Tannishblog

I’m not supposed to write about politics today. I promised my friend, the Allergic Gardener Leucanthemum, to diversify this blog in an attempt at diminishing the shrillness of repeated Bush-bashing. Notwithstanding the joy of doing so, or the ease – as there is so much to ridicule, the monotony is showing up in my writings.

But – and you knew there was a “but” involved here – I come across an article in Washington Post about the re-emergence of the Religious Left (is that an oxymoron?) As I have mentioned a few times over the past year, the political pendulum is reversing its path, and nothing I’ve found lately illustrates this as clearly as the reorganization of progressive and moderate believers in the New American Battlefield of Political Dominance.

I empathize with a passage on the third page of the article, which sums up my thoughts overall:

Some groups on the religious left are clearly seeking to help the Democratic Party. But the relationship is delicate on both sides.
“If I were the Democrats, the last thing I would do is really try to mobilize these folks as a political force . . . because I think some of this is a real unhappiness with the whole business of politicizing religion,” said Mark Silk, director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Perhaps the concept of separation of church and state, so intrinsic to the American dream, is referring to just this sort of political proselytizing. The NeoCons have already set the IRS poking about rival religious groups as to whether their actions in 2004 compromised their right to tax-exempt status. What will happen now? Never mind the fact that the Religious Left have only adopted the tactics the Religious Right have succeeded with for eight years. That is beside the point.

I ask, can there be any good to the marriage of political activism and religion. No matter whose yard you stand in, should those on the other side of the fence wield a holy sword in this political joust?