Moral Equivalency: The Religious Left Gets It Wrong

BreakPoint with Charles Colson ^ | February 21, 2005 | Charles Colson

[Mr. Silverback]

"Failure makes you reassess.”

So says Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, and he ought to know. A number of Democratic Party members are looking to Wallis right now to help with their own political reassessment. Wallis is what the New York Times calls a “leader of [the] religious left,” and as he says, “The Democratic Party has increasingly had a problem as being perceived as secular fundamentalists.”

So now Wallis is much in demand among Democratic leaders who want to learn “to be much more forceful and clear in communicating their faith and values to the electorate.” Wallis’s favorite argument, as reported in the Times and elsewhere, is that the Bible makes more than three thousand references to poverty—far more than abortion or homosexuality—and yet religious conservatives, in his opinion, are obsessed with the abortion issue. So, says Wallis, the religious left is more in tune with the Bible than are conservatives.

This argument was popular during the presidential campaign, repeated even by some conservatives. You may remember my commentary on historian and author Mark Noll. I admire Noll greatly, but I was disappointed by his decision not to vote because he thought neither party was right about the issues that concerned him most, including poverty. It is a perfectionist attitude that fails to take into account the fallen world we live in. Even the magazine to which I’ve been a contributing editor for more than twenty years wrote an editorial suggesting that Christian voters might have to choose between the sanctity of life and social justice.

The implications of this argument are clear: that is, all moral issues are equivalent. So, pick and choose among them; as long as you get seven or eight right answers, you’re okay.

Frankly, I find that thinking muddled, at best. We oppose abortion because we respect the fact that all humans are made in the image of God. How can you be genuinely sympathetic to the poor and the downtrodden if you don’t respect their most fundamental right? I would go so far as to say that unless you’re consistently pro-life, you’re not going to be a reliable defender of the poor.

Why do you suppose that in this ministry we have been going into the prisons for the past three decades? Why do we help people dying of AIDS? Why do we—and so many other Christians—visit the most dangerous places in America? Because the people there are our brothers and sisters, created, like us, in the image of God.

Why help the poor if we don’t believe all lives are equal in God’s sight? If you support ending the life of a child because it will be born into poverty, how can you logically call yourself an advocate for the poor?

The religious left is trying to tell us that you can take away the reason for doing something and still expect people to do it. Nobody’s going to win the allegiance of serious evangelical or Catholic voters by offering handouts to the poor with one hand while taking away their human dignity with the other. Sorry, Jim Wallis, all issues are not morally equivalent. The first one, the right to life, is non-negotiable. It undergirds all others: Take it away, and the whole house of cards collapses.

[ex-Libertarian]

Why should anyone accept the premise that conservatives are "anti anti-poverty"? This article takes as given that liberals have better credentials at fighting poverty than do Conservatives, which is demonstrably false.

Dinesh D'Souza made a great obervation. He interviewed a poor Indian (in India) about why he wanted to go to America and the Indian replier that he wanted to go to a place where "even the poor people are fat!"

Look around the world and even within America and everywhere that Socialist/Liberal principles are dominant, so are the worst human pathologies, including sloth, ignorance, oppression and - yes - POVERTY.

Modern conservative economic principles support economic growth, and economic growth is the ONLY way to fight poverty in a persistent, sustainable way.

If anyone wants to point out Western Europe or Canada as an exception to this rule, I say "give it a few decades". Those countries had been at a very high point of economic development thanks to their former embrace of Western European, "Liberal" (in the old fashioned sense of the word), enlightenment ideals and it'll take time for them to deteriorate. It doesn't happen overnight.

But look at their anemic (even negative) long-term economic growth rates.

Those long-term growth rates are not sufficient to even maintain their standard of living let alone enhance it over time.

Left unchecked, the standard of living in those countries will continue to deterioriate. Fast forward 20 years and Western Europe will look like India (including the poverty), and some currently third-world countries like India will leave them in the dust.

Do the math.

[maine-iac7]

want to learn “to be much more forceful and clear in communicating their faith and values to the electorate.” Wallis’s favorite argument, as reported in the Times and elsewhere, is that the Bible makes more than three thousand references to poverty—far more than abortion or homosexuality—and yet religious conservatives, in his opinion, are obsessed with the abortion issue. So, says Wallis, the religious left is more in tune with the Bible than are conservatives.

!

Where to begin!

hard to give sane answers to insane statements.

let me just say this: The Bible says to give to the poor & the hungry, the widows & orphans. I never came across any scripture where is says: The gov't shall take your money and redistribute it however they want.

Well, just one more thing - ah two: The Bible is unequivocal on "As ye do unto the least of these my children, ye have done it unto Me." - and it spells out condemnation of homosexuality loud and clear. (That is not to say condemn the sinner - but the act...there is a difference.)

[Republican Wildcat]

The liberals like creating this phony argument about conservatives not caring about the poor - and I'm glad the "Relgious Right" is apparently responding to it, otherwise this is a sinkhole the left could create for us to trap us. Why do so many conservative emphasize marriage and life as the top issues? Because those are the values under assault by public policy - the values of caring for those in poverty are not under attack, and therefore are not a focus of conservatives when it comes to commentary on public policy.

[Republican Wildcat]

Very well stated.

[P_A_I]

Wallis's favorite argument, as reported in the Times and elsewhere, is that the Bible makes more than three thousand references to poverty—far more than abortion or homosexuality—and yet religious conservatives, in his opinion, are obsessed with the abortion issue. So, says Wallis, the religious left is more in tune with the Bible than are conservatives.


Taking people's money at gunpoint and giving it to someone else is not charity for the poor, Mr. Wallis.
12 Carry_Okie

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Well said bump, and an excellent illustration of why politics & religion do not mix, and never have.

[papertyger]

In this country, poverty is a state of mind for the most part.

Precisely. We don't have any poor people in this country. We have people who are poorer, and that is not the same thing as "poverty."

[Tax-chick]

Taking people's money at gunpoint and giving it to someone else is not charity for the poor, Mr. Wallis.

Bump that!

[Klatuu]

“The Democratic Party has increasingly had a problem as being perceived as secular fundamentalists.”

Maybe that's because they proudly and arrogantly paraded their secularity until they realized that it was costing them elections.

[Quix]

Please add me to your Colson ping list.

THX.

[hosepipe]

[ So says Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine ]

What is a "sojourner"...but a "fellow traveler"...
The current term of "progressive" is what "fellow travelers" use.. of themselves..

[Quix]

Their hearts are a metaphor for . . . .

ego, selfishness, arrogance, rebellion, idolatry of their own wills . . .

. . . . to paraphrase . . . they likely already have their tickets to their eternal abode.

[Quix]

I think the 'NY SLIMES REVIEW OF BKS' part is quite accurate! LOL w tears.

[Psycho_Bunny]

” Wallis’s favorite argument, as reported in the Times and elsewhere, is that the Bible makes more than three thousand references to poverty—far more than abortion or homosexuality—and yet religious conservatives, in his opinion, are obsessed with the abortion issue."

If Wallis were to take a debating course at some community college somewhere he'd probably understand what a compound informal fallacy is, why you lose the argument when you utilize one, and how to avoid it.

[Quix]

Love it when you say what you feel!

The heart is deceitfully wicked, who but God can know it. We all need The Blood applied and confession daily.

However, those excuses for bits of human garbage have clogged up the public square and airways far too much for far too long.

That they now think the populace will be deluded by their glib white-wash is yet another insult from the puffed up, self-important whiners.

[Quix]

Thanks.

[NHResident]

"This is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches, though the social-justice lefties just shrug it off."

I think you need to insert a qualifier in that statement:
"This is precisely what SOME OF the Catholic Church teaches,...." - Check out the US Council of Bishops, Catholic publications (excepting Crisis Magazine), the Catholic Press, the Catholic Book Club, etc. and you find something quite different.

[NHResident]

"This is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches, though the social-justice lefties just shrug it off."

I think you need to insert a qualifier in that statement:
"This is precisely what SOME OF the Catholic Church teaches,...." - Check out the US Council of Bishops, Catholic publications (excepting Crisis Magazine), the Catholic Press, the Catholic Book Club, etc. and you find something quite different.

[Quix]

. . . communicating their faith . . . '

Sure.

They have faith

IN

HEDONISM, MACHIAVELLIANISM, RUTHLESSNESS, INFANTICIDE, TYRANNY, ARROGANCE, REBELLION, SELFISHNESS, GREED, COMMUNISM, GLOBALISM, SATANISM, HYPOCRISY, LYING, SEX-AT-ANY-PRICE-OF-ANY-SORT-ANY-WHERE-WITH-ANYTHING, ADDICTIONS-APLENTY; THE IRRATIONAL; SECULARISM; . . .

They have soooo much faith in such manure, they're happy to take away YOUR constitutional rights to protect their faith.

Duplicitous, traitorous idiots.

[mojojockey]

Im not sure how they equate Osama to Bush yet. The religious left actually makes that comparison sometimes.

[Quix]

Absolutely.