Taking God Back from the Christian Fundamentalists
by Don Sibley, Book Review
"God's Politics, - Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't get it"
by Jim Wallis, Harper Collins,, 2005, 416 pages, $24.95
Jim Wallis, is a self-declared "progressive evangelical," founder of
Sojourners, a magazine and church community that is active among the poor in
Washington, DC. "God's Politics, Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left
Doesn't get it," makes the case for articulating a progressive social and
political agenda as a logical outcome of a vibrant faith in God.
Wallis says the religious right has promulgated the idea that only its
leaders are guided by "Christian Values" when making political decisions.
These values seem to be limited to eliminating abortion and gay-rights. He
challenges the religious right's assertions that God's way is their way.
Faith must enlighten policymakers, he asserts, in areas of God, jobs,
working families, foreign policy, guns, healthcare, the poor, war, making
peace, social justice, and the environment. Separation of church and state
does not mean eliminating moral judgement from the public forum. "God's
Politics" makes it very clear that God, as revealed by the prophets and
Jesus, knows no national boundaries, deems caring for the poor to be a
primary religious issue, and should be evident in our politics. He
identifies truth telling as a religious issue and believes that it needs to
be central to our politics. Our international relations should show evidence
that God knows no national boundaries. Wallis does believe our values should
lead us to reduce abortion by focusing on teen pregnancy, adoption reform
and strict support for low- income women.
Wallis feels Democrats should take a stand against abortion without
criminalizing it. According to him, the left has abandoned its religious
values in policy making. The very survival of the U.S. and its democracy
depends on the implementation of these faith-based values, he says. The
social manifestation of our faiths is compassion; the public manifestation
is justice.
Despite the "litany of wrongdoing" that the U.S. has been engaged in
— Vietnam, Central America, Chile, Congo, the Palestinian question, the
Persian Gulf made safe for our oil interests, our leadership in world
weapons sales that fuel conflicts around the globe — Wallis calls the
terrorism behind 9-11 particularly evil and feels the "War on Terrorism"
faces special challenges and more difficult solutions than any previous war.
Wallis is a member of a significant group of theologians and ethicists who
have concluded that international law must be empowered as the primary
global instrument against terrorism. They recognize that the apprehension of
terrorists requires force and are exploring the theology and ethics of
global police forces as an alternative to war. Police forces would be
locally sanctioned, only directed toward the offending party, and subject to
review by a higher authority.
Don Sibley worked in community development projects in Central America for
27 years.
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Talk Index, Summer 2005