Scholars Discuss Religion in Politics

In the wake of President Bush’s re-election, over 1,300 people filled the nave of Riverside Church last night to hear speeches from six national progressive leaders on the state of America.

The evening’s event, titled “Where Do We Go From Here?: An Interfaith Dialogue on Religion and the Future of America’s Politics,” featured Cornel West, professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton, as its keynote speaker.

Most of the evening’s six prominent and religiously diverse speakers drew upon what the panelists called a “prophetic tradition” enshrined in Judaic, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. Although all offered differing visions for the future of progressive politics, almost every one of the panelists touched upon an interfaith scriptural mandate toward a more just and equal society.

Some of the panelists also said that the progressive movement was a broad moral effort and not just a narrow push to win campaigns. “If John Kerry had won the election, my speech would not be different,” West said to an enthusiastic crowd. “We live in a dark time. [But] I am not tired. I am ready to fight.”

Manning Marable, professor of history and African-American studies at Columbia, and Riverside’s well-known senior minister, the Rev. Dr. James Forbes Jr., joined West on the panel. Also on the panel, representing voices from progressive Judaism and Islam respectively, were Dartmouth professor Susannah Heschel and Talib Abdul-Rashid, Imam of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in New York City. The secular point of view was represented by Malia Lazu, the national field coordinator for Democracy Action Project, who spoke about 2004 programs to mobilize youth voters.

West began the evening by posing what he called “an existential question.”

“What kind of legacy do you want to leave,” West asked the crowd, “[in your time] between womb and tomb?” Calling for a just and uncompromising progressive agenda, West criticized those who have urged America’s left to move closer to the center in search of a broader following.

Speaking near the end of the program, almost an hour after West, Marable outlined what he called an “unholy trinity” of cyclical incarceration, disenfranchisement, and unemployment, which he said hindered the efforts of black Americans to gain a stronger foothold in national society. Marable called for a prophetic response deeply rooted in the traditions of African-American Christianity and an end to “the master-slave dynamic embedded in American master narrative.”

Several of the evening’s panelists lashed out at Christian conservatives.Speaking against what he termed the imperial “Constantinian Christianity” of the religious right, West said that some Christians have mistaken the blood of the cross as “Kool-Aid like” and “taken a place at the table” of the American empire.

Heschel added, “My Bible has been taken captive by a fascistic movement.”

Riverside’s Forbes ended the evening with a candlelit ceremony in the large cathedral. Before turning off the lights and signaling the church choir to sing “This Little Light of Mine,” Forbes told the audience, “We were not defeated. We were just delayed. ... God has worked in dark places.”