About a month ago, after Pat Robertson’s on-air call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, I called for mainstream Christianity to repudiate the far-right extremists that have hijacked the brand. In an offhand comment, I acknowledged that a few brave souls were doing just that, but getting very little attention from the media.
What was missing from that post, of course, was any reference to just who those progressive Christian voices are. Big goof.
Well, let me rectify that right now, because I met one of them last week at Web of Change: Kety Esquivel, executive director of CrossLeft.
Kety has an astonishingly jam-packed background, from prison ministry to the Wesley Clark presidential campaign to Eastman Kodak — not to mention working in China and Ethiopia. And she somehow finds time to also serve as the communications director of Latinos for America, part of that shimmering cloud of online grassroots activism that emerged from the Howard Dean Campaign.
If you’re convinced that Christianity has shrunk down to the wizened vision of the Falwells and Robertsons of the world, CrossLeft will hearten you. Apart from their blog, a thriving crop of discussion forums and library of sermons, the CrossLeft site aggregates more than 200 sources of progressive Christian news, views and resources in a single news feed they’ve named StreamingChristianity.
Still feeling down? Check out the blogroll at the Progressive Christian Blogger Network. Turns out there are plenty of vocal, political American Christian activists who don’t look back on the Dark Ages with a fond sense of nostalgia. Nice to know that.
