Posted on 02/25/2005 6:35:23 PM PST by Mr. Silverback
On Monday, Feb. 21, Charles Colson, in his daily radio commentary, criticized what he perceived as my message. I'm sending my response in this "open letter."
Dear Chuck,
In your commentary, "Moral Equivalency: The Religious Left Gets It Wrong," you critiqued me as a "leader of the religious left," quoting The New York Times. And you particularly focus on abortion, saying that I consider "all moral issues to be equivalent," and that since I say the Bible talks much more about poverty than abortion, I believe "the religious left is more in tune with the Bible than are conservatives."
As you may know, I'm currently traveling around the country speaking about my new book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. And in all my speaking and media appearances, I say no such thing. What I do say is that there is, in the words of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, a "seamless garment of life" in which all issues that infringe on human life are important.
I challenge Democrats on abortion, and I challenge Republicans on war and poverty. In a recent interview with Christianity Today, I said: "It's important for the Democrats to change the way they talk about a moral issue like abortion, to respect pro-life Democrats, to welcome them in the party, and to talk first about how they are going to be committed to really dramatically reducing unwanted pregnancies - not just retaining the legal option of abortion, which Democrats are going to do, because that's part of their plank." But I also said, "My hope is that Republicans can broaden their conversation about moral values beyond just abortion and gay marriage to poverty and the environment and the ethics of war."
I believe deeply that Christians must seriously be concerned about everything that threatens the lives of people created in the image of God. Abortion is important; war and economic justice are also important.
You also ask your listeners, "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 reverse is also true. If you support protecting an unborn life but don't provide the necessary support to the mother and child in poverty after birth, how can you logically call yourself pro-life?
As I told Christianity Today: "Christians can't say, 'All we care about is someone's stance on abortion. I don't care what they do to the economy, to the poor, I don't care what wars they fight, I don't care what they do on human rights.' It's almost like we care about children until they're born and then after that, they're on their own. We're cutting child health care, cutting child care for moms moving out of welfare. No, you can't just care about a child until they're born."
My message to both parties - to both liberals and conservatives - is that protecting life is indeed a seamless garment. Protecting unborn life is important. Opposing unjust wars that take human life is important. And supporting anti-poverty programs that provide adequate support for mothers and children in poverty is important. Neither party gets it right; each has perhaps half of the answer. My message and my challenge are to bring them together.
What I'm saying around the country is that there is a new option for American politics that follows from the prophetic religious tradition. It is "traditional" or "conservative" on issues of family values, sexual integrity, and personal responsibility while being very "progressive," "populist," or even "radical" on issues such as poverty and racial justice. It affirms good stewardship of the earth and its resources, supports gender equality, and is more internationally minded than nationalist - looking first to peacemaking and conflict-resolution when it comes to foreign policy questions. The people it appeals to (many religious, but others not) are very strong on issues such as marriage, raising kids, and individual ethics, but without being "right-wing," reactionary, or mean-spirited, or using any group of people - such as gays and lesbians - as scapegoats. It can be pro-life, pro-family, and pro-feminist all at the same time. It thinks issues of "moral character" are very important, both in a politician's personal life, and in his or her policy choices. Yet it is decidedly pro-poor, pro-racial reconciliation, pro-environment, and critical of purely military solutions.
That's the message that is resonating around the country, Chuck. Not that all issues are "morally equivalent" but that, indeed, as you say, the "first one, the right to life, is non-negotiable." Perhaps the difference between us is that I believe that non-negotiable right continues after birth.
Blessings, Jim
As to the substance in Wallis' letter...This country has spent trillions directly fighting poverty and trillions more funding the liberal vision of domestic policy. I just read today about a recent year (sorry i can't recall which) where all levels of American government (Fed, State, County, Minuicipality/District) spent about a trillion dollars on education, and the defense budget was $375 billion. But the folks over at Sojourners will tell you that this nation is too busy operating a worlwide militaristic killing machine to spend money educating kids. And I'll bet Wallis has a "Won't it be great when the Pentagon has to have a bake sale to buy a bomber" T-shirt in his closet.
The question is not the will of either party to help the poor, but how we will do it, and the methods favored by liberals like Wallis have led to the destruction of the black family, inner cities that swap the title "Murder Capital of the World" around like a hot potato, and a massive surge in child abuse. And he really wants to keep telling us that conservatives (like say, Dick Armey, who sent 9 DC kids to private school on his own dime) only care about kids in the womb, hate gays, and are holding up those last few dollars that will bring us utopia.
He cannot possibly be sane and believe this, and I doubt he's insane. Seems he's just another wolf in sheep's clothing, trying to make Jesus look like Karl marx in sandals.
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This guy reminds me of a dog chasing his own tail. His arguments are circular and without reason.
Given the very nature of salvation, there is no way possible that anyone who calls themselves Christian can believe in any socialist scheme.
Cardinal Bernardin wasn't the Antichrist, but he came pretty close. He caused more trouble for our country and for the Catholic Church in our country than any other bishop, including the ones who were booted for having homosexual affairs.
If not for Bernardin, it's very possible that Roe v. Wade would not have stood and millions of dead babies would now be alive.
Jim Wallis:
Activist preacher and editor of the leftwing Christian magazine Sojourners
Democratic Party operative who claims that God is “neither a Republican nor a Democrat”
Apologist for communist atrocities in Cambodia and Vietnam
Dedicated foe of capitalism
Contends that Biblical scripture calls for large central government to aid the poor
Read more at http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1833
I disagree, because there was a period where I was a solid, Heaven-bound Christian, and a skull-full-of-mush liberal.
There are policies that I believe make one a heretic when he endorses them (such as being pro-abortion), but we can't generalize and say that all or even most Religious Leftists are not really Christian. Many of them are ignorant of the implications, as I was. Having worked for the Left's cause for decades, Wallis has no such excuse.
As another Freepers tagline says, "God is NOT a Republican, but I'm pretty sure Satan is a Democrat."
Wallis is probably right that God is neither. But then, if he really thinks that God wants what the Great Society has brought us, he must think God hates Black people, the homeless and little kids. Last time I checked, God hadn't come out against any of those groups...
Come on....that is a huge stretch...I agree that Bernadin was more liberal than I want, as a lifelong Catholic from Chicago, but he was a good man in many ways...and Roe would not have fallen but for him...
From DiscoverTheNetwork....
A self-described activist preacher, Jim Wallis was born into an evangelical family in Detroit, Michigan. He has stated that his religious views initially drove him toward the civil rights movement of the 1960s. As Wallis relates the story, his opposition to segregation spurred him to break with his own community church and seek out a relationship with black churches of inner-city Detroit. “I would just go downtown,” he says, “and just begin walking the streets and you know the drug dealers and the hookers and the pimps and the street kids, figuring out what this white kid is doing walking around, and I went to black churches and there I found a kind of Christian faith I had never heard before.” Wallis would subsequently join the raging ranks of the anti-Vietnam War movement; his participation in the protests and demonstrations of that movement nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, a conservative Christian seminary where he was then enrolled.
Thanks for the ping.
It seems to me that there was a proverb that goes something like this:
If you give a man a fish he will be hungry again. If you TEACH a man to fish, he will never be hungry.
My mom used to say:
God helps those that help themselves. But, God help those He catches helping themsleves.
Some prefer to live in poverty, and blame their lives on others.
Also, with contraceptives around for over 30 years, there should be no unwanted pregnancies.
Folks, it goes on more than I care to post!
All kinds of waffling on Vietnam, whitewashing the Khmer Rouge, propping up the Sandinistas,...
You name any anti-American cause, and this guy has stood for it. What a phony.
In the meantime, I'll keep looking for the parable where Jesus urges his followers to head down to the palace and demand that the King raise the taxes of their neighbors.
We can help people beyond what is healthy.
It is "enabling."
Overdoing help and assitance is not good for the people.
Not good for the giver, and not good for the receiver.
Thanks for the link. Very good info.
Poverty in America is luxury to most of the rest of the world.
The solution to poverty is not more welfare. How many (more) trillions do we have to spend to proove this?
Great flowery words but can you put it to scripture? Can you identify these words with tje words of Christ or the Apostles? I am a fair student of Scripture and I admit many are far more knowledgeable than me. I personally can not see anything that support this philosophical statement as being biblical or even Christian.
As I told Christianity Today: "Christians can't say, 'All we care about is someone's stance on abortion. I don't care what they do to the economy, to the poor,
This is somewhat of a clever reframe of the Liberal Abortion Argument. What the writer is saying is: “I’m telling my people abortion is wrong and they might be willing to fix “that plank” (See the rest of that quote,) but you Republicans are worse because you want these people to live a life of poverty and suffering and you are not willing to life a finger to help the unaborted.
That translates to this: We are being compassionate when we abort because we save a life from a life of poverty and suffering. You are heartless because you say you are saving a life but you are in fact putting this innocent life into a cauldron of poverty that breed violence, abuse crime drug abuse and premature death.
The author defines Christian duty as economic empowerment for the poor and he defines that empowerment as guaranteed free health care and welfare.
The joker in the deck here is that this is triangulation The government is on one point and Christians are on another point and he with his liberal pals are sitting on a third point. So we have three points A B and C and now he frames the lines between them.
He says on the line of the Liberals is another point call abortion and that is bad and I want to make it go away. but on the Christian connecting line is (And he gives his liberal wish list .) So he argues that if the Christians can show themselves to be trustworthy and do their sacred duty (He has mentioned Catholicism by name and he is taking to Chuck Colson – born again people) -- if we can trust you to do the right thing (Support our wish list) we will make abortion go away.
This man is bluffing because he can no more make this issue go away than Howard Dean or Hillary could. He is opening a compelling dialogue to Catholics and Democratic Fundamentalists. Christianity Today is read by many Evangelicals also considered part of the Democratic base
The triangulation is he is arguing that Government that funds all these things is Christian and so it is compelled to support their laundry list. He is feigning that he does not believe in the separation of Church and State the way that his party and the ACLU define it. The words are very carefully crafted to imply things that he does not support nor can he deliver from a party that loathes God, the Bible, Church, the family, and the military.
He brilliantly triangulates to the Christians and says you are the government but he does not say to the government you are Christian because he does not for one second believe that .
Know that this was thought long and hard about before the results of the presidential election were in. The Dems have known for quite a while that Faith was on the rise and Christians were having them for breakfast so here comes a book published a mere 90 days after the election that is saying the very things that the Dems have been talking about in the last 6-8 weeks abortion on the table, we need to talk faith. Do you see that this all has been a script.
And who is this guy that has come out to bat for them at their hour of need? Someone untainted with the issues that have hurt them the most abortion and gay rights. And while this guy is dressed like a lamb with the voice of the serpent – do we hear any howls from the dems that this man does not represent us? How dare he say he is willing to deal abortion. Their silence on this man and his message is deafening
This is their big move – no one gets away with this without the party bosses giving the nod. The silence of the feminists and abortion crowd has been bought – Susan Estridge could not keep herself quiet for two seconds on this if this was not a ploy for her benefit.
Just look what she is saying about the LA Times.
NUFF SAID
bttt
I disagree, because there was a period where I was a solid, Heaven-bound Christian, and a skull-full-of-mush liberal.
Ah...but like all of us that were in that same boat, the contradictions became louder and distinct as you matured.
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