I was asked by the folks at Conservative Reformed Mafia blog to discuss my thoughts on faith and politics in light of my interest in running for the Minnesota State Legislature.
I responded to questions with a video.
The audio gets a bit off timing toward the end, but it still works.
http://www.vimeo.com/2349124
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Thanks again for taking the time to interact with us on this subject, Doug, and for the thoughtful responses. We appreciate the dialogue and look forward to seeing how this go with your campaign.
Jeff Wright
How “things” go with your campaign, that is.
“There are many people who support progressive or more liberal-leaning politics in the Emerging Church world, but…I don’t know that that’s ‘most’.”
“I don’t think it’s true that most people in the Emerging Church world would even be progressives….”
With a straight face ‘n’ everything.
The idea that conservatives are to be understood, by definition, as people who look to (and/or are stuck in?) the past while progressives are simply the progress-minded, forward-looking folks—that, by definition, there are no forward-looking or -thinking conservatives; and/or that all progress-minded, forward-looking people therefore (ought to) fall under the “progressive” political umbrella—this all seems quite the departure from the common use of these terms.
It seems you would take issue with either a progress-minded, forward-looking individual looking to the likes of David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan (who self-identify as conservatives) as inherently nonsensical, or with Brooks, Sullivan, and the like—many of whom stand in stark contrast to the politically “progressive” platform, broad though it may be—as being silly to think of themselves as conservative.
This strikes me as comparable to Dawkins’ advocacy of using “brights” as a term of claiming, to the exclusion of all people of faith, the superiority of an atheist’s intellect.
“Are you smart, or are you a person of faith?” Dawkins might ask.
“Are you progress-minded and forward-looking, or are you conservative?” it seems you would similarly ask.
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