Both a Baptist Minister from Rouge and Catholic Campus Minister at Texas A @ M have been discussing the use of liberal , conservative and other political terms as they are used to classify people and factions in the Church.
See Live the Trinity's Joshua Villines on “What do the Christians believe?” and Aggie Catholic's Being Catholic and "Liberal" and "Conservative" Don't Work for The Church
Now I largely agree with this but of course I use these terms all the time. They are imperfect but there is a need to try to verbalize a reality that is present.
I have found that people generally don't like Orthodox versus Apostate :). Further both "liberal/ progressive " and "conservative" can be Catholic and Orthodox on some issues and while having to live in tension with each other. So I really don't know the answer. On many issues there is not just one "Catholic" way to look at something. What is the "Catholic" viewpoint on for instance the use of predator drones in war?
However lets return to the use of "progressive" as it was used as to the issue of immigration and the announcement that Gomez will be be the new Archbishop of LA.
Again see Aggies's Catholic Being Catholic .
Let me add a further problem. The labels conservative and liberal and progressive do not work well for the immigration issue either.
There are many conservatives and libertarians that are for immigration reform. There are liberals that are against it. However the left and a portion for the far right try to their best(unfortunately with success) to try to put people depending on their position in the left or right camp.
Mickey Kaus, a liberal, is running for U.S. Senate in the Democrat primary. Partly on the issue of immigration reform which he opposes.
On the "right" we have people from Robert George, the Cato Inst, The WSJ, and Senator John Kyl and others that support immigration reform. Is Dr Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention now a "progressive" because he favors immigration reform.
So in a sense the use of the term "progressive" not only is a epic fail here as to Faith and it is system failure describing the political world too.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Is the New Archbishop Of LA Progressive on Immigration?
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2 comments:
Good post and fine thoughts as always. I had a post last week(?) in which I cite a podcast from Ancient Faith Radio (Orthodox) that gets into this. I am trying to push for conservatives to start calling themselves (true) liberals. And liberals are not - they are statists, leftists, or both.
But that still leaves issues where it's not clear at all which terms apply.
My friend is that unusual combination of traditionalist with regard to theology (with some notable exceptions although he wouldn't see it that way) but very very very leftist/statist with regard to politics.
Thanks.
THe whole liberla and conservative think and whom are the true conservatives and the true linerals is always so complicated. It is alo made worse because Conservatives are divided themselves in different camps with different viewpoints
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