Jamaica Kincaid said that “I think, on the whole, church groups should be banned from these places” because given the predominance of Voodoo the Christians visiting there are trying to spread Christianity. This is not a surprising charge, given the activities of such groups in the US, who often coerce or force the people they purport to help to accept their religion in exchange for help.

Let’s not pretend ignorance here: the so-called pro-life movement is not pro-life. It is anti-life. It is against women’s reproductive rights, it is against the life of the mother if complications threaten her survival, and it is against the life of underage girls who are pregnant due to incest, or the life of any woman who is the victim of rape.

It seems to escape Glenn Beck’s notice that every name is an ethnic name. Including “Glenn.” Yes, his own name is Irish, Gaelic (a variant of Glen). It is difficult to see how an ethnic name from Africa is less American than an ethnic name from Ireland – or anywhere else.

The rebirth of progressivism in the United States in the early 21st century calls for an inquiry into the subject of progressive politics. We have to ask, those of us who adopt the mantle of progressivism today: what are we talking about when we speak of ourselves as progressives?

Without Christianity, today’s GOP would be impossible, a political party dedicated not to a social platform but to a narrow and restrictive view of what is right and wrong. The only striking difference seems to be that it was the Nazis who co-opted the Christianity that had birthed it, while today it is Christianity that has co-opted the GOP. In either case the aspirations of conservative Christians find a voice in the political arena.