Barack Obama's evangelicals close the God gap in Presidential race

The Times (UK) ^ | March 7, 2008 | Chris Smyth

[FocusNexus]

Progressive evangelicals believe they can end the dominance of the religious right

A group of American evangelicals are on a mission to put moral issues at the heart of the most intense presidential campaign in years. Those used to the thundering rhetoric of the religious right will expect a tirade against abortion and gay marriage. But in an interview this week Jim Wallis says: "Top of the list is what happens to the poor. Poverty is the principal Biblical political issue." He adds: "climate change is now a mainstream evangelical issue. Human rights, Darfur too."

Wallis is one of the leading figures in a group known as progressive evangelicals, or Red Letter Christians. They are theologically conservative, but strikingly radical on poverty, the environment and Iraq. Inspired by William Wilberforce and Martin Luther King, they believe theirs can be a popular movement to transform US society.

But they say it is precisely this focus on Christ's message which gives them their radical edge. Wallis has written that he found the Sermon on the Mount "more revolutionary than anything I had read in Karl Marx, Che Guevara or Ho Chi Minh".

"There are 2,000 verses in Scripture that deal with poverty - this is the dominant social concern," says Tony Campolo, a professor at Eastern University and author of Red Letter Christians. From these verses stems a passionate commitment to social justice. From Jesus's ideals of peace, comes a heartfelt opposition to the Iraq war. "War is an ethical issue," says Campolo. "You can't foster a war mindset and call yourself a Christian." And scriptural verses emphasising's man stewardship over nature are the spur to take action on global warming.

[FocusNexus]

Could someone please point out where does it say in the Bible that the government should force income redistribution to "help the poor".

[originalbuckeye]

Progressive evangelicals?? Those two words don’t go together.

[silentreignofheroes]

“You can’t foster a war mindset and call yourself a Christian.”

Glad the Founding Fathers of this Country did not think that way.

[isrul]

Must be in the “Sermon on the mount”.

[Matchett-PI]

Remember who the barbarians are. The barbarians come, C.S. Lewis told us, not over the parapet, not carrying their clubs and wielding their weapons, but they come with polished fingernails and blue pin-striped suits, gathering in well-lighted conference rooms. They are the good people who say that they know how to make life better for all of us. They are pharisaical mentalities.

This quote most effectively exposes them for who and what they are:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under live robber barons than under omnipotent moral busibodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ C.S. Lewis

[Ingtar]

Progressive evangelicals?? Those two words don’t go together.

Aye. They do. Unfortunately many do not know their own faith and its teachings. They listen only to their hero, the pastor or minister, and do not think for themselves. There are enough of these leaders about to lead to a large number of misbelieving voters.

[isrul]

A lot of these wackos totally embrace the global warming religion. Evangelicals aren't all “conservative”. Lots of glassy eyed rubes out there, willing to swallow most anything, if some charlatan puts a Biblical twist on it.

[John Robie]

Red Letter Christians sound more like Red Communists.

[Matchett-PI]

The religious left - who they are and what they believe:

“The New Face of Marxism - The Religious Left / Jim Wallis-Sojourners
Issues, Etc. ^ | Monday, October 11, 2004 | Ronald Nash, PhD
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1253703/posts

[Blogger]

Campolo is not a theological conservative.

“So I think that the apostle Paul would be a lot more generous towards Islamic people than most of my evangelical brothers and sisters are. If both sides are willing to live up to the truth as they perceive it and if both sides are willing to say we are not going to compromise what we believe but we are convinced that in the end the other side will have a chance to respond in a positive manner to what we believe. I think we can live together in peace and without attacking each other and without condemning each other.

Catholicism would say that at the moment of death every person is confronted in that split moment with Christ and is given the opportunity of saying yes or no. To say otherwise is to say God has got to be a pretty unfair deity, to condemn three quarters of the human race to hell without them ever having a chance

I’ve got to believe that Jesus is the only Savior but being a Christian is not the only way to be saved. A student at Princeton once asked Protestant theologian Karl Barth, “Do you think that other religions can be valid avenues to God and His salvation?” Barth answered, “No! No religion can provide a valid avenue to God and His salvation. Not even the Christian religion. Only Jesus Christ can serve as mediator to God.”
“

“going to heaven is like going to Philadelphia....There are many ways....It doesn’t make any difference how we go there. We all end up in the same place.”

[Eagles6]

"Could someone please point out where does it say in the Bible that the government should force income redistribution to "help the poor"."

It's in their true Bible "Das Kapital".

[donna]

Progressive evangelicals = you can’t be both except in the liberal media.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

This movement is led by people who have always been poltiical liberals. Have they suckered a few weak conservatives over to their side with arguments that use bible words in a distorted way to deceive people? Sure. Some. But then there have always been those that waver back and forth with the winds. Mostly the religious left is made up of the same people who have always liked the label of Christianity without its demands. Any claim of a shift is more about perception than reality. In other words, see these stories as marketing, not news.

[Anti-Hillary]

Tony Campolo. The same guy who believes that the Buddhist monk that he talked to in Nepal is saved because he (the monk) “recognizes the “Christ” within himself”. These “Evangelicals” are heretics. I call them “bake sale” Christians. See who can have the biggest bake sale to give the proceeds to charity to EARN their way to heaven. While we should do all what we can to help the poor, we do it out of love for Christ and his creation, but NOT to earn enough “brownie points” (pun intended) to claim a stake in the kingdom. We are saved by grace and not by works. They are trying to counter balance their sin with works.

This is a result of the Emergent Church movement in America.

[RoadTest]

“thundering rhetoric” ?

[Matchett-PI]

“Only capitalism operates on the basis of respect for free, independent, responsible persons. All other systems in varying degrees treat men as less than this. Socialist systems above all treat men as pawns to be moved about by the authorities, or as children to be given what the rulers decide is good for them, or as serfs or slaves.

The rulers begin by boasting about their compassion, which in any case is fraudulent, but after a time they drop this pretense which they find unnecessary for the maintenance of power. In all things they act on the presumption that they know best.

Therefore they and their systems are _morally stunted_. Only the free system, the much assailed capitalism, is _morally mature_.” ~ Dr. Ronald H. Nash

In Defense of Capitalism (Debunking The Religious Left)
The Schwartz Report - Volume 39, Number 3; March 1999 ^ | Excerpted from his 1996 Book | Dr. Ronald H. Nash
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1352736/posts

bttt

[Fee]

the liberals tried that in the 1970’s when churches started to play rock music, stayed away from socially unpopular issues addressed by the Bible. Protestants practiced ommission, and later lost membership and gave rise to the more conservative evangelical churches. if progressive evangelicals stay within the teachings of the Bible on gay behavior, adultery, and the narrow criteria for Salvation then they may have a chance. Unfortunately they will not and they will eventually die out like the liberalized main Protestant denominations.

[mdmathis6]

“There are 2,000 verses in Scripture that deal with poverty - this is the dominant social concern,” says Tony Campolo, a professor at Eastern University and author of “Red Letter Christians. From these verses stems a passionate commitment to social justice. From Jesus’s ideals of peace, comes a heartfelt opposition to the Iraq war. “War is an ethical issue,” says Campolo. “You can’t foster a war mindset and call yourself a Christian.” And scriptural verses emphasising’s man stewardship over nature are the spur to take action on global warming.”

“Ought not that that box of perfume had been sold and the money given to the poor....” Judas Iscariat...the BETRAYER

Every time I see some group of “believers” castigate the whole group for their supposed unkindness to the poor, I expect the temple soldiers to come crashing in to send us to our crucifixions, while out of the corner of our eyes we spot just who are receiving their 30 pieces of silver!