Religious Practice as Activism?

For years, religious dialog in our society has been usurped by right-wing ideologues. This it true in both in the USA and in Israel. The following cartoon is an excellent commentary of what religious “dialogue” has devolved into:

In response to the religious right digging-in and focusing on a few pet-issues and neglecting other, more basic issues of human rights and human dignity, those issues were championed, largely, by the secular left. (I’m speaking in broad strokes here). Those issues were championed in the name of humanistic values of the enlightenment, based largely on socio-economic, materialistic outlook of life. The voice of God, with a large perspective of life, was missing from the discussion (see my previous blog post).

It was therefore so refreshing to read that this situation may be changing. The headlines of a front-page article from the New York Times this last Sunday (June 11) read: “Religious Liberals Sat Out of Politics for 40 Years. Now they want in the game.”

It’s an excellent article, I hope you’ll read it. The fact that people who are moved by the highest moral ideals of their religion are called to move to the center of the stage of political activism can only be good.
But I will look for yet another development: that religious (or spiritual, if you prefer the term) practice itself will be considered a form of activism. And if this sounds surprising to you, stay tuned, because I intend to blog about it in the very near future.