I recently found an article with the title: Religious Left’s Battle Cry: Reclaim Christianity. I thought sure that was a mis-characterization, so I looked it up. Sure enough, that is precisely what a lot of progressive religious figures are saying. They have apparently got together and made this their talking point. It isn’t too much at all to call Reclaim Christianity a battle cry. On the Internet, there are over 500 sites that trumpet the term.

Speaking as a Christian, that sounds a bit absurd to me. I don’t consider myself a part of either the religious right or the religious left. I find, on the political scene, ideas that are either compatible with Christian faith or anathema to Christian faith—and some I can live with while I don’t like them very much. And the difference doesn’t track perfectly along party lines.

To me, the arbiter of all my values is the Bible applied. By that I mean that my external value system is informed by the Bible. That being the case, my choices in the voting booth are mostly a matter of choosing between two unpleasant alternatives—the lesser of two evils, as it were.

The term the Religious Left doesn’t sound any better than the Religious Right. In both cases, we are talking about politics, informed by religion (or corrupted by religion, as the case may be). Or maybe it is religion that has been corrupted by politics. Whatever, the relationship is sour, and in the last half of the 20th century, the division between left and right did solidify. What happened?