Posted on 04/09/2006 5:35:41 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
AUSTRALIA must beware the rise of the "religious right" in politics, American Christian activist Jim Wallis has told a Melbourne audience.
Mr Wallis said religious faith would be the most influential force in Australian politics for the next decade, but the country was in danger of allowing the religious right to dominate.
"It is clear from … the abortion debate and the rise of Family First that Australia, like many countries, is witnessing a new religious force that could change the political landscape," he said.
Mr Wallis is in Melbourne to launch the Australian edition of his book God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It.
"The other danger is the way Australia has so often followed in lock-step with some of America's worst mistakes and policies, defying the world on Iraq or Kyoto or torture," he told The Age. "This needs to be challenged, and it's better challenged by friends."
Mr Wallis spoke about tackling poverty at the Town Hall yesterday for the Micah Challenge, the Christian arm of the Make Poverty History campaign. "People of faith can change the nation — they've done it in the past," he said.
A spokeswoman for Family First senator Steve Fielding said Family First was not a Christian party. Brigadier Jim Wallace, founder of the Australian Christian Lobby, said he had read the first few chapters of Mr Wallis' book and agreed with everything. "Where he's coming from is exactly where the Christian Lobby tries to be," he said.
Does it appear to anyone else that Jim Wallis is not actually religious at all but rather just puts on a religious guise for the political purpose of opposing religion in public life?
A lefty it would seem -- phony Christian probably.
Hmm... I'll take "God-less atheists in Christian clothing" for $500, Alex.
He's an awful man. He was hired on by the dems to give them some credibility in the area of religion and to help them "talk the talk." He's so National Council of Churches. He was not going over well on the talk shows, so I see he has moved on to other venues.
Unlike Mr. Wallis' favorites, the fanatics in AlQaida, no member of the so-called "religious right" has bombed a building full of innocent civilians in a coons age.
Well good, if hillary wins in 2008 weve got a sanctuary! (Ireland, Italy, Australia)
>>Jim Wallis is editor and founder of the liberal evangelical magazine Sojourners, the author of The Soul of Politics, and the head of "Call to Renewal," a faith-based anti-poverty organization.<<
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/interviews/wallis.html
>>Yes, there is, according to Jim Wallis, editor of the leftish religious magazine Sojourners, whose new book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, argues that Democrats, if they ever want to win an election, must learn how to talk about moral values, indeed, to talk the language of moral values, in a way that remains true to the party’s principles<<
http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/03/gods_politics_jim_wallis.html
What is wrong with the religious right. Nothing. I can't understand why they should be feared?
He sounds like a hippie.
Reminds me of the so-called "Crunchy Conservatives" I read about here not too many weeks ago. And many Freepers were extolling the virtues of such nonsense.
I make it a personal rule to always approach cautiously those "Christians" who proclaim the dangers of Christianity. Sounds like a wolf in sheep's clothing to me.
I suspected as much!
Mr. Wallis sounds most interested in producing wealthy and healthy citizens of hell.
Not everyone who says they are Christian on the right side of the political spectrum are true Christians either. Some advocate a theocracy. Some hate blacks. Some hate Latinos. It will matter more on The Day what you DID rather than who you VOTED for.
This idiot was here in Columbus, Ohio a week ago trying to support the leftist state candidates for Governor and called our conservative Republican candidate Ken Blackwell a "religious rightist" determined to screw over "the oppressed."
Big Ping!! This idiot was going after Blackwell last week at the Riffe Center.
Jim Wallis is a leftist Liberation Theologian who wants a Socialist Theocracy.
He's a zealot for the Christian liberals. They have liberals and conservatives just like we do in politics. He's been around for a long time. I believe he graduated from Trinity Seminary in suburban Chicago and I don't think he has ever pastored a church but has worked for liberal social justice stuff.The predecesor to Sojourners was birthed when he as in Chicago. The left will use him because he is right in the fact that they do not how to discuss moral issues. But if he has his way he will see that they learn well.Ann Coulter's new book that's posted elsewhere on here may be of help.
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