Praying Liberally: Fired up, Ready to go

About a month ago, we announced the creation of Living Liberally's new network of religious progressives: Praying Liberally. Now, the first chapters are beginning to get off the ground starting with Wilmington, Delaware on Thursday, August 21st.

As Wilmington chapter leader Frank Bell puts it:

As I see it, the point of this thing is give persons of a reality-based persuasion a chance to look at issues from a perspective informed by faith without anyone's giving them funny looks because they profess a faith--and to allow those who may not have a religious perspective to participate in the discussion without penalty.

This is just the first of hopefully many groups of religious liberals organizing around the country to bring all the great community aspects of blogs like Street Prophets into a face to face setting. In this way we can create a sustainable, national, multi-faith social network of religious liberals.

As a I said before, Praying Liberally chapters will have weekly, semi-monthly or monthly meetings of local liberals from a wide range of faiths including, as pastordan so excellently phrases it, "those whose deepest faith is in the conviction that there is no God." At these meetings, faithfully-minded liberals could talk politics, say a collective prayer for "the least of these" in our community, our country and our world, and build community to organize around our common causes

Also, all chapters will receive a web site, chapter blog, listserv and other online organizing tools and support features from the Living Liberally national network.

Hosting a chapter is really easy. All it takes is deciding on a time and location, anywhere from a local religious space to the neighborhood cafe, and sending out a quick e-mail reminder before you meet - that's it. Overall, it's no more difficult than meeting up with your religious progressive friends to hang out and talk politics.

So, if you're in Wilimington next Thursday, be sure to check them out. If you're interested in starting one of the first Praying Liberally chapters email info@livingliberally.org.

Together, we can build a greater national community of religious liberals and finally put a stop to the Religious Right's monopoly on faith and politics.