"Progressive evangelicals" a major force for change

March 26, 2008

I WAS among the young Christians who traveled to Park Street Church last month to hear Jim Wallis's call for social justice ("A new generation awakens," Op-ed, March 12), and I can testify that a generational shift is indeed underway within American Christianity.

In fact, the Boston Faith and Justice Network, which also hosted an event with Wallis in Boston, is bringing together evangelical and mainline Christians to alleviate global poverty. Through Bible studies, we see our consumer habits in light of Scripture's concern for the poor. As we awake to the global impact of our lifestyle, we are working for shifts in corporate and public policy to more justly steward the sharing of our resources.

Still, many of my secular neighbors and friends consider "progressive evangelicals" mythical, even oxymoronic.

Christian faith has been, and continues to be, a powerful force for social and economic justice.

RACHEL ANDERSON
Cambridge

The writer is director of the Boston Faith and Justice Network.

AS FAR as women's rights are concerned, I think Wallis should remember that in the 19th century, the two strongest proponents of women's suffrage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, considered religion to be not only the major impediment to acceptance of women's rights, but to be the cause of women's subjugation.

LINDA BURNETT
Farmington, Mich.

JIM WALLIS gave a message of hope in stating that young people from different religious backgrounds are now seeing the important connection between religion and social movement. Throughout he cited that Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims are all making a "faith-inspired movement for social justice," and to this I say bravo.

But the article had a gap in it: the acknowledgment of Unitarian Universalism, and the longstanding history this faith has for social justice and change.

History reveals that Unitarians and Universalists participated in great awakenings, including abolition of slavery, penal reform, advocacy of women's rights, and civil rights.

Today the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights and social justice throughout the world. There has long been a strong UU youth movement filled with advocates for change.

The work for change will continue until the sixth of the UU principles is achieved: "the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all."

JANE FOLEY
Melrose