WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Progressive and evangelical leaders have joined together to propose shared policy solutions on issues that have long divided left and right in the so-called culture wars.

Two years ago Third Way, a non-profit think tank that supports equality for gays and reproductive choice for women, joined forces with Faith in Public Life, a coalition seeking to broaden the evangelical social agenda beyond issues of abortion and homosexuality. The two groups began discussing how to "change the culture wars into culture discussion," said Rachel Laser, culture program director at Third Way.

Faith in Public Life, an evangelical group, and the progressive Third Way laid out a consensus legislative agenda.

"The culture wars have been characterized by vilifying those who differ from us on provocative issues and treating them as traitors and threats," said Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Florida and one-time president-elect of the Christian Coalition. "I believe we can end those wars by thinking of our differences as ways we can learn from each other and advance without compromising core values."

After a telephone conference call with reporters, the activists planned to meet with President-elect Obama's transition team and members of Congress about what Laser described as "a roadmap for how to put and end to the culture wars."

The joint agenda calls for reducing the number of abortions through policies like comprehensive sex education that includes teaching abstinence, improved access to contraception for low-income women, expanded healthcare for pregnant women and new families, and encouraging adoption.

It supports policies making it illegal to fire or refuse to hire or promote employees based on their sexual orientation, with "a clear exemption" for faith-based employers.

The shared agenda also opposes torture and calls for comprehensive immigration reform that secures America's borders while providing a path to earned citizenship. The immigration proposal also calls for a guest-worker program and for keeping the families of undocumented workers together.

Robert Jones of Third Way called it "a genuinely new path for the country." For evangelicals, he said, it "heralds the arrival of a second wave of the evangelical center." The first wave, he explained, was comprised of evangelicals who called for the broadening their brethren's moral agenda beyond issues of abortion and homosexuality. The second wave involves "re-engaging with these important and difficult issues with new eyes and ears."

David Gushee, an ethics professor at Mercer University and a regular columnist for Associated Baptist Press, said the four issues "may seem to represent quite different or even unrelated concerns," but at the core of all is "concern for human dignity."

"Human dignity is just another way of saying that each human being is to be treated with the respect that they deserve as objects of God's infinite and merciful love," Gushee said.

Recently the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention announced a defensive agenda for the Obama administration -- opposing the Freedom of Choice Act relaxing restrictions on abortion, fighting legislation like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that it says would "normalize" homosexuality, and opposing adding sexual orientation and gender identity to categories protected under federal hate-crimes legislation.

Jonathan Merritt, spokesman for an ad hoc group calling itself the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative, said he is proud of his denomination's "unwavering stance" on moral issues, but Southern Baptists must also live out other faith tenets like compassion, charity and respect for human rights.

"We should maintain our convictions on those matters where conscience demands that we part ways," Merritt said. "However, we must accept the promise that people of mutual goodwill can find shared values and goals. For far too long, we have allowed the common good to be sacrificed on the altar of our disagreements."

Merritt said he supports making abortion illegal -- but, in the meantime, wants to reduce the number of abortions.

"It is easy to call one's self pro-life," Merritt said. "The difficult thing is to put feet to our faith and begin working with real people in real communities -- to see that faith made tangible, and lives saved."

Gushee acknowledged that some evangelicals might view employment rights for gays and lesbians as controversial, but he supports protections for sexual minorities "because denying someone a job in a secular workplace due to their sexual orientation violates human dignity and serves no public purpose."

Laser said the two groups still disagree on many issues, but discussion focused only on finding specific and concrete solutions where they could find common ground.

Early on, she said, even many in her own organization thought the compromise effort would fail. "We're very proud of how far we've come in our governing agenda," she said.

"This governing agenda is a beginning and not an end," she added. "There will be much more in the future."

Merritt, the son of former Southern Baptist Convention president James Merritt, said he counts himself among the generation of younger evangelicals who have "turned away from self-serving partisanship" and seek "a rapid infusion of civility and grace into a political culture where faith has often produced divisiveness."

"I support this agenda because I am a Southern Baptist," Merritt said, "not in spite of that fact."

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Related ABP story:

Evangelicals, liberals seek dialogue on ‘culture war’ issues (10/11/2007)

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