In Western societies today, the major crisis is not the deprivation of money but the deprivation of meaning-- and people desperately hunger for a framework of meaning that can connect their lives to a transcendent purpose beyond "making it" or maximizing money, power or fame. It is this spiritual crisis that the liberal and progressive forces have been unable to address because they don't even recognize it as a central reality of contemporary life.

The most effective way to challenge the misuse of God, religion and spirituality by the Religious Right is to create a Spiritual Left--welcoming not only to people associated with traditional religions, but also to the many secular people who have deep spiritual yearnings and sensitivities but who have not felt comfortable articulating them within the context of established religious communities.

The Network of Spiritual Progressives that we seek to create is actually a unique attempt at inclusionary politics, uniting secular and religious people who affirm the spiritual dimension of human experience, are unwilling to see the spiritual linked to the political program of the Right (particularily it's militarism, denial of human rights, insensitivity to environmental survival, and preferential option for the rich while dismantling educational, medical and social services for the needy, demeaning of homosexuals, and attempts to criminalize abortion), and who seek A New Bottom Line of love and caring and generosity to replace the selfishness and materialism of the Bottom Line of contemporary global capital.

We are seeking to foster a new atmosphere in liberal and progressive culture that is open and curious about spiritual and religious perspectives, open to learning from them, and willing to engage in serious discourse with progressive spiritual and religious people without a tinge of cynicism or an automatic dismissal of their concerns as inherently and necessarily reactionary, irrational or flaky.

We hope to create is an awareness of the need for cooperation, coordination, and mutual support among the many religious and spiritual traditions where spiritual activism is taking place, and to strengthen that activism through sharing the teachings, rituals, and wisdom that each of these traditions embodies. Similarly, we hope to provide an organizational framework in which activists in social change movements who have not found adequate support for spiritual dimension in those movements can meet with others to strategize how to promote a new consciousness within their movements, and a framework for people in existing religious and spiritual communities who have not found adequate support for a transformative social/political vision to meet with others to strategize how to build that consciousness in their religious and spiritual communities. In the context of The Network of Spiritual Progressives we provide a context for the kind of thinking and support for a spiritual/political integration that can then be brought back into our lives, our community organizations, our workplaces, our families--knowing that we have an international community of support. And from that base, we can become an important voice and presence in American public life, providing a coherent and spiritually sensitive alternative to the Religious Right.