“God’s Politics”
by VivianAs the 2008 presidential primary season officially starts today with the Iowa caucuses, and our own California primary is now about a month away, it’s easy to get resigned and cynical about the political process. However, I’d like to remind you that hope and encouragement can be found in “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It” by Jim Wallis.
You can also visit the related website of Sojourners, whose “mission is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.” This website features a blog whose contributors include Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, and others. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with their religious views, there is plenty of food for thought and challenges to live out our faith.
What have you been reading that can enrich our spiritual journey?
January 4th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Resigned and cynical about the political process? Do we even have a viable political process in this country or are we just doomed to pray for whoever gets in?
What am I reading? The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
A preacher/professor I admired when I was in college once told us, “sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap.”
I reckon sometimes I need to things that have NO spiritual significance in order to make the things I do for Christ more effective.
My problem is knowing when to take a break, when to relax, how to chill.
Can you help me out here?
January 5th, 2008 at 3:31 am
I recently ran across this 2005 post about Christians in politics that resonated strongly with my own questions and concerns about political involvement.
It’s written by Dignan, who used to be deeply involved in the political machinery of the Religious Right. At some point, though, he realized that he could help fight for and against laws all day long as a short-cut to making change, but if the hearts and minds of people were not affected, his political efforts would not do any good ultimately, and might actually cause damage.
I respect people who feel called to serve as professional politicians, and I gladly exercise my opportunity and obligation to vote in every government election. However, I’m with Dignan in feeling that laws are more likely to reflect people’s hearts and minds than to shape them. For that, I think I’ll keep talking and writing and praying and reading and thinking. Oh, and napping, too.
January 5th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Hmmm…. I haven’t read God’s Politics, even though it was recommended to me shortly after it came out a couple of years ago, so I’m not sure what kind of “hope and encouragement” you refer to. I’ll have to look into it.
From what little I know of Jim Wallis and Sojourners, the book is probably thoughtful, focused on a social agenda, and leans a little bit left. Wallis himself is a political activist (in response to WCBs comment) and I admire his willingness to stand up for the things he believes. And he’s been doing that since college, at the very least.
Being the same age as Wallis, I too was in college during the time of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). He was apparently president of the chapter at Michigan State University. I went to one SDS rally — and stayed on the fringes — at Southern Illinois University. Back then I figured those folks were really the ones on the fringes, not me, but I had something of a limited worldview at the time and didn’t “get” the whole protest thing.
All that notwithstanding, I agree that Christians who are called to politics, whether as a candidate like Huckabee or an activist like Wallis, ought to answer that call, just as musicians, authors, teachers, evangelists and soldiers ought to answer their call.
The challenge is to conform our calling to Christianity rather than conforming Christianity to our calling. Wallis is famous for saying there are only a few verses about homosexuality in the Bible while there are many verses about poverty, as if that proves that poverty is the more important issue. There are also more verses about money than there are about love.