The Christian Left is Getting Organized

-- Citizenlink by Kim Trobee, correspondent

SUMMARY: A new political group seeks to counter the Christian right.

The Christian Alliance for Progress is aligned with the political left and its leaders make it clear the goal is to counteract the strong conservative and pro-life views of most Christian organizations.

The Rev. Timothy Simpson, the new group's director of religious affairs, said the religious right has been successful in using the language of faith to promote what he called a "divisive agenda."

"We understand the Gospel in very different ways," he said, "and believe even further that the demands of the Gospel in areas of public policy are quite different from the direction that's being taken by the religious right."

Simpson said that different direction includes a stand in favor of abortion."I'm not willing to extend rights to a fetus that would trump the rights of a desperate woman," he said. "I don't think our organization is either."

Billy McCormack, senior pastor of University Worship Center in Shreveport, La., and a charter board member of the Christian Coalition, is disgusted with the new alliance."They're trying to legitimize their baselessness with a cloak of religion," he said. "It's not progress at all. It's an invitation to a downwards moral and spiritual decline."

The new group said it plans to go up against the Christian Coalition. Its president, Roberta Combs, said she takes that as a compliment."That just proves that the Christian Coalition has been very effective for the last 13 years," she said.