SPEAKING OF LABOUR START:

The Labour Start organization has chosen the book 'Blue Collar Jesus:How Christianity Supports Workers' Rights' by Darren Cushman Wood as their book of the week selection.The author presents an historical exploration of the various trends in "left wing Christianity", from the Catholic Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, including the "forgotten history" of Evangelical Christianity and labour. Click on the above link to see what Labour Start has to say about this book and to order it.

Also in this vein Molly has recently acquired another book 'The Politics of Jesus:Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and how they have been Corrupted' by Obery M. Hendricks Jr.. This book can be seen and ordered from the publisher at the following link.

The two authors mentioned above are both ministers in the Methodist Church, as was J.S. Woodsworth here in Canada. The trend known as the Social Gospel held a particular attraction for people of this denomination as well as for Baptist ministers such as Tommy Douglas and Martin Luther King. In actual fact despite the unwelcoming attitude of the left and the attempts of the religious right to hide this tradition there have always been evangelical Christians who held that Jesus taught about justice as well as personal salvation. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the "Evangelical Left" at their site that shows that this form of Christianity is far from dead.