Terminology describes political action, it doesn’t cause it.

Christian ideals, on the other hand, have been used for political action for decades (millennia?). Check out the Mennonites and Quakers on peace, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker on the homeless, Fr. Virgilio Elizondo on Mestizo/Galilean Christology and its application to majority/minority relations and immigration (see e.g. “Beyond Borders,” which I helped edit, and “Mestizo Democracy: The Politics of Crossing Borders,” which I didn’t), and of course Mennonite John Howard Yoder’s somewhat heavy but life-changing book, “The Politics of Jesus.” There’s also a lot of material within Protestantism’s Social Gospel. It’s out there: all one has to do is seek it.

For models of spiritual implementation of political goals, check out the Sarvodaya Movement and the various writings by and about A. T. Ariyaratne. A lesser known but Christian model is Fr. Niphot Thienvihan’s DISAC in northern Thailand– and there are many others. Catholic Worker might be counted among them, and perhaps Pax Christi as well.

Note that in each case, the necessary transformation is individual and personal– hence churches often have little role; it relies on face-to-face contact by committed individuals. The only way to create a viable mass movement is one person at a time– there is no shortcut. And it may take a decade or more to bear full fruit, but the potential for change is nearly limitless.

A discussion of gradualism vs. revolutionary change is really an internal Left discussion. Any organizer with a brain wouldn’t use such phrases if organizing, say, the middle class in Montana.

So how does one translate New Age terminology or Christian ideals into political action?

Ironically, the vocabulary of change might be found in the dreaded New Age movement: transformation, co-creation, and so forth. Oh, how I hate the ethereal BS of some of the New Agers I’ve met– yet their vocabulary, detached from the pseudo-spiritual nice-nice teachings, provides a foundation on which positive political change could be built.

And as for theory, you’ll have more luck dropping Marx and adopting another radical agent of social change: Jesus of Nazareth. Though the church power structures have become corrupted, and too often the twisted message of hatred preached by those seeking power serves Satan rather than God, still the teachings of Jesus draw people to live in radically new and transformative ways. If you think Christians can’t be radical, check out the Catholic Agitator, newspaper of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker organization.