Monday, June 20, 2005

Susan Biddle / Washington Post More U.S. religious leaders, such as the Rev. Bob Schenck, center, are trying to find common ground between liberals and conservatives by preaching the other side's message.

Religious rivals reach out

In a show of solidarity, U.S. leaders want to demonstrate that faith can unite, not just divide.

By Alan Cooperman / Washington Post

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WASHINGTON -- The Rev. Rob Schenck is an evangelical Christian and a leader of the religious right. Rabbi David Saperstein is a Reform Jew and a leader of the religious left. Both head political advocacy groups in Washington, and they have battled for years over abortion, gay rights, stem cell research and school prayer.

This summer, each intends to preach a bit of the other's message.

Schenck said he plans to tell young evangelicals at a Christian music festival that homosexuality is not a choice but a "predisposition," something "deeply rooted" in many people. "That may not sound shocking to you, but it will be shocking to my audience," he said.

Saperstein said he is circulating a paper urging political moderates and liberals to "demonstrate their commitment to reduce abortions" by starting a campaign to reduce the number by half in two years.

Schenck and Saperstein disclosed their plans in separate interviews. They are not working together. The minister remains a die-hard opponent of same-sex marriage; the rabbi staunchly supports a woman's constitutional right to choose an abortion. But both are trying to find common ground between liberals and conservatives on moral issues -- and they are not alone.

After a year in which religion played a polarizing role in U.S. politics, many religious leaders are eager to demonstrate that faith can be a uniter, not just a divider. The buzzwords today in pulpits and seminaries are crossover, convergence, common cause and shared values.

In Washington recently, representatives of more than 40 U.S. denominations took part in the Convocation on Hunger at the National Cathedral, where they sang a Tanzanian hymn while the choir director shook a gourd full of seeds and children laid breads from around the world on the altar.

The show of solidarity was partly a reaction against "the recent manipulation of religion in ways that are divisive and partisan," said David Beckmann, a Lutheran minister and president of Bread for the World, a nonprofit group that helped organize the service.

"Because religion has been dragged into political life in some ways, this is the religious leadership of the nation saying, 'No, let us show you what religion in the public square should really be about.'"

Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are moving quickly toward full communion, which would allow them to swap clergy and recognize one another's sacraments. Protestant and Jewish leaders, who have been at loggerheads over proposals to divest stock in companies that help Israel maintain control of the Palestinian territories, have announced a joint trip to the Holy Land in September.

The National Association of Evangelicals is promoting dialogue with Muslims, concern for the environment and efforts to combat poverty. "On issues like poverty, the cold war among religious groups is over," said the Rev. Richard Cizik, its vice president for public policy.

Some observers view all this aisle-crossing as political positioning.

"There's a kind of pulling back from religious war," said Mark R. Silk, director of the Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. "But I don't think one should overlook the self-interest of both sides, at this moment, in positioning themselves as willing to compromise and work with the other side."

According to Saperstein, who heads the Religious Action Center, the Washington advocacy arm of the Reform movement in Judaism, the new thing is the effort to forge such coalitions on domestic issues.