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Tavis: I am pleased to welcome Rabbi Michael Lerner back to this program. He is the author of several books, and the editor of "Tikkun" magazine. His latest takes aim at the increasing role of the religious right in American life. His book is called "The Left Hand of God, Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right." Rabbi Lerner, nice to have you back on this program.

Rabbi Michael Lerner: It's great to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you. I wonder how God would feel about being caught in a quagmire, in a fight, in a push and pull, a tug of war, if you will, about whose hand he's owned by. The right, the left, how does God feel about this fight?

Lerner: Well, I don't think God is owned by the right or the left. And the right hand of God actually refers to the biblical quote, in which Miriam, after the Jews have gotten out of the slavery, says your right hand, God, is filled with power, and the left hand represents the aspect of God's love and compassion. But this doesn't map on in a one to one way into right politics or left politics.

Because actually, there are a lot of people on the left who sometimes use fear and domination to motivate. There are people on the right who go with love. So, I'm not trying to demean anybody, and I'm not saying God is on one side or the other. But right now, you've got the right hand of the God, that is the view that the world is really scary, and that and everybody's going to take advantage of you unless you take advantage of them first.

That's the right hand of God, consciousness, and it's out of whack with the left hand of God. So that people don't realize that we could actually build the world based on love and kindness, not on domination of the other. So we're trying to get this more into sync. And the irony of what happened in this country is the religious right has sided with that right hand of God consciousness, and given it to the political elites.

See, the right hand of God in the bible is about empowering the poor and downtrodden, the slaves. But what they've done is to use the right hand of God consciousness in the bible to empower the oppressors, to empower the richest people in this society to get power over everybody else in the world. (laugh) That's an inversion of biblical message.

Tavis: I get the formulation. It's an interesting irony, or interesting flip, if you will. This title, though, the subtitle, certainly, 'Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right,' your comment notwithstanding, this subtitle begs the question as to how this happens. Let me just slow down for a second. How did this happen? How did it get to the point where you feel and others feel, obviously, that the country has to be taken back from the religious right? How did that happen?

Lerner: Well, it happened in part because there is a real spiritual crisis in American society. Every day, people go to work in a place in which they learn that the bottom line is maximize money and power. And what they're simultaneously learning is to see other people from the standpoint of how can you be of use to me, so that I can advance my own self-interest?

Well, when people spend all day in a world of work like that, they come home and in the few hours they're out of that world, they still have that same consciousness. In fact, they think that's the real world. That the real world is everybody looking out for number one. That causes a huge spiritual crisis in families.

It's very hard to teach your kids values. It's very hard to sustain friendships when people are just looking out for number one. And marriages. Fifty percent of marriages break up in this country, and even the other 50 percent, people are very insecure, because they don't know when it's possible that they can truly count on the other, because maybe your partner is going to find a better deal for themselves at some place, at some point in their life.

And because what they've learned all day is look out for number one, they're gonna go for it. This creates a huge spiritual crisis. People are scared. They don't know who they can really count on and trust, even in the most loving relationships. And the right came forward and said, there's a spiritual crisis. And they were correct about that, but unfortunately, they then blamed that spiritual crisis on Native Americans, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, feminists.

In some places, Jews. And in other words, they demeaned other people. But they got tremendous credibility in this country, because they mentioned the spiritual crisis and understood it, and the left didn't understand it at all.

Tavis: All right, so what does it say, then, Rabbi, about, trying to phrase this the right way. What does it say, then, about the Johnny-come-lately left that the right got there first and declared there was a spiritual crisis. And whether you like or loathe their framework, they at least said there's a crisis here, and here's how we believe that we can take God's word to correct the wrongs in our society. What does it say about the Johnny-come lately left?

Lerner: Well, I think it says, number one, that the left doesn't have adequate categories. And that's what this book does. This book gives to the Democrats, the liberals, the progressives, a way of understanding the spiritual crisis that they haven't had. They think the spiritual crisis is either just a code word for racism, sexism, and homophobia, or pure bologna.

(laugh) They think it's just an empty term. But there really is a spiritual crisis, and there really are spiritual needs. I interviewed 10,000 middle income working people who were moving to the right politically, not the hardcore right, but people who had been Democratic party voters who were moving to the right.

And they told me about their lives and the crisis in their lives, and it was about work that doesn't provide them with a framework of meaning and purpose. So many people in this country actually want to contribute to the common good, but they're in workplaces that stifle their creativity.

Tavis: Okay, that's their condition. I hear their condition. What was their rationale, these 10,000 folk, for moving rightward, politically?

Lerner: Because the right at least understands them, and left doesn't even speak about this. Doesn't talk at all about the hunger for meaning. The left says, hey, it is the economy, stupid. And it assumes that the only people who have meaning needs are they themselves. But the working class as a whole in America, they just care about material needs.

But you go to any church, and you see that there's tremendous hunger for meaning and purpose. And so, the left never understood that. It doesn't speak to that hunger. And that's what this book is meant to rectify, to correct, to show that you can speak to the hunger in a progressive way, not in a reactionary way.

Tavis: I'm glad you said that, 'cause I wanted to ask how you view, at least this notion that I see, that too many folk on the left are afraid to even say that word, G-O-D. They won't say it. You've written a book about it. What's your sense of?

Lerner: I am already being denounced (laugh) in many left circles for writing this book. Because there's a religio-phobia in parts of the left that has to be challenged. And we're creating a new national organization. It's called The Network Of Spiritual Progressives. www.spiritualprogressives.org. And we are going to challenge both the religious right and the left.

Because the left has this deep suspicion of God and religion, and it pushes away all kinds of people who ought to be part of them, who agree with them on politics, who agree with them on the war in Iraq, who agree with them on the craziness of the economic programs of the Republicans and how much it hurts poor people and benefits the rich, but nevertheless don't feel comfortable in that context, 'cause the left puts them down and makes them feel that they're in a lower intellectual or psychological level of development if they believe in God or spirit.

Tavis: The text notwithstanding, practically speaking, how do we reverse this trend that you referenced earlier, these 10,000 folk, and indeed millions of others who, perhaps, are looking this way because somebody over here is speaking to their fears, their trepidations, their angst? How do we turn that trend around? Are people going in that direction?

Lerner: Number one, we have to challenge the religio-phobia on the left. We have to build a progressive movement that has opening for and respect for religion and spiritual consciousness. Number two, and the book lays out in detail, "The Left Hand of God" lays out in detail how to fight for a new bottom line in America.

You see, you can't really win people back just by, some people say oh, let's throw in a few religious lines. The Democrats in 2006 or 2008 are going to start quoting the bible. But they miss the point. It's not that they need to be quoting the bible. It's they need to recognize the depth of people's spiritual hunger, and take it seriously.

Tavis: What ought the new bottom line be?

Lerner: Well, instead of just believing that institutions are productive, efficient, and rational to the extent they maximize money and power, they should also be judged efficient, rational, and productive to the extent that they maximize loving, caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacities to see others as embodiments of the sacred, and to respond to the universe.

Tavis: That ain't the American way, Rabbi, it's all about the money. Come on.

Lerner: No, it's not. That's the key. (laugh) And that's what we learned here. That it's not just the money. That people actually care about a higher meaning and purpose to their lives. And many, many millions of Americans would respond to progressive causes on all kinds of other issues if they got that people on the left cared about God and cared about the spirit.

Tavis: So speaking of getting it on the left. You are doing Yeoman's work in the arena, in the field in which you work. But ultimately, for this kind of stuff to take hold, since we're talking about this in a political context, the folk on the political left have to get it. So how do you get the body politic to get what we're saying here? What you're saying here?

Lerner: Yeah, well, in a way, first of all, this is like the women's movement, the Civil Rights movement, the gay movement. Each of them required first a transformation in the consciousness of people in the progressive world. Then a challenge to the political world. And we are going, on May seventeenth to twentieth, we're having a national conference in Washington, D.C. of spiritual progressives to bring what we're calling a spiritual covenant with America.

See, Gingrich had his contract with America in 1994, and it helped them tremendously. Democrats have no unifying theme. We're going to bring the spiritual covenant with America to Washington, D.C., and have a teach-in to Congress about this. And in fact, one of the Congressmen was the former chair of the Black caucus. See, 'cause the African-American community is the one community that does understand this unity.

And Democrats were never stronger than when they had Martin Luther King coming right out of the Black church leading the movement. We need that African-American leadership again. The head of the Black caucus, the former chair, Congressman Cummings, has told us that he is going to set up a meeting with the entire House caucus of the Democrats to allow us to present the spiritual covenant with America. So people who want to come with us, www.spiritualprogressives.org, come along. Or read the book.

Tavis: Read the book. (laugh) You don't need me, you can do this yourself. The new book is "The Left Hand of God, Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right." Written by the one, the only, Rabbi Michael Lerner. Rabbi, nice to have you on the program

Lerner: It's wonderful to be with you again, Tavis.

Tavis: All the best to you. Up next on this program, author Karenna Gore-Schiff, daughter of former Vice President Al Gore. Her first book. Stay with us.