[Dialogue] Spong, Fox, Wallis, Zing recommend new book by Tikkun's Lerner

[jim rippey]

From Tikkun:

5 Days Till: 

The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right  by Rabbi Michael Lerner

  is in your local bookstore (if it's not, tell them to order it from HarperSanFrancisco, a division of Harper Collins-and put it on a front table).

If we can get it on the best-seller list even for one week of the next 2-3 weeks, the chain stores will keep it up front, and that means we may even be able to get the message out to the people who really need to hear it. It's all circular: the media decides to take its message seriously if people are buying it, but people are not likely to buy unless they hear about it in the media. Or...from you. 

You can order it on Amazon.com, even in advance. 

The key is to act as soon as it comes on sale February 7th.  If there is anyone on your gift lists for future birthdays, anniversaries, graduations from schools or training programs, job advancement, engagements or weddings, vacations, promotions, moving in with a friend or lover, getting pregnant,  other occasions to celebrate-this is the time to buy them this important book!

3 reasons to do so: 

1. You'll enjoy the book and so will anyone you care about, no matter how hard-core anti-spiritual they are, nor, on the other hand, no matter how hard-core resistant to progressive ideas. 

2. You'll help get these ideas in front of the American public.

3.    It's an important book: read what early reviewers have said: 

"Michael Lerner is a rare voice of sanity and intelligence in a nation where our moral values have been corrupted by the greed of the market and the ambitions of empire. He gives eloquent voice to our yearning for a union of the spiritual and the rational in the quest for peace and justice."


-- Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States

"Michael Lerner is the most significant prophetic public intellectual and spiritual leader of our generation. The Left Hand of God is a powerful and intellectually compelling contribution to social and political theory and to an understanding of the psychodynamics of
American politics. Secular intellectuals and those who yearn for a major change in the direction of American society must read this book-and join with religious and spiritual people to build the kind of strategy Lerner develops. Share these ideas with 
everyone you know-because just sharing these profound ideas that Lerner presents in such an accessible manner is itself a great contribution you could make to healing our country. "-


-Cornel West, Professor of Religion, Princeton University and author, Race Matters
"Michael Lerner is one of America's most important spiritual teachers, a contemporary prophet whose insightful and visionary thinking has already had a profound impact on American culture and thought. His rare and eloquent voice, going beyond left/right political dichotomies, will help progressives overcome their fear of spirituality and will challenge spiritual people to avoid the danger of narcissistic self-indulgence.


--Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners and author of the best selling book  God's Politics.


"In The Left Hand of God Rabbi Michael Lerner articulates an important vision for the progressive movement in this country, a vision of hope that taps into the spiritual needs of all people. The left has kept such views personal while the Religious Right has often times distorted values into divisive policies that trample on civil rights, economic and social equity, the environment, and even our security. Rabbi Lerner's Spiritual Covenant with America offers a guideline to refocus priorities on core values that will help the American voter and political leaders concentrate on real values that come from spirituality.peace and security, economic fairness, environmental protection, and civil liberties."

--Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, chair of the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives


"An insightful, inspiring book by Rabbi Lerner that can put America back on track."


--Arun Gandhi, president, M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence  


"Lerner is a good current representative of the tradition of Martin Buber, A.J. Heschel, Emanuel Levinas, Gandhi, King, Thomas Merton, the Dalai Lama, and other religious thinkers whose spiritual vision leads them to a transformative vision of politics. 
 "The Left Hand of God is wonderful political Dharma for American Buddhists, cultural creatives, and naturally spiritual secular humanists. I hope it will be studied carefully by anyone who wants peace of mind, freedom from unnecessary suffering, and spiritual depth and who recognizes that those can only be achieved through the careful balancing of individual change with social change. 
"This is an enormously important book. I confronts head-on the spiritual crisis we are  experiencing, analyzes  incisively  how it is being manipulated by the united religious and political Rights in their campaign to conquer America and then the world, and  then  turns, with Lerner's usual inspiring optimism,  to practical  steps  we can take - we must take - to launch a spiritual revolution and save this beautiful planet. Study it carefully, enjoy it, get involved, become a spiritual activist, and have deeper fun while saving the world!"


Robert Thurman , Chair, Department of Religion, Columbia U, President, Tibet House US,  Author of Inner Revolution, Infinite Life, and Jewel Tree of Tibet.

"Anyone who has ever felt frustrated by the religious right's ability to turn fear into political power will find not only comfort in this book, but a way to fight back!  This is the blueprint for transforming the conscious heart of a nation into a bell that will shake the foundation of American politics and activate change around the world."


--Michael Franti, Musician of social change
  
"A brilliant and penetrating analysis of the way religion is now used politically to justify military conflict, the degradation of the environment, the violation of religious liberty, the rights of women and homosexuals and the accumulation of vast wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Michael Lerner comes through these pages like a modern day Amos. The religious world needs to heed his message."                                                            


 --John Shelby Spong, former Episocpal Bishop of Newark 


"In this book Michael Lerner challenges both right and left to wake up and create a new political movement that is respectful of our deepest shared values and aspirations.  He challenges stuck-thinking of right and left but especially the left for its failure to include the spiritual dimensions of the human condition in its rhetoric and appeal.  Lerner offers a serious new "Spiritual Covenant with America" that many of us could enthusiastically support.  A timely, forceful, provocative and deep analysis of the political malaise of our time, this book pulsates with life and spirit and the passion of the prophets of old.  Bravo! "
 


 Matthew Fox , former Catholic priest silenced by the pope, author of a dozen books of catholic theology including Original Blessing


"Over the last few decades, we have witnessed the beginnings of a fundamental change of worldview in science and society, the unfolding of a new vision of reality that is holistic, ecological, and ultimately spiritual. In this book, Rabbi Michael Lerner explores the political dimensions of this new vision and its immediate and urgent relevance to American politics. The Left Hand of God is essential reading for everyone concerned about the future of this country." 



 -- Fritjof Capra , author, The Tao of Physics 

"Almost by default the politics of fear has occupied center stage among us, partnered with a religion of "uncontrolled me-firstism." Michael Lerner, with his passion and shrewdness, offers a manifesto to an alternative that may correct the default and restore a humane sanity to our common life. Lerner is unembarrassed about theological rootage and unintimidated by the complexity of contemporary political economy. The outcome is a practical, compelling vision of a politics of generosity. The book is a freshness beyond quarrelsome ideology and liberal cliché. The articulation of hope is itself an act of engaging hope to which attention must be paid." 


 --Walter Brueggemann, Professor of Christian Theology and author, The Prophetic Imagination and many other books of Protestant theology 

"Michael Lerner has a profound understanding of the American political scene, and in this well-written book explains how progressives can take back American from the religious right. His spiritually based politics is just what this country needs."


-- Tony Campolo, Evangelical Minister 

"America desperately needs a revitalization of spirit to lend wisdom and compassion to our economic and political life.  Rabbi Michael Lerner's proposal is a visionary response to this urgent need, but it is one based on an incisive understanding of the struggle between fear and hope.  The Left Hand of God challenges all of us to embrace our deep interconnectedness and become God's partners in the healing and transformation of the world."  


 --Richard Gere, actor and Buddhist activist  


Rabbi Lerner makes sense, finds  meaning and sees hope in  
an America many feel is spiraling downward into destructive divisions.  
Passionate but never vindictive, he refuses to demonize  
anyone but patiently and eloquently projects a religiously based  
vision for all of us. 

--Harvey Cox, Hollis Professor of Divinity  at Harvard, is author of When Jesus Came to Harvard 


Drawing upon the deepest insights of the  Kabbalistic and mystical traditions in Judaism, yet transforming them into a  contemporary and universal language accessible to people of all faiths and  those who are "spiritual but not religions," Michael Lerner presents a  prophetic blueprint for building a world of peace, justice, kindness and  generosity. The Left Hand of God challenges those who try, mistakenly in my  view, to convince themselves that they can build a healthy spiritual life  while avoiding the messiness of trying to change our economic and political  and social institutions. Lerner follows in the footsteps of his teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel in his example in joining with Martin Luther King, Jr.  in demonstrations that were "praying with one's feet." Lerner will show you  how to do this kind of service to God, while simultaneously challenging the  liberal and progressive forces to open to the wisdom of the spiritual  traditions to which they have previously been alienated. Lerner's is a  grounded way to make spirituality practical and effective, and a way to wake  the spiritual dimension of many who think of themselves as atheists but who  yearn for a higher meaning to life than can be accomplished through material  consumption, no matter how fairly allocated. Lerner's is a new  spiritual/political synthesis with which every serious social theorist and  spiritual seeker should engage.


--Rabbi Zalman Schachter Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement and author of Paradigm Shift, From Aging to Sage-ing, and many other books, disciple of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  







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