Theological and Political Views of the Christian Left

Theological and Political Views of The Christian Left and Right in the United States;

G. Richard Jansen
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523

Introduction
The left- right axis that is commonly used to position political ideologies and views originated during the French Revolution and derived from where delegates sat in the Legislative Assembly in 1791. The moderate Feuillants, who supported aristocratic, royal or clerical interests of the ancien regime , including the possibility of a Constitutional Monarchy sat on the right side of the assembly. The radical interests, who wanted a total break with the ancien regime including the Monarchy sat on the left. The Montagnards, the most radical members of the Assembly sat on the highest benches, i.e. the Moutain, on the left. These definitions of left and right have had to be changed continuously through years, even during the French Revolution itself. However, in a general sense, the left- right axis is still useful.

Wikipedia, the Internet Free Encyclopedia, has provided a summary of eleven political issues that may be used to differentiate the political left from the political right.

Support for the economic interests of the less privileged classes (left) or of the more privileged (right). Originally, this meant the rising bourgeoisie (left) vs. the aristocrats (right), but it rather soon came to be seen as the working class and unemployed (left) versus all wealthy and/or aristocratic classes (right).
Fair or moral outcomes (left) versus fair and correct processes (right). Specifically, acceptance of inequalities in wealth and income as a result of the free market (right), or redistribution of wealth and income, normally through taxation (left). Generally, the political debate is about whether inequalities can best be remedied by taxation-based income transfers to the poor (left) or by job creation through greater economic activity (right).
Whether the government's policy on the economy should be interventionist (left) or lean strongly toward laissez-faire (right).
Preference for a larger and more interventionist government (left) versus a smaller government (right).
Whether the state should prioritise equality (left) or liberty (right).
Whether human nature and society is malleable (left) or fixed (right), or whether human nature is determined by nurture or nature.
Whether the government should promote secularism (left) or religious morality (right).
Collectivism (left) versus individualism (right).
A preference for innovation and change (left) or a preference for conservatism and an insistence that innovations must be justified (right).
Whether law creates and subordinates culture (left), or culture creates and subordinates law (right).
Support for national independence, autonomy and sovereignty, especially for smaller groups (left), as opposed to support for legitimate states and governments (right).
Support for internationalism and cosmopolitan attitudes (left), as against narrow national interest (right)

     These are useful but there are major limits with these conventionalities. For example the political left of today whether the Democratic party in the United States, the Labour Party in the U.K., or one of the Social Democratic parties in Europe is resisting change and desperately trying to conserve failing Welfare States in Europe and what remains of the New/Fair Deals in the United States. Thus, in reality, the Democratic party is in reality the “conservative” party. The political right, mainly Republicans still known, if somewhat inaccurately, as conservatives are working to get rid if these failed political and economic systems that have held sway through much of the 20th century. Liberals do not want to try vouchers for private schools as a means to rescue failing schools, especially in the big cities. Liberals are resistant to change in respect to preferential employment policies and college student admissions which are way past their time of usefulness. It is conservatives such as President Bush who are trying to change the world order for the better by taking the War on Terror to the enemy including Iraq with the liberal left fighting the President every step of the way.
On equality/inequality Madison observed in Federalist 10: “The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different   interests and parties”. In other words all men are not equal in condition or outcome but are equal before the law. Maximum liberty will inevitably increase inequality of condition or outcome. The only way to force equality of condition and outcome is to restrict liberty. In this equation today’s political left favors equality over liberty and equality of condition over equality of opportunity. In contrast, the political right favors liberty over equality, and equality of opportunity over equality of condition.
On being open to experience, the 20th century demonstrated rather conclusively that communism has been an unmitigated disaster in the world perhaps costing as many as one hundred million lives, socialism doesn’t work very well if at all, and a market economy is vastly superior to a centrally planned economy.   To say the Left has been tardy in understanding these realities would be a major understatement.
A few additional considerations follow: Conservatism can be contrasted with liberalism, collectivism with individualism, a constrained with an unconstrained vision or understanding of human nature and finally today’s Republican Party with today’s Democratic party in the United States. Historically liberalism stood for liberty and freedom from coercion by the State in the political and economic realms under the rule of law. Jefferson said it well when he said that that government is best that governs least. Conservatism historically was based on a tradition and social stability under established institutions, especially the family and the church. As is now well understood, while conservatism per se has changed relatively little, liberalism since Marx and the Fabians has changed much and now increasingly emphasizes larger governments, higher taxes and more government regulation especially of business and commerce at the expense of individual freedom. Historically the political left stood for greater freedom and well being of the common man and the right for duty and obedience to lawful authority combined with the ideal of moral propriety and a moral order to society. In the 20th century the extreme left was represented by communism and socialism, and the moderate left by social democracy and the New Deal. The extreme right was represented by Naziism and fascism and the moderate right by a advocacy of market economy combined with limited government and protection of private property, i.e. the classical liberalism abandoned by the left. The poles at the extremes have come together when one compares the actuality of communism with fascism and Stalin with Hitler.

F. A. Hayek, in his seminal book The Road to Serfdom emphasized the crucial importance of individualism over collectivism. In communist and socialist States the collective control of the means of production and distribution is accomplished by government ownership while in social democracies by taxation and government regulation. Thomas Sowell in his equally seminal book A Conflict of Visions divided political “visions” into unconstrained and constrained. Briefly the unconstrained vision sees people as infinitely malleable and improvable by societal conditions and government policies while those holding the constrained vision see people constrained by the realities of human nature. For example when Madison said we wouldn’t need government if men were angels this is a classic expression of the constrained vision which was pretty much held by most if not all of the Founders at the Constitutional Convention.

Now for the political parties. Since the New Deal the Democratic party has stood for social democracy more than classical liberalism, collectivism more than individualism, an unconstrained vision of human nature and is clearly on the political left as the term is generally understood. The Republican party is more difficult to categorize. There remains some classical conservatives in the traditional sense. However since Reagan the Republican party is increasingly attracted to individualism and the classical liberalism of Hayek. While compared to the Democratic party it is placed on the political right, its policies are strongly Hayekian in terms of limited government, lower taxes, less government regulation of commerce and business, and protection of private property rights. Reagan, Thatcher and now George W. Bush are followers of Hayekian political economy which Hayek considers to be classical liberalism and who considered himself to be an “Old Whig.”

Christian Right

It is not the intention of this essay to discuss fully the Christian Right, since much information has been published on this topic, albeit most of it pejorative. However a few comments are needed in order to more adequately position the Christian Left, which has been, in contrast, virtually ignored. For example a Google search for Religious Right turned up 933,000 hits and for Christian Right 580,000 hits for a total of 1,513,000. In sharp contrast, Religious Left and Christian Left turned up 62,333 and 21,000 hits, respectively for a total of 83,333.
In terms of religious affiliations there is no easy way to divide Catholics into a right and left and both orientations are present. Over time it is clear that more and more Catholics are voting Republican than used to be the case. However, although black Protestants still vote overwhelmingly Democratic, white Protestants are more easily divided into a Christian left and a Christian right orientation as we will see. According the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1900 there were approximately
35, 000,000 “mainline Protestants” in the United States and in 2005 a total of 61,295,000 for an average annual growth rate over 105 years of 0.70%. From 1990-2000 the annual growth rate in the mainline churches was 0.10% In contrast in 1900 there were 67,000,000 evangelicals in the United States and in 2005 there were 148,338,000 for an annual growth rate over 105 years of 1.73%. From 1990-2000 the anual growth rate of evangelicals was 1.50% Members of mainline churches especially their administrative structure are, for the most part on the political and Christian left. In contrast evangelicals are for the most part on the Political and Christian right.

Political and Social Views

Typical views of the Christian Right would include but not be limited to the following:
Pro-life and opposed to abortion, but generally supportive of Capital punishment.
Opposition to legislating gay and lesbian rights including but not limited to homosexual marriage and homosexual adoption of children.
Opposed to cloning human embryos for any reason.
Support for expressions of religion in the public square including public prayers.
Believe that sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage is morally wrong.
Believe more strongly in the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution than in the establishment of religion clause. That is individuals on the Christian Right believe that the establishment clause was intended to prevent the establishment of a National Church or the favoring of one sect over an another, not the removal of religion for the public square.
Define the human family as consisting of persons related by blood, marriage or adoption.
Emphasize the importance and value of the nuclear family as the fundamental unit of a civil society.
Support alternatives to teaching exclusively evolution in the public schools and favor students being exposed to the concepts iof ntelligent design and some of the major limitations of evolutionary theories especially as to the origin of life, a topic for which scientific evidence is entirely lacking.
Favor the Courts interpreting the constitution and the law and not making new law from the bench.
Support the Iraq war.
Support free market economics. Supportive of equality of opportunity, over equality of condition.

Theological Views

The theological views of the Christian Right are admirably summarized by Grant Wacker, at the Duke University School of divinity as follows:

“The assumption that moral absolutes exist as surely as mathematical or geological absolutes constitutes the first. These moral absolutes include many of the oldest and deepest assumptions of Western culture, including the fixity of sexual identities and gender roles, the preferability of capitalism, the importance of hard work, and the sanctity of unborn life. More importantly, not only do moral absolutes exist, they are clearly discernible to any who wish honestly to see them.
The assumption that metaphysics, morals, politics, and mundane customs stand on a continuum constitutes the second cornerstone of the Christian Right's world-view. Specifically, ideas about big things like the nature of the universe inevitably affect little things, such as how individuals choose to act in the details of daily life. And the reverse. What one thinks about the nature of God, for example, inevitably influences one's decision to feed or not to feed the parking meter after the cops have gone home. Contrary to the facile assumption of mainline Protestants, influenced by the Enlightenment, it is not possible for the Christian Right to draw easy lines between the public and the private spheres of life. (There is evidence that the Christian Right abandoned Jimmy Carter at precisely this point when he announced that abortion should be legally protected in the public sphere, although he would not countenance it in the private sphere of his own family.)
The Christian Right further assumes, this is the third cornerstone, that government's proper role is to cultivate virtue, not to interfere with the natural operations of the marketplace or the workplace. The Christian Right remains baffled by the secular culture's apparent unwillingness, on one hand, to offer schoolchildren firm moral guidance in matters of sexuality, truthfulness, honesty, and patriotism while, on the other hand, proving ever-so-eager to engineer the smallest details of the economy. Why should conscientious, hardworking law-abiding citizens be penalized by mazes of government regulations? Why should the irresponsible, the lazy, and the unpatriotic be rewarded by those same public institutions?
Finally, the assumption that all successful societies need to operate within a framework of common assumptions constitutes the fourth cornerstone. Since the Western Jewish-Christian tradition has provided an eminently workable premise for the United States for the better part of four centuries, it makes no sense to undermine these premises by legitimating alien ones. The key issue is not so much what would be permitted as what would be legitimated. Many, perhaps most members of the Christian Right feel that it is one thing to permit dissidents to live in peace, quite another to say that any set of values is just as good, or just as functional, as any other set.”

In addition to this summary by Grant Wacker, and most importantly, the Christian Right adheres to Christian beliefs as stated in the historic Apostles and Nicene Creeds..

Christian Left

Wikipedia states that “the Christian Left encompasses those who hold a strong Christian belief and share left wing or socialist ideas”. It concludes further that “the Christian Left does not seem to be as well organized or publicized as its right wing counterpart. Opponents state that this is because it is less numerous; supporters claim it is actually more numerous but composed predominately of persons less willing to voice views in as boisterous a manner as the Christian Right”.
As discussed earlier the Christian Left and the Christian Right are not greatly different in size depending in part on an arbitrary partition of Catholics in the country into the Christian Left and the Christian Right, a partition that is more difficult to make than is the case for Protestants. However since the evangelical churches are growing and the mainline Protestant churches are in decline it is fair to conclude that the Christian right is growing and the Christian Left is declining. This is the case even within the mainline United Methodist Church for example. The more traditional Southeast, Southwest jurisdictions and jurisdictions in Africa are growing in members while the more liberal Northeast, North Central and Western jurisdictions are losing members and thus delegates to the national Quadrennial Conference of the church. where policies on theology and social issues are debated and established.
The Christian Left is more diffuse than the Right but decidedly not less in influence. The National Council of Churches in the United States is positioned on the Christian left. It includes as members most of the mainline Protestant churches but few if any Evangelical and no Catholic churches. This is true for the World Council of Churches as well. Also the elite media in television, magazines and newspapers has been demonstrated by many polls to be on the political left with a decidedly secular world view. This explains why references to the Christian Right in the mainstream media are usually pejorative in nature.
An example of the power of the mainstream media to give wide publicity to the views of the Christian Left is the special last year on Jesus and Paul hosted by the late Peter Jennings on the American Broadcasting Network. The view of Jesus presented in this television special was dominated by the views of the Jesus Seminar, a small left wing group of scholars who hold a view of Jesus very far from the picture of Jesus found in the New Testament. For example the Jesus Seminar has essentially thrown out the Gospel of John as inauthentic in its presentation of the words of Christ. The mainstream media can be relied on to go to the Jesus Seminar at Easter and Christmas to get its non-traditional “avant garde” commentary.

Political and Social Views

The political and social views of the Christian Left are, not surprisingly a mirror image of the views of the Christian Right. They include but are not limited to the following:
Support abortion in terms of “a women’s right to choose while generally opposimg capital punishment.
Support legislating gay and lesbian rights including but not limited to homosexual marriage and homosexual adoption of children.
Support cloning of human embryos for therapeutic reasons.
Generally understanding and tolerant of sexual intercourse outside the bounds of marriage.
Believe more strongly in the establishment of religion clause in the first amendment to the Constitution than in the free exercise of religion clause.
Define a family more broadly than solely individuals related by blood marriage or adoption.
Support the teaching of evolution in the public schools and oppose teaching theories related to the concept of Intelligent Design.
Believe in a “living Constitution” that changes with the time through judicial interpretation making new law rather than, in abiding by the Constitution as written and amended.
Oppose the Iraq war.
Supportive of social democracy rather than free market economics and in equality of
condition more than merely equality of opportunity.
In the Israel-Palestinian struggle more supportive of the Palestinian than the Israeli case.

The Christian left dominates the National Council of Churches in the United States (NCC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC). The left wing views of the National Council of churches are not difficult to discern. The General Secretary is the Reverend Robert Edger, a former democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania who just ran unsuccessfully against Republican Arlen Specter for the Senate. Edgar strongly supports the new “progressive” web site of the NCC . This website named “Faithful America” was created with the goal of being a religious version of the far left democratic website moveon.org that in the 2004 election specialized in scurrilous ad hominem attacks on President Bush. Some model, indeed.
In July 2004 the NCC issued ten Christian principles to be used in judging candidates in the upcoming fall election indistinguishable from the platform of the Democratic Party. In December 2002 the NCC sponsored a “peace pilgrimage to Baghdad.” On its return to the United States the delegation urged President Bush not to launch a war against Iraq claiming that such a “preventive war” would be “immoral, illegal and theologically illegitimate.” While in Iraq and on its return the delegation concerned itself with humanitarian concerns secondary to the UN sanctions against Iraq with little if any concern about the horrific human rights abuses of the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussain and its genocide against the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south.
On July 4, 2004, not coincidentally the birthday of the United States, the NCC issued the following call for “peace and justice in Iraq”: In its words, “The time has come to say:

" NO to leaders who have sent many honorable sons and daughters to fight a dishonorable war;
NO to the violence that has cost over seventeen hundred American lives, left thousands grievously injured, and killed untold numbers of Iraqis whose deaths we are unwilling to acknowledge or count;
NO to the abuse of prisoners that has shamed our nation and damaged our reputation throughout the world;
NO to the price tag for this war that has rendered our federal budget incapable of adequately caring for the poorest of our own citizens; and,
NO to theologies that demonize other nations and religions while arrogantly claiming righteousness for ourselves as if we share no complicity in human evil.”

The NCC sent a delegation to Crawford Texas, just outside President Bush’ ranch and Summer White House in solidarity with Cindy Shehan, an anti-war activist who was maintaining a well publicized vigil there. Mrs Shehan’s son was killed in the Iraq war but Mrs Shehan was a stronhg anti-war activist and opponent of the President before her son was sent to Iraq. Also in solidarity with Cindy Shehan the NCC asked for a nationwide weekly tolling of church bells in order to extend the “profoundly spiritual tone of the vigil”, and invited President Bush to join in an anti-war prayer service with Cindy Shehan and her followers outside his ranch.
In connection with the Cindy Shehan vigil and the NCC support extended to her we need to take a close look at the views of Cindy Shehan. What follows are direct quotations from her own mouth of things that Cindy Shehan has said publically:

"Then we have this lying bastard, George Bush, taking a five week vacation in a time of war. You know what? I'm never going to get to enjoy another vacation because of him. My vacation probably -- this is really sad because I have a really cute dress I was going to wear to the banquet tomorrow night -- but I'm either going to be in jail or in a tent in Crawford, waiting until that jerk comes out and tells me why my son died."
"You get that evil maniac out here, 'cause a Gold Star Mother, somebody whose blood is on his hands, has some questions for him."
"The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush."
"If he thinks that it's so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war."
I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people... since we first stepped on this continent; we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bulls**t to my son, and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms this country is not worth dying for."

     It is a disgrace for any Christian organization, especially the National Council of Churches, to associate themselves with such hateful speech. To add to the lunacy of the Christian Left, the Bishops of the Church of England, seemingly oblivious to 1500 years of off and on Islamic jihad, and the horror and evil of Saddam Hussein’s regime have called on all Christian leaders in Great Britain to apologize to Muslims for the war.
Another issue that has divided the Christian Left and the Christian Right is the Israel-Palestinian struggle. Evangelicals and, more generally, Christians on the right support Israel strongly along with its right to exist within secure and defensible borders. The Christian right does not support the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their progeny to return to Israel knowing that such a course of action would result in the destruction of the State of Israel. In contrast the Christian Left tends to favor the case for the Palestinians as a people oppressed, driven from their homes and denied their homeland by Israel.
     The NCC emphasizes that Jerusalem is a shared legacy for three faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and opposes Israel’s belief and stated position that it has a right to an undivided Jerusalem as its capital. The NCC condemns the Christian Crusades for retaking Jerusalem for Christianity without a word about the slaughter of Christians and Jews by Arab Muslim invaders in the 7th century.
     Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism and has been so from the time of King David three thousand years ago. Muhammed had originally asked his followers to face Jerusalem when they pray. When the Jews of Medina rejected his version of Judaism and himself as the latest Jewish prophet Muhammed rejected the Jews and their holy city of Jerusalem and instructed his followers to face Mecca when praying. And so it has been for 1500 years.
Muhammed never visited Jerusalem. His “night ride” to the “furthest Mosque”, many yeats later defined as the Al Asque Mosque in Jerusalem then not yet in existence, was and is a fantasy. The Umayyed Caliphate built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, the site of Davids temple and Herod’s temple in 688-91. In 715 the Umayyeds built the Al Asque Mosque also on the Temple Mount and started to refer to it as the “furthest Mosque” mentioned in the Koran in connection with Muhammed’s mystical and mythological night ride to Jerusalem. Later Caliphates expressed no particular interest in Jerusalem as an Islamic holy site. It wasn’t until Jews started to settle in Palestine in large enough numbers to fulfill the Zionist dream for a return of Jews to Palestine including Jerusalem that the Palestinian Muslims started to place a renewed interest in Jerusalem as an Islamic holy site and a potential capital for an Islamic State.

Public opinion surveys in the United States have consistently showed that support for Israel runs three to five times that of support for the Palestinian cause. However, support for the Palestinians is strongest on the political left including the Christian Left and not on the Christian Right. In September 2004 the Anglican Peace and Justice Network called for implementation of everything strongly desired by the Palestinian Authority and vigorously resisted by Israel.

Another action of the Christian Left is divestment from any investment in Israel. The Presbyterian Church at its annual General Assembly Meeting by a vote of 87% of the delegates voted to divest all funds heretofore invested in Israel or in the future to be so invested. This harsh and punitive action against Israel was endorsed by the liberal New England Conference of the United Methodist Church and by the World Council of Churches. Divestment is also being “studied” by the Anglican Church as well.

Theological Views

Historically, the Christian Left has placed more emphasis on the “Social Gospel” than has the Christian right. The Social Gospel , i.e. subordinating theology to social reform in solving social problems resulting from inequity, is inherently Christian and surely based on Christ’s teaching in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the mount. Matthew 25:34-40 illustrates the point very well; “Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'”
The Christian Right accepts the importance of these teachings but puts less emphasis on them than does the Christian Left. In contrast, the Christian Right places more emphasis on evangelism as required in the Great Commission given by Christ to his followers as recorded in Matthew 28: 19-20: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

However, the marked theological divergence of the Christian Left from the Christian Right, indeed from the historic Christian creeds as well is based on much more than The Social Gospel. It derives in large part from scientific discoveries, German and Scottish philosophers such as David Hume, and the enthronement of reason developing from the Enlightenment during the 18th century especially in France. Deism developed in England in the late 17th century and was given prominence in the writings of Thomas Paine. Thomas Jefferson is well known also to have been a Deist. Deism posits a creator God who is entirely separate from his creation and then, having created nature, stands apart from it with no concern for its workings or future. Specifically it rejects revealed religions such as Christianity.

The Quest for the Historical Jesus, also known as the higher criticism of the Bible developed in German philosophical circles in the 19th century with the publication of Das Leben Jesu by David Straus. He concluded that the Gospels could not be read as historical accounts of the life of Jesus and we must acknowledge much myth in these accounts. Many other authors contributed to this enterprise. This quest was summarized and effectively ended on the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s magisterial Quest of the Historical Jesus. Schweitzer challenged much of the earlier scholarship and concluded as follows: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”

The second quest was that of Rudolph Bultmann (1884-1976) and his followers. They concluded that an historical Jesus is elusive and that we must demythologize much of the Gospels. The third quest is best exemplified by the Jesus Seminar which was formed under the leadership of Robert Funk in 1985. Funk summarized his views in his manifesto entitled 21 Theses for a Radical Reformation. Among these are:

“The God of the metaphysical age is dead. There is not a personal god out there external to human beings and the material world.
The notion that God interferes with the order of nature from time to time in order to aid or punish is no longer credible, in spite of the fact that most people still believe it.
Prayer is meaningless when understood as requests addressed to an external God for favor or forgiveness and meaningless if God does not interfere with the laws of nature.
Prayer as praise is a remnant of the age of kingship in the ancient Near East and is beneath the dignity of deity. Prayer should be understood principally as meditation as listening rather than talking and as attention to the needs of neighbor.
We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus' divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God.
The plot early Christians invented for a divine redeemer figure is as archaic as the mythology in which it is framed. A Jesus who drops down out of heaven, performs some magical act that frees human beings from the power of sin, rises from the dead, and returns to heaven is simply no longer credible.
The notion that he will return at the end of time and sit in cosmic judgment is equally incredible. We must find a new plot for a more credible Jesus.
The doctrine of the atonement, the claim that God killed his own son in order to satisfy his thirst for satisfaction, is sub-rational and sub-ethical.
The resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse. Jesus did not rise from the dead, except perhaps in some metaphorical sense.
The meaning of the resurrection is that a few of his followers, probably no more than two or three, finally came to understand what he was all about. When the significance of his words and deeds dawned on them, they knew of no other terms in which to express their amazement than to claim that they had seen him alive.
The expectation that Jesus will return and sit in cosmic judgment is part and parcel of the mythological world view that is now defunct.

The Jesus Seminar examined all the words said by Jesus in the four canonical Gospels and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. They had the hubris to conclude, among other things, that none of the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John were authentic, i.e. said by Christ. The Jesus Seminar is part of the Christian Left but clearly not all those within the Christian Left agree with all the views of the Jesus Seminar. Also within the Christian Left are additional views concerning the very nature of God. This is the development of process theology and its panentheistic concept of God. In panentheism God is not omnipotent. The universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will. Free will characterizes everything in the universe, not just human beings. God can not force anything to happen, but rather only influences the exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. God contains the universe but is not identical with it. Because God contains a changing universe, God is changeable (that is to say, God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe) over the course of time. People do not experience a subjective (or personal) immortality, but they do have an objective immortality in that their experiences live on forever in God, who contains all that was. In contrast, Christianity is a monotheistic religion and thus has a theistic concept of the nature of God. Theism is the belief in a Supreme Being that highlights divine transcendence, yet believes in his immanence and his care for those who are in this world. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent in theism. He is perfect, even though evil exists in the world. He is a personal God and often intervenes in the affairs of men. The life of creation is a gift from God, but is not a manifestation of God. Process theology and panentheism cannot be considered to be, indeed are not, Christian views of God or Christ. However these views, in essence Unitarian, have entered liberal Christianity, albeit on the edge of the Christian Left.

Discussion

The Social Gospel with its emphasis on correcting social and economic injustices is derivable from the words of Christ; “what ever you did for the least of these my brothers you did for me”. The movement took shape in the late 19th and early 20th century along with the progressive movement as a response to the inequities that developed during industrialization. Union Theological Seminary in New York became a center in the development of the Social Gospel and its changing into socialism. Reinhold Niebuhr, who taught at Union, became a socialist in response to what he termed “the tragedy of laborer’s lives” that he had personally observed. Niebuhr criticized the capitalist system in the United States as abusive to workers and voted for Norman Thomas, the socialist candidate for President in the United States in 1932.

In Germany Paul Tillich, another theologian identified with the Christian Left, identified himself as a Marxist and advocated a centrally planned socialist economy. In his book The Socialist Decision published in Germany in 1933 he said: “Only expectation can triumph over the death of Western civilization through the resurgence of the myth of origin. And expectation is the symbol of socialism”. He opposed Hitler’s policy toward the Jews and called Hitler barbaric. He didn’t agree with the Nazi emphasis of soil and blood in the myth of origin of Germany, i.e “ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer”. However at this early time in Hitler’s rule he was attracted to the strongly socialist principles in the 25 points in the National Democratic Socialist Worker’s Party, i.e. the Nazi party. He still had hopes that the socialist principles would be strengthened over time in the Nazi party. In the book cited Tillich advocated that “positions of economic power held by private enterprise must be placed in the hands of the leading groups of society as a whole” and “in this way it becomes possible to preserve the free market which serves as a register of needs and as a register of the direction of of production and the establishment of prices–all, to be sure, within the perimeters of central planning”. This is a reasonable facsimile of the economic plan of fascism in Italy and National socialism in Germany. Tillich further believed that an “alliance of Christianity and socialism could have as a consequence the emergence on an historical form of Christianity in which the opposition between the religious and the profane, the churchly and the secular, no longer had any meaning”. Tillich was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and took up residence at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
It is apparent that socialism originally had Christian roots but over time it became atheistic as recognized by Dostoevsky. However, in carefully examining the New Testament there is no evidence that Christ ever suggested that the government should take from some of the people and give to others which is the heart of the socialist principle whether in pure socialism or in social democracy. The emphasis of Christ was always for people to love others and to give to others. History has shown that socialism is inherently totalitarian. Since people vary in abilities, aspirations and ambition “equality of condition” can never be obtained without a loss of liberty. In his writings Tillich fully recognized and accepted the loss if liberty in socialism.

During World War II Reinhold Niebuhr abandoned socialism and Christian pacifism. In his writing he criticized the Social Gospel liberalism of his youth and advocated what he called “Christian Realism”. To Niebuhr the great mistake of Christian liberalism indeed of liberalism itself, was its belief that man is inherently good, and not to recognize the nature and existence of evil. He believed in original sin in the sense that “original sin is not an inherent corruption but is an inevitable fact of human condition”.

The Christian Left’s support of social democracy, rather than outright socialism has a stronger claim to following Christ’s teaching. The balance between social democracy and free market economics in the United States has resulted in a mixed economy with a free market economy to produce wealth and a safety net to redistribute some of the wealth to those in greatest need. Even here there is tension between the two major parties over the extent of government taking allowable under the Constitution. This is a matter of degree on which reasonable Christians on the left and the right can have honest differences of opinion related to the production and the distribution of wealth.

The theological views of the Christian Left on the nature of God and the divinity of Christ are a different matter entirely from disputes over the production and distribution of wealth since they depart from 2000 years of Christian teaching and history. These views have been developing over the last one hundred years of scientific progress and the continuing “search for the historic Jesus”, especially since the “God is Dead” theology of the 1960's. The Christian Left is not a monolith of course. However, in the main, the Left is driven by a concern that Christian beliefs not compatible with science are not sustainable. Many Christians have difficulty with the virgin birth and description of miracles in the Gospels. These do not trouble most Christians. The real divergence of the theology of the Christian Left from historic Christianity comes with the denial of the incarnation, the divinity of Christ and the resurrection. This is apparent when prominent Christian theologians and clergy reject historic Christian creeds that have held the church together for nearly 2000 years. It is apparent when panentheistic concepts of God, a halfway house between pantheism and theism, replace the theism of Christianity.
Christian beliefs as stated in the Apostles and Nicene creeds and the Definition of Chalcedon of 451 AD simple cannot be proven empirically with the tools of science nor can the existence of God. They require faith which is why Christianity is referred to as the Christian faith. The existentialist theologian Soren Kierkegaard made the following comment about faith and reason: “Christian dogma, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to reason. The central paradox is the assertion that the eternal, infinite, transcendent God simultaneously became incarnated as a temporal, finite, human being (Jesus). There are two possible attitudes we can adopt to this assertion, viz. we can have faith, or we can take offense. What we cannot do is believe by virtue of reason. If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason”.
The real stumbling block for the Christian Left is the resurrection. Everything important in Christianity derives from this for if Christ was indeed resurrected from the dead the incarnation, the divinity of Christ, and indeed all the teachings of Christ must be accepted. For as Paul perceptibly wrote in 1Cor 15:14-16: “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either”.

There is ample evidence that Christ lived and was born approximately in 4 BC. He spent his childhood in Nazareth in Galilee, was baptized by John the Baptist, and preached the coming Kingdom of God. About the year 30 AD he went to Jerusalem, had a final meal with his disciples, was arrested at the instigation of Jewish authorities and crucified under the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect.

The case for the resurrection, is as follows:

1. Resurrection was a Jewish belief among the Pharisees.
2. The followers of Jesus did not expect resurrection. In fact they were demoralized and fearful
3. The tomb was empty
4. Jesus, in one form or another was seen by his followers after his death on the cross.
5. By word of mouth the Christian Church spread rapidly in the Greek and Roman World reaching Rome in 20-25 years even while it and its followers were persecuted by the authorities.

The Christian Left argues that we can rationalize science and Christianity, dispose of the resurrection and the divinity of Christ and still retain the dynamic moral force of Christianity in the world. Bishop Spong says that if Christianity doesn’t change in this direction it will die. Robert Funk argues that Jesus is not divine and needs “a demotion.” To the contrary of this advice, if Christianity did change in the direction Bishop Spong and Robert Funk advocate it would become indistinguishable from Unitarianism and would surely die. According to the Online Britannica in 2005 there were approximately 206,000,000 affiliated Christians in the United States. According to the Unitarian-Universalist Association (UUA) in 1968 there were approximately 177,000 members of the UUA. In 2000 the number had dropped to 156,000. This would not appear to be an attractive direction for the Christian churches to go.