Even if you don't fit into the categories of being "spiritual but not religious," "secular but wanting to beat the Right so badly you'd be willing to help create a Spiritual Left," or "religious and not spoken for by the Religious Right and a bit disappointed by the spiritual tone-deafness of the Democrats," you probably know some people who do fit and who would deeply appreciate it if you'd send this whole announcement to your largest email lists, including friends, so that they could send it to their friends as well--it's a grassroots effort, without funding, to create a serious alternative to the Religious Right!

Please be part of the process of creating the Network of Spiritual Progressives, by coming to our conference on Spiritual Activism at U.C. Berkeley, July 20-23, 2005.

Let me explain.

As the assault on an independent judiciary, separation of church and state, dismantling or severely weakening of social security, escalating militarism, and undermining of civil liberties by the Bush Administration makes clear, we are at a moment in which much of the America we have known and loved is under attack.

Yet for many Americans, the most pressing distortions in their lives are not those caused by the Bush Administration, but those that come from the daily experience of living in a world in which everyone is just looking out for number one. The selfishness and materialism that surround them dis-empower and overwhelm them, and so they seek a spiritual source of consolation and renewal. Unfortunately, in the past the spiritual pain they feel has been ignored by the liberal and progressive social change movements who sometimes give the impression that they don't really think there is a spiritual crisis in peoples lives, or that it has nothing to do with politics-and that response has facilitated a process by which many decent people end up turning to the Right.

America badly needs an alternative with spiritual progressives who can help people understand that the spiritual crisis in their lives is not caused by liberals, activist judges, homosexuals, feminists or any of the other scapegoats devised by the Right, but by the very materialistic and "looking out for number 1" dynamics of the competitive marketplace that the Right often champions.

Creating a Spiritual Left that can operate in a coherent and powerful way in the public arena may be one of the most important things we can do to counter the growing power of the Religious Right.

That is why we are inviting you to help build:

The goal of the conference is to launch a Network of Spiritual Progressives who aim to:

1. challenge the misuse of God and religion by the Right
2. seek to foster a more receptive attitude toward progressive religious consciousness in sectors of the liberal and progressive culture where hostility to religion and spirituality flourish
3. seek to champion a New Bottom Line for American society of love, caring, generosity, kindness, ethical and ecological sensitivity and awe and wonder to replace the current ethos of materialism and selfishness.

We not only want you to be there personally, but to reach out to everyone you can possibly reach who might share these concerns and be sympathetic with this agenda and invite them to be part of this gathering even if you cannot come personally yourself.

We'd like to urge you to become a member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.tikkun.org. Please read about what we will be doing with that Network. It's not enough to support our goals, we need you to actually join or at least make a (tax-deductible) contribution to the project itself:

Speakers at the first conference include:

JIM WALLIS (editor of Sojourners and author of the best-selling God's Politics) Rabbi Michael Lerner (editor, Tikkun and author of the forthcoming The Left Hand of God), Sylvia Boorstein (author, Pay Attention: The Buddhist Path of Kindness) Van Jones, chair, Ella Baker Center Prof. Michael Nagler (founder of Peace and Conflict Studies, U.C. Berkeley), Congresspeople Jim Moran (D.Va.) and Lynne Woosley (D. Ca.), Rev. Debra Haffner (Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing) , John Shelby Spong (formerly the Episcopal Bishop of Newark), Carl Pope, National Chair, Sierra Club George Lakoff, linguist and author of "Don't Think of an Elephant" Carole Flinders , (author on feminist spirituality) Riane Eisler (author, The Chalice and the Blade) Fritjof Capra (author, The Tao of Physics) Thandeka, (African American author of Learning to Be White: Money, Race and God in America Rev. Ignacio Castuera (Planned Parenthood ARUN GANDHI (grandson of the Mahatma), Mubarak Awad (Palestinian non-violence activist Kabir Helminski, Sufi Shaikh and expert on Muslim non-violence Mel Duncan (International Non-Violence Force) Dr. Welton Gaddy (national chair, the Interfaith Alliance), Mary Elizabeth Moore, director, Women in Theology program, Emory University John Cobb, (co-founder, Progressive Christians Uniting, author: Process Theology as Political Theology) John Deer (Jesuit priest and author, Living Peace), Robyn Thomas, Executive Director, The Tikkun Community Ched Myers (author, A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus) Rick Lowery (endowed chair of Bible Studies, Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa) JoEllen Green Kaiser, senior editor, Tikkun Magazine Robert Inchausti, (author Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaris and Other Christians in Disguise) Brenda Petersen, former representative of the Democratic National Committee to the Faith Community Andrew Kimbrell (author, Fatal Harvest) David Korten (author, When Corporations Rule the World) Jonathan Granoff, Chair of the American Bar Association's Committee on Arms Control and National Security. president of Global Security Institute) Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater (conservative rabbi, Pasadena) Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou (Clergy and Laity Concerned About Iraq) Kirk Schneider, editor of The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology and author, Rediscovery of Awe) Debora Grenn, Feminist Spirituality Program, New College of California Dianne Jenett, Lilith Institute Prof. Mark Levine, author, Why They Don't Hate Us Matthew Fox, former Catholic priest silenced by Cardinal Ratzinger, now President, University of Creation Spirituality Lynn Canning, community organizer, Santa Fe Angana Chatterji, expert on Hinduism Dave Robinson, National Chair, Pax Christi Lauren Elizabeth Chamberlain, 1st grade teacher, Americorps Father Louis Vitale, Franciscan priest Stanley Klein, Professor of Visual Sciences, U.C. Berkeley Mary Gomes, Professor of Psychology, Cal State University at Sonoma Music and entertainment from David Rovics, Hyim, Swami Beyondananda, Ray Hanania Stephen Longfellow Fiske and many more

Among the issues to be discussed at the conference:

• Sexuality -- how to have a spiritually sensitive approach that can challenge the manipulation of sex by the marketplace to sell its goods, without falling into repressive approaches that demean sexual pleasure, limit women's reproductive rights, or demean homosexuality
• Science and Religion -- how can one be respectful of both? and how does that play out in debates about evolution? stem cell research? bio-technology?
• Separation of Church and State -- how best to challenge the attempts by the Right to pack the courts and undermine 1st amendment separation without becoming first amendment fundamentalists who oppose introducing values into the public sphere
• Secularism and Moral Relativism -- how to challenge the assaults on secularism being made by right-wing Protestants and by the former Cardinal Ratzinger while still maintaining a spiritual commitment and affirming objective moral truths
• How to get A New Bottom Line into our economy, our work places, and our approach to environmental issues
• The Social Responsibility Åmendment to the U.S. Constitution -- every corporation with income over $50 million per year must get a new corporate charter once every ten years which will only be granted to those corporations which can prove a satisfactory history of social responsibility to a jury of ordinary citizens

A fuller vision of the conference can be found at www.tikkun.org/community/spiritual_activism_conference. You might also want to read the Core Vision of The Tikkun Community at www.tikkun.org to get a background of the thinking that has led to this (the Network of Spiritual Progressives is a project of The Tikkun Community). If the first conference works, we will be having a follow-up conference at American U. in Washington D.C. Feb. 10-13th, 2006, at which time my new book The Left Hand of God will be published, but right now I'm most interested in having you come to the conference in Berkeley, because this is the kick-off that will determine if we can really create a Network of Spiritual Progressives.

If it turns out you really can't come in July, but you are really interested in helping us, here is what you can do: a. send this invite to everyone on your own personal email list and everyone on all the organizational email lists to which you have access. b. go to www.tikkun.org and join the Network of Spiritual Progressives (you don't have to do this if you are already a paid-up member of The Tikkun Community, of which the Network of Spiritual Progressives is a project). c. if you'd like to play an activist role, tell me your ideas on how to build this project (after you've read the description of the Network which is also at www.tikkun.org)--and let me know your ideas on how to spread the word (better tell me things that you can do rather than things I ought to do, because I'm stretched to the max).

By the way, among the sponsoring organizations for the July conference: The Tikkun Community, Peace and Conflict Studies program at U.C. Berkeley, Pacific School of Religion, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Pace e Bene Catholic peace organization, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality Justice and Healing, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, St. John's Episcopal Church, the University Religious Council, and Dragonfly Media. I'd be delighted if your own organization wanted to become a co-sponsoring organization.