Posted on 09/27/2012 4:50:45 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The Evangelical Left has mostly been low profile this election season. Many liberal evangelicals were quite ecstatic for Barack Obama in 2008. A handful were previously George W. Bush supporters. John McCain still got an overwhelming majority of white evangelicals, about 70 percent, though down from Bush's full throttle 75 percent in 2004,which fueled fears of theocracy on the far Left. In 2008 Obama did do better among young evangelicals,inspiring expectations that evangelicals were slowly shifting left.
An open question now is whether Romney gets the same overall 2008 level of 70 percent of white evangelicals or closer to Bush's 75 percent. A recent poll from the Pew Research Center has Romney getting 75 percent. This statistic is fairly remarkable, as Romney, unlike Bush, is not himself evangelical,does not routinely speak of his own faith, and has not focused on hot button social issues that energize many evangelicals. It's been widely assumed that many evangelicals are uncomfortable with Romney's Mormonism. Any discomfort evidently is not affecting many votes.
The 2010 mid-term election saw evangelicals, including younger ones, returning strongly to conservative voting habits. Heavy Democratic emphasis on abortion rights, same sex nuptials,and forcing church groups to comply with the Obamacare contraceptive/abortifacient mandate has to have dampened whatever opening there had been among moderate evangelicals. Maybe the Evangelical Left,sensing its opportunities for a major shift are minimal, is avoiding intense engagement that would only stoke a mostly negative reaction from its own potential constituency.
Jim Wallis of Sojourners is the chief icon for the Evangelical Left. In 2008 he was prominently supportive of Obama, about whom he rhapsodized in nearly messianic terms. He is commonly described as a spiritual advisor to the Obama White House......
.....Over the years Wallis has been masterful at reinventing himself to remain relevant for new audiences.....
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
When you subtract Freepers that have come to support the Republican candidate from the total, you have those that are left.
That is what this piece is about...... those who are left
Below OpEd linked and discussed in Mark Tooley’s column above:
“Caring for the Poor is Government’s Biblical Role”
Jim Wallis - Aug 30, 2012
“There is hardly a more controversial political battle in America today than that around the role of government. The ideological sides have lined up, and the arguments rage about the size of government: how big, how small should it be? Some famously have said government should be shrunk so small that it “could be drowned in a bathtub.”
But I want to suggest that what size the government should be is the wrong question. A more useful discussion would be about the purposes of government and whether ours is fulfilling them. So let’s look at what the Bible says.
The words of Paul in the 13th chapter of Romans are perhaps the most extensive teaching in the New Testament about the role and purposes of government. Paul says those purposes are twofold: to restrain evil by punishing evildoers and to serve peace and orderly conduct by rewarding good behavior. Civil authority is designed to be “God’s servant for your good” (13:4). Today we might say “the common good” is to be the focus and goal of government.
So the purpose of government, according to Paul, is to protect and promote: protect from the evil and promote the good. We are even instructed to pay taxes for those purposes. So to disparage government per se — to see government as the central problem in society — is simply not a biblical position.
First, government is supposed to protect its people. That certainly means protecting its citizens’ safety and security. Crime and violence will always be real in this world, and that’s why we have the police, who are meant to keep our streets, neighborhoods, and homes safe.
Governments also need to protect their people judicially, and make sure our legal and court systems are procedurally just and fair. The biblical prophets regularly rail against corrupt court decisions and systems, in which the wealthy and powerful manipulate the legal processes for their own benefit and put the poor into greater debt or distress. The prophet Amos speaks directly to the courts (and government) when he says, “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15).
But along with protecting, what should governments promote? The prophets hold kings, rulers, judges, and even employers accountable to the demands of justice and fairness, therefore promoting those values.
And the Scriptures say that governmental authority is to protect the poor in particular. The biblical prophets are consistent and adamant in their condemnation of injustice to the poor, and frequently follow their statements by requiring the king (the government) to act justly. That prophetic expectation did not apply only to the kings of Israel but was also extended to the kings of neighboring lands and peoples.
Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well.”
Psalm 72 begins with a prayer for kings or political leaders: “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”
There is a powerful vision here for promoting the common good — a vision of “righteous” prosperity for all the people, with special attention to the poor and to “deliverance” for the most vulnerable and needy, and even a concern for the land.
Evangelical theologian Ron Sider says:
The biblical understanding of justice clearly includes both procedural and distributive aspects. That the procedures must be fair is clear in the several texts that demand unbiased courts (Exodus 23:2-8; Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:17; 10:17-19). That distributive justice (i.e., fair outcomes) is also a central part of justice is evident not just from the hundreds of texts about God’s concern for the poor ... but also in the meaning of the key Hebrew words for justice (mishpat and tsedaqah).
Time and again the prophets use mishpat and tsedaqah to refer to fair economic outcomes. Immediately after denouncing Israel and Judah for the absence of justice, the prophet Isaiah condemns the way rich and powerful landowners have acquired all the land by pushing out small farmers (Isaiah 5:7-9). It is important to note that even though in this text the prophet does not say the powerful acted illegally, he nevertheless denounces the unfair outcome.
Notice that Sider says “fair outcomes” and not “equal outcomes.” The political right’s continuing accusation against all who would hold governments accountable for justice is that we are really aiming for equal outcomes from public policy. But that simply is not true.
Indeed, the historical attempts by many Marxist governments to create equal outcomes have dramatically shown the great dangers of how the concentration of power in a few government hands has led to totalitarian results. The theological reason for that is the presence and power of sin, and the inability of such fallible human creatures to create social utopias on earth.
Yet the biblical prophets do hold their rulers, courts, and judges, and landowners and employers accountable to the values of fairness, justice, and even mercy. The theological reasons for that are, in fact, the same: the reality of evil and sin in the concentration of power — both political and economic — and the need to hold that power accountable to justice, especially in the protection of the poor. So fair outcomes, and not equal ones, are the goal of governments.
Governments should provide a check on powerful people, institutions, and interests in the society that, if left unchecked, might run over their fellow citizens, the economy, and certainly the poor.
If government is rendered unable to “punish the evil” and “reward the good” when it comes to the behavior of huge corporations and banks, for example, exactly who else is going to do that? And coming to a better moral balance in achieving fiscal responsibility, while protecting the poor, should be a bipartisan effort.
The radically anti-government ideology of the current right wing Tea Party ideology is simply contrary to a more biblical view of government, the need for checks and balances, the sinfulness of too much concentrated power in either the government or the market, the responsibilities we have for our neighbor and the God-ordained purposes of government — in addition to the churches — to serve the common good and, in particular, to protect the poor. [end]
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, and CEO of Sojourners.
http://sojo.net/sojomail/2012/08/30
On the other hand George H.W.Bush lied to the Evangelicals and they didn't show up to vote for him in the expected numbers so he lost.
That can happen again to anyone ~ for example, Obama isn't likely to get any legitimate Evangelicals this time (even though some folks still imagine that if he'd burn some Catholics at the stake they'd turn out in strength which may explain his pettifoggery and obfuscation regarding his forcing the Catholic church to buy condoms).
Now, whether or not Evangelicals will vote for Romney, it would help if he turned Baptist.
A Baptist preacher in my family has opined on Mitt’s mormonism; to wit: “he may end up in Hell in the afterlife because he’s a mormon, but he is more likely as president to save us from the hell on earth that Obama will insure.”
——it would help if he turned Baptist. -——
That’s exactly what Bubba did. He became a Bible toter, preacher hand shaker, on the church steps photo oper.
Creation Care - Evangelical Environmental Network
Creation Care - Climate and the Vulnerable "Environmental toxins and climate change have repercussions for many of today's pressing issues from the health of our children, to global and domestic poverty, to jobs and economic growth. This makes how we care for God's creation one of the greatest moral challenges of our time. And as Christians, we also know it is a challenge that cuts to the heart of how we promote and cherish life."
Where is the prolife plank in the evangelical left’s agenda?
The top dog should always appear to throw in his lot with the dominant religion in any society.
Putin as an Orthodox Christian is more acceptable to Russians, in general, than Putin as an Atheist.
I would assume that liberal “evangelicals” are more liberal than evangelical in the same way that liberal catholics are more liberal than catholic, no? Christianity is reduced to “social justice” as interpreted in a narrow, left wing statist way, which coincidently matches Dem party causes.
It’s the Hillary Clinton, social justice crowd of fellow travelers.
The “Pastor’s for Peace” commies.
“Let us not love in word: but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)
My FIL (now departed) loved the guy, thankfully my wife didn't.
As a So. Baptist, these are my sentiments exactly.
That pretty much sums it up!
(Even the 2nd Living Prophet® has said as much!!)
"Now if any of you will deny the plurality of wives, and continue to do so, I promise that you will be damned;
and I will go still further and say, take this revelation, or any other revelation that the Lord has given,
and deny it in your feelings, and I promise that you will be damned.
Brigham Young - JoD 3:266 (July 14, 1855)
58 Now, as touching the law of the apriesthood, there are many things pertaining thereunto.
59 Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was aAaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that bsent me, and I have endowed him with the ckeys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name, and according to my law and by my word, he will not commit dsin, and I will justify him.
60 Let no one, therefore, set on my servant Joseph; for I will justify him; for he shall do the sacrifice which I require at his hands for his transgressions, saith the Lord your God.
61 And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse aanother, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.
62 And if he have aten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.
63 But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to amultiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be bglorified.
64 And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.
65 Therefore, it shall be lawful in me, if she receive not this law, for him to receive all things whatsoever I, the Lord his God, will give unto him, because she did not believe and administer unto him according to my word; and she then becomes the transgressor; and he is exempt from the law of Sarah, who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take aHagar to wife.
66 And now, as pertaining to this law, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will reveal more unto you, hereafter; therefore, let this suffice for the present. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega. Amen.
My sins are great, too...
These demented screwballs don't understand that "fairness" meant the rich or powerful did not receive favorable judgement as opposed to what the poor received. Fair meant all walked into court as equals, i.e. no respecter of persons. Equal justice, just the way our founding documents laid it out.
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