Democrats Turn to Leader of Religious Left

New York Times ^ | January 17, 2005 | DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

[nickcarraway]

Democrats, reeling from the Republicans' success at courting churchgoers, are focusing new attention on a religious and political anomaly: Jim Wallis, one of the few prominent left-leaning leaders among evangelical Protestants.

At the start of the Congressional session, Senate Democrats invited Mr. Wallis to address their members at a private session to discuss issues. A group of about 15 House Democrats invited him to a breakfast discussion about dispelling their party's secular image. And NBC News has enlisted him to appear as a guest during its inauguration coverage opposite Dr. James C. Dobson, one of the most prominent evangelical conservatives.

Last week, Mr. Wallis's publisher, a religious imprint of HarperCollins, released his new book, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It," moving it up from a publication date this spring to coincide with the inauguration. It immediately jumped to the top of the best-seller list at Amazon.com, where it hovered between No. 2 and No. 7 over the weekend.

Mr. Wallis, the founder and editor of the Christian magazine Sojourners, has written two previous books on similar themes, "Who Speaks for God?" and "The Soul of Politics," without making much of a splash, but since the November presidential election he has drawn a new level of attention, especially from Democrats and liberals.

"Failure makes you reassess," he said. "The Democratic Party has increasingly had a problem as being perceived as secular fundamentalists."

James P. Manley, a spokesman for the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said the reason Mr. Reid, a Mormon, had invited Mr. Wallis to speak was obvious. "It is clear from the results of the election that we Democrats need to be much more forceful and clear in communicating their faith and values to the electorate," Mr. Manley said.

"He can help us communicate with the rising number of evangelicals in the country, which is right now a Republican constituency," Mr. Manley said, "but which Wallis argues could easily become part of the Democratic constituency as well."

Mr. Wallis, a registered Democrat, told the senators that the Bible contains more than 3,000 references to alleviating poverty. He said Democrats needed to do a better job of explaining the moral and religious foundations of policies intended to help the poor, protect the environment and reduce violence.

He also urged the Democrats to look for middle ground on the social issues most troubling to religious traditionalists, like obscenity and abortion. Whatever their stance on abortion rights, he argued, Democrats need to treat its occurrence as a moral problem and propose ways to reduce it.

Several Roman Catholic senators, recalling that during the last election some conservative bishops condemned Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights, asked pointed questions on the subject, one person present said.

A few days later, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts echoed some of the same themes in a speech, calling for the party to "speak more directly to the issues of deep conscience" and emphasizing efforts to lower the abortion rate while preserving abortion rights.

Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said that he and Mr. Wallis had talked often over the years but that the part of the speech that most reflected his influence was a discussion of poverty, not the senator's thoughts about abortion.

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a Catholic who has led Democratic efforts to appeal to religious voters and who invited Mr. Wallis to talk with House Democrats, said many were frustrated at the public perception of the party as secular despite their personal devotion to their respective faiths. As a sympathetic evangelical Christian, Mr. Wallis could help "understand what the perceptions are," she said, applauding him for calling the federal budget "a moral issue."

But Dr. Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, called Mr. Wallis "a left-wing evangelical" ill-qualified to instruct Democrats on conservative Christian values. "The Democrats are turning to the guy they can find that is least scary to them," Dr. Land said.

He argued that Mr. Wallis misunderstood conservative evangelical voters because he conflated the moral issue of alleviating poverty with the practical issue of whether Democratic policies are the way to do it.

"I don't know anybody who is in favor of poverty," Dr. Land said. "He doesn't seem to have adequately comprehended that the debate is over, based on the 30-year experiment, about whether big government or free markets work better at producing wealth for everybody."

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmmm? I WILL NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN!!

ROTFLOL!! I love it!!

[KC_Conspirator]

No where is the issue of protecting marraige mentioned in this article. They are not really serious.

[Fedora]

Oh, but ya'all were very clear: you have no faith or values.

Exactly what I was thinking when I read this :)

You say you lost your faith

But that's not where it's at

You had no faith to lose

And you know it. . .

Bob Dylan, "Positively 34th Street"

[Kevin OMalley]

"The Democrats are turning to the guy they can find that is least scary to them"

That would have been a more appropriate title.

[Fedora]

Mr. Wallis, the founder and editor of the Christian magazine Sojourners

Sojourners is not a Christian magazine except by the loosest definition of Christianity. It's a front for antiwar infiltrators of the theological community of the Daniel Berrigan/Robert Drinan type. I posted some more on them here starting at Post 25:

Kerry's Choice for Religious Outreach Director 'Confounding,' Group Says

See esp. Post 31:

From S. Stephen Powell, Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies, 281-3:

Sojourners was founded by Jim Wallis in 1976, the offspring of the Post American, which was published by a few radical theology students who banded together commal-style in Chicago in the late 1960s. Encouraged by Richard Barnet [of the Institute for Policy Studies], Gordon Cosby [of World Peacemakers], and others, Wallis decided to move his ragtag Christian hippie community to Washington. Barnet's influence was soon felt at Sojourners, for after Wallis moved the Sojourners commune to Washington and came in contact with IPS, the appearance of the magazine improved and its rhetoric was toned down. But when Wallis addresses his colleagues in the elite theological circles, he makes no effort to conceal his politics. He told Mission Tracks in 1979, in the article "Liberation and Conformity", that he hoped "more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes. . ."

[SNIP]

The U.N. Special Session on Disarmament of 1978 was to be an extravaganza for peace activists throughout the Western world. . .The entire endeavor had been conceived and approved by the World Peace Council in 1975, based on the Soviets' perception. . .Never mind that nothing specific on disarament resulted from the special session. What did emerge were some organizational vehicles for "the movement"--Mobilization for Survival, the Riverside Church Disarmament Program, World Peacemakers--all of which "IPS fellows were instrumental in organizing", as an IPS annual report pointed out. . .

The theme of the March 1978 Sojourners issue was in keeping with the campaign being promoted by World Peacemakers. . .

Also see Post 25 on some related figures among the religious left.

[Fedora]

Thanks for the link; ping to my #67 on related topics.

[Southack]

"The Office of Management and Budget at the Census Bureau defined the poverty threshold in 2003 as $18,810 for a family of four; $14,680 for a family of three; $12,015 for a family of two; and $9,393 for an individual."

Americans are so phenomenally wealthy that we insult entire continents such as Asia, Europe, and Africa by declaring that a family of 4 Americans earning $18,810 per year are all at what we consider to be starving and humiliating levels of "poverty."

Here in Alabama, where we have the same $18,810 per year threshold for "poverty" that applies to San Francisco and Manhattan, that $18,810 per year (which is tax free thanks to President Bush) will purchase a 2 bedroom house, electricity, a new car, gas, a telephone, a new TV, medical care, food, new clothing, and weekly nights dining out for the kids.

In 5 Points South (Birmingham), a 2 bedroom condo at a retirement high-rise rents for $300 per month. That includes monthly electricity and a 24 hour guard at the front desk. New pickup leases with no money down start at $124 per month.

Are we jaded to our vast wealth so much that more than $18,000 per year is considered total starving *POVERTY* in America, or are we simply being fed a meal full of abject propaganda from a left-wing news media anxious to inflate "poverty" statistics for their own vile political purposes?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the information!

[piasa]

Thanks for the link

[piasa]

They don't want the cure, they want power. To get power, they must have reliable followers. One way to get people to follow is to make them dependent on you. So to ensure a never-ending supply of reliable voters and useful idiot demonstrators, the leftists have to make sure that poverty continues. To increase their hold on power, the leftist elite must even make poverty worse, or at least try to persuade everyone they can that it is on the rise, even if it isn't.

[Binghamton_native]

"Jim Wallis, one of the few prominent left-leaning leaders among evangelical Protestants."

Saying that he is an evangelical doesn't necessarily make him one.

[longtermmemmory]

So they are trying to make it that religion is just an ecconomic philosophy against poverty. This is the same BS that the left used during the cold war to say christianity is communist.

The left is self delusional and they can not become extinct fast enough.

[longtermmemmory]

So the Bible includes references to TAX CUTS!!!!

Will democrats support this "religious" principle of low taxes now that the democrat (gay) party has discovered God?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[piasa]

UPDATE...

JIM WALLIS: Faith Succeeding Where Politics Has Failed [Open]
Christian (ear scratching) Post Online ^ | 5-26-08 | maria Mackay
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2022445/posts?page=1