Illustration by Amber Spencer, photography by Eric England

Christianity in the 21st century is more than just the sum of its denominations and congregations. It is a label attached to movements, organizations, lifestyle choices, even publishers and recording artists. The world’s largest religion has become a powerful force in the American media, maintaining a presence on cable news programs and bestseller lists, and influencing a host of issues from sexual morality to foreign policy. In the midst of all this, Nashville has become something of a Christian holy city, housing national offices of the nation’s two largest Protestant denominations (Southern Baptist and United Methodist) and boasting the country’s largest religious publishing industry.

Of course, in Nashville and elsewhere, Christians do not exactly speak with one voice. While the Christian right has concentrated its efforts on personal salvation and individual morality, weighing in on public discourse forcefully and frequently, its less visible liberal counterparts have taken a broader, more social approach. Though conservative congregations tend to draw bigger crowds and fundamentalist preachers get more airtime on the cable news circuit, the Christian left is finding its niche in the American consciousness.

This increased liberal profile is due, in part, to the current political climate. While the peace movement has taken off nationally in recent months, with religious leaders helping lead the way, such a development is even more remarkable locally, where conservative Christianity has often held sway over the city. As a result, Nashville’s Christian left—a term that loosely groups together a wide range of beliefs and religious practices—has become more identifiable.

Nashville may be correctly yet all too commonly identified as the buckle of the Bible Belt, but liberal Christian leaders have had a strong and meaningful impact on the city for years. Over the last few decades, Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School has sought to turn out open-minded young ministers and has committed itself to inclusiveness and diversity, not to mention an insistence on challenging students’ belief systems. (Disclosure: I graduated from there last spring.) The early ’60s civil rights movement in Nashville was galvanized by Rev. James Lawson, who guided a group of college students in their protests against segregated downtown businesses. (Lawson was later ignominiously ousted from Vanderbilt Divinity School by the university, prompting a wave of resignations from fellow faculty members.) In the years since, the now retired United Methodist clergyman Bill Barnes has been one of the city’s most prominent liberal religious leaders, leading the fight for social and economic justice in Nashville neighborhoods devastated by the effects of urban renewal.

Today, as Nashville becomes more cosmopolitan and more diverse, its religious leadership is reflecting that change. Increasingly, ministers are taking stands on issues that affect their congregants, as well as others in the city, many of whom don’t fit within the narrow strictures imposed by the conservative, fundamentalist beliefs that have ruled religious discourse here for years. A case in point is Metro’s recently proposed anti-bias ordinance, which seeks to protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination—creating a heated debate that inevitably has turned on issues of morality. Unlike what might have happened 10 or 15 years ago, though, many of the religious leaders lending their voices to the discussion are pressing for tolerance, instead of fighting against it.

At the moment, no issue has brought members of the liberal clergy together more effectively than the current antiwar effort. Local groups such as the Covenant Association, the Interfaith Alliance and the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship—organizations comprised of clergy hailing from numerous Christian denominations as well as other faith traditions—have steadfastly sought to keep Nashvillians from following a popular president into war. Says Rev. Dan Rosemergy, co-founder of the Nashville chapter of the Interfaith Alliance and pastor at Brookmeade Congregationalist Church in West Meade, “I think peace and being peacemakers is at the heart of our faith and all world faiths, from Jesus saying, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,’ to the sense of the continuing call of faith to respect human life and hold it sacred.”

A number of clergy were involved with the Feb. 15 demonstration in Hillsboro Village coinciding with protests throughout the globe. (Of course, the 600 or so demonstrators in Nashville paled in comparison to the hundreds of thousands who came out in London and Rome.) The demonstration was followed by a weeklong “peace-camp” on the War Memorial Plaza, in which a handful of religious leaders and others tried to simulate the challenging conditions of the Iraqi people under sanctions, living in tents with limited sustenance and boiling their water to make it sanitary. The camp culminated in a second rally featuring speakers such as Rev. Becca Stevens of St. Augustine’s Chapel and Dr. Forest Harris, president of American Baptist College.

Amid rain clouds and horn-honking, Harris proclaimed to a crowd that fell well short of its goal of 1,000, “Disarming the world of weapons of mass destruction is a moral mission that global government must achieve.... I would say to President Bush that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. President, use the great resources, use the great intellectual capital, use the great wealth of this nation to disarm the world of the greatest weapon of mass destruction: poverty.”

The protest effort began during last year’s Republican-friendly election cycle, as critics charged that the president’s determination to launch a preemptive strike on Iraq was overshadowing more pressing domestic issues. Locally, clergy spearheaded a “witness for peace” during President Bush’s visit to campaign for then senatorial candidate Lamar Alexander—himself supportive of the war effort. That event was followed by the Music City March for Peace weeks later.

While many critics of the war suggest that military action will destabilize the region, fuel anti-American sentiment globally and further threaten national security, preachers also draw attention to the innocent lives that have been, and will be, lost on the other side. “My deepest belief is that faith is about life,” says Janet Hilley, a Presbyterian pastor and executive director of the Covenant Association. “There’s very little justification for going to war with a country that has been so impoverished over the past 10 years.”

Adds Rev. Enoch Fuzz, pastor of the Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church, “What war in any of history has yielded anything but horror? No one has ever won a war. Everyone loses. Some people lose [less] than others, but it is not gain.... As a Christian, I always have a view to turn spears into plowshares.”

Father Charles Strobel is director of the downtown Campus for Human Development, a homeless relief program that has benefited from the president’s faith-based initiative. He argues that Jesus has been absent from the war debate—an important point, given George W. Bush’s own deeply and publicly confessed Christian faith. (The president often cites Scripture and claims to appeal to a God of love and justice.) “Where is Jesus in the conversation?” Strobel asks. “I don’t see violence in Jesus at all. If you want to talk about war, I think he has to be in the conversation.” A March 10 Newsweek cover story on the president’s faith quoted Strobel as saying, “I couldn’t imagine Jesus delivering a message of war to a cheering crowd, as I just heard the president do.”

With the war now very much under way, many people are asking about the rightness and effectiveness of further protests. But Rosemergy insists that such action is as important as ever. “Even after the war began,” he says, “the United Church of Christ Executive Council issued a statement condemning the war and calling for prayer, continued protest of the war, and contact with all political leaders to urge the pursuit of peace-building strategies. We, of course, want to support the men and women of the armed forces even as we oppose this political decision for war.”

Fuzz, who recently discussed the war on his radio talk show on WVOL-1470 AM, argues that his efforts, and those of other clergy members, have not been in vain. “The antiwar movement is gaining so much support that it may be jeopardizing the president’s popularity,” he says. Indeed, Fuzz has observed a shift within his own congregation: “Three months ago, when I announced to some of my members that I had attended and spoken at a peace rally to protest the war with Iraq, they seemed embarrassed that their minister was involved. Now people expect their pastor to speak out against the war.

“There were other options that did not require the shedding of innocent lives or the lives of American soldiers,” Fuzz adds. “War is never an intelligent option. Violence always produces more violence.”

Given their outspoken frustration with the president’s lack of attention to domestic issues, local people of faith have a mandate to focus on what’s happening in their communities. In Nashville, one noteworthy example, especially among members of the clergy, has been the controversial anti-bias ordinance sponsored by Eileen Beehan and Chris Ferrell (the latter a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School). Originally, the bill would have extended the city’s anti-discrimination laws regarding housing and employment to cover gays and lesbians. After that bill was withdrawn, a narrower proposal applying only to employees of Metro was introduced. It has yet to be voted on.

Some preachers and denominations have been open about their distaste for the original bill. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) had considered not holding its annual convention here in 2005 as originally planned if the ordinance had passed. Other religious leaders and their congregations, meanwhile, embraced the bill. Ferrell notes that, in his estimation, more denominations have shown support than opposition.

Vocal proponents have included both those congregations and denominations that openly embrace gays and lesbians, as well as those torn on the issue of homosexuality but opposed to discrimination in any form. Like many of his supporters, Ferrell sees the bill as a matter of faith. “If God loves each one of us that much,” he explains, “then we ought to treat one another with the respect that a child of God deserves.”

The Christian debate over homosexuality originates, of course, with a few specific passages in the Bible—lines that have been discussed and interpreted ad infinitum. Ferrell offers his own understanding of Scripture: “I don’t think the Bible speaks to the subject of committed, loving relationships between two people that have homosexual orientations. I think the Bible is silent on the subject. It is interesting to me that Jesus never addressed the subject at all.” Ferrell makes a distinction between homosexual behavior and homosexual orientation, contending, “The biblical passages about homosexual behavior all assume that the people engaging in those behaviors are heterosexual.” (In antiquity, as in modern times, it was typically a display of power and dominance for one man to rape another.) “Having a discussion about loving, committed, same-sex relationships is entirely different than having a discussion about rape.”

While many, including a band of fundamentalist Baptist protesters from Kansas, stood outside the Metro Courthouse on Jan. 22 to oppose the original bill as it was debated on the floor, others peacefully showed their support. Among them was Kelly Ayer, co-president of Vanderbilt Divinity’s student government and co-convener of GABLE, the school’s office for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered concerns. Ayer, who was joined by 50 of her classmates in a candlelight vigil, laments, “It saddens me that those who profess to be Christians and live by the Gospel message have truly forgotten what that message is. The prophetic, inclusive voice of Christ has been lost among the hateful, exclusive voices of Christians.”

Ferrell is himself a Southern Baptist, an active member of Glendale Baptist, the Green Hills congregation that has recently been in the news for hiring April Baker, an openly lesbian associate pastor. As the SBC frowns on both female pastors and homosexuality, Glendale may be forced to cut ties with its denomination.

While recent events have brought attention to Christendom’s progressive wing, there’s more to the Christian left than protesting a war or supporting a piece of legislation. Liberal clerics and academics are bringing the world’s largest religion down to earth, so to speak, seeing it as an agent of social change. Rev. Andrew Stephens, pastor of the Village Church in East Nashville, explains, “Some people can be so focused on what happens when we get to heaven that they ignore some of the injustices in life.”

Stephens, himself not a vocal opponent of a war against Iraq, has focused his efforts on community issues such as public education and affordable housing. He serves as the chair of the action committee for Tying Nashville Together (TNT), a coalition of churches and community groups invested in social ministry on a local level. While TNT does not identify itself exclusively with the left, many of its member congregations are ideologically moderate-to-liberal, and Republican politicians rarely accept invitations to speak at TNT rallies.

Granted, those rallies can be tough affairs for a public servant. One of TNT’s goals is to shift the balance of power by interrogating officeholders and candidates in front of a crowd of hundreds, giving speakers limited time to address a specific list of issues. Stephens does not find the GOP’s absence coincidental. “There has clearly been more of a sense of compassion for those who have been denied the riches of America in the Democratic Party,” he says.

Though the rallies can play out like puppet shows, TNT’s efforts to address citizens’ concerns have been fruitful: Of the 70 health and safety hazards uncovered in TNT’s 2001 audit of Metro schools, 80 percent were fixed or in the process of being fixed within 90 days. The organization has also secured a commitment from Mayor Purcell to drastically increase the number of affordable housing units in Nashville by the end of the decade.

There are any number of other issues that, though broadly social in nature, invite the active engagement of liberal Christians. Chief among these is the movement to abolish capital punishment. The majority of organizations affiliated with two of the state’s most active anti-death-penalty groups, the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing (TCASK) and Tennesseans for a Moratorium on Execution (TME), are either churches or faith-based groups. Both the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville and the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church can be found on TME’s roster of supporting organizations. (To date, only one denomination, the SBC, has officially endorsed the use of the death penalty.)

Harmon Wray, who began his work with the United Methodist Church’s office of Restorative Justice Ministries before it was closed in 2001, is a co-founder of TME. The group coordinates speaking engagements with local congregations and community groups and circulates petitions concerning a statewide moratorium. Wray acknowledges that a moratorium’s chief purpose is to explore the current system and to take measures to ensure capital punishment is being carried out in a fair and just manner. Yet, he adds, “I think of the moratorium as a step toward abolition.” He sees his work with TME as a ministry: “It’s part of what it means to be a good Christian. That doesn’t just mean that I should be against the death penalty; it means I need to be actively involved. As a Christian, the central figure in my faith was himself executed by the best legal system of the time, with the full support of both the religious and political establishment of his time and place.”

Meanwhile, Joe Ingle, a United Church of Christ pastor who is a member of TME’s steering committee and has ministered to many of Tennessee’s death row inmates, recently authored a manuscript telling the stories of 15 men convicted of murder whom he contends are innocent. Ingle sees the issue of capital punishment as more than just an ethical debate, especially within the current movement pushing for a moratorium. “We’re talking about two things,” he says. “We’re talking about fairness and we’re talking about cost.” (It should be noted, however, that Ingle has been criticized for mixing work and activism in his duties as a conflict mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center, a nonprofit organization subsidized by taxpayers. Accusations were strong enough that he was made the subject of a recent WTVF-Channel 5 investigation.)

Environmental activist Jill Shashaty, a 2001 graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School, offers another example of the local Christian left getting involved in a “down-to-earth” ministry. She heads the Tennessee Environmental Council’s Stewardship Project, a campaign geared toward getting congregations to be more eco-friendly. “Embedded in the very foundations of the sacred texts and traditions of the world’s major religions,” she explains, “is the belief that the planet and all its species have been created by God and belong to God. As such, the Earth is to be respected as having value beyond human uses, and its resources are not to be wasted.”

Shashaty, who encourages congregations to do waste and energy audits and to start community gardens, adds that environmental concerns carry massive moral weight, as they have a direct bearing on the fate of millions and millions of human beings. She notes that, due to pollution, between 1 billion and 2 billion people worldwide are without adequate sanitation or drinking water. “When you look at who bears the burden of environmental degradation, it’s poor people and poor countries.... For a number of indigenous people or people who live close to the land, their ecosystem is their primary means of food, water and livelihood.”

Like Shashaty, Mark Huffman is a former divinity student who decided to pursue a route other than ordination. As the vice president of education for Planned Parenthood of Middle and Eastern Tennessee, he has taken the group’s education program to a number of area congregations and faith-based groups. “We act as guest speakers,” he explains. “Usually, a congregation will ask us in because they want to learn about sexuality issues.” Huffman acknowledges that there are plenty of Christian groups who have vocally opposed Planned Parenthood’s stance on abortion, contraception and sex education. Still, he says, “I definitely feel that this work comes from spiritual values that took me to divinity school and had me interested in studying theology. Sexuality,” he argues, “is a gift from God.”

Other liberal Christian causes are more philosophical or doctrinal in nature, the sort of discussions that can seem hermetic or even irrelevant to less politically and religiously engaged observers. But questions like these help move the religion forward, to make it more reflective of the world worshippers live in. A number of scholars and clergy, for instance, have insisted on rethinking certain elements of Christian liturgy to reconcile the faith with its Jewish roots. That might not seem like such a big deal until you realize that Scriptures read at Good Friday services still suggest that “the Jews” were to blame for Jesus’ execution. Such passages have been targeted for change by members of the clergy.

Many religious leaders have also advocated the adoption of “gender-inclusive language,” so as not to assume God’s maleness. In some congregations—including Edgehill United Methodist, Brookmeade Congregationalist and Metropolitan Interdenominational, among others—“Our Father,” the traditional opening to the Lord’s prayer, is replaced by “Our Father and Mother” or “Our Eternal Creator.” The Holy Trinity is sometimes changed from “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” to “Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.” Though many traditional Christians dismiss such measures as unnecessary political correctness, the gender of God has become a hot topic in the academy. Some scholars have argued that God’s male identity was simply the product of linguistics or a patriarchal culture. Others have equated the female personification of Wisdom (sophia) in the book of Proverbs with God’s feminine qualities.

Such discussions might seem more symbolic than practical, but some clergy members and academics argue they’re loaded with real-world significance. As Metro’s anti-bias ordinance makes clear, sexuality and gender remain vital topics of discussion inside and outside the church. “There is the claim by religious conservatives that 'family values’ and 'biblical values’ are closely aligned if not synonymous,” notes Dr. Mark Justad, a senior lecturer in Vanderbilt’s religion department. “Of course, if one takes even a brief but thoughtful look at the history of what is called 'family’ and the range of 'values’ advocated in the Bible, you will see how fraught with complications this pairing really is.” A key example is Jesus’ flouting of social taboos to embrace women as an integral part of his movement, while Paul suggested that women be silent and subordinate. And while there is plenty in the Bible condemning all variations of adultery and divorce, one won’t find too many examples of long-term monogamous marriages in the biblical texts.

It’s certainly true that women still struggle for equal recognition in Christian denominations, particularly the Catholic Church. Charles Strobel openly opposes his denomination’s policy of not ordaining women, and he sees it as a key issue undermining an institution that hasn’t been able to stand on the firmest moral ground of late. “The liberating spirit of the Vatican Council gave Catholics greater freedom to develop their own conscience,” he says. “The women’s ordination issue is at the root of the problem of authority that many Catholics are coming to grips with. We would be outraged if we did not ordain African Americans; why is there not the same outrage about the ordination of women?”

Pluralism—the embracing and acceptance of other faith traditions—is also a matter of major importance to liberal Christians. This isn’t a new idea; it’s at the very heart of the Unitarian Universalist church. But as the religious right continues to exert its influence on an increasingly heterogeneous America, the Christian left feels charged more strongly than ever to take up the cause of religious freedom. This is precisely the goal of Rosemergy’s Interfaith Alliance, which has fought to keep religion out of the public sector by opposing school prayer, faith-based initiatives and the posting of the Ten Commandments outside Tennessee county courthouses. The organization’s statement of purpose reads, “We actively challenge those, such as the religious right, who foster intolerance and degrade the value of a multifaith nation, instead protecting religious integrity in America by affirming the duty of people of faith and good will to promote the healing and positive role of religion in public life.”

“The Interfaith Alliance has become increasingly effective,” Rosemergy says. “It’s a relatively new organization, so it’s taken a while for the media to become aware there’s an alternative voice out there.” For him, challenging the right also involves expressing skepticism about certain tenets of Christian dogma. He contends, for instance, that Jesus never intended to be worshipped. “I would suggest you can have a strong and deep Christian faith without a lot of the doctrine of the church.”

Those are strong words, and some of the clergy members quoted in this story would strongly disagree with them—which only shows how nebulous the term “Christian left” may be. Rev. Enoch Fuzz, for one, proves that a minister can be a staunch opponent of the war and a strong advocate for reaching out to those in need, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a liberal. “I am conservative, rational, reasonable and most of all spiritual,” he says. Still, he adds, “ 'Religious right’ seems like an oxymoron to me. Religion has been wrong so many times.”

Strobel is also critical of directional labelings. “I just don’t have much use for the term 'Christian left’ or 'Christian right.’ I think it’s too simplistic. The Scriptures are full of different themes that could be judged 'left’ or 'right’ if you use those categories, but they’re larger themes. Is respect for the sanctity of all life left or right?”

It’s not easy to label an ideology that refuses to view the world as black or white, right or wrong, justified or sanctified, saved or damned. Still, progressive Christian thinkers of all stripes have found solidarity in issues of peace and justice. Strobel, Fuzz, Rosemergy and Hilley might disagree with each other on certain issues of theology or doctrine, but they openly affirm their mutual respect for one another and for humanity.

Even as it refuses to be lumped into an easily definable category, the Christian left has become a refuge for clergy members who have found themselves at odds with more conservative religious traditions. In the process, these diverse church leaders have reclaimed elements of Christianity that have been forgotten and ignored, frequently citing scriptural bases for some of their seemingly radical views. So long as war, poverty and injustice persist, they will remain a vocal presence in society and will open their sanctuaries to people searching for guidance on such complex and pressing issues as war, capital punishment, sexuality and spirituality. At times their messages may be difficult to preach—but then, the man who inspired their faith had his own struggles communicating a sometimes unpopular message.