Religious Left and Religious Right the divide widens

There are a couple Adventists blogs who are excited about a typical liberal media production done by the New York Times. It is introduced by the Intersections and the Spectrum Blog.

The Washington Post last week told of the new offensive of the Religious Left Gears Up to Face Right Counterpart by Thomas Ferraro

With a faith-based agenda of their own, liberal and progressive clergy from various denominations are lobbying lawmakers, holding rallies and publicizing their positions. They want to end the Iraq war, ease global warming, combat poverty, raise the minimum wage, revamp immigration laws, and prevent "immoral" cuts in federal social programs.

Unfortunately this is not Religion it is simply politics. The Liberals lost the last two elections and they blame the conservatives. Evangelicals are mainly conservative politically as well as in their religion. Since they are mostly conservative and agree with the Republicans more then the Democrats they became the force which the Liberal media and Liberal democrats choose to attack. As if they are being trained by their religion to be conservatives so their religion is bad. So you hear lots of rhetoric from the liberal side such as this from the Washington Post article:

The religious right intends for you and I to live in a country where church and state are united -- where only their interpretations of biblical law dictates the law of our land," said the Rev. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister in Washington who heads The Interfaith Alliance which seeks to maintain the constitutional separation of church and state.

This type of over the top generalization is very common from the liberal media and blogosphere. Those involved have accepted the concept of speculation and impending crisis as their method of argument. In any case as the Washington Post article continues this is just creating a greater divide.

But it's unclear how big an impact the religious left will have.

Laura Olson, a Clemson University expert on religion and politics, said the religious left is energized, but "a lot of times it shoots itself in the foot. It often pushes an overly broad agenda that results in conflicting priorities."

And analysts warn that greater activism can worsen the political divide.

"Religion has never been as politicized in recent times as it is right now," said Allen Hertzke, who teaches religion and politics at the University of Oklahoma.

"Politics is about combat -- 'us versus them.' Religion shouldn't be about that," Hertzke said.

Despite increased energy on the left, the religious right -- featuring big-name preachers, popular talk shows and legions of followers -- remains a far bigger influence than the loosely knit left.

In the past Christians in the United States have embraced both political parties. But today the politics are used to create greater division within the Christian community. And too often our own personal political views are used to define our fellow Christians. It is very possible for good Christians to want Justice, peace and social order and still disagree on how to arrive at such things. But the politics of division are not the way to arrive at anything constructive.