Unitarian Universalism is the closest I can equate with a religious left. True, us UUs don’t like to be called “religious”, but it is a faith just the same. We share a faith in the possibility of a better, kinder world. UUs are, in general,very politically active and work towards many social justice causes.
Religious political activism does not have to mean Christian.
Based on my admittedly incomplete understanding of the politics involved, I’d say a big difference between our two systems is that a party in your parliamentary system is expected to produce results. As I understand it, a party with a majority in the House of Commons can essentially pass the laws it wants with other branchs of the government having largely symbolic veto power.
In the US, the different branchs have much more real power. In practice, for a law to be enacted, it has to be supported by the Senate, the House of Representatives, the President, and the court system. All of these branchs have their own idealogies and agendas and it’s rare that any one party will control them all.
The effect is that American political parties can afford to indulge in a great deal more rhetoric without having to worry about being held accountable. Politicians can tell their most extreme supporters that if it was up to them they legislate the most extreme programs but they can’t because of the obstruction of the other branchs. Some politicians go so far as to pass laws they know will be struck down by another branch of the government.
Briefly put:
The term ‘religious left’ when spoken from a Judeo-Christian point of view somewhat of an oxy moron. The reason they are considered ‘right’ is because the tenants of The Holy Bible.
For instance The Bible speaks out against homosexuality, abortion, and sexual immorality. These are things that the right wing agenda also speaks out about.
However, both ‘religious’ sides use The Holy Bible to fit their agendas, instead of using it for the betterment of society as a whole.
And yes I am a conservative
Little Nemo: that was a very insightful comment. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes a lot of sense of U.S. politics.
Adding to the notion that religious belief doesn’t fit neatly into political ideologies, there were a lot of churches which could reasonably be described as conservative and center which were involved in sheltering Latin American political refugees from the Immigration Service during the 80s.
The Christic Institute is a famously left-leaning church-affiliated group that has taken on a lot of left-leaning causes; they pushed for investigations on Karen Silkwood’s death and Iran-Contra.
Citizens in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is (was?) run by Liberation Theology types.
I have always felt my very left-wing parents were religious, Protestant, plain and simple, except for lacking the God-concept.
[ul]
[li]There was the concept of “active sin” (harming the environment, by consuming). [/li][li]The sense of being born sinful “taking up more then your share so poor little kids in Africa go hungry”[/li][li]And the pressure to read all sorts of “approved books” and a dislike for plain consumeristic TV.[/li][/ul]
There are many more paralllels, but I’m to lazy to post them.
Yes, I’ve fallen from the faith of my ancestors and will go to hell.
In Australia and NZ: the mainstream churches, Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian are significantly leftist.
Old fashioned socialists by policy
Also consider myself “religious left.”
No, not it’s not very prominent (or publically prominent) on the national scene at the moment, but from my understanding, the religious right as a political force is relatively recent. (Less than the 30 years or so.)
Of denominations - Society of Friends tends to be on the left as does the United Church of Christ. The mainline protestant denominations (Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, among others) tend to be moderate, and the religious right is not representative of them. Catholics were known as liberal for a while - but I’m not sure where that is today.
The group called Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice was formed to counter the concept that all people of faith are opposed to abortion and birth control.
There IS a religious left in the US.
As far individuals past and present:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jesse Jackson
Cornel West [he came out in Matrix Reload-beat that Pat Robertson!]
Dorothy Day from the Catholic Worker Movement
As far as organizations:
Religion and Socialism Commission from DSA is one of the more active religous groups in the socialist millieu in the US.
XicanoreX
The majority of the politically active black voters are organized through the church, and are a very leftist voting block at least as large as the religious right.
As said before, it’s hard to really map religions on a L-R axis.
However, I take one small exception to c_three’s analysis. The structure of the phrase “Religious Right” in the sense we normally use is that “Right” is the noun or identifier, “religious” the modifier. It is the right-wing (conservative, reactionary, whatever pleases your preference) faction whose motivation/justification is religious. So there is NO conceptual incongruence in coining a phrase “religious left”. (anyway the usage of Right-vs.-Left to refer to reactionaries vs. liberals IIRC did originate from the actual seating arrangement in some European Parliament so it may have jack to do with “right” meaning "correct"or “true”)
As to amarinth’s question of where the RCC stands right now, except for matters related to sex/gender-issues and to deference to superior authority it’s usually quite liberal by US standards… but on those exceptions it’s well to the right of the US general trend.
The lower visibility of a “religious left” in USA politics may also be attributed to:
(a) how those churches/denominations that espouse a “social gospel” will NOT adopt the rigid position of the “religious right”. They will say it is a Christian thing to do, to oppose nuclear weapons or the death penalty or to sponsor gay rights… but they will not claim the Bible damns to Hell those who favor other policies, or that God has used terrorist attacks to smite the Nation for not adopting these policies
(b) there not being recently a Big Issue that the mainstream can identify with that can be argued from the left as a big moral-commandment position, like Civil Rights and the Vietnam War were in their time (remember the Berrigans? In the end they were reduced to vandalizing submarine bases and missile silos)
© organization, organization, organization. The Christian Coalition and their associates got their act together, did what they had to do over years of intensive work, and have stayed on-message. They have been crying that the heathens are taking the upper hand and God needs your tax-deductibloe contribution to avoid that, for 30 years, and still are going at it. The religiously-inclined among the 60s-70s Civil Rights and Anti-War groups kinda allowed themselves to stagnate or fragment once the immediate urgency faded; those who kept in the spotlight tended to reduce the religious angle to a near-afterthought.
Very good points, JRDelirious. The very inclusiveness of much of the left-leaning groups means that many differing and often competing ideas are all thrown into the mix and included in the group. Thus it is tough to organize around a central concept the way a group that thinks it has the one true way can organize.
We are out there. 
One of my favorite web sites is:
http://www.anglocatholicsocialism.org
I am an ordained deacon in the the Episcopal Church, a denomination that was once described as “the Republican Party at prayer.” What I tend to find, and YMMV, is that my clergy mates and I are much more liberal than the congregations we serve.
You want radical stuff from Scripture? Read the
Sermon on the Mount. Read how the first Christian comunities were set up in Acts pf the Apostles. Read James…dang, James is my favorite book in Scripture…it’s waaaay in back of the New Testament.
First, an irritated nitpick – individual items on a list of beliefs are tenets – if your Bible has tenants, raise their rent until they move out! Sorry, but it’s one of my own pet language peeves! 
Secondly, and with a bit more justification based on the internally-presumed-accurate statements of Jesus, the religious left hold to a doctrine of inclusiveness, avoidance of doctrine-based judgment of others (coupled with condemnation of the religious right for failing to honor what we consider Him to have called most important, rather inconsistently with our claim to non-judgmentalism), and a love-based ethic rather than a commandment-based one.
But since name-calling sells more than sweetness and light, the Right gets the press – until we do something controversial, like electing as a bishop a gay man in a committed relationship.
Ding ding ding! It was the Legislature of the French Republic after the Revolution.
Anyway, I hate the concept of Liberal-v-Conservative precisely because it’s so arbitrary: American Liberals are Conservatives in France and Reactionaries in China (and Dead in North Korea), and Conservatives from the 19th Century would be Racist Bigots in the 20th Century.
I prefer a three-axis system, with Individualist/Collectivist being the x-axis (horizontal), Libertarian/Authoritarian being the y-axis (flat vertical), and Progressive/Conservative being the z-axis (three-dimensional vertical).
Everything is relative, of course, but with more variables you can place groups with more accuracy and make more intelligent comparisons between dissimilar political regmies.
For example, the question `Was Classic Republican Athens more or less Conservative than the modern US?’ is meaningless, but we can compare the relative power of the governments (Libertarian/Authoritarian), the relative freedom of people to succeed and fail economically (Individualist/Collectivist), and the relative willingnesses of the governments to accept social change (Progressive/Conservative).
In this case, the OPer wants to know if there are any Liberal religious groups (presumably in the US). What does Liberal mean? In this country, it means a generally Collectivist government, with strong inclinations to social welfare programs (the Great Society and the New Deal), a rather Authoritarian government, with a desire to expand the powers of government (the Brady Bill and Affirmative Action), and a fundamentally Progressive government, with a desire to expedite social change and a tolerance of those who have traditionally been despised (Gay Marriage). So, do any religious groups advocate such a system? Apparently, some do.
My, the level of gross generalization and name-calling in this thread is highly unusual for GQ.
More to the point of the OP: yes, there is a “religious left.” It’s not organized as such (but neither is the “religious right.”) Here is one example, although they might not be liberal enough for your taste. Their main agenda is against armed conflict. Others in this thread have given other examples.
It might actually surprise you how much the “religious right” people differ in their opinions, anyway. Any time a whole group of people is treated as a bunch of clones, be wary.
RR
Let’s see, I’d say Archbishop Romero was pretty skewed to the left.
Then there’s the School of the Americas Watch which I think was founded by a Maryknoll brother.
And some Jesuits are pretty leftist.
Actually, I don’t think you have to be leftist at all to be concerned about the School of the Americas. My opinion on conservatives is about as harsh as anyone on this board, but I don’t think that because you are conservative you support torture. If this IS a tenant … er, tent … er, tenet … of conservatism, let me know, I have much baiting, sarcasm and general mockery to do.