Perhaps the source of the religious left's loneliness is its pro-choice stance. Historian Taylor Branch said that in the 1970's, the abortion issue split the progressive religious alliance that was united in the civil rights movement.
Determined to regain religious ground, the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, urged the crowd to "take back the Bible, take back the theological principles and not just cede them to the religious right."
