Posted on 02/21/2005 6:53:10 AM PST by 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.
When describing the "force of nature" sort of God embraced by some Eastern religions, C.S. Lewis said it was like "an infinitely extended rice pudding." And that's how many liberals see the God of the Bible, as a love pudding who could never want anyone to follow any kind of rules. And no matter how clear his commandments and promises are, they wish to see him as a being who is largely unconcerned with morality, though they make an exception for the things that outrage them personally. That way, they get to live by "God's" laws and it just happens to match their own personal moral code. And if they hate their fellow man because he's a conservative, then that's OK, because "God" hates them too.
I think they MAY have figured out the
SOUNDS
of the words. I don't think they have figured out the meaning of the words AT ALL.
Run, do not walk, to your local library and take out a copy of Mona Charen's new book Do-Gooders. It's about how virtually every domestic problem we cope with, from racial strife to child abuse, is the result of libs applying their ideas and/or taking political advantage of bad situations.
Excellent point. And then of course there's the simple fact that it is government's job to protect defenseless people (like little babies, for instance) and not government's job to give handouts. The Church has a mission to help the porr, and we do a much better job of it. FDR was right to establish AFDC during the Depression, but it should have gone away post-war.
Jim Wallis has about ,but not quite as much credibility as
Peter J.Gomes of Harvard--and is as worthy of being
followed as David Koresh,or Jim Jones.
And how many times since early 2000 have we heard about Dubya's horrible habit of "wearing his faith on his sleeve?" But now the Dems are getting coached in how to wear their faith on theirs...how odd.
Talk about not getting it! To paraphrase Nelson DeMille in By the Rivers of Babylon, these Dems are like Neanderthals waking up in an Apollo capsule. They've been so busy twisting Christianity into the religion of baby-killing for so long now that they can't make themselves sound Christian even when they say "Feed the hungry and clothe the naked."
The Poor you will always have with you,but you will not always have me."Jesus did have a way with His words.I just don't think He intended for the Government to make us all poor(in Spirit and wealth ) The Left makes much of their
twisted Scripture. Jesus NEVER commanded abortion--that
was left to a government that built a wall to keep the
foundational Christian principles from bothering the mere politicians.The Declaration of Independence declares the
Creator Gave us th eunalenable Right to Life(not abortion)
Jesus reminded the Twelve and the multitudes about the
destruction of Sodom (and the wickedness was homosexual lust)never condoned nor protected such -that was left to the Democratic Party.
To paraphrase Nelson DeMille in By the Rivers of Babylon, these Dems are like Neanderthals waking up in an Apollo capsule. They've been so busy twisting Christianity into the religion of baby-killing for so long now that they can't make themselves sound Christian even when they say "Feed the hungry and clothe the naked."
You make excellent points.
bump
Nailed it. Everyone in this country, and I mean everyone of every political stripe, knows that lesbians in overalls and hiking boots yelling "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" at some pro-choice protest are at home in the Democratic Party.
You're added!
Ah, but remember, this is a guy who makes his living editing a magazine who's readers believe Jesus was the first Communist. It's not as if he's getting a heavy mental workout writing to their intellectual standards each day.
Thanks for the suggested reading material - oh, and please add me to the ping list if you don't mind. Thanks.
And spiritual poverty is the worst of all.
They have the words but not the music.
We also have a welfare system that has created generations of people who won't work because they know how to work 'the system.' Get rid of welfare and we will have people who have to work for a living and will be better off for it in all ways.
That's one of the talking points lately in my local area, to try to link Christian "fundamentalism" with Islamist fundamentalism and say that all fundamentalist philosophies breed hatred. But of course, when they make such a silly link, they are doing nothing but promote hated and fear for their neighbors, especially since they seem to think any Christian who isn't a de facto Unitarian is a "fundamentalist.".
There really are people in this country who believe with all their heart that the very fact Dubya believes you have to be born again to go to Heaven is an indicator that he wants to make America a theocracy and take over the world. Here's an op-ed column I wrote on the topic.
You're added!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.