On 7/24/2012 11:58 AM, Crmccann wrote:
> If she sides with the Progressives as a whole, then she
> cannot believe herself to be fighting against tradition,
> because the Social Gospelers and Ely
> and others were seeking to place the Progressive cause on
> religious foundations, i.e., tradition.


This also is incorrect and is fully addressed in Pivot.
She is happy to have religious allies for her Progressive
cause of birth control, which as a cause she clearly
believes to be a fight against tradition/
conservatism/reaction (as she characterizes it).
And in this belief, she was quite right of course.

"The ideas and practices of the Old Civilization are older
and more widespread than and not identifiable with either
Christian or Catholic culture, and it will be a great
misfortune if the issues between the Old Civilization and
the New are allowed to slip into the deep ruts of religious
controversies that are only accidentally and intermittently
parallel." (from Well's Introduction.)

And in her own words:

"Religious propaganda against Birth Control is crammed with
contradiction and fallacy. It refutes itself. Yet it brings
the opposing views into vivid contrast. In stating these
differences we should make clear that advocates of Birth
Control are not seeking to attack the Catholic church. We
quarrel with that church, however, when it seeks to assume
authority over non-Catholics and to dub their behavior
immoral because they do not conform to the dictatorship of
Rome."

"To object to these traditional and churchly ideas does not
by any means imply that the doctrine of Birth Control is
anti-Christian. On the contrary, it may be profoundly in
accordance with the Sermon on the Mount."

"Ecclesiastical opposition to Birth Control on the part of
certain representatives of the Protestant churches, based
usually on quotations from the Bible, is equally invalid,
and for the same reason. The attitude of the more
intelligent and enlightened clergy has been well and
succinctly expressed by Dean Inge, who, referring to the
ethics of Birth Control, writes: 'THIS IS EMPHATICALLY
A MATTER IN WHICH EVERY MAN AND WOMAN MUST JUDGE FOR
THEMSELVES, AND MUST REFRAIN FROM JUDGING OTHERS.' "


Emphasis in the original.
Enough said, I think.

Alan Isaac