Non-believers see need to work with ‘progressive’ Christians
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, Posted Monday, January 10, 2005
Religious News Service, a subscription-based wire service, recently published an article reporting that people who don’t believe in God are seeking to join forces with “progressive” Christians in their opposition to President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress.
The Presbyterian News Service posted the story on the denomination’s Web site with the headline, “Nonbelievers organize in fear of Bush White House and Republican Congress.“
The RNS writer, G. Jeffrey MacDonald, interviewed secular humanists and atheist leaders and reported that “insiders are hearing some hardened non-theists warming to the notion of collaborating with liberal religious groups for pragmatic reasons.”
MacDonald then quoted Roy Speckhardt, deputy director of the American Humanist Association: “Some in the atheist constituency are saying things like, ‘We’d like to work more with you (in coalitions with progressive religious groups) so we can have an effect in Washington.’ They’ve realized they need to do this in order to get things done.”
As a matter of practice, however, the “progressives” in the Presbyterian Church (USA) – including the staff of the Washington Office – have welcomed alliances with atheists, secular humanists, representatives of a wide range of non-Christian faiths and political organizations that have no religious bearing.
Just last week, Elenora Giddings Ivory, the director of the Washington Office, put her signature on a letter opposing Bush’s attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales. They described themselves as “some of the nation’s leading religious leaders and organizations” – although most are employees of those organizations.
Of the 19 who signed the letter, 13 are with identifiable Protestant groups – most of which, like the PCUSA, call themselves “progressive.” The other six are non-Christian groups: Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and two Unitarian Universalist bodies.
In March 2004, the Washington Office signed up the PCUSA as one of the sponsors of the Women’s March on Washington, a demonstration for unrestricted abortion rights. The sponsors included a number of mainline Protestant bodies – as well as non-religious groups that align with “progressive” Christians on liberal causes, such as: the National Organization of Women; the Feminist Majority; the Democratic National Committee; the Communist Party USA; the International Socialist Organization; the Ladies’ Misbehavior Society; and Bitch magazine.
Ivory has served for years as a member of the board of directors of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. One of Americans United’s partners is the Secular Student Alliance, which declares that its purpose is “to educate high school and college students around the country about the value of scientific reason and the intellectual basis of secularism in its atheistic and humanistic manifestations.”
The issue of working with other groups – including atheists – was raised by Dirk Ficca in an address to the Witherspoon Society during the 215th General Assembly (2003).
Ficca, a Presbyterian minister, is the executive director of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, a Chicago-based organization that includes in its membership representatives of Protestant, atheist, pagan and wiccan (witch) organizations.
Ficca opposes trying to convert people of other faiths – or nonfaith. “What does it mean,” he asked, “to present the gospel to those [non-Christians] who, with their whole mind and soul, believe that they are right?”
It was Ficca who, in 2001, addressed the PCUSA’s annual Peacemaking Conference and raised the question that ignited a two-year firestorm in the denomination. “What’s the big deal about Jesus?” he asked.
When he spoke to the Witherspoon Society in 2003, Ficca said the one person he would like to convert is Parker T. Williamson, chief executive officer of the Presbyterian Lay Committee and editor in chief of its publications.
“I want him to change,” Ficca said. “I want his view of the faith to be different.”
Williamson, an evangelical, said he feels the same way about Ficca and the other “progressives” in the PCUSA.
While the PCUSA has linked hands with representatives of a variety of religions and non-religions on numerous occasions, the denomination, shrinking in membership and mission money, may view the humanist-atheist political movement described by MacDonald with some relief.
Those organizations, bolstered by their disdain for Bush and a Republican majority in Congress, say their money-raising efforts have boomed since the election, MacDonald reported, making it less likely that joining hands would require a handout from the PCUSA.