Throughout American history the role of progressive religion in the promotion of social justice has been of significant importance.
Religious institutions have historically acted as the conscience of the nation. During the nation’s early years, people of faith spearheaded the abolitionist movement and the eventual demise of the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
The fight for woman’s suffrage arose out of the Protestant church’s promotion of a “muscular Christianity.” Rooted in the Social Gospel, it influenced the ideal of female muscular prowess. The right to vote was eventually established with the adoption of the 19th Amendment.
Religiously progressive women and men of faith fought for justice and equality among the recently arrived immigrants crowding into America’s cities at the turn of the 20th century. In this context, the nation began its slow movement toward equitable social security for all.
Mistakes were made along the way. Wrong-headedly the muscles of social justice were flexed against the availability of alcohol. The temperance movement, which arose out of religiously progressive ideals, blamed alcohol for the poverty and crime that was becoming a part of America’s cities. The white Anglo Saxon Protestants did not understand the role alcohol played in the cultures of many immigrants, and prohibition ended up causing more problems for the nation than it solved. The mistake was eventually amended.
In the modern era, the struggle for civil rights found compassionate allies among progressively religious people and institutions. Together, they fought against the discrimination and prejudice that inundated America’s South, as well as North in the early 1900's. Likewise, progressive religion was the foundation for the "Ban the Bomb" and the anti-Vietnam War Movements in the middle of the 20th century.
Religiously influenced and centered activists raised the consciousness of Americans during that turbulent era as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, the Peace Movement, and anti-poverty movements came together with America' religious progressives playing a significant role in each.
With the assassination of Dr. King, President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and his brother, Robert, later in that decade, the nation began to abandon its progressively religious consciousness.
The loss of the Viet Nam War was viewed as a humiliation, rather than a victory for the Peace Movement. President Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal deepened the nation's humiliation, as did the oil shortages of the Carter era and subsequent seizure of the American Embassy and 52 American hostages by radical students in Tehran.
America, rather than seeking peace and justice, turned to a charismatic figure that would make the nation feel good about itself once again. Enter President Ronald Reagan whose winning smile offered the citizens a sunny “new morning” in which to revel.
Since Reagan’s presidency, religious conservatives rather than progressives have influenced American attitudes.
The Rowe v. Wade decision regarding the right to abortion empowered evangelicals and gave them an ally with the formally progressive Roman Catholic Church.
The Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition replaced the progressive ideals of social justice and peace that once influenced America’s consciousness. The new conservative ethos centered on making people, and the nation, feel good about who they thought themselves to be.
With social justice and social progressive movement no longer in the mainstream, the unbridled capitalism has created ecological disaster for the planet and her creatures and a growing disparity between the very few “haves” and the masses of “have-nots.” Will progressive religion will find its prophetic voice and once again cry out for justice?
A Brookings Institute study, “Faith In Equality: Economic Justice and the Future of Religious Progressives,” concludes: “Religious witnesses have been essential to the success of movements for justice throughout American history…. The country’s faith communities have been able at critical moments to speak to ‘the jangling discords of our nation’ with prophetic power. At a time of deep mistrust of politics, government and collective action, religious Americans engaged in public life have both an opportunity and an obligation – to challenge, to inspire, and to heal.”
