The Call to Renewal

May-June 1996

By Luis E. Lugo

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The crowded field of religiously based political movements gained another entrant in early February with the official launching here of the Call to Renewal. Part revival meeting, part reunion of religious progressives, and part strategizing session, the group's two-day conference drew some two hundred participants from several Christian traditions interested in providing a counterweight to religious conservatives. Plenary sessions and panel discussions, led by well-known evangelicals Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, Eugene Rivers, and others, were supplemented by workshops on topics such as developing a media strategy, creating candidate forums, and building local coalitions.

In his opening address, Wallis, who is a leader of the Sojourners community and served as principal organizer of the event, recounted the principles of the "Cry for Renewal" statement which he and others released back in May of 1995. The goal of the movement, Wallis stated, is to fashion a new kind of politics that transcends ideological polarization and that bases its commitment to social justice with respect to poverty, race relations and the environment on the spiritual values of biblical religion.

Liberalism has failed to take the question of values seriously, Wallis asserted, leaving the field wide open for the Christian Coalition and other conservative forces who sense people's concern over the collapse of spiritual values in American culture. The problem with the Christian Right is that it seeks to impose a rigid ideological agenda on social problems and that it has become captive of right-wing politicians, he said. The Christian activism represented in this new movement, Wallis assured conference participants, is inspired by a very different kind of religious vision, one that will speak with a new prophetic voice to American society.

The challenges facing this new movement were readily apparent at the conference. Of these, perhaps none looms larger than the problem of political identity. The main difficulty here is that the Call to Renewal network appears to be drawn together primarily by what it opposes, namely, the Christian Coalition, the Republican Congress, and their respective Contracts with America. As Campolo stated at the first night's evening rally, "We are here to say to them: You can't do it!" But while passionate opposition can serve to bring people together, it takes more to build and sustain a vibrant movement than reacting against another group's positions or engaging in general moralizing about the American dream. It requires instead meaningful new ideas for creatively addressing the broad range of pressing public policy concerns.

Some of the conference speakers seemed aware of the problem. Sider in particular warned against the dangers of mere reaction and, as if to illustrate his point, produced an extensive outline which he offered as the basis for a comprehensive evangelical political agenda. The decidedly lukewarm reception the document received, however, suggests that there may not be much interest within the movement in doing the hard work necessary to fashion a coherent public policy program. The often-expressed desire to transcend old political categories at times creates the impression that at least for some within the movement it is politics as such that they want to transcend. It was symptomatic of this tendency that not one elected official serving at any level of government appeared on the conference program.

The hesitation to engage in a serious discussion of specific policy issues becomes a little more understandable given the disagreements which emerged when hot-button, social issues were broached. Many took strong exception, for example, to Sider's condemnation of abortion and his call for the kill legal protection of the unborn. Nowhere were the divisions more evident, however, than over issues relating to homosexuality. Sider's call for government to favor the traditional family and Rivers's blast against attempts to appropriate the civil rights banner for the gay rights agenda caused much visible consternation and sharp public disagreements, notwithstanding Wallis's pleas for everyone to move beyond old views and find common ground on these issues.

The practical problem for the Call to Renewal is that if the few things it clearly stands for are identified in the public's mind with the left end of the American political spectrum it will leave itself open to the charge that it is simply carrying water for liberal Democrats and functioning essentially as an "Evangelicals for Clinton" committee. And, indeed, despite the rhetoric about "a third way," at this point in time it is easier to see how the movement differs from the new Christian Right than how it differs from the old Christian Left, some of whose representatives not only participated in the conference but were signatories of the Cry for Renewal document.

[Dr. Lugo is the Center's Associate Director.]