O.C. Christians Left and Center Join ‘Renewal’

For Elizabeth Parker, the president of the Orange County Board of Education, the call to action came when a conservative Christian activist publicly branded her as a “Nazi-lover” for attending an abortion rights meeting.

Father Brad Karelius of Santa Ana’s Episcopal Church of the Messiah decided to get involved after noticing the increasing discomfort of his middle-of-the-road congregants with the Christian Coalition’s fundamentalist views on social issues.

And Tim Carpenter, a Catholic activist for the county’s homeless and poor, joined in because he believes that the biblical values of compassion, equality and generosity have been overlooked for far too long in a county that prides itself on its religiosity.

All are participating in an unprecedented ecumenical experiment in Orange County--a drive to create a Christian voice that doesn’t conjure up images of Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson or right-wing politics.

They are among the dozens of clergy and laypeople launching a local branch of Call to Renewal--a national movement formed last year by evangelist Jim Wallis, the progressive editor of Sojourners magazine in Washington.

The idea for a coalition of moderate Christian voices is not new. Though born from an evangelical perspective, Call to Renewal follows in the footsteps of the national Interfaith Alliance, founded in 1994 to provide a “grass-roots mainstream countervoice to the extreme religious right.”

The Los Angeles-based Progressive Religious Alliance has similar goals.

But Wallis’ group, and his charismatic presence, appear to have tapped into a constituency that might be less comfortable working in an interfaith alliance with non-Christians. The group is also the first of its kind to launch a local chapter in Orange County.

Wallis, the author of a recently published book titled “Who Speaks For God?: An Alternative to the Religious Right--A New Politics of Compassion, Community and Civility,” has crisscrossed the country since February holding seminars for those craving what they consider a more humane approach to the nation’s social problems.

Wallis’ Southland stops have included San Diego, Pasadena and Los Angeles. But national organizers said nowhere has the fledgling movement resonated as much as it has in Orange County, heretofore a stronghold of the Christian Coalition, where moderate voices have often spoken in isolation if they spoke at all.

“I went out and got a friend of mine to organize the initial meeting and he started by saying, ‘The first thing you need to know about Orange County, Carol, is we don’t call ourselves Christians out here anymore,’ ” said Call to Renewal’s Washington spokeswoman, Carol Fennelly.

“I had this distinct feeling that I was sitting in the catacombs in the 1st century with Christians hiding out. There was just a feeling of fear out there that was really pretty shocking. To think that Christians are causing that feeling in one another is pretty pathetic.”

Call to Renewal, which has drawn thousands of supporters to workshops across the country, sees itself in part as a counterweight to the Christian Coalition, founded by Robertson, headed by Reed, and known for its powerful support of right-wing political candidates and conservative social stands, and its impassioned attacks on those who do not share its views.

The idea, said Fennelly, is to “reclaim Christianity” for both liberals and conservatives who share a basic commitment to faith-based Christian values.

Wallis claims the nation is suffering a spiritual crisis, as the Christian Coalition contends. But solutions won’t spring from rhetoric or political crusading. The nation will heal, he says, only by working together to treat the root causes of poverty and youth violence, and by pushing for a respectful dialogue in the political arena.

Organizers are quick to add that Call to Renewal also aims to offer an alternative to the secular left, and hopes to transcend political labels.

But Sara DiVito Hardman, the Christian Coalition’s chairwoman for California, said the recent upsurge in efforts to counter the coalition has been “self-defeating.”

“The more of those [groups] that spring up, the more members we get, and the more we are energized,” said Hardman, whose organization distributed 5 million voter guides in California alone this election cycle--twice as many as were circulated in 1994.

Hardman nevertheless said she welcomes the call for greater civility in the political process, pointing out that her own organization is often the victim of vitriol.

“I agree about the civility. I’m as tired of it as . . . the rest of Americans and I’m involved,” she said. “I tell our people that we, as Christians, espouse to be more God-like, and the Bible says that God is love. And that is love toward your enemy as well.”

Other conservative Christians are more skeptical about Call to Renewal.

“They’re not kissing cousins who have an alternative voice. It’s a totally different set of values and beliefs,” said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition, a national organization of 32,000 churches.

“They’re pro-gay rights, they’re pro-abortion. Any way you skin the cat, that’s what you get. The public that they are appealing to is not our public, so it’s apples and oranges.”

Sheldon said Call to Renewal springs from a long-standing tradition of social gospel ministries, and poses no threat to the Christian right’s position in American politics.

“The only way the Christian right is going to be undermined is if someone were to attack the very teachings of Jesus Christ,” he said. “Everything we say is what Scripture teaches.”

The nascent organization has nevertheless struck a chord with Christians who consider themselves mainstream.

The fruit of Fennelly’s organizing efforts: an Orange County conference last month featuring Wallis that drew 160 people, many of whom vowed to keep working with the group.

About 40 of those participants reconvened for a planning meeting on Nov. 9 at the St. Joseph Justice Center in Orange, holding a spirited discussion of the group’s mission and as-yet undefined goals.

“It’s not the political right or political left we’re supporting,” said Sister Kathy Stein, of the Sisters of St. Joseph. “It’s Christian spiritual values.”

Added South Orange County resident Jeanne Anne Costales: “What I want is a vehicle that all Christians are comfortable with.”

Participants shared a common concern that the terms Christian and Christianity, in the minds of a large segment of the public, have been appropriated by a small group with extreme political views.

Don Will, a professor of peace studies at Chapman University, said the mere mention of Christianity can trigger a string of negative assumptions on the part of some people.

“I’ve got non-faith people on campus who, as soon as they hear ‘Christian,’ they think we want to do away with the separation of church and state, and ram Christianity down everyone’s throat,” said Will, a Methodist participating in the Orange County Call to Renewal chapter.

While the Christian Coalition often speaks of a return to basic “values,” those who gathered to hammer out a mission statement said some of their Christian values run counter to the agenda of the Christian right.

“How can you say, ‘Love thy neighbor’ and then say, ‘We don’t want welfare,’?” asked Arlene Amorino, a nurse who plans to stay involved with the group. “Our good God would not say, ‘Don’t give food and money to these women and children.’ He would say, ‘Give them fish, then teach them how to fish.’ ”

Countered Sheldon:

“We love our neighbor, and we do take care of our neighbor. We just don’t believe illegal aliens should be given millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money when hard-working citizens aren’t getting that help and they’re paying the taxes.”

The Orange County group plans to meet again in January to further define itself, said Carpenter. So far, the group has adopted an idealistic set of guiding principles that advocate food, housing, clothing and health care for all, basic education and equal rights, among other things.

“Of course, this asks for a perfect world,” laughed Jan Chantland, an Orange County businesswoman and one of the few evangelical Christians who participated in the Orange County planning meeting. “But we work toward that.”

Already, activists in Orange County sent out a “Code of Fair Campaign Practices” to candidates before the Nov. 5 election calling on them to adopt “principles of decency, honesty and fair play.”

They received one signed response, said Chantland.

The man behind the movement--Jim Wallis--launched the national organization last year with the goal of bringing together evangelists, mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics and African-American congregations.

More than 90 religious leaders signed on as initial supporters, and Wallis held his first regional conference in February of this year. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) and Children’s Defense Fund president Marian Wright Edelman are among Call to Renewal’s vocal proponents.

The action of local chapters, however, will differ depending on their goals and specific local needs, Wallis has said.

In Orange County, many of those who attended the organizing meeting said people are hungry for a vehicle through which to express their faith.

“The religious right tends to be better organized right now,” said the Rev. Steve Mather of First Presbyterian Church in Anaheim. “They tend to speak in more monolithic terms, and in the appropriate theological language to say, ‘This is what God wants.’

“It globalizes their constituency very effectively, but it doesn’t represent the entire spectrum of Christianity, and I think it scares the bejesus out of non-Christians, or people who don’t know how their faith translates,” Mather said.

Mather knows the range of that spectrum: As a former local board president of Planned Parenthood, his church was picketed by vocal opponents who deemed him un-Christian. That points to a need, said Mather, for more education on the history and range of Christian views on social issues. Mather subsequently met with several groups who had angrily questioned his views but seemed open to dialogue.

“It just blew their minds that in the 1950s most of the directors of Planned Parenthood were ministers,” Mather said. “What was most interesting was that they had so little exposure to the full spectrum of Christian ethics and how people act out their Christian faith.”

Added the Rev. Julius Del Pino, of Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church in Mission Viejo: “I have never before lived in a place that has articulated such strong conservative political views. But people who live here also know there’s more than one perspective. It’s about time that other perspective becomes known.”

If the group does gather strength, it will join other alternative religious voices already in existence, said Jon Paone, a spokesman for the Washington-based Interfaith Alliance.

“I see Call to Renewal as Jim Wallis out there traveling around the country spreading this overall message that we both believe in,” Paone said. “And the more this message of tolerance and civility gets out, the more that lets the average American out there know that the Christian Coalition doesn’t speak for all people of faith.”