Riverside Rev. Represents Christian Left

In a national political culture dominated by religious dialogue, one Morningside Heights leader stands as a powerful voice in the fray.

With a progressive, inclusive and, "unabashedly liberal" Christian message, Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister at Riverside Church, has been a vocal and visible participant this political season, speaking before the Democratic National Convention, gatherings of national religious leaders, and members of the nationwide press.

Promoting what he sees as egalitarian precepts enshrined in scripture, Forbes has traveled the country with Riverside's faith-based Mobilization 2004 initiative, an officially non-partisan call upon America's citizens and leaders to check current policy against what Forbes sees as Christian principals of "righteousness and justice" laid out in the Bible.

While IRS regulations prevent Forbes from formally endorsing John Kerry in his capacity as leader of the protestant congregation, Forbes has publicly announced his independent support for the Democratic candidate on the Web site beliefnet.org.

"The United States needs to recover the moral values on which it was built," Forbes explained from his Riverside office overlooking New York. "America needs a spiritual recovery."

For Forbes, such a goal necessarily entails an intertwined religious and social agenda.

"The Church should nourish the moral values of its members and promote a world in line with justice and righteousness," said Forbes, drawing upon quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King and pointing to the Abolition Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement as periods when Christians exerted a positive moral influence upon society. "[The Bible is] a call to personal holiness and societal transformation. You can't ignore one without compromising the essence of faith."

In keeping with such a philosophy, Forbes promotes what he calls "prophetic justice principals" in his local and national engagements--principles he sees as biblically-based policy guidelines mandating support for poor and disadvantaged members of society, a respectful foreign policy, ecological responsibility, and the importance of a free press.

As a prominent liberal Christian, Forbes stands at the forefront of a progressive faith movement that has arisen as a "counter-balance" to the growing visibility and influence of the religious right.

Conservative Christians "use God to support their own interests. Search[ing] the Bible to find verses where God happens to agree, putting words into God's mouth," said Forbes. "This leads to hypocrisy and disrespect for God. True spirituality is inclusive. We are all God's children. Those who read the Bible for personal piety while ignoring societal ills are out of touch with the religious principals which they claim to represent."

Although Forbes, like conservative Christians, selects passages from the Bible to support his political, social and religious agenda, he views his movement as differing from that of Christian conservatives in its more holistic, accurate reading of scripture and in its reluctance to use the state to decide moral issues.

Rather than attempting to "legislate theocratically," Forbes said that progressive Christians like those working with Mobilization 2004 promote "advocacy in conversation with others in the hope that the best wisdom for how to shape our society will shine through."

"We don't need to police the world for God," said Forbes. "We should have respect for people of different values."

Barnard religion Professor Elizabeth Castelli offered insight into Forbes' debate with Christian conservatives. "Dr. Forbes is drawing on Biblical themes and a prophetic tradition in the Hebrew Bible," she explained. "That tradition makes a strong ethical demand upon the community to which it is addressed to attend to the needs of its weakest members? Everyone who reads the Bible does [choose passages to understand the Bible's meaning]."

The potential difference between Forbes and Christian conservatives, Castelli believes, might be that "the religious right has an ascendant, popular position," while progressive Christians are a backlash to that dominant ideology. "[The] biblical tradition," the Professor Castelli says, "has historically been about offering a resistance or critique of power."

Regardless of its theological backing, however, such a joint spiritual and social campaign is hardly new for either the Forbes or his Riverside Church.

Long an ecumenical, inclusive, inter-faith congregation, Riverside hosts believers from different faiths.

Forbes' predecessor at the congregation's pulpit lead a prominent campaign against nuclear production. As a young man, Forbes participated in Woolworth's sit-ins during the civil rights movement.

Yet for Forbes, this election season is a special time of urgency. "At no time in the nation's history has our witness been more urgently needed than it is now," Forbes preached in a Riverside flyer. "The year 2004 is a critical one for us to come together and create a collective witness to reconnect America with its moral, spiritual, and democratic values."

"We live in a world house," Forbes added. "We just have to find a way to live in it together."