Dispatches from the Religious Left

“If he were alive today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would remind us that ‘We are the leaders we have been waiting for.’ Consider Dispatches from the Religious Left your briefing book on how and why it is important to be a ‘courageous leader’ in these challenging times.” —Robert Edgar, President, Common Cause, former General Secretary of the National Council of Churches

“The Progressive faith community has been an essential component of American social movements through our history. Largely invisible since the rise of the Religious Right, progressive faith action is reemerging, seeking out new directions. This excellent volume illuminates many facets of where we are today, and calls for further, dynamic revitalization, urging us on to our highest aspirations for a just society. Read it and take heart!” —Elizabeth Sholes, Director of Public Policy, California Council of Churches

Over the past thirty years, while the Religious Right has developed into one of the most powerful forces in American politics, the Religious Left—despite having a rich historical tradition of leading social change in the United States—has been unable to develop into a movement with the scale or coherence of the Religious Right.

Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America is a groundbreaking and visionary collection that offers a progressive counter-voice to the Religious Right’s dominance over the religious conversation in America. Edited by Frederick Clarkson, with an introduction by Joan Brown Campbell and an afterword by Jeff Sharlet, Dispatches features many of today’s most prominent progressive religious voices: Chris Hedges, Marshall Ganz, “Pastor Dan” Schultz, Barry Lynn, Peter Laarman, Carlton Veazey, Katherine Ragsdale, Osagyefo Sekou,  Debra Haffner, Timothy Palmer, Peter Hess, Chip Berlet, Leo Maley, Frank Cocozzelli, Kety Esquivel, Jean Hardisty, Deepak Bhargava, Anastasia Pantsios, Shelby Meyerhoff and Shai Sachs. Taken together, the bold, energetic and forward-looking essays in this important and vital book show how we can begin to build a thriving and dynamic Religious Left that can offer a new and healthier religious and political direction for this country.