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Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right
Simon and Schuster
September 2006
On Sale: September 5, 2006
272 pages ISBN: 0743289498 EAN: 9780743289498 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Religion
The radical religious right has put the wrong issues at the
top of the moral agenda for America, says Bob Edgar, the
general secretary of the National Council of Churches USA
and a former six-term congressman. The moral issues that
really matter to America's faithful majority -- to "Middle
Church" -- says Edgar, are peace, poverty, and planet Earth.
Middle Church is a stirring call to progressive people of
faith to take back the moral high ground from the right-wing
extremists and make America a better -- not a more divided
-- country. The Bible seldom mentions homosexuality, doesn't mention
abortion at all, but discusses poverty and peace more than
two thousand times. But despite the Bible's emphasis on
issues of social justice, the politics of faith have been
captured in this country by a radical minority with its
narrow and highly divisive agenda emphasizing personal piety
above all else. This limited agenda is built around
opposition to gay marriage, abortion, and stem-cell
research, rather than the timeless and unifying themes of
the Bible. In a stunning reversal of the historic role of
religion in progressive change, faith has now been co-opted
into a force for preemptive war, indifference to the poor,
and reckless environmental degradation. In Middle Church, Bob Edgar reclaims faith for the American
mainstream. He rebuts the distorted arguments of the far
religious right and instead offers progressive solutions
grounded in Scripture behind which most Americans can unite.
He reminds us that Jesus preached mainly about the poor and
that social justice and peace were at the heart of his
ministry. Edgar agrees that all Americans have a right to
bring the values of their faiths to bear on the policies of
our government. But faith, as he shows, should lead to
progressive solutions for the defining moral issues of our
time: peace, poverty, and planet Earth. Middle Church
identifies the common ground on which people of faith --
Christians, Jews, and Muslims -- can unite and shows how
this faithful majority can put tolerance, social justice,
and love at the top of the political agenda in this country
once again.
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