Network for Spiritual Progressives
The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) is a new interfaith move-ment of people providing an alternative spiritual voice to that of the Religious Right. We are committed to a vision of peace and social justice and are seeking to create a New Bottom Line in which materialism and selfishness are replaced with love, caring, generosity, kindness, ecolo-gical sensitivity, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation. The Network welcomes "spiritual but not religious" secular people as well as religious progressives.
Locally , a group of Alamedans is meeting twice a month to support each other in our progressive spiritual activism and plan community activities that support NSP goals. For more information about our group, please contact Kathryn at somavoce@yahoo.com or 510-769-5603.
Nationally , NSP was envisioned by Bay Area Rabbi Michael Lerner. The founding conference, held in July 2005, was co-sponsored by the Tikkun Community and the Peace and Conflict Studies Program at UC Berkeley. For more information about NSP or the conference, please visitwww.spiritualprogressives.org .
Three specific goals that NSP participants are asked to embrace are:
- Changing the old bottom line -- the one that maximized money and power and extreme individualism - to one that maximizes love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity, kindness and generosity, nonviolence and peace.
- Challenging the misuse of religion and concepts of God by the Religious Right.
- Ensuring that the legitimate critiques of the Religious Right not to be extended to a generalized distrust of all religious and spiritual practices.
