The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right
by By Lerner, Michael
Category: Religion , Religion, Politics & State

The unholy alliance of the Political Right and Religious Right threatens to destroy the America we love. It also threatens to generate a popular aversion to God and religion by identifying religious values with a pro–war, pro–business, pro–rich, anti–science, and anti–environmental stance.  In the past few decades, the Republicans have achieved political dominance by forging a union with a Religious Right that provided a sanctimonious veneer to policies that help the rich get richer while ignoring the needs of the middle class and the poor, dismantling environmental and civil liberties protections, and seeking global domination. The Right champions the materialism, and ruthless selfishness promoted by the global competitive marketplace, and then laments the moral crisis when the values that people have learned all day in the world of work gets carried home into personal life and contributes to family instability and a culture of loneliness. Enter the Religious Right with nurturing communities for the faithful and a culture that blames liberals, activist judges, and all secular people for the moral and spiritual emptiness so many Americans experience. The Left, on the other hand, remains largely tone–deaf to the spiritual needs of the American people. It is the yearning for meaning in life, not just the desire for money or power that is at the core of American politics.