The coming together of diverse groups for a common cause. Muslims, Catholics and orthodox Jews may come together to defend the family. Evangelicals, environmentalists and feminist groups may make unlikely bedfellows against cloning.
The conservative coalition has always been broad and diverse. Different people have come together - sometimes swallowing differences - to fight for bigger causes.
UK writers John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge wrote about President Reagan's conservative coalition for The Wall Street Journal:
"Mr. Reagan plainly had no conservative equivalent of Mao's Red Book, no uniform that fitted all his followers. Indeed, the movement that gathered around him (and still gathers around Mr. Bush) was similar to a medieval army, with people wearing the tunics of different causes, such as property rights or the right to life."
But the idea of 'co-belligerence' is most associated with faith groups.
Religious co-belligerence
“There is no inconsistency in evangelicals forming alliances or coalitions with others to address issues on which they can agree. Such a coalition would be temporary in nature and limited in its objectives. It would not commit evangelicals to collaboration on any other issue, nor to any acknowledgement or admission of the correctness or incorrectness of the outlooks of such other groups."
- Rev’d Professor Alister McGrath
Francis Schaeffer, the evangelical Christian thinker and founder of the L’Abri Fellowship, was the first major evangelical leader to encourage Christians to work with other faith communities in opposing the fruits of secularism. Such fruits included the legalisation of abortion and an erosion of family values. Schaeffer encouraged evangelicals to not let theological differences prevent them from working with other faith communities on matters of shared concern. Given the secular drift of Europe and North America, the alliance became known as an “ecumenism of the trenches.”
Vatican II's "Catholic Principles on Ecumenism" permitted Catholics to ally with non-Catholics in pursuit of noble goals. This was something hugely encouraged by the late Pope John Paul II.
Rev’d Jerry Falwell’s American Moral Majority was an early response to Schaeffer’s call. Later came the ‘Catholics and Evangelicals Together’ movement of Chuck Colson and Richard John Neuhaus
Some priority areas for religious co-belligerence
The following themes and quotations are taken from the We Contend Together section of the Colson and Neuhaus declaration.
ABORTION
- “The statement that the unborn child is a human life that - barring natural misfortune or lethal intervention - will become what everyone recognizes as a human baby is not a religious assertion. It is a statement of simple biological fact. That the unborn child has a right to protection, including the protection of law, is a moral statement supported by moral reason and biblical truth.”
OTHER PRO-LIFE ISSUES
- “Abortion is the leading edge of an encroaching culture of death. The helpless old, the radically handicapped, and others who cannot effectively assert their rights are increasingly treated as though they have no rights. These are the powerless who are exposed to the will and whim of those who have power over them. We will do all in our power to resist proposals for euthanasia, eugenics, and population control that exploit the vulnerable, corrupt the integrity of medicine, deprave our culture, and betray the moral truths of our constitutional order.”
- “In public education, we contend together for schools that transmit to coming generations our cultural heritage, which is inseparable from the formative influence of religion, especially Judaism and Christianity. Education for responsible citizenship and social behavior is inescapably moral education. Every effort must be made to cultivate the morality of honesty, law observance, work, caring, chastity, mutual respect between the sexes, and readiness for marriage, parenthood, and family.”
MEDIA STANDARDS
- “We contend together against the widespread pornography in our society, along with the celebration of violence, sexual depravity, and antireligious bigotry in the entertainment media. In resisting such cultural and moral debasement, we recognize the legitimacy of boycotts and other consumer actions, and urge the enforcement of existing laws against obscenity. We reject the self-serving claim of the peddlers of depravity that this constitutes illegitimate censorship. We reject the assertion of the unimaginative that artistic creativity is to be measured by the capacity to shock or outrage. A people incapable of defending decency invites the rule of viciousness, both public and personal.”
- “We contend for public policies that demonstrate renewed respect for the irreplaceable role of mediating structures in society - notably the family, churches, and myriad voluntary associations. The state is not the society, and many of the most important functions of society are best addressed in independence from the state. The role of churches in responding to a wide variety of human needs, especially among the poor and marginal, needs to be protected and strengthened.”
DEMOCRACY AND INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
- “Foreign policy should reflect a concern for the defense of democracy and, wherever prudent and possible, the protection and advancement of human rights, including religious freedom.”
naturally like your website however you need to test the spelling on several of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I in finding it very troublesome to inform the reality however I'll definitely come back again.
リーボック ポンプフューリー http://www.ginalynn.biz/reebok-japan-8.html
Posted by: リーボック ポンプフューリー | January 06, 2014 at 10:52 PM