Religious Socialism

Religious Socialism is the publication of the Religious Commission of Democratic Socialists of America.

DSA's Religion and Socialism Commission

Religious types continued to meet informally at conventions of the Socialist Party USA and Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. But it wasn't until 1977 when delegates to the DSOC convention in Chicago met and organized a Religion & Socialism Committee (later Commission) and decided to publish Religious Socialism.

Among early co-editors and contributors were Harvey Cox, Cornel West, Peter Steinfels, Jim Wallace, Sister Mary Emil Penet, Maxine Phillips, Rosemary Ruether, Arthur Waskow, Joe Holland, Jim Adams, and Gary Dorrien.

In one three-way exchange, Michael Harrington, Rosemary Ruether and "labor priest" Monsignor George Higgins "sparred over Mike's claim that "the political and social Judeo-Christian God of the West is dying"; Rosemary's claim that Mike did not appreciate the vitality of liberation Christianity in Poland and among the Sandinistas in Nicaragua; and Msgr. Higgins's claim that the Sandinistas were not all that great or that Brazilian bishops did not fit Rosemary's dismissal of the institutional church in Latin America. That same year Maxine Phillips, then organizational director of DSA, organized a successful Religion & Socialism conference in a Catholic retreat center."

Most of those listed above spoke there, plus Dorothee Soelle, the German poet/theologian. About 140 attended, including a sizable Jewish contingent attracted by Arthur Waskow.

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