Lakoff on religion as an activator of progressive models for seeing world:

George Lakoff says that up until about 1920, Christians debated whether god was conceptualized within, essentially, a strict father framework or a nurturant father framework. The fundamentalists won that debate in 1920 (probably, in my opinion, because the fears of the disruption to traditional families by women's rights) and since then progressive Christians haven't taken up the argument, thus leaving the playing field to the fundamentalists' strict father god.

Nonetheless, Lakoff says that a majority of the 80% of Americans who consider themselves Christians consider themselves progressive or liberal.

Lakoff says that the crazy thing about this, however, is that when you ask progressive Christians to try to articulate their theologies, they can't do it. He says that when he does field research on them, he can very easily identify their theology, but if you ask them to explain it for themselves they can't say anything coherent. He tells them what he thinks it is, light bulbs go off and they all say, "YES, THAT'S IT EXACTLY!!!"

Lakoff says that that is an indication of how miserably progressives fail when it comes to organizing churches and organizing that huge percentage of Americans who are inclined to see both politics and religion through a progressive framework and for whom activating the metaphors for politics by using the same metaphors for which they think about religion would go a very long way to solidifying them as a coalition that votes for progressive politicians.

I think you could say a similar thing about politics as well as religion. I think a lot of people who think of themselves as not being Republicans have a hard time explaining their political philosophy, and I think that's as big a problem. I think if all those soccer moms who became security moms had a better idea about why they were voting for Democrats in the first place, they wouldn't have so easily abandoned the Democratic Party last year.

we need.

Lakoff may not have a lock on the exact frame to use in every situation, but he is the only "Luntz" working our side of the street. I wish less time was spent by our "leaders" actively ignoring him.

Democrats spend almost zero time trying to link up political philosopy and theology in the popular conscience? God's Politics by Jim Wallis is the ONLY place you see anyone making the links, and he is a speck on the back of a flea on Dobson's back.

Linking conervative politics and religion is a billion dollar a year industry and it still doesn't convince a majority of christians to become fascists.

There's obviously a lot of room to make huge gains with small invesments of time, energy and money.

:-)

As a progressive Christian, I'd like to read more. Any suggestions would be welcomed! Thanks.

An interview with Lakoff from Sierra Magazine:

Sierra: Does conventional religion offer any openings?

Lakoff: It's important to understand the theology behind liberal Christianity.
Liberal Christianity is based on a nurturant morality. Its central
concept is that of grace. You can be filled with grace, it protects
you, heals you, you have to be close to God to get grace. You can't
earn grace, you must accept it. It's metaphorical nurturance. And
there are many more liberal Christians than conservative Christians.


http://liberalchristians.blogspot.com/2005/02/winning-words-george-lakoff-says.html



At the moment, progressives tend to organize around particular issues and causes: a sustainable environment, anti-war and peace organizations, labor rights, women's rights, human rights, and so on. Groups working on particular issues often form coalitions that are based on common self-interest to work toward a particular program or policy initiative. But these coalitions are usually short term because once the program or policy is either achieved or is unsuccessful, there is no further basis for ongoing cooperation. Coalitions come apart readily because it is very common for groups to have substantial differences about policy details or tactics. And coalitions are hard to maintain over time since groups often compete with each other for limited funding and resources, creating counterproductive tension.


What is needed is a focus on creating a progressive values movement that recognizes the shared values that define who progressives are, and that encompasses the work done by groups working on many different issue areas and programs. Recognizing the importance of higher-level values, principles, and policy directions can help progressives overcome common differences about policy details and tactics so that more enduring progressive goals can be achieved.

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/rockridge/valuesmovement


And if you honestly look at Unitarian Universalism, we stand very clearly as a religious tradition within the nurturant parent model. Our 7 Principles make this obviously clear: to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, to promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations, to support the goal of a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all, to respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.


It is my opinion that with the rise of the strict father model, America is shedding its greatest values in the name of fear. It is my opinion that progressive values as represented by the nurturant parent model, equality, fairness, fulfillment, respect, dialogue, the protection of children and the marginalized, are the foundational ideals of this nation. It is my opinion that we must, we must stand up and protect these values… as if it were our very own child that was being threatened. And we must do so by speaking such values, living such values, and supporting organizations that represent such values. But let us remember, if we are drawn into divisiveness, into disrespect of our opponents, into fear, then the strict father wins. We must win using our nurturant values or we will not win at all.


I encourage you to explore further and begin by reading George Lakoff’s book, Don’t Think of an Elephant. And I encourage us to think very clearly about how this religious community can play a role in bringing the nurturant family model back into prominence.


May we have the strength to be so brave.

http://www.uuprinceton.org/sermon-11-28-2004.htm

and what Lakoff says is simply not true. His field of specialty is a long way off from religion and theology (its linguistics), so he should be careful not to make these broad sweeping statements about something he evidently knows very little about. Has he never heard of Reinhold Niebuhr?

The voices in progressive religion seem quiet because they haven't taken up the tools of televangelism and corporatizing churches- they haven't been out trying to convert the masses- conversion and evangelism don't fit very well with the liberal ideology. Having been in both kinds of churches myself, I think it is much more accurate to say that fundamentalists are much more concerned with precision in how you say what you believe- "Do you believe in the authority of the Bible?" and "Do you know where you will go if you die tonight?" than liberals. But the connections they make between faith and politics are intellectually very fragile and dont hold up well under rational scrutiny.

The liberal churches are very active right now in addressing issues of peace and justice and they have always had a firm intellectual foundation for it. The media doesn't cover it. I think its fair to say that liberal churches aren't reaching the masses, but that's a very different thing than saying "if you ask them to explain it for themselves they can't say anything coherent". The incoherence is on the right. Lakoff must not know how to find a liberal/ progressive Christian.

Its much like saying John Kerry had no positions on anything because his positions were too nuanced to cover in sound bites.

http://www.religionlink.org/

...I'm not sure with what you're disagreeing.

James Dobson is one of the most syndicated programs on the radio. He gets so much mail he has his own zip code. He reaches something like 20,000,000 Americans every week. Throw in the 700 Club which uses its theology to mediate people's understanding of the news. All that adds up to RW churches being able to pound home very simply theological frameworks. As a result, when you ask RW church members to explain their theology, they don't stumble over what they stand for. They know what the believe. They can translate their theology into their understanding of politics and of how their own families work because Dobson and the 700 Club explain every day to them how to do that.

There's nothing like that on the left.

Lakoff says that he has actually done field work on the linguistics of religion. He is an expert in that area and I don't know how you can say that he's not an expert in interviewing people and interpreting the fact that liberal christians have a very hard time tranlating their feelings into an articulation of their theology that is as coherent and consistent as the theology that conservative Christians articulate. There is nothing like Dobson and the 700 Club on the left and the Demcoratic Party and progressive think tanks spend no time trying to organize churches.

As you say, lliberal churches aren't reaching the masses (as Dobson and Falwell and the 700 Club are) and there are definite consequences to that. They are the consequences that Lakoff's research has revealed.

Also, Lakoff wasn't testing "fragility" and "rationality" of theology. No matter how strong andn rational liberal christians are compared to conservative christians, conservative christians had a much better idea of what they believed in than liberal christians. It doesn't matter if what they beleive is fragile and irrational. At leas they can say what they believe and use it to interpret the world around on them in a way that is consistent.

on the left. That medium is less compatible with the beliefs of the left- they are not authoritarian, and they are more tolerant of diversity within and among the churches on the left. There is no need for the left wing of religion to start acting like the right- their message is more complex and it is delivered by different means.

There is a whole field of study called religion, which includes hundreds of theological schools for training ministers as well as elite Divinity Schools like Harvard and Yale and University of Chicago and Emory and Vanderbilt. The scholarly study of religion tends to be liberal, and its ideas are passed down through churches and books and schools. Any person trained in such a program is going to be very articulate as to what their beliefs are regarding politics and theology. A person who belongs to a liberal church but isn't all that interested in politics may not have as much to say. There is a spectrum and by and large, people in the liberal churches are more educated and less gullible and more tolerant of a diversity of beliefs. They understand the complexity of interpreting the Bible, whereas Christians on the right tend not to. Academics can have huge blind spots. I get the feeling Lakoff doesn't know that these millions exist.

The beliefs on the right are highly rational and consistent but also circular. There is an answer for everything and they tend not to see the contradictions between the different sets of mental furniture that they have adopted. In particular, the Christian right seems to view wealth as a spritual reward, which is opposite to Biblical teaching. They are at odds with the technological view of the world, even while they embrace the mass media snd exploit its technologies. They tend to take the word of powerful male authority figures as a basis for belief, whereas liberals will make their own decisions based upon a lot more investigation.

The left needs to speak up but it would be utterly inconsistent for them to behave like the right. The message and means are different.

A majority of them consider themselves liberal rather than conservative.

Lakoff didn't go around to the University of Chicago, Yale and Harvard to ask professors and grad students what their theology was.

He was trying to figure out what the liberal majority of American Christians thought about their theology.

Lakoff is clearly not saying that these people don't exist. In fact, his premise is that there are millions of them, and that there are more of them than there are conservatives christians.

He did field work on the way they conceptualize their theology through language. That's his expertise.

At the risk of sounding like an ass, I think the fact that you study religion at the graduate level is preventing you from seeing the forest for the trees. Just because Lakoff's background isn't in religious studies doesn't mean that there's little that he can offer by way of a study of language. And, furthermore, your objections don't really match what I'm trying to tell you.

Lakoff wasn't saying that there aren't coherent liberal theologies out there. He's only saying that those theologies aren't not filtering down to the +40% of Americans who are inclined to be receptive towards them. I'm not sure that you're disagreeing with that. In fact, you seem to be saying as much.

So, stop being so territorial about Religious Studies. There might be something in Lakoff's (admittedly, very general) conclusions that might help you be an effective progressive with a religious studies background.

One more thing: Lakoff isn't saying that the left needs a 700 Club. He's just saying that there needs to be more research and discussion about liberal theology and that there should be a greater attempt to help it reach more people. If Soros et al are willing to put 100s of millions into ActUp, maybe they have a couple million to spend supporting research like Jim Wallsis's and maybe they have a couple million to start a publishing house, and to fund seminars and think tanks that focus on this issue. The right does that, and there's nothing wrong with that kind of stuff. That stuff doesn't demean the message. And what would be wrong if there were a liberal TV priest? So long as they don't ask you to turn over their life savings, I think there would be a lot to gain by having someone on TV or on the radio talking about liberal theology.

I don't know what his methods are either but I doubt seriously that they'd be repeatable in any scientific sense. If his conclusions sound like he missed something to people who know a lot more about the territory he's sampling then maybe he missed something. Its like visiting a foreign country- you may be an expert to the people who've never been there but you'll never be an expert to the people who live there.

Its not up to people who are outside of religion to dictate to them what their message and methods should be. It strikes me as a little hollow for folks who have no interest in religion whatsoever - who are totally external to it- to suddenly start calling on churches of one ilk or another to speak up and start getting their message out or start fundraising. The liberal churches do not exist to serve the needs of liberal politics. Real religion works from the inside out, not the other way around.

...when he says he did field work on this that he's using methodology that is the benchmark for other linguists.

Your logic is a little strange here. You say that a linguist shouldn't be studying religion because he isn't trained in religious studies, but now you're saying that you'd trust a religious studies professors linguistic analysis? But religious studies professors don't do linguistics?

This is more like a linguist visisting a foreign country and doing a study on linguistics in that foreign country rather than a study on history or art. Lakoff is totally within his field of expertise here.

Furthermore, like I said above, your argument is more like you don't believe that there isn't any left theologian who can't provide a coherent articulation of their theology (and your evidence is that there are plenty at Harvard, Yale and Chicago who can). That's not what Lakoff says. He says that the AVERAGE liberal christian (the member of the +40% of Americans) has a harder time explaining their theology relative to the average conservative chrisian.

I'll probably check out his book.

(I've got plenty of theological resources already)