The conference on spiritual activism

Want an Alternative to the Religious Right?

Then help us build it! Then Come to the Conference, Read The Left Hand of God,  Join The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)

Washington, D.C. Conference '06

2005 Press Coverage
2005 Audio Recordings

May 17-20,  2006 Washington, D.C.

Building on the July, 2005 conference in Berkeley, this will be the National conference to launch a prophetic spiritual politics agenda to the media and the politicians in D.C. and to train organizers who will take the agenda into their communities. The conference will also celebrate the release of Rabbi Michael Lerner's new book The Left Hand of God, with its proposed Spiritual Covenant for America and the release of the paper back version of Jim Wallis' God's Politics.

We will bring the Spiritual Covenant for America (based in part on the conversations that took place at the July 2005 conference and developed into a platform in Rabbi Lerner's The Left Hand of God) to the attention of the U.S. Congress and the liberal and progressive forces headquartered in D.C.

The Religious Right has dominated public discourse because it has managed to portray itself as the force that genuinely cares about the spiritual crisis that permeates American life. Yet the Religious Right uses the legitimacy it gets from articulating spiritual needs to support a political program that includes militarism and the war in Iraq, reducing the taxes on rich people while eliminating badly needed social programs for the poor, rejecting international agreements to combat global warming (thereby contributing to a series of environmental disasters like the increased ferocity and frequency of destructive hurricanes), and divisive assaults on the rights of women and homosexuals.

Unfortunately, liberals and progressives, even when they try to articulate an alternative program, too often revert to a technocratic and economistic alternatives that miss the spiritual dimension of human needs. That is why we are building a movement of spiritual progressives that is both a challenge to the Right and to the anti-religious and anti-spiritual tendencies within some parts of the Left.

Our conference is part of that process, and we will be highlighting a Spiritual Covenant with America that is as much an alternative to the tepid and visionless rhetoric of some sections of establishment liberals as it is to the moral insensitivity of some sections of the Right. Our perspective is unabashedly visionary and "unrealistic" in the sense that it challenges the contemporary denizens of political realism and insists that the challenges facing the human race today require a major jump in consciousness and poltiical courage. We are honored to be working with All Souls Church, which has a rich history of social justice ministry.

The full agenda of the conference will not be ready till March, but our experience at our first conference in July of 2005 indicates that we will fill up on the available spaces very quickly, so we urge people to register as soon as they can, and to spread the word to friends and others around the country who they think ought to be here, particularly their religious or spiritual leaders, their political leaders and elected representatives, and social change activists and spiritual activists.

Important note on process: At the last conference we sought to democratically empower work groups to come up with a platform. A few of them worked to make some important contributions, many others did not. The concensus of the feedback we got was that this would not be a workable way to develop a platform. So, we've decided instead to use the time betweeen now and our third conference (one tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2007), to do two things; a. Use the Spiritual Covenant with America that appears in the book The Left Hand of God (and which was compiled in part in response to the discussions that took place at the first conference) as the tentative platform and to use it as the foundation both for our initial educating of Congress and the liberal and progressive forces that we hope to do in our conference in DC May 17-20, 2006 and as the foundation for subsequent discussion in local NSP and Tikkun Community chapters over the course of the next 20 months leading up to the Fall of 2007, at which time we hope to have our national office consolidate all the feedback we've received, integrate it into a slightly revised platform agenda, and have that discussed at the national conference, then re-discussed at the local level in chapters, and then finally a draft based on all this feedback submitted for vote by the membership through a mail or email ballot. In the meantime, and till the beginning of 2008, the Spiritual Covenant with America will function as our public platform, and the book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right will serve as the intepretive frame for understanding the full dimensions explicit and imp[icit in the Spiritual Covenant.

VERY VERY VERY TENTATIVE AGENDA:

Agenda for the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives’  Conference on Spiritual Activism,

Tentative Agenda : Conference on Spiritual Activism,
May 17-20, 2006  All Souls Church, Washington D.C.

Wednesday, May 17

8:00 am Registration
9:00 am  Opening Religious/Spiritual Rituals.
10:00 am Introduction to the Conference: Robyn Thomas and Rev. Robert Hardies
10:30-12:00 am Understanding Spiritual Politics Sister Joan Chittister, Peter  Gabel and Harvey Cox
12:oo-12:30 pm  Small Groups and then:
12;30-1:30 pm     Lunch with small groups
1:30-3:15 pm    Keynote Plenary: Rabbi Michael Lerner and U.S. Senator Barack Obama*
3:30-5:15 pm    Trainings focused on the Spiritual Covenant with America to prepare participants for presenting these ideas to their elected representatives
5:30-6:30 pm    Workshops on spiritual politics
6:30-8:00 pm    Dinner break
8:00-11    :00 pm    Concert and speakers on the Role of Spirit and Religion in Politics Rev. William Sinkford, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, Abdul Aziz Said, Rabbi Brian Walt, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, Rev. Tony Campolo

Thursday, May 18

7:30-9:00 am    Prayer breakfast to pray for our country and its leadership, and to pray for receptivity to the Spiritual Covenant with America Jim Wallis*
9:00-1:00 pm    Teach-in to Congress on Spiritual Politiics at the Capitol Building 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Individual meetings with elected representatives by participants
1:00-3:00 pm     Pray-in for peace outside the White House
3:30 pm Workshops on spiritual politics
5:00-6:30 pm   The Struggle for the Heart & Mind of Traditional Religious Communities Rev. Paul Sherry. Rev. Jim Winkler, Glen Harold Stassen, and more
6:30-7:30 pm    Dinner break with small groups,
7:30-8:15 pm    Song and Inspiration from Holly Near and All Souls Choir
8:15-9:30 pm    Iraq and New Visions for Foreign Policy Cindy Sheehan
9:30-10:30 pm    Evening Plenary: How to Make the Liberal World Diverse Not Only in Race, Sex and Gender, but also in Class and  Religious Orientation Rev. Lynice Pinkard, Rabbi Arthur Waskow
10:30-12:00 pm    Young People’s concert and discussions

Friday, May 19

7:30-9:00 am   Spiritual and Religious Practices
9:00 am    Plenary on Science, Spirituality and Evolution  
10:30 am    Plenary on Spirituality and Sexuality  Rev. Ama Zenya, Rev. Donna Schaper, Rabbi Debora Kohn, Rev. Penny Nixon
12:00 Noon    Small group meetings and lunch
1:30 pm        Plenary on How to Bring a Spiritual Poltiics into the Heart of the Democrats and into the Liberal and Progressive Social Change Movements.  Directions for 2006, 2008 and beyond. Christopher Hedges,
        and many more
3:30 pm    Workshops focused on the Spiritual Covenant with Americans
5:00 pm    Workshops on Spiritual Politics
6:30 pm    Dinner Break
7:30 pm    Shabbat Service
8:00 pm    Evening Plenary:  Spiritual Progressives Facing The Globalization of Selfishness (the globalization of capital, the environmental crisis)  Charlene Spretnak , Jonathan Granoff, Robert Thurman, and more.

Saturday, May 20

 
9:oo am    Spiritual Practices: Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Native American and Jewish Shabbat Services
9-10:30 am    Other Spiritual workshops
10:30-11 am    Small group meetings 11 a.m. Plenary:  The War in Iraq and the Spiritual Contribution to an AntiWar Movement. Speaker: Cornel West, Arun Gandhi             
12:15 pm    Small groups and lunch
2:00 pm    Summaries of discussions on the Spiritual Covenant with Americans
3:30 pm    Strategies for the NSP in the coming year
5:30 pm    Dinner break
7:30 pm    Poetry
8:00 pm    Human Rights, Spiritual Wisdom and Planetary Sanity: Roshi Bernie Glassman, Harry Knox, Michael Posner, Thea  Levokowitz and Pamela Taylor Evening Concert Performance from the play "Motherblood," humor from Swami Beyondonanda and music from Michael Franti.

•    Invited but not yet confirmed

Workshops

Among the workshops being presented at the conference:

*   Spiritual Economics. What would an economy look like that was guided by our highest spiritual vision? Alana Hartzok and John Surr and more

*   The Spiritual Crisis in Our Lives Generated by the War in Iraq Stacy Bannerman

*   Non-Violence Training  Janet Chishold, Episcopal Peace Fellowship

*   Ecology and Spirituality  John Seed

*   Torture: Building a Spiritual/Religious Campaign Against Torture Rabbi Brian Walt

*   A New Bottom Line in Professions: Peter Gabel and Nanette Schorr

*   War and Pacifism: A Progressive Evangelical Christian Approach:  Michael J. Gorman, Ph.D., Dean,

*   Religion and Faith in the GLBT Community, Harry Knox, Director, Religion and Faith Program, Human Rights Campaign

*   End of Life Decisions: Barbara Coombs Lee and others

*   The Right Wing Assault in Protestant Denominations: How can progressives most effectively counter the attempts of the Right to splinter the Protestant world and assault those who take seriously Biblical injunctions to pursue justice and peace?

*    Rebuilding the Spiritual Life of Clergy: Changing the Bottom Line in our churches, synagogues and faith-based institutions.

•    Youth Caucus: creating a progressive spiritual culture for twenty- and early thirty-somethings-and reaching out to high school and college students.
•    Spiritual but not Religious People Uniting with Progressive Religious Folk!

More conference workshops:

• Progressive Pro-Families Agenda. How can spiritual wisdom change social policy to build strong and loving families-and resist the commercialization of childhood?
• Ending the war in Iraq
• Aging and Death: How can we restructure society to show more respect for the aging, combat the notion that people are only valued when they can be "useful" to the economy, learn from the wisdom of our elders, plan for retirements that provide opportunities for meaningful and fulfilling late life experiences, and support those who are facing death?
• First Amendment:  Will introducing spiritual and religious discourse into social policy and politics undermine the 1st Amendment and the value of the separation clause?
• Spirit and Money: What is a holy way to deal with finances, investments, and legacies?
• Rediscovering Awe: What a life and society that responded with awe and wonder could be like.
• Healing Israel/Palestine  How can we use spiritual wisdom to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian struggle?
• Darfur and other genocides: Is there a non-violent way to protect people under assault?
• The Labor Movement: What would a spiritually sensitive labor movement look like, and what could be done to challenge the materialist-reductionist concensus ("all our members really care about are wages and retirment benefits") that currently dominates unions?
• AIDS and Other Crises. How can our spiritual wisdom support our approach to dealing with pandemics?
• Media Cynicism Versus Religion and Spirituality: How can we support media people with a spiritual/religious sensibility to claim their right to challenge the cynicism that often dominates the newsrooms and commercial programming in the media?
• The Challenge of Islamic Fundamentalism. How can we best support the voices for peace, tolerance and social justice in the Islamic world?
• Jewish and Christian Fundamentalism: Rethinking Biblical Interpretation
• Women’s Spirituality: Learning from the rich legacy of women’s spiritual experience and integrating that back into religious communities
• Buddhist Spiritual Insights How this wisdom can contribute to social healing
• Creating an Authentic Progressive Catholic Spirituality
• Jewish Renewal
• Hindu Spiritual Wisdom
• The Wisdom of Native Americans
• The African American Church as a Model of Integrating Spiritual and Political Ways of Serving God
• Saving Christmas from the Religious Right
• Evolution and Intelligent Design as an entry into the relationship between science and religion
• Practicum in Building Local Chapters of a Network of Spiritual Progressives
• Challenging Liberal Cynicism about God and Spirituality-in the academy, in social change movements, and in liberal culture
• "Spiritual but not Religious"-How to create a movement that has room for those whose connection to God and the spiritual wisdom of humanity is done outside traditional religious communities and without the theo-centric language that suggests hierarchical and patriarchal visions of God?
• Facing Evil without denying Hope

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More on the conference:

Ideas Matter

The Right gained power by popularizing its world view in both major political parties. The NSP (Network of Spiritual Progressives) has a powerful alternative. We can help educate the progressive and liberal world with a new vision that will reach into the hearts of the American people.

At our conference in July and in subsequent discussions in our chapters we developed a core vision that is fully articulated in Michael Lerner’s book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right. We urge you to create a study group in your community, church, synagogue, union, professional organization, or neighborhood. You’ll find Lerner’s book an easy way to introduce a progressive spiritual vision with details about what that would mean in restructuring American domestic and foreign policy.

•    We also urge you to read: Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics, Sharon Welch’s After Empire, Peter Gabel’s The Bank Teller and Other Essays on the Politics of Meaning,  Tony Campolo’s Speaking My Mind, Marjorie Kelly’s The Divine Right of Capital, Jonanthan Schell’s The Unconquerable World, Cornel West’s Democracy Matters,  Joan Chittister’s Called to Question, Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus, Kirk J. Schneider’s Rediscovery of Awe, Rosemary Ruether’s Gaia and God, Charlene Spretnak’s The Resurgence of the Real, Glen H. Stassen’s Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, Seyyed Hosein Nasr’s The Heart of Islam, Riane Eisler’s The Partnership Society, Robert Thurman’s Inner Revolution, Sharon Salzberg’s Lovingkindness, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Essential Writings, Michael Shellenberger’s The Death of Environmentalism, Michael Nagler’s In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Mona West’s Take Back the Word,  Mary A. Tolbert’s Reading From this Place, Ivan Petrella’s collection Latine American Liberation Theology, Matthew Fox’s A New Reformation, Arthur Waskow’s Down to Earth Judaism, David Cooper’s God is a Verb,  the writings of all our speakers at this conference, and the articles that appear every two months in Tikkun magazine, which provides a continuing source for new ideas and debates about progressive spiritual politics (and which you receive as gift when you join The Network of Spiritual Progressives).  Start building your study group with The Left Hand of God, then go on study these other works. When we see people in every political party capitulating to the logic of the warmakers and those who think salvation comes from endless economic growth and the globalization of selfishness and materialism we know that winning the battle of ideas and speaking to the hearts of Americans  is the central task for healing and transforming our society.

Please read: The Left Hand of God.  Here’s why:

"In The Left Hand of God Rabbi Michael Lerner articulates an important vision for the progressive movement in this country, a vision of hope that taps into the spiritual needs of all people. The left has kept such views personal while the Religious Right has often times distorted values into divisive policies that trample on civil rights, economic and social equity, the environment, and even our security. Rabbi Lerner’s Spiritual Covenant with America offers a guideline to refocus priorities on core values that will help the American voter and political leaders concentrate on real values that come from spirituality…peace and security, economic fairness, environmental protection, and civil liberties."
-Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives
 
"Michael Lerner, with his passion and shrewdness, offers a manifesto that could correct restore a humane sanity to our common life. Rooted in a wise understanding of both theology and political economy, Lerner presents a practical and compelling vision of a politics of generosity.  This book has a freshness that transcends quarrelsome ideology and liberal chiche`s, and articulates a vision and theology of hope that deserves our serious attention."
-Walter Brueggemann  Prof. of Christian Theology and Author, The Prophetic Imagination

"Michael Lerner is one of America’s most important spiritual teachers, a contemporary prophet whose insightful and visionary thinking has already had a profound impact on American culture and thought."
-Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of God’s Politics

"America desperately needs a revitalization of spirit to lend wisdom and compassion to our economic and political life.  Rabbi Michael Lerner’s book is a visionary and powerful response to this urgent need. The Left Hand of God shows us how we can embrace our deep interconnectedness and become God’s partners in the healing and transformation of the world."
-Richard Gere  Actor and Buddhist Activist

"In this book Michael Lerner challenges both Right and Left to wake up and create a new politics that is respectful of our deepest shared values and aspirations. He challenges stuck-thinking on the left that fails to address the spiritual dimension of the human condition. The "Spiritual Covenant with America" presented in The Left Hand of God deserves enthusiastic support.
This book is a timely, forceful, provocative and deep analysis of the political malaise of our time-it pulsates with life and spirit and the passion of the prophets of old. Please read it!"
-Matthew Fox  Former Catholic Priest silenced by the Pope, and author of a dozen ooks of Catholic theology including Original Blessing.
 
Please read: The Left Hand of God.  Here’s why:

"In The Left Hand of God Rabbi Michael Lerner articulates an important vision for the progressive movement in this country, a vision of hope that taps into the spiritual needs of all people. The left has kept such views personal while the Religious Right has often times distorted values into divisive policies that trample on civil rights, economic and social equity, the environment, and even our security. Rabbi Lerner’s Spiritual Covenant with America offers a guideline to refocus priorities on core values that will help the American voter and political leaders concentrate on real values that come from spirituality…peace and security, economic fairness, environmental protection, and civil liberties."
-Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives
 
"Michael Lerner, with his passion and shrewdness, offers a manifesto that could correct restore a humane sanity to our common life. Rooted in a wise understanding of both theology and political economy, Lerner presents a practical and compelling vision of a politics of generosity.  This book has a freshness that transcends quarrelsome ideology and liberal chiche`s, and articulates a vision and theology of hope that deserves our serious attention."
-Walter Brueggemann  Prof. of Christian Theology and Author, The Prophetic Imagination

"Michael Lerner is one of America’s most important spiritual teachers, a contemporary prophet whose insightful and visionary thinking has already had a profound impact on American culture and thought."
-Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of God’s Politics

"America desperately needs a revitalization of spirit to lend wisdom and compassion to our economic and political life.  Rabbi Michael Lerner’s book is a visionary and powerful response to this urgent need. The Left Hand of God shows us how we can embrace our deep interconnectedness and become God’s partners in the healing and transformation of the world."
-Richard Gere  Actor and Buddhist Activist

"In this book Michael Lerner challenges both Right and Left to wake up and create a new politics that is respectful of our deepest shared values and aspirations. He challenges stuck-thinking on the left that fails to address the spiritual dimension of the human condition. The "Spiritual Covenant with America" presented in The Left Hand of God deserves enthusiastic support.
This book is a timely, forceful, provocative and deep analysis of the political malaise of our time-it pulsates with life and spirit and the passion of the prophets of old. Please read it!"
-Matthew Fox  Former Catholic Priest silenced by the Pope, and author of a dozen ooks of Catholic theology including Original Blessing.
 
•    Rabbi Michael Lerner introduces a fundamentally new approach to what it would mean to take spiritual needs seriously in our economic and spiritual lives.
•    This not only the wisdom that is needed for liberals and progressives to win elections-it is a profound new social theory that incorporates, synthesizes and applies to politics the great wisdom of the spiritual and religious  traditions of the human race, as well as feminist and queer theory, post-critical theory, integral psychology and philosophy, and environmental theory, applies them to the most pressing issues we face in our economy, health care system, education, environment and foreign policy. And it is easy to read . It’s written in a way that even our most spiritually challenged journalists, t.v. talking heads,  and elected representatives could understand (if they could momentarily overcome the cynicism that keeps them tied to the self-destructive realities of the contemporary world, and prevents them from understanding that the imprisonment without trial, torture of suspects, invasion of personal privacy of ordinary Americans, and insistence that the President is above both American and international law is not just another perverse set of policies but a clear and present danger to the survival of the America that we love). Tell your friends to read it too-and come to the Conference on Spiritual Activism, May 17-20, in Washington, D.C. where we will present its ideas to Congress and national opinion-shapers.
"Michael Lerner is the most significant prophetic public intellectual and spiritual leader of our generation. The Left Hand of God is a powerful and intellectually compelling contribution to social and political theory and to an understanding of the psychodynamics of American politics. Secular intellectuals and those who yearn for a major change in the direction of American society must read this book-and join with religious and spiritual people to build the kind of strategy Lerner develops. Share these ideas with everyone you know-because just sharing these profound ideas that Lerner presents in such an accessible manner is itself a great contribution you could make to healing our country. "-
Cornel West, Princeton U. Prof. of Religion  and author, Race Matters

"Michael Lerner is a rare voice of sanity and intelligence in a nation where our moral values have been corrupted by the greed of the market and the ambitions of empire. He gives eloquent voice to our yearning for a union of the spiritual and the rational in the quest for peace and justice."

Howard Zinn, author, A People’s History of the United States

"An insightful, inspiring book by Rabbi Lerner that can put America back on track."
Arun Gandhi, president, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

"The Left Hand of God is wonderful political Dharma for American Buddhists, cultural creatives, and naturally spiritual secular humanists. I hope it will be studied carefully by anyone who wants peace of mind, freedom from unnecessary suffering, and spiritual depth and who recognizes that those can only be achieved through the careful balancing of individual change with social change.

"This is an enormously important book. It confronts head-on the spiritual crisis we are  experiencing, analyzes  incisively  how it is being manipulated by the united religious and political Rights in their campaign to conquer America and then the world, and  then  turns, with Lerner's usual inspiring optimism,  to practical  steps  we can take - we must take - to launch a spiritual revolution and save this beautiful planet. Study it carefully, enjoy it, get involved, become a spiritual activist, and have a deeper fun while saving the world!"

Robert Thurman, Chair, Department of Religion, Columbia University President, Tibet House US, Author of Inner Revolution, Infinite Life, and Jewel Tree of Tibet.
 
"A brilliant and penetrating analysis of the way religion is now used politically to justify military conflict, the degradation of the environment, the violation of religious liberty, the rights of women and homosexuals and the accumulation of vast wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Michael Lerner comes through these pages like a modern day Amos. The religious world needs to heed his message."
•    John Shelby Spong, former Episocpal

Directions

All Souls is located at 1500 Harvard St., NW. The main entrance to the sanctuary is at the corner of 16th and Harvard Streets, where the neighborhoods of Columbia Heights, Adams-Morgan, and Mount Pleasant come together.

ARRIVING BY METRORAIL:

The closest Metro stop is the Columbia Heights station on the Green Line. As you exit the turnstyles, take the escalators to the left or the elevator. When you arrive at the top, you may walk south two blocks on 14th St. and make a right on Harvard St. The Church will be one block on your left. The church is the large red brick building with the clock tower at 15th and Harvard. To plan your trip, use the RideGuide. For a Metro system map, visit Metro's web site.

ARRIVING BY CAR:

From points South:
Take 95 to 395 North over the 14th Street Bridge.
Take 14th Street, and turn left onto R street.
Turn right onto 16th Street.
Turn right onto Harvard Street. The church is on the right.

From Route 66 or Route 50:
Take Rte 50/66 to the Roosevelt Bridge.
Exit onto E Street.
Turn left on 18th Street and stay in the right lane.
Turn right onto Columbia Road.
Cross 16th Street. The church is on the right at Harvard and 16th.

From 495 and points North:
Take 495 to the Georgia Avenue exit.
Stay in the far right lane, and veer onto 16th Street.
Turn right onto Harvard Street.
Make an immediate U-turn on the left to Columbia Road.
Cross 16th Street, and the church is on the right.

Parking is available at the Upper Cardozo Health Center behind the Columbia Heights Metro at 14th and Irving Streets. To get to the health center, turn into the lot off 14th St., between the Metro station and the health center, just south of Irving St.