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The Cushite-
I do generally agree with your concerns. Spirituality and religion are such ambiguous terms. In a real sense, there is not "traditionless" religion and spirituality. Being a Christian believer means that "faith without works" is dead and everyone who says "Lord,Lord" is not going to enter God's kingdom. Following in the way of Jesus Christ, the religion that is the background and putative ideological support for much conservative thougth, doesn't leave one to simply advocate conventional conservative social thought and palm it off as "Christian." It's Christian if it leads us, in our personal and political life, to order our lives in the way of self-giving love and away from greed, the use of power for personal or group self-aggrandizement, and the abuse of others humans beings, who are created in God's image. This is not a new issue: the apostle Paul expends great energy to teach his disciples in the churches he found that they were not to assimilate their new faith and life within the parameters of Greco-Roman socio-political thought and praxis, from current construals of race/ethnicity/gender to how one curries politcal and social favor in that world based on wealth,power,prestige,etc. Our problem is we've done the same thing and have been rendered practically inable, in many instances, to offer true, effective Christian social and political critiques that are the basis for doing the work of societal renewal. This is just what Dr. King was doing,and there are others like William Stringfellow who set about to articulate a "Christian" social and political critique and vision.
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