no, a drive - to subordinate the value of ordinary individual human lives to the demands of an ideology, philosophy, or a set of beliefs about politics, race, religion, etc. Even in the name of values we usually think of as "liberal," like religious freedom, economic justice, cultural self-determination, etc., they are willing to sacrifice the reality of liberalism for the demands of their "system."

True liberalism does not demand people to sacrifice their lives for it - although sometimes liberals may deem the sacrifice of their own lives necessary. On the contrary, liberalism is that which affirms the value of humanity, and individual human lives, in a world full of political, economic, natural, and social forces that conspire to keep human life poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Liberalism is not about enforcing beliefs, it is about creating conditions that enable people of differing beliefs to live together in societies that foster the best possible quality of life for everyone.

This powerful idea has made progress in human affairs, but it has also been subject to continual waves of reaction and repression. It frightens people. Humans love certainty, we love knowing, we love the security of being right. Liberalism denies this security - it demands of us that we think, that we weigh values, that we make decisions based on different combinations of circumstances, over and over again. There's no "playbook" to follow. No "one-size-fits-all" rulebook. We have to work at it. No wonder it inspires such fear and hatred!

And, of course, some of the most natural enemies of liberalism are those who put their need for certainty and consistency and inflexible rules into the context of religion, who array God on their side. Faith is inherently vulnerable to this kind of misuse, because it deals with the unknowable. We who see through the glass darkly want desperately to believe that we can confine a divinity that transcends time, space, and matter in the box of our human experience.

Auntie Pinko believes that Christianity contains a natural bias toward liberalism, because so much of Christ's message was about affirming the value of life and love. Even the evangelic messages of the Gospels are about "witnessing" - that is, sharing the Christian message through what we say and how we live - rather than about enforcing doctrines upon those who don't share our beliefs.

In some ways, Ellen, "liberal" is less about ends (goals, agendas, programs,) than it is about means. If you look among your liberal acquaintances for those who share your beliefs in tolerance, in human potential, in the value of humanity and the quality of human life, in the power of choice and knowledge and self-determination - your faith will be welcomed as a powerful asset, rather than being a barrier to understanding. I hope this helps, and thank you so much for your thought-provoking question!