Resistance to the Trump administration, especially over its policy and actions on immigration, has injected new vitality into the religious left, although the staying power of such activism remains to be seen, according to reports. In the online newsletter Sightings (February 26), Richard Amesbury reports that “[r]eligious leaders, some in clerical collars or vestments, have been unmistakable presences in demonstrations following the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis. Around one hundred clergy were arrested demonstrating against ICE deportations at Minnesota’s largest airport. Churches have functioned as spaces for `reflection, organizing, and resistance.” During the standoff with authorities, mainline churches sprang into action, coordinating efforts to deliver groceries to immigrant families afraid to leave their homes. Amesbury writes that while conservative Christians remain in the spotlight during the Trump era, “progressive Christianity is reemerging into public view, as Christians from a variety of denominations contest the political capture of their faith by the far right.”
He argues that such a reemergence of religious-left activism is partly due to a backlash among a segment of churchgoers who have seen their congregations become more religiously and socially conservative, culminating in the rise of Donald Trump. While “religious disaffiliation does not transfer automatically into progressive activism,” Amesbury adds that the growth of the religious left may be due to the remaining affiliated people (a population which has stabilized in recent years) deciding to resist the rightward tilt in American religion. “In other words, there is a conflict going on among those who still identify as Christian over what that label is going to mean. Does it mean white Christian nationalism? Or does Christianity require care for the poor, immigrants, and the environment? Like much of the surrounding culture, Christianity is increasingly politically divided…These tensions are not new, but Trump’s immigration crackdown has exacerbated them.”
“What the leveling off of Christian disidentification suggests is that those who remain—whatever their politics—are in it to win it,” Amesbury concludes. “Like their conservative counterparts, progressive Christians are digging in for a struggle over the faith.” Meanwhile, the online publication Vox (February 10) argues that the appointment of Pope Leo has likewise energized the Catholic left. In an interview, writer and activist Christopher Hale says that “Leo is working with a pipeline of Francis-era priests and bishops that he is very familiar with, and everyone who’s been named an archbishop and a bishop was on his desk before he was elected pope.” While the pope is trying to separate himself from the culture wars, not wanting to be “weaponized by the right or the left…[w]hen he does speak, it’s hard now for bishops and priests in the U.S. to ignore him, or say he doesn’t understand the U.S. And immigration, and mass deportations, are one issue where he has spoken up again and again.” This was seen last October, when Leo told the American bishops that they needed to speak with one voice on the immigration issue, resulting in the strongest statement on a social issue in years. “The responsiveness of U.S bishops has gone up extraordinarily in the past year, and especially with conservative bishops. They have spoken out in ways that I don’t think they would have during the Francis pontificate.” [A more recent bishops’ statement has opposed changes to birthright citizenship.]
(Sightings, https://martycenter.org/sightings/are-we-witnessing-the-re-emergence-of-a-christian-left)
