McLaren Answers the Stupak Question

Shortly after my post ” Where do ProgressiveEvangelicals Stand on the Stupak-Pitts Amendment?” , I got an blast email from the folks over at Sojourners calling attention to a Sojourners article by Brian McLaren that answers the question.

McLaren is not happy with the folks at the Daily Kos, in part because they have accused “progressive religious forces” for their stealthy support of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to health care reform. McLaren explicitly repudiates the charge:

That faulty diagnosis [that Evangelical progressives are a Fifth Column of sorts in the Democratic Party] seems to be shared in recent speculation that the Stupak amendment — which went beyond the abortion neutrality called for by all the Christian progressives I’m aware of — was added to the House health-care bill as part of a long-standing plan by progressive religious forces. Those speculations are undermined by the fact that the amendment was added to bring some hesitant conservative Democrats on board, but it took Christian progressives by surprise as much as anyone.

Stupak-Pitts took Christian progressives completely by surprise!

In any case, we now we know that McLaren’s “third way” between the religious right’s support of Stupak-Pitts and the secular left opposition is to side with the secular left. Don’t worry, McClaren is telling the Daily Kos folks, we also oppose Stupak-Pitts. Unless I’m missing something McLaren just threw pro-life Democrats under the bus. And he did it in Sojourners!

Now we need to hear explicitly from the likes of Jim Wallis and David Gushee and other “progressive evangelicals.” Is this their idea of a “third way,” too?