“Whose God is God?” thundered the Reverend Jesse Jackson from a podium placed at the altar of The Riverside Church to an assembled crowd of the left-leaning political and religious faithful on Sunday afternoon. “There is a profound theological debate in our nation tonight about the nature and character of God… . Today the Congress reconvenes to save a woman – Terry Schiavo – from starving to death, but then vote to starve millions everyday. Whose God is God? They fight to save the fetus, and then starve the babies. Whose God is God?”

Enthusiastic applause rolled through the pews as the religious left attempted a revival meeting on the occasion of the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The event was billed as “an interfaith service of remembrance, resistance, reverence and renewal.” Other speakers included the senior minister of Riverside, the Reverend Doctor James Forbes; the author and editor of Sojournors Magazine, Jim Wallis, and Susannah Heschel – daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and chair of the Jewish studies department of Dartmouth University. All were united in the attempt to rally their dispirited liberal troops who, since the election results at home and in Iraq, feel increasingly caught on the wrong side of recent history.

The service began with a solemn parade of cardboard coffins meant to symbolize the fallen American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Some of the performance-art pallbearers wore buttons which read, “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” as the jazz pianist Bill Apollo Brown riffed on “Let My People Go.”

For all their ripped-from-the-headlines opportunity opposition, there was an evident nostalgia to their activism. Almost every speaker could not help but mention that it was at this very church that Dr. Martin Luther King gave his seminal 1967 address, “Beyond Vietnam.” Dr. King’s call for a redirection of funds from the Vietnam War to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty was resuscitated in speech after speech. No endorsement of democracy in Iraq crossed the assembled lips, which instead were focused on the concepts of occupation and imperialism. In this liberal hymnal, the war on terror is a diversion from the real crises of inner-city poverty, discrimination, and environmental degradation. The most clear and present enemy seemed not to be Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but President Bush.

The normally sedate Mr. Wallis drew cheers by saying, “American occupation is not the solution, American occupation is now the problem.” Mrs. Heschel inspired peals of knowing laughter when she stated, “I fear President Bush has Sharon-envy.” Mr. Victor Parades of “Military Families Speak Out,” said that “in our lavish and selfish lifestyles we are indifferent to injustice in other countries.” The dreadlocked Reverend Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, coordinator for the Clergy and Laity Concerned about Iraq, brought the crowd to his feet when he said “we must save our democracy by engaging in radical dissent, wherever that dissent may lead.” But it was Mr. Jackson who seemed to best summon the passions of the audience when he drew perhaps the loudest applause of the afternoon by saying, “There is a fascist attack on civil rights and civil liberties. We cannot be silent. We cannot let them intimidate us. We must fight back.”

What is left of the American left is angry. In their attempt to regroup in the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, many have called for the reassertion of a “religious left,” to serve as a counterweight to the religious right. In many ways this is a movement to applaud. No political party should be allowed to claim exclusive ownership of the Bible or the American flag. Moreover, there is a strong American tradition of progressive change championed by liberal clergy, ranging from the abolition of slavery to the anti-segregationist civil rights movement of the 1960s. This heritage represents the best of principled American political activism. But as Democrats attempt to reconnect themselves to the self-evident moral authority of this tradition, they need to avoid at least two traps amply evident at Sunday’s event.

The first is the temptation to channel their political frustrations into an anger which quickly can translate into hate for their opponents. The American people are justifiably allergic to the stereotype of the wild-eyed anti-American activist. Liberals’ association with this campus fringe has done their party irreparable damage since the late 1960s.

To this end, the religious left must similarly be aware not simply retreating to a nostalgic activism that applies predictable old rhetoric to every new event. They must update their approach or remain irrelevant. Iraq is not Vietnam. George W. Bush is not Bull Connor.

After the event, Rev. Jackson left the altar quickly. I followed his entourage into a departing elevator and asked the reverend what he felt watching Iraqis vote six weeks ago. “I have to put it into context,” he replied. “The same people who enjoy watching democracy in Iraq would not fight for us to have the vote in our own country. And Cheney, who voted three times to keep Mandela in jail, did not vote for democracy in South Africa. So I am suspicious of their motives for their newfound passion for democracy … You have to hope that the people [in Iraq] are better off, but it is premature to arrive at any conclusions that they are better off. All we know is that they are dying, daily.”

Until leaders of the religious left like Rev. Jackson can adjust their perspective to acknowledge the human rights benefits of the end of the rule of a dictator like Saddam Hussein, even as they continue to dissent from this American administration, they will appear to be stuck in the past and mired in comparatively narrow domestic partisan politics. Surely their vision of God must be able to make such distinctions.