CV NEWS FEED // As most prominent leaders of the ‘Evangelical Left’ have passed away, their influential groups’ values have largely been replaced by a less relevant and vague ‘Religious Left,’ argues the president of The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).
In the popular blog “Juicy Ecumenism,” IRD President Mark Tooley published last week an analysis titled: “Does the Evangelical Left Still Exist?”
The Evangelical Left, Tooley wrote, “retains evangelical theological and ethical commitments, including biblical authority, salvation by faith, the centrality of conversion, plus historic Christian teachings about sexuality and sanctity of all human life.”
He added,
The Evangelical Left was mostly parachurch groups and academics from evangelical schools. They opposed the Religious Right’s alignment with Republicans and touted more government regulation, a larger welfare state, and environmentalism. Typically they were pacifist or close to it.
In contrast, the more generic “Religious Left” according to Tooley “is more theologically vague while liberal or indifferent on abortion and sexual morality. It reserves its dogmatic commitments for progressive politics.”
In exploring what caused the Evangelical Left to eventually morph into the Religious Left, Tooley recalled one of the leaders of the Evangelical Left, the late Ron Sider, who was
an Eastern University professor who founded Evangelicals for Social Action. He was a liberal Democrat who was pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, and he cared deeply about the overseas persecuted church.
Sider died in 2022. His Evangelicals for Social Action changed their name to Christians for Social Action in 2020 and now is Religious Left, indistinguishable from old Mainline Protestantism, touting LGBTQIA+, no longer pro-life if not favorable to abortion rights, and in sync with other themes of the cultural left. It is also, without Sider and its evangelical commitments, less influential.
Tooley also recalled other Evangelical Left leaders such as Red-Letter Christians founder Tony Campolo, and founder of Sojourners Magazine Jim Wallis.
“All three were 1960s anti-war activists who never abandoned that model of social engagement,” Tooley wrote:
For years Wallis tried at least not openly to defy evangelical teaching on key issues although he eventually surrendered on same sex marriage. He also esteemed collaboration with Roman Catholics, which led to his 2020 downfall. Sojourners removed him for trying to stop an article that criticized supposed Catholic racism. Sojourners is now full Religious Left.
Campolo, also, was “a leading Evangelical Left preacher and activist, denouncing the Religious Right, himself supporting Democratic candidates, while usually trying to stay distinctly evangelical in his preaching and public positions,” Tooley wrote:
He served on the 2008 Democratic Party Platform Committee, where he tried to insert somewhat more pro-life language. He later regretted supporting Obama, whose administration was strongly pro-abortion rights. Campolo was a founder of Red-Letter Christians, which stressed the words of Jesus to back progressive causes. It now is full Religious Left.
“It’s hard to think of true Evangelical Left groups today,” Tooley continued, citing the National Association of Evangelicals as a possibility, due to its left-of-center stances on immigration and the environment.
“But are there others? Perhaps the old model of parachurch group has been displaced by podcast and social media personalities, many of whom can be called Evangelical Left,” Tooley wrote:
…Largely the organized Evangelical Left has dissolved into the Religious Left because its adherents no longer want to defend traditional Christian teaching on sexuality or be associated with pro-life advocacy. Some simply don’t want to identify as “evangelical,” which has become synonymous with Republican. Some polls now show some non-Christians identifying as evangelical as a tribal political label. There are likely many academics in evangelical schools who remain theologically and ethically orthodox alongside left-of-center political views. But they are mostly not very public and avoid the crossfire.
Some in the self-identified “Christian Nationalist” world critique their evangelical targets, even when having conventional conservative views, as supposed leftists because they are not post-liberal, populist or sufficiently apocalyptic. I wish these critics could recall the old Religious Left, which admired Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.
Tooley explained that while the late Evangelical Left leaders and their “orthodox theology and ethics” are missed, the IRD also had criticized their “project [which] was unsustainable partly because they wanted almost unlimited big government while insisting as pacifists that its defense was immoral, which was nonsensical.”
“Maybe the decline of Christian pacifism ultimately will permit a more thoughtful Evangelical Left to arise. Having orthodox Evangelicals who can debate politically within their own community would help evangelicalism and wider society,” Tooley concluded:
What society and church do not need is an empowered Religious Left that’s divorced from Christian orthodoxy, committed only to political dogmas, and only fueling further polarization amid Christian institutional decline. A reasonable Evangelical Left, brave enough to stay evangelical, is far preferable.
