ecumenical prot

===an ah? 3 23<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">in

the United States, Christianity isn't necessarily synonymous with

right-wing politics. The Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are

ordained Baptist ministers. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

(D-California) and centrist Democratic President Joe Biden consider

themselves devout Catholics, as does <a href="https://crcc.usc.edu/sister-mary-scullion-fighting-to-end-homelessness-in-philadelphia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Sister Mary Scullion</a> — a Catholic nun and Philadelphia-based activist known for supporting liberal and progressive causes.<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">But

the Republican Party, since the early 1980s, has closely allied itself

with far-right white evangelicals and the Religious Right movement. And

author/UC Berkeley history professor David Hollinger, in an <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/qa-david-hollinger-religous-right/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interview with The Nation's Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins</a> published

on March 29, stresses that white evangelicals are moving more and more

to the right at a time when the United States on the whole is becoming

increasingly secular.<div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Hollinger,

author of the 2022 book, "Christianity's American Fate: How Religion

Became More Conservative and Society More Secular," <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/qa-david-hollinger-religous-right/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">told The Nation</a>,

"The Republican Party has cultivated white evangelicals as a key voting

bloc, and it has worked wonderfully. The epistemic closures in which

many evangelicals lived in the 1970s or 1950s or 1930s were formidable,

but they were not encouraged and relied upon by a major political party,

or kept enclosed by the availability of Fox News and other mass media

freed of the 'Fairness Doctrine' that regulated news media until the

Reagan Administration."<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">READ MORE:<a href="https://www.alternet.org/christian-nationalism-2659395979/" target="_self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Christian nationalists' 'extreme beliefs' are fundamentally 'at odds with pluralistic democracy': conservative</a><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The

author/UC Berkeley professor notes that within Christianity, there is a

major divide between fundamentalist evangelicals and non-evangelical

Mainline Protestants — who he also refers to as "ecumenical

Protestants." In the United States, Mainline denominations include

Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and the African

Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/qa-david-hollinger-religous-right/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hollinger told The Nation</a>, "If the ecumenicals could reclaim the franchise, so to speak, the country would be a lot better off.

Non-Christians may think they don't have a dog in that fight, but they

do. Even at this time, when Christians are a smaller proportion of the

American population than ever before, lots of power is in the hands of

anyone who convincingly claims to speak for Christianity…. Lots of

post-Protestants and post-Catholics — people who were culturally formed

by Protestantism or Catholicism but no longer affirm their ancestral

faith — are splendid allies for liberal Protestants. They can work

together."<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Hollinger argues that the United States' 2022 midterms were largely a rejection of authoritarian "Christian nationalism."<p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/qa-david-hollinger-religous-right/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The author observes</a>,

"About 80 percent of evangelical voters supported Republican candidates

in the midterm elections, which is the same level of support they gave

to Trump as a presidential candidate…. Yet here's the big thing about

the midterms: In the electorate as a whole, the strong support for

abortion rights indicates a willingness of many voters to resist the

theocratic trend of recent American politics. Since my book calls for

exactly such resistance, I am heartened by this result. Yet the struggle

to save democracy is far from over, and evangelically inspired

Christian nationalism remains a formidable threat to it.”<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</div>