The "Religious Left"

An overview of various groups who might fall under this umbrella term by Steve Waldman at Slate.

It seems to me a lot of where you end up on the political spectrum may have less to do with having a particular political ideology than it does with what issues are the most important to you. For instance, many people end up on the Right by default because their overwhelming concern is with, say, abortion, even if they may not share the conservative view about tort reform or the Second Amendment.

Likewise, someone may identify with the Left because their top priority is healthcare or the environment, even if they don’t toe the liberal line on other issues. If nothing else, most of us aren’t intensely interested in more than a few issues, much less do we have the time to become well informed about them all. That frequently seems to result in our more or less uncritically adopting the position of whatever “our side” is.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. Given the limits on our time and resources, maybe it makes the most sense to let whatever issues we find ourselves particularly passionate about guide our political behavior. Of course, it’s incumbent upon Christians to align their priorities with what they believe God’s priorities to be. Which, of course, is always a matter for debate. Which means we’ll probably always have a religious Right and Left.