What’s the best word for describing the Religious Left today? Judging by
the three-day
conference organized by Michael Lerner’s Network of Spiritual
Progressives starting tomorrow in Washington, the most charitable one I
can come up with is “ambivalent.” Entitled “Creating ‘The Caring
Society’: A Progressive Alternative to Tea Party Extremism and Corporate
domination of American Politics and Culture,” the
exercise seems like…well, first try to read through this stirring
piece of promotional prose:

Support Obama to BE the Obama Americans
Thought They Were Voting For & Resist the Corporate Takeover of
America:

A Unique
Strategy Conference Bringing together Religious and Spiritual
Progressives with Secular Liberals and Progressives in the Age of Obama
to
explore strategies appropriate for the complexities of a period in which
the
failures of the Democrats to present a coherent progressive vision and
program
has created the space for the rise of a quasi-fascist and racist
movement on
the Right that threatens to move all of American political discourse in
violent
and destructive ways, and simultaneously to strengthen corporate
dominance. We
will address strategy both in response to the immediate crisis of 2010,
and
also in regard to building a long-term vision of the economic,
spiritual, and
ethical dimensions of a democratic society that could re-inspire people
to
fight for fundamental changes and societal transformation beyond the
limits of
“inside-the-beltway pragmatism” and “being realistic” in
terms set by the corporate media.

Ah, the complexities,
the complexities! ‘Twere better. perhaps, to paraphrase the Bard:

To
be for Obama, or not to be–that is the question:
Whether ’tis
nobler in the soul to
suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous pragmatism
Or to take
up arms against a sea of realism
And by opposing end it…

The
list of “speakers, presenters and workshop leaders” is not exactly
star-studded, and includes only one prominent African-American
pastor–former Riverside Church minister James Forbes. A Sunday
demonstration in front of the White House will
feature a memorial service for those who died in the Gaza flotilla
fiasco. Whatever.