How Were You Influenced to Become Progressive? How Do You Define Your Own Individual Progressivism?
This is something that I was just curious about. What are the things that influenced all of you to become Progressive? Was it books that you read, experiences that pushed you in a Progressive position, heroes that you admire? How far to the left do think you have to be to be considered Progressive? If you were influenced by the Bible to a Progressive position, what parts of the Bible played the most important role in you becoming Progressive?
I'm just wondering if this would be of interest because I'm realizing that everyone has some very individual views on being a Progressive. Donny gave his own personal definition, NYGaribaldi talked about the difference between liberalism and socialism, Bill talked about his influences from the Green Party and sources like ZMagazine. David talked about how instead of a large tent, Progressive Christians may be more like little tents that clump together and that seems appropriate to me.
In our debates on Chavez, I was seeing that the differences among Progressive Christians may not be limited to the issue of those who read the Bible inerrantly and those who read the Bible metaphorically or as myth. What is the model that we hold on the government and the economy: do we favor a New Deal/Great Society model, where the federal government curbs the excesses of a free market capitalist system, or do we favor a more socialist government that junks the free market in favor of worker collectives?
I think if we know our own individual stories, it'll help each of us know where each of us is coming from and be able to understand each other better. I hope this doesn't become a case where we start nitpicking on each others philosophies, but where we could understand each other better.
- Angelo Lopez's blog
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Progressive influences
Angelo, thanks for this discussion-provoking post and set of questions. My progressivism early on actually came from my grandmother and mother. My grandmother was a New Deal democrat who worked in elections for FDR. She never said much about politics, but it was clear that her sense of justice was passed to my mother. My mother spent a lot of time talking to me about the civil rights movement as a child. She was certainly emotional about the death of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr leading me to realize what an indelible mark these leaders left on her and millions of others.
This development happened quite independently of my spiritual formation through my childhood. As a baptized Catholic, no one would speak to my mom when she got a divorce. So we went back to my grandfather's episcopal church where the sermons were dry and the christian education less engaging than my algebra class. In high school my dad and my best friend became evangelicals, fundmentalist in their theology and conservative in their political worldview. These combined set of factors drove me away from the faith all together.
In college, I deepened my knowledge of civil rights, institutional racism, environmentalism and the labor movement through activism and student politics. I rarely went to church. My influences were Dr. James Turner and Don Barr who worked tirelessly against racism as passionate advocactes for social justice and racial equality.
When I left college, I went to an inner city school in Philadelphia, where I linked up with a young African American minister to run out of school programs, mentoring programs, etc. For the first time, I encountered someone who was actually living the message of Jesus Christ. At one point we were walking around the school, and I was talking about the latest gun incident. I'll never forget when he said to me, "I know your soul Steve, and I know you would take a bullet for any one of those kids." His courage was rubbing off on me. He never pushed Christ rather letting me come back to him in my own time. At the time given my feelings about racism and the city, I probably wouldn't have hear the message though if the messenger wasn't an African American.
That summer my grandfather passed away, the first death in my young life. When he was dying, I actually had a born again experience that confirmed my belief in Jesus Christ as savior (that's right, one of the few born again Episcopalians). I ran to my minister friend to tell him and to pray. Even with this experience, I was unsure how my progressive poliitcs fit with my newly found faith.
About a month after my grandfather passed, I woke up one Sunday and said to myself, "My grandfather would want me in church. I'm going." I went to historical Christ Church in Philadelphia and was floored by the sermon. Here was a preacher talking about racism, homophobia, homelessness, poverty from the pulpit. It was this instant that my progressive political sentiments and my refound faith came together in a magnificent way. They have been melded ever since. Well known heros like Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X combined with less known heros like Rev. Tim Safford and Pastor Shawn McKnight are my core influences and the primary reason I'm involved with CrossLeft and IPC.
re:Progressive influences
All good influences Stephen, Jim and jmndodge. I respect all the different paths God has taken each of you.
Progressive influence
From a very right wing conservative Christian background, 50's through 70's including an education in conservative Christian College and Seminary, it was my passionate conservative view of scripture that made me a progressive. I discovered the use of the lectionary as a correction to the fads, and imballance of contemporary preaching which neglected important concepts and disstorted others through their over use. Indeed, I'm troubled that during that period, the churches using the lectionary, neglected its potiential and made the politics of liberalism their creed using the lectionary texts just like the right wing used their proof texts. Passionate preaching based on the lectionary would move people in a progressive direction, giving hope and strength for the journey.
George Bush made me a Progressive
The person that made me a true blue politically active die hard Progressive was none other than George W. Bush himself!
In the 1990’s I was a middle of the road union supporting Democrat that had no big fire in the belly for politics. I was evolving spiritually at a rapid pace though. I had been a Viet Nam Veteran against the War in the early 1970’s and I wrote for my college newspaper. I went to a few protests and worked on some political campaigns. 1980 came and the only revolution was “The Reagan Revolution” and I, like a lot of other Baby Boomers began turning inward.
I did not like Bill Clinton. If I remember right I voted for Perot in 1992 and reluctantly for Clinton in 1996, rationalizing, well he is doing okay. As I watched the public crucifixion of Clinton over his sexual misdeeds, though, I realized something really big is going on here. I started to understand thoroughly that there really is a propaganda machine, and there really is an agenda out there that wants total world domination, that puts big business and the multi-nationals before any of the needs of human beings, and that if left unchallenged will, I think, destroy America. I came to understand later that these people are the “Neo-Cons” of the Republican Party. Bill Clinton, who has self described himself as “purple” in the “red, blue” division of America, was no Progressive. He was however, a charismatic Democrat who got in the way of this Neo-Con agenda. It started with Reagan, continued with George H.W. Bush, and then Clinton disrupted the process. They had to get rid of him anyway they could.
The guy who did it for me though was George W. Bush. After the fixed election of 2000, 9/11, The Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, the erosion of Civil Liberties, torture, lies, threats of more war, the choking off of governmental regulations for health, safety, and the environment, and the hubris of this administration, I am over the edge.
George W. Bush made me a Progressive and, now there is no turning back.
A Few Influences I Forgot to Mention
I wrote the above post during my lunch break, so I forgot some influences on my leftish point of view.
A few years ago I read Joseph Ellis' book "Founding Brothers" and it got me to start reading about the Founding Fathers again. They had their faults, but we were lucky to have them instead of a Napoleon or a Lenin. I have these friends, the Liebermans, whom I talk politics, movies and books with, and we all have our favorite founding fathers. Their favorite is Thomas Jefferson, while mine is John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. One of the most influential books that I've read is the collected letters of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They were close friends but on opposite sides of the political fence, and it was exciting for me to read them debate in their letters.
For 2 years in the late 1990s I was secretary in the local part timers SEIU for the City of Sunnyvale. I didn't really do much except write notes, but I was influenced to see unions in a positive way by the dedication of the officers, Joan Coston, Bob Balmanno, Fran Shimozaki, and Juanita Harris. I learned that in politics, party affiliation was less important than personal relationships. We had disagreements with some of the Republicans in the City Council, but the relationship was cordial and we always knew where they stood. It was actually some of the Democrats whom we had some trouble with, because they would promise one thing but do something different later.
During college, a close friend went out of the closet and that influenced my take on social issues. He was a Reagan Republican, but after going out of the closet, he became an ardent gays rights advocate and Democrat, which amused me since I used to argue politics from the liberal side with him. I began to realize that I had some latent homophobic reactions, as sometimes I would jerk my arm away from him if I accidently brushed against him. He became a member of GLAAD and always informed me and other friends of the discrimination and harassment of gays, and that made me very gays rights too. I accepted an illustration assignment for the book "Two Moms The Zark and Me", a gay parent book, for Alyson Publications in 1993 as a result.
In the past I've read biographies and history books about people, and have gotten the author's interpretations of a person. So now I'm trying to go find the person's own writings and decide for myself about the person. Instead of just reading a Dorothy Day biography, I'm reading "By Little and by Little: the selected Writings of Dorothy Day". There's a book "Courage in a Dangerous World", a collection of writings of Eleanor Roosevelt. And of course, there's the collected writings of Adams and Jefferson. Since leaving that evangelical church, it was painful, but also liberating.
Influences
This may be shallow but I was first influenced in a liberal direction by Gary Trudeau's comic strip "Doonesbury". I was around 12 at the time, and it forced me to read the paper to get some of its humor. I also loved Bloom County,a comic strip by Berkely Breathed, but it was always better as an inciscive commentary on pop culture while it's political commentary always seemed soft to me. When I went to college, I bought an issue of the Comics Journal with an interview of Jules Feiffer, and that interview was my first real exposure to radical leftist thought. After reading his interview, I checked out from the library "Jules Feiffer's America", a collection of Feiffer's cartoons from the Eisenhower era to the Reagan era, and it really influenced the way I saw politics.
Growing up, the Catholic encyclicals also played a large role in shaping my politics. I read books that mentioned Rerum Novurum and how it influenced people I admired, especially Dorothy Day. And Pope John Paul IIs critiques of capitalism really made sense to me. Dorothy Day was important to me because she showed how these precepts could be played out in real life. As a bookworm, I often fall for ideas without seeing how they play in real life, and that's something I'm conscious of.
The Gospels influenced me, especially the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus example in seeking out the outsiders and the outcasts. The poetry books in the Old Testament thought the way I think, and it validated my annoying habit of asking questions. I always saw Jesus' message as a very egalitarian message, or maybe that's the part of Jesus' message I was most drawn to, and that played a part of my being liberal.
In the 1980s, a lot of great documentaries were being shown in PBS that I really absorbed. One documentary was about the unknown Chaplin, and it got me to watch his films. I didn't realize that Chaplin made films like Modern Times and The Great Dictator, which for their times were great liberal statements. "Eyes on the Prize" was a big influence on me. It was a documentary on the Civil Rights movement. As someone who was born after that movement was over, it was a great eye opener for me. And I began checking out from the library the great Ken Burns documentaries on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mark Twain.
During the 1990s, I vacillated between being more liberal and being more centrist. Part of it was that I was hanging around a lot of more conservative Evangelicals, and they moderated my politics from going too far to the left. But part of it too was that I could see the positive effects of Clinton's economic policies. I live in Silicon Valley, and I saw how my parent's working class neighborhood in Sunnyvale dramaticly improved during the Clinton boom years.
Two things pushed me to be more progressive: my deep disagreements with the Bush administration, and conflicts in an evangelical church that eventually lead me to leave. I was always a fan of Studs Terkel, but I also started reading Grace Paley and Ann Lamott about a year ago. Then a few months ago I started reading and checking out videos of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. I just finished Zinn's "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" and hope to tackle his People's History sometime soon. I like checking out a Chomsky video and listening to him more than reading him. I'm not sure whether I agree yet with all these things, but I enjoy being exposed to them and deciding on my own what I agree with and don't agree with. This crossleft website has also been a new influence on me and I appreciate the new ideas of Christianity that I'm learning from, even if I don't agree with everything I read.