Dear Friends,
Welcome to the launch of the Reclaiming Hope newsletter on Substack! We’re happy to be here, and welcome our subscribers from our previous email service. To all new readers and potential subscribers: welcome! This newsletter is for everyone who is interested in faith and Christianity, American politics and/or the intersection of the two. This newsletter is received by a community of pastors, politicians, journalists, people of faith who are interested in current events, and political watchers who want to understand the role of faith in the news of the day.
We invest hours of work each week into bringing you this newsletter that will help you start off your week more informed about our politics and the role of faith in America. Hopefully, you’ll be encouraged and inspired as well.
If you subscribe, each week on Monday morning we’ll bring you:
A round-up of top faith news and happenings, with a focus on American Christianity.
Top news from the 2020 election cycle, but from a faith angle.
Top US political news, also from a faith angle.
Top five articles for your week, with a focus on content that has a long-range view on society and public life.
Michael will provide exclusive insight and analysis on the week’s news, including the 2020 race, available nowhere else but here in this newsletter.
If you decide to stick with our free version, you can expect five top articles delivered to your inbox each Monday instead. For this week, all subscribers will receive the full newsletter. Starting next week, only paid subscribers will receive the full newsletter.
We hope you’ll join us and please tell your friends! You can subscribe here: reclaiminghope.substack.com/subscribe
We also love to hear from our subscribers. Email newsletter@michaelwear.com
Reclaim hope this week,
Michael and Melissa
Faith in the news
Jonathan Merritt wrote a moving personal essay about Palm Sunday, which was yesterday, for Christianity Today. Christians around the world celebrate Holy Week this week.
EPPC’s Faith Angle Forum happened last week, and you can read the transcripts of the excellent sessions that covered issues like racial reconciliation, mental health and global poverty. If you don’t know Faith Angle, it was started by the late and great Michael Cromartie as a way to support and inform journalists whose work intersects with religion.
ERLC has released research on the effects of artificial intelligence.
The Washington Post profiles Wilton Gregory, the new Catholic Archbishop of Washington DC.
Asma Uddin warns that there is an alarming trend in politics: “Islam is not a religion”
Adam Taylor over at Sojourners looks to Africa as the future of Christianity.
We think David Brooks’ new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, is going to be a worthwhile one. Here, Brooks talks about the book on CBS This Morning.
Is your church or organization serving people in an incredible way? Has your pastor preached a good word this past week? Other faith/religion news to share? We'd love to feature your faith/religion news in this section of the newsletter. Email newsletter@michaelwear.com. Thanks to those who have sent links so far.
2020
If you want to know who has entered the race at any given time, check out The New York Times' roundup.
The latest WaPo Power Ranking of all candidates.
President Trump’s campaign raised a whopping $30 million in the first quarter. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand raised $3 million in the first quarter; Sen. Amy Klobuchar raised $5.2 million. We included the fundraising numbers of other candidates in last week’s newsletter, but here is a recap.
We all—including staff working on 2020 campaigns—need to remember this: “The Democratic Electorate on Twitter is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate.”
Eugene Scott has a good wrap-up of Democratic candidates comments on their faith and the role of religion in their politics. Michael is quoted in this one emphasizing the importance of infrastructure and staffing in faith outreach, not just rhetoric.
Front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to court Trump voters.
Sen. Cory Booker is going to take a national tour. Sarah Pulliam Bailey has a great write-up of Booker and his attempt to ground his campaign in a “moral center.”
Sen. Kamala Harris released 15 years of tax returns.
Marianne Williamson was profiled again, this time by RNS. She also held her first CNN town hall last night. Andrew Yang also had his first town hall yesterday.
As we’ve been covering for several weeks in this newsletter, Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s star is rising. He also formally announced his candidacy last night. The NYT has some more analysis on his messaging. Pete Wehner also had a popular article in The Atlantic this past week pushing back on some of the fervor of Mayor Buttigieg’s appeal to the Religious Left.
As promised last week, I (Michael) have some thoughts on the conversation about the Religious Left that has percolated these past few weeks. There has been some great writing on the subject recently, including from Liz Bruenig, Michael Sean Winters and others, sparked by the religious appeals of Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker and other Democratic candidates for president. Buttigieg explicitly said he hoped for a resurgent Religious Left.
One key reason that the Religious Left is not as powerful a force as the Religious Right is that politically-progressive people are more likely to be subsumed into broader advocacy coalitions in ways that dilute their religious perspective. This is what is missed in so much of the dialogue about the Religious Left.
Obviously, the Religious Left exists and has always existed if by “Religious Left” we only mean politically-progressive religious people. But when people complain that progressive religious voices do not get the media attention the Religious Right does, or that the Religious Left does not have the institutions the Religious Right has, they are missing that many progressive religious people have not prioritized identifying as religious in politics or in organizing in that way.
Now, of course, there are exceptions to this. Organizations like Sojourners, NETWORK, Faith in Public Life and others have a history of advocating for consistently progressive policies from an explicitly religious perspective. And, of course, the Black Church has historically placed its faith at the forefront of its political advocacy and public witness. And so it should be no surprise that it has been the Black Church that is such a central forum in progressive and Democratic politics. The smartest, most respectful politicians understand that the Black Church is not merely another place where you can find black voters, but that the Black Church requires outreach specific to the Black Church. (It’s also important to note here that the politics of the Black Church has never fit in left/right boxes. Which, as I suggested on Twitter, is another reason why the Black Church is often left out of the Religious Left conversation, despite its current partisan location in the Democratic Party’s coalition.)
If the Religious Left is to rise as a political movement, its members must find a way to develop a coherent religious identity that is distinguishable from other voices on the left. This was difficult enough for the Religious Right to do between conservative Catholics and evangelicals, but for the ecumenically-minded, religiously-diverse Religious Left, it is an even greater challenge. Yet, if the Religious Left just puts vestments on the same rhetoric and policies of the secular left, media and politicians have little reason to treat it as a separate force. If progressive religious people do not actually believe their faith provides some essential source of perspective for their advocacy, then why would anyone else? A Religious Left that is to be treated as a legitimate force in politics must have identifiable religious content, not just an identifiable politics.
As for me, I’m not particularly interested in identifying as part of a Religious Left or a Religious Right, though I’m happy to work with both when and where there is agreement. C.S. Lewis had some thoughts on the dangers of over-identifying religion with a particular brand of politics in this essay, and they are worth considering.
US politics
The House and the Senate are on a two-week Easter recess.
Attorney General Barr is looking to release the full Mueller report this week.
SCOTUS kicks off its April session today, and will announce action on pending appeals in cases involving reproductive rights, gun rights and LGBTQ discrimination. SCOTUS Blog will have updates throughout the day.
Is George P. Bush the future of the GOP?
In case you’ve been living under a rock, the world’s first photo of a black hole was released, and it is very cool. This isn’t exactly political news, though government funding was probably involved and there is definitely a metaphor here involving black holes and the state of our politics so we believe including this link here is justifiable.
It was reported last week that President Trump has become intrigued by the idea of ICE transporting undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities as a kind of retaliation against Democrats. The plan is completely unworkable, and there really isn’t even a plan according to some reports, but Trump thinks the conversation alone is helpful to him politically.
Top five articles for your week:
“The Urgent Quest for Slower, Better News”
Because, slow news could be the answer to supporting higher quality, timeless journalism vs. journalism aimed toward a higher click-rate.
“The Problem With Putting a Price on the End of the World”
Because climate change is daunting, but perhaps the real challenge is our politics’ capacity to address it.
“Is your pregnancy app sharing your intimate data with your boss?”
Because healthcare and tech may improve lives and outcomes in some ways, but voluntarily giving your employer access to your health data may have unintended consequences.
“LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It’s Showing Promise.”
Because LeBron James’ school might be proving that with the right support systems in place, all kids have the capacity to flourish in school.
“The Problem with High-Minded Politics”
Because while we disagree with parts of this article, it is a compelling argument for how the weakening of our parties - not their excesses or partisanship - is the cause of the disintegration of our politics.
Image: SpaceX launched a rocket last week carrying a communications satellite. Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
If you want more current politics from a faith angle, check out the Church Politics podcast.