The Battle for the Free Mind

The last few days have crystalized some thoughts which have been floating through my mind for the last several months.  I had thought of writing after the election, since it's an idea with long-term action in mind.

But some very modest encouragement I gave to another diarist, who wrote on a subject which seemed to get little traction, has led me to conclude that there is no time like the present.

So, here goes:  This is a Christian nation.
(More on the flip).

I readily admit that I wrote the last sentence so baldly, to some extent, to draw some of you into the body of the diary.  

But the fact is that a majority of American voters self-identify as Christians.  We progressives ignore this constituency at our peril.  And let's remember that the last two Democrats to win the White House were clearly comfortable inside a church.

But many progressives have come to consider people who are avid in their faith as adversaries.  This is a natural response to a recent history which has seen a significant minority of Christians become politically active in oppositionn to progressive ideals.

This raises two issues.  The first issue is how to counter that opposition.  Well, we need a plan.  The Christian right has a plan.  It was laid out most clearly in a book entitled "Recapturing American Values: Winning the New Civil War", written by Robert P. Dugan, Jr., and published in 1991.  It is a primer which has clearly been followed faithfully, and I recommend it to those looking for insight into the strategy of the Christian right.  I would submit that our host has contributed positively to the end of enumerating a plan.

The second issue is how to frame progressive ideals in a way which will appeal to those Christians who are yearning to break free of the distorted framework imposed on American Christianity by the modern Pharisees of the Christian right.

This is actually easier than many of us think.  After all, American Christians have been at the forefront of the progressive movement in American history many times in the past.

I entitled this diary as I have by echoing the title of a sermon by the Pastor J. Wallace Hamilton.  Hamilton, who died in 1968, was the pastor of the Pasadena Community Church, in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Not a name well known, at least to those outside of ministerial circles, and perhaps not even there any more.  But his sermons acted as inspiration to, among others, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr..

I will, as I go through the process of writing occasional diaries on this subject, cite snippets from Hamilton's sermons from time to time, as examples as to how to frame progressive ideals for the Christian voter.  It is my contention that Christians are a natural progressive constituency.