The Evangelical Left's Nostalgia Trip Down Wall Street

Mark Tooley, who is always worth reading, has some thoughts on the embrace of Occupy Wall Street by left-wing leaders. (Why, by the way, are those leaders always jumping on secular bandwagons to prove their relevance?)

In an article entitled, "Religion Flocks to Wall Street" he writes:

Because they are Americans, the Wall Street Occupiers are suffused with messianic purpose, as are nearly all our nation's American political crusades. But the often raggedy Occupiers themselves do not seem specifically oriented towards organized religion.

Not to worry. Religious Leftists of all sorts have rallied to the Occupiers' bedraggled banners. Guided by the Social Gospel's emphasis on social justice over theological details, these religionists discern God's Kingdom among the squatters' tents and sleeping bags. One group of clergy visited while carrying a mock golden idol shaped like the dreaded Wall Street Bull, the very incarnation of greed.

Praising the Occupation is a gamble for liberal evangelicals, who have tried so hard to appear centrist in recent years, anxious to softly persuade suburban churchgoers to abandon their conservative voting habits. Oldline Protestant elites, along with left-wing Catholic activists, of course welcome the Occupation as a long overdue 1960s revival.

After reviewing the police lineup of the usual suspects from the Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and Methodist church hierarchies, Tooley comes back to left-wing Evangelicals.

This call towards utopia, enshrouded simultaneously in grievance, entitlement, idealism, and youthful naiveté, has understandably seduced old-style street activists like Jim Wallis of Sojourners, or even Brian McLaren of the emergent church movement. "When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus," Wallis has pronounced, even before himself visiting the Occupation, which doubtless only amplified his excited nostalgia. "'The occupation of God has begun'" might inspire the same fear and hope among people today as 'the Kingdom of God is at hand' inspired in the first century," gushed McLaren, after attending his own local Occupation protest.

Indeed, I'll bet Jim Wallis is re-living his old Students for a Democratic Society days as he basks in the glow of the nostalgia. Is Brian McLaren even aware of how much he sounds like old-fashioned, early 20th century social gospelers when he compares the latest social trend to the kingdom of God?

I sometimes wonder if they grasp just how out of date they really are; the leftists who operated in the pre-World War I era and pre-Soviet era could be excused to some extent because they had never seen the fruits of Communism (although they should have been warned by the orgy of violence that was the French Revolution). But to gush about "equality" and "building the kingdom" with secular protest movements today is to have one's feet embedded in the cement of nostalgia while the parade passes by.

Representing a newer generation of Evangelical liberal is Shane Claiborne, a winsome young white man who typically sports dreadlocks, a bandana, and a rustic smock, while proclaiming good news for the poor to attentive middle class evangelical students. "In a world where 1 percent of the world owns half the world's stuff, we are beginning to realize that there is enough for everyone's need, but there is not enough for everyone's greed," he recently insisted. "Lots of folks are beginning to say, 'Maybe God has a different dream for the world than the Wall Street dream.'"

The dubious statistic about the wicked "1 percent" aside, Claiborne speaks some truth. But he and the other religious enthusiasts for Wall Street aren't calling for individuals to shed their wealth for God's Kingdom. Of course, they primarily want an all powerful state to seize and redistribute wealth according to some imagined just formula, after which the lion will lie peaceably with the lamb. It's a utopian dream, not based on the Gospels, always monstrous when attempted, and premised more on resentment than godly generosity. But it's a message that will always have an audience in a covetous world.

What strikes me is the insight Tooley offers in the last sentence. Is it not transparently obvious that the whole appeal of the OWS protests to the ordinary, fuzzy-minded, college kids with iPhones and $100K of student load debt is nothing other than plain covetousness? The Gospel is about generosity; socialism is about forced redistribution. Why is this? Because the Gospel changes lives while socialism fiddles around with social structures. Socialism cannot make people generous; only the indwelling Spirit of God can do that.

But really, religious leaders promoting covetousness??? I suppose it is no stranger than religious leaders promoting fornication . . . or divorce . . . or murdering pre-born babies. Breaking the Ten Commandments seems to be just what the Religious Left does.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis: Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Brian McLaren has two remarkable posts up at the moment which explain his strategy and his goals in his speaking and writing. He basically admits that he is trying to nudge Evangelicals leftward and this is why he has tried to stay within the Evangelical world so long. He has been a theological liberal for a long time, but only gradually revealed his true leanings so as to take as many souls with him out the door as possible.

The first post is on the Sojourners website where he defends Jim Wallis and Sojourners against criticism from the Left based on the fact that Sojourners magazine refused an ad from a pro-homosexual group aimed at local churches. The criticism seems to be two-fold: (1) "why aren't you openly with us on this issue when you are with us on so many others" and (2) "you are being hypocritical because we both know you favor the liberal position on sexuality." So how does McLaren defend Wallis?

Basically, his argument comes down to this: Sojourners is trying to influence as many Evangelicals as possible toward a left-wing, welfare-state, big government politics by portraying themselves as advocates for poverty reduction. And it is working; a sliver of the left wing of the Evangelical spectrum is being seduced [my word] into Marxism. And this is Sojourners' mission. In the world of left-wing politics there are many Soros-funded advocacy groups, but only one that has a realistic chance of appealing to left-wing Evangelicals and so Jim Wallis can perform a service for the radical Left that no one else can. Why destroy that potential by taking a position Evangelicals oppose so strongly it would drive them away?

In this post, McLaren links in this post to one on his blog in which he chronicles his journey from a conservative to a progressive position on homosexuality. What I found interesting is how far back his openness to theological liberalism, cultural Marxism and progressive politics actually goes. He writes:

I speak as a person who inherited the conventional conservative position about homosexuality, but who began questioning it in my teens when one of my close friends came out. When faced with the choice between a) truly listening and seeking to understand this friend and b) showing what compassion I could without endangering my status in conservative Christian circles, I chose b). I suppose my response during my "conventional phase" could have been worse, but it could have been much better.

When I became a pastor, more and more gay people came out to me and data started to accumulate that indicated problems with my inherited understanding. I went through a stage where I sought to be as personally understanding and humane to LGBTQ people as I could while still holding, however tenuously, to a theology that stigmatized them.

So his leftist ideas about human sexuality go all the way back to his teens, before he ever became a pastor. So, you may wonder, how did he ever gain a reputation as an Evangelical writer? It was no accident, but a deliberately crafted strategy:

But at this point I was a pastor and had to deal with the conflict between two commitments: first, one of my primary job requirements - to keep together rather than divide my congregation on the one hand, and second, to stand up with integrity and be counted as an advocate for people I had become convinced were being treated with neither justice nor compassion. I negotiated this tension by speaking up when I could and by seeking to use my influence to increase sensitivity to people whom I felt were being treated by Christians in a truly sub-Christian way.

But at every turn I felt that I couldn't speak out too strongly too fast without dividing the church that I was called to serve. . . .

You might ask why I didn't go ahead and take a stand, letting the chips fall where they may. After all, I had inherited a conservative position on the role of women in church leadership, and our church crossed that boundary and never looked back. The honest answers to that question are complex and many (perhaps a subject for another time). . . .

One essential dimension of my decision to hold back was my desire - and sense of calling - to hold together a fragile coalition.

He wanted to hold together a coalition, which is exactly what he claims is motivating Jim Wallis to cultivate ambiguity about where he stands on biblical morality. In other words, he wanted Evangelical money, Evangelical support and Evangelical converts to his liberal position. He wanted Evangelicalism to underwrite its own destruction.

To the extent that Evangelicals embrace McLaren's sordid sexual ethics and his vacuous and heretical theology, they will witness institutional decline as their hold on the Gospel evaporates. To see the future, one only has to look at the rapidly declining liberal Protestants in the Episcopal Church. The future is statistical decline, cultural irrelevance, and eventually death.

Evangelicals lives only by the Gospel; Evangelical churches grow only because they have a life transformational Gospel to preach. Take that away and substitute a vaguely humanistic therapeutic message and socialism in its progressivist form, and there is no future. The Gospel is Good News about sin and salvation, heaven and hell, a supernatural Savior and a living God who answers prayer. If one turns these doctrines into symbols of social justice with a Marxist tinge, one eviscerates them of meaning and significance.

Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are trolling for poorly-taught, Scripturally-ignorant, emotion-driven, easily-deceived prey on the left wing or other fringes of Evangelicalism. They pretend to be (kind of) Evangelical even though they have really embraced a new religion and they are dangerous to those sheep who wander around outside the sheepfold. Tragically, there are a lot of wayward sheep and sleepy shepherds today and so the pickings are not slim at all for the wolves.

Let us recall the warning of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesian elders:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28-32) [ESV, my bolding]

Elders of Evangelical churches have a duty to speak out and warn the flock about those who are "speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them;" men such as Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis, who are wolves disguised as sheep. Make no mistake: book royalties are not their goal, they are after souls. And they are extremely open about it.

Socialist Exegesis and Cheap Grace

Lawrence O'Donnell is a liberal political commentator on MSNBC who in this clip functions as a liberal televangelist. He is a false prophet who, like his master the Devil, expertly twists Scripture to make it sound as if the Bible said the opposite of what it obviously does say. It is enough to make one sympathetic to the calls to get religion out of politics. The real problem is not that orthodox Christians get involved in politics, the problem is that unorthodox liberals are already there doing damage day in and day out.

Don't be put off by the fact that this clip happens to contain an attack on Rush Limbaugh for Rush is incidental to my point here. Plenty of people other than Rush Limbaugh find the liberal Scripture-twisting that obscures the Gospel and co-opts Jesus for some kind of neo-Marxist political agenda to be pernicious. O'Donnell is really attacking all conservative Christians, that is, he is saying that all non-socialist Christians are not real Christians. I confess that Rush Limbaugh is not my idea of a great Scripture scholar, but O'Donnell manages to make Rush look like a veritable John Calvin by comparison.

What makes this clip especially galling is the smug complacency and self-assurance with which O'Donnell speaks. I think he really believes what he is saying and is not in the least ironic or deliberately deceptive. He thinks his lame attempts at exegesis are absolutely knock down arguments that we conservatives never heard before and cannot answer. He reminds me of Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion taking three whole pages to refute Thomas Aquinas' arguments for the existence of God - just think, three whole pages!

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Limbaugh said that the left is happy to co-opt Jesus as the first socialist and use him to justify their agenda of state control of everything, but that is the only use they have for Jesus. They are not interested in hearing Jesus on other topics and they twist his words on this topic. Rush is completely correct in this, as we shall see.

Limbaugh replies to the current propaganda slogan being advanced by the Soros-funded, former Evangelical Jim Wallis that the real question is not "What would Jesus cut?" but rather "What would Jesus take?" implying that the socialists are pitting Jesus against the Eighth Commandment and the New Testament against the Old Testament, which they always do. The Socialists think it is fine to break the Eighth Commandment so long as it is done by majority vote and so long as it is done in the name of their great idol: Equality.

Give O'Donnell this much credit: he knows Limbaugh is shooting holes in his whole socialist agenda and he knows it is absolutely crucial to discredit Limbaugh's arguments. He is right about that; the problem is that Limbaugh is right and he is wrong. But since when did that ever stop heretics?

Let's look at the exegesis one passage at a time.

First, we have the story of the rich young ruler. O'Donnell points out that in Mark 10:21 Jesus tells the man to go and sell all his possessions and give to the poor. He then claims that this verse is an answer to the question of how much the government should tax us. Jesus, he says to Limbaugh, "takes" it all - 100%.

Well, how many holes are there in this sophistry. For one thing, Jesus gave the man a choice, something that socialist governments never give citizens. Jesus used no coercion; he called for a free commitment of the will. This is basic to human dignity and moral responsibility. Socialism infantilizes people and deprives them of their basic freedom to act morally by determining what their behavior must be and coercing them into doing whatever the State deems correct.

For another thing, Jesus was not talking about giving all you have to the control of the Government. Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. Jesus wants our commitment but we don't follow Jesus by voting socialist and submitting to the dictates of a socialist government; we must follow Jesus only.

O'Donnell stresses that this means "give all of your wealth to the poor, not just some." So this is what he claims the Bible teaches. Fine. Has he given all his wealth to the poor? Has Barack Obama? Joe Biden's income tax return last year showed that he gave 1% of his income to charity. (Obama did a bit better by giving 14% to charity, but he made over 1.7 million!) John Kerry won't even pay the taxes on his yacht let alone sell it and give it to the poor. What blatant hypocrisy and cunning double talk!

Socialists like O'Donnell are people who want the government to take money from other people and give it to the poor. They could just follow their interpretation of the Bible and give their wealth away - but they don't. Instead they want the government to confiscate your wealth and redistribute it while they continue to live the good life.

O'Donnell twists Jesus' words (at 2:25 in the video) saying to sell all that you have and give to the poor into Jesus endorsing a 39.6% income tax rate for those making over $250,000 annually! How does he get that out of the call to evangelical poverty? Wouldn't the people making over $250,000 who paid 39.6% still be "rich?" How, exactly, does remaining rich equal selling everything and giving it to the poor?

O'Donnell then quotes Luke 14:33 where Jesus says that anyone who does not give up everything cannot be my disciple and then says "That means you, Rush." He does not say: "That means me and that is why I have sold all my possessions and given everything to the poor." No, it only applies to conservatives, not to socialists. Confused? Don't be, you are just hung up on Aristotelian logic and need to embrace the Marxist dialectic in which "two legs bad, four legs good."

O'Donnell next continues his little trip through the NT by claiming that Jesus was the first advocate of the progressive income tax! His basis for this? It is Mark 12 and the story of the widow's mite. O'Donnell claims that Jesus saying that she gave more because she gave out of her poverty than those who gave out of their abundance means that the government should make her tax bracket zero and tax rich people at a high rate. Is that what Jesus meant?

Again, she gave voluntarily, which is what made it meritorious in Jesus' eyes. The progressive income tax is not voluntary. And under O'Donnell's socialism, she could not have earned praise from Jesus because she would be classified as a victim and supported by the nanny state. In welfare state liberalism and social democracy private charity dies out. This is by design. Yet, Jesus' words of commendation are twisted into meaning the opposite of what they actually mean. For Jesus, private charity is good; for socialists like O'Donnell it is an evil to be stamped out.

O'Donnell then makes Jesus into a Marxist by saying (4:25) "What would Jesus take? Obviously, he would take from each according to their ability to pay. That is the clear, Christian, philosophical basis of a progressive income tax." Rush is right: Jesus is being co-opted by the Left and people who don't know the Bible very well may well be taken in.

Then at the 6 minute mark, O'Donnell begins reading the parable of the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25 and then he basically consigns Limbaugh to hell unless he repents and turns to socialism. And here I thought Marxists didn't even believe in the after life or God or Divine Judgment or hell. I guess they will pretend to believe in anything if they think it will be a useful rhetorical trick to manipulate their audience. They are Sophists and Socrates had them figured out 2,500 years ago. And Jesus would have no time for their hypocrisy. He didn't come to make Caesar Lord. He came to be Ceasar's Lord.

But what is really intriguing about this altar call is that he calls Rush to abandon his opposition to the welfare state and socialist principles. He doesn't single out John Kerry or Obama's Hollywood actor supporters or any other rich Democrat and call them to sell all that they have and give it to the poor. Why not? Well, for O'Donnell they are already saved. They vote Democrat. That is it. That is all you have to do.

I challenge Lawrence O'Donnell to walk the talk and emulate the Rich Young Ruler by selling all that he has and giving it to the rich. When he does that, I will believe that he is at least sincere in his wrong-headed biblical interpretation.

But O'Donnell doesn't think he needs to do that in order to be a follower of Jesus. Being a follower of Jesus means supporting the Left politically and the latest Party edicts will inform you from time to time what this means you must do. Jesus says "Sell it all and give to the poor" but as long as you refrain from attacking the Democratic Party, that is close enough.

This is cheap grace. Break all the Commandments you like. Fornicate, abort, lie, cheat, covet and manipulate. You can even evade taxes! It doesn't matter. All you need to do do is vote the right way and never criticize Socialism or the Great God Equality.

If Rush just switched to supporting the Democratic Party, he could keep his fifty million dollar fortune and O'Donnell would be fine with that. You don't hear O'Donnell naming Oprah or Soros in his altar calls, do you? Want to be filthy rich and still go to heaven? Just get a party card.

Grace doesn't get any cheaper than that.

Ezra Levant on George Soros

On his website, Ezra Levant has posted his latest column for the Sun newspaper chain on George Soros' attempt to interfere with the creation of a conservative TV news enterprise in Canada.

The first part of the column introduces the reader to just exactly who Soros is. I thought, in light of the recent revelations that Sojourners has received major funding from Soros (first denied, then admitted to be true by Jim Wallis), that it might be interesting to be introduced to the Wallis' new benefactor. After all, we are constantly hearing fevered stories about "the powerful interests who are pulling the GOP's strings" - as if the Democratic Party was just a bunch of ordinary, middle-class Americans fighting big business and Wall Street.

Here is the background of one of the Democratic sugar daddies:

George Schwartz was born in Hungary in 1930 — not the luckiest time and place to be born a Jew.

George’s father Theodore tried to change the family’s fortunes by changing their name to something less Jewish-sounding. It didn’t help. And soon war came.

When the Nazis took total control of Hungary in 1944, the Holocaust followed. In two months, 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to death camps.

To survive, George, then a teenager, collaborated with the Nazis.

First he worked for the Judenrat. That was the Jewish council set up by the Nazis to do their dirty work for them. Instead of the Nazis rounding up Jews every day for the trains, they delegated that murderous task to Jews who were willing to do it to survive another day at the expense of their neighbours.

Theodore hatched a better plan for his son. He bribed a non-Jewish official at the agriculture ministry to let George live with him. George helped the official confiscate property from Jews.

By collaborating with the Nazis, George survived the Holocaust. He turned on other Jews to spare himself.

George moved to London after the war and then to New York, where he became a stockbroker. He’s rich now. Forbes magazine says he’s the 35th richest man in the world. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He goes by the name his father invented: George Soros.

How does Soros feel about what he did as a teenager? Has it kept him up at night?

Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes asked him that. Was it difficult? “Not at all,” Soros answered.

“No feeling of guilt?” asked Kroft. “No,” said Soros. “There was no sense that I shouldn’t be there. If I wasn’t doing it, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not. So I had no sense of guilt.”

A Nazi would steal the Jews’ property anyways. So why not him?

That moral hollowness has shaped Soros’ life. He’s a rabid critic of capitalism, but in 1992 when he saw a chance, he speculated against the British pound, causing it to crash, devastating retirement savings for millions of Britons. Soros pocketed $1.1 billion for himself. If he didn’t do it, someone else would, right?

In 2002, Soros was convicted of insider trading in France, and fined millions of dollars. He admitted buying the shares, but denied it was a crime.

Last year, when he made $3.3 billion off the banking collapse, he called the world’s financial crisis “the culmination of my life’s work.”

This is a man who boasted he offered to help his mother commit suicide. Apparently he didn’t see enough death in Hungary.

Soros is a sociopath. But he’s a sociopath with $14 billion, and he likes to spend it on politics.

When your "Christian ministry" gets funded by this type of guy, it is no wonder you look like a Democratic Party front - like the Catholic version of Sojourners called Catholics United. Peter Smith writes at LifeSiteNews.com:

Catholics United is an affiliate of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, an organization funded by atheist billionaire George Soros. Both organizations have been condemned by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput as front groups for the Democrat party that have “done a disservice to the Church.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue told LifeSiteNews.com that, as Planned Parenthood gave House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “well deserved” award “for her work championing abortion” on July 15, perhaps next year they would like to consider Korzen for the prize.

“Though Korzen may scream all day long about pro-life groups ‘misusing the language of faith to score cheap political points,’ every honest person knows he is a master of expedient politics,” said Donohue. “His latest gambit, funneling George Soros money to Pelosi shills, is just the latest example of his duplicity.”

Archbishop Chaput and Bill Donohue have Catholics United figured out; how come it has taken so long for Evangelicals to come to grips with what Jim Wallis and Sojourners have become?

Wallis Apologizes; Critics Keep the Heat on Regarding the Funding of Sojourners

Christianity Today is reporting that Jim Wallis has now admitted he was wrong and Marvin Olasky was right and that Wallis has now apologized to Olasky:

Sojourners founder Jim Wallis apologized Wednesday to Marvin Olasky for saying, "Glenn Beck lies for a living. I'm sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing."

Wallis told Christianity Today that he sent a private e-mail to Olasky and plans to speak with the editor-in-chief of World Magazine by phone on Friday.

"I was wrong, out of anger at the insinuation about the dependence on these foundations, I was wrong to imply that like Beck, Marvin lies for a living," Wallis said. "Glenn Beck does lie for a living. Marvin Olasky doesn't lie for a living; that's not something I should say about a brother in Christ."

There are some troubling things about this apology, however. While it is encouraging that Wallis has now conceded that Olasky was speaking truthfully all along, it is not edifying to see someone who likes to be known as "Rev." Wallis using such aggressive and mean language about Glenn Beck. If he catches Beck in a lie, by all means point it out. But this hateful rhetoric is not becoming to someone who constantly claims he is trying to start a "conversation."

Beyond this, there is also the problem that Wallis continues to underplay the significance of his "Christian" and "non-partisan" organization being funded by secular and left-wing foundations - as if these non-Christian foundations just wanted to advance biblical teaching above all other priorities. The Christianity Today article quotes Olasky as follows:

"George Soros, one of the leading billionaire leftists—he has financed groups promoting abortion, atheism, same-sex marriage, and gargantuan government—bankrolled Sojourners with a $200,000 grant in 2004," Olasky wrote in his original column. "Since then Sojourners has received at least two more grants from Soros organizations. Sojourners revenues have more than tripled—from $1,601,171 in 2001–2002 to $5,283,650 in 2008–2009—as secular leftists have learned to use the religious left to elect Obama and others."

Jay Richards, in an article entitled "Soros Funding of Sojourners is Only the Tip of the Iceberg" in the National Review Online, explains why Wallis is still not being completely up front:

The “clarification” of his earlier statement is equally unsatisfying. First, Wallis is still trying to claim that his organization transcends the Manichean political divide of left and right. They just do “biblical social justice,” he insists. But again, as I show in much more detail elsewhere, Wallis and Sojourners regularly couple strained, narrow readings of scriptural texts and a vaguely Marxist economic foundation to arrive at political and economic positions that are well left of center and far afield of a far more nuanced charity and justice tradition stretching back through almost 2,000 years of orthodox Christian thought.

Second, it’s implausible for Wallis to claim that grants between 2004 and 2007 totaling $325,000 are “the tiniest fraction” of Sojourners’ funding. Worse, the three grants from Soros’s Open Society Institute are only the tip of the iceberg. Based on publicly-available 990s, I’ve discovered that Sojourners received at least forty-nine separate foundation grants between 2003 and 2009, totaling $2,159,346. Not one of these is from a discernibly conservative foundation. Very few are from discernibly Christian foundations.

Besides the Soros grants, for instance, there are two 2006 grants from the infamous Tides Foundation totaling $72,106; a Ford Foundation grant in 2008 for $100,000; a Rockefeller Brothers Fund grant for $100,000 in 2005; and a $50,000 grant from the Wallace Global Fund in 2008. The Wallace Global Fund also supports ACORN and a cornucopia of population-control groups.

Three grants, totaling $20,000 between 2005 and 2007, are from the Streisand Foundation in California. Yes, that Streisand foundation. (That’s just funny.) Other recipients of Streisand philanthropy include People for the American Way and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. This is very left-wing company.

Apparently Wallis thinks the range from left to far left represents a “broad spectrum.”

Of course, $2,159,346 is not the total budget of Sojourners for the years in question. Does that mean that the remainder of Sojourners’ budget comes from readers of Sojourners magazine? Not at all. You see, this figure is drawn from public 990s of charitable foundations, which have to report such grants because they have minimum giving requirements. But savvy donors, such as George Soros, have a variety of ways to donate to causes. Private, non-foundation grants don’t have to be released publicly, as long as they don’t make up a large percentage of an organization’s operating budget in a given year. So the $2,159,346 is the floor and not the ceiling on left-wing funding of Sojourners. There’s no easy way of knowing how much they receive from these and other like-minded donors outside the ordinary foundation channels, unless Sojourners decides to release that information. (Wallis has said their books are open, but I’m not holding my breath.)

To be clear, I am not saying that because the Streisand Foundation gives to both Sojourners and Planned Parenthood, Sojourners secretly supports Planned Parenthood. I am saying it is dishonest for Wallis to keep claiming he’s above the political fray. You don’t have to be keen-witted to figure out that Sojourners is overwhelmingly a left-wing operation, optimized to brand left-wing ideas for Christians, ideologically moored on the left, and funded to a significant degree by secular, left-wing donors with little interest in the health of the church. Certainly this fact is apparent to the trustees and officers of many left-wing foundations.

Richards is right. Jim Wallis has become a creature of the secular left and has forfeited all right to speak for Evangelicals. He attends an Episcopalian church, has embraced sexual heresy, and is completely sold out to socialism. He distorts Scripture and places it into the partisan service of the Democratic Party.

Justice is Not Enough

Jim Wallis continues to confuse the definition of justice. In a blog post on Martin Luther King as a social justice Christian, he offers this statement.

This is why in the Old Testament, God commands his people to be charitable but also to work for justice. The people of God are to give offerings of their own free will, but there are also laws that show the government has a legitimate role to play. As a Christian, I believe that Jesus changes people's hearts and lives, and that is something that government policy can never compete with. But, I also believe that personal charity does not do the work of justice.

There is a lot of confusion packed into this one little paragraph so let's take the points one at a time.

1. Justice is rendering to each one his due. So when rich people oppress poor people by bribing judges to render unjust rulings and take their land, for example, that is an example of how working for justice can help the poor. (See Amos, for example.) We should be all for this kind of justice. But Wallis is clearly going beyond this definition of justice in what he calls "social justice."

2. When Wallis says that the government "has a role to play" in the OT, he subtly implies that that role might be a redistributive role, yet the OT does not say that. The OT concern is that the government be honest and uncorrupted so that each one gets what is his due. This concern is not the total answer to the problem of poverty because poverty has other causes than simply injustice or oppression of the poor by the rich.

The poor also get poorer sometimes by themselves without being oppressed by anyone. This is why the Wisdom literature, especially Proverbs, emphasizes the virtues of hard work and condemns sloth. Also, there are many life exigencies such as illness or the desertion of his family by a father that can cause poverty that have nothing directly to do with the government. Many of these situations are best addressed by civil society at a lower level than that of the central government.

3. When Wallis says that charity is not sufficient and that a social welfare state is necessary he is making a prudential political judgment and reading his view into the OT. That is not what the OT teaches. When the OT commands charity, it addresses the individual. It never says that the king should raise taxes and redistribute the proceeds to the poor; in fact, increased taxation by the king is always seen as a form of oppression in the OT. It was one of the things Samuel warned Israel about when Israel unwisely demanded a king.

4. For Wallis, personal charity is insufficient because his vision is a high-tax, welfare state and in such a state individual giving to charity always goes down instead of up. His big government preference, however, is the main factor in depressing individual charitable giving and so his prophecy becomes a self-fulfilling one to the extent that his leftist ideology prevails.

In conclusion, Wallis wants to create a hybrid out of a fusion of justice and charity called "social justice" which is neither just or charitable. It is a continuation of the centralizing power of the monarchy that proved fatal to Israel as a nation in the OT and which was condemned by the 8th century prophets. It involves government unjustly appropriating the wealth of ordinary people in order to redistribute it to those whom government bureaucrats deem to be more in need of it. It squeezes out charity and discourages hard work and productivity.

For Wallis, the term "social justice" is indistinguishable from socialism. There is a legitimate Roman Catholic tradition of social justice teaching which developed in conscious opposition to socialism, which is very different. Unfortunately, such subtle distinctions as the meaning of justice, the meaning of the principle of subsidiarity, and the on-going necessity of charity seem to be lost on Wallis. He is the kind of progressive for whom "progress" ultimately leads to socialism, tyranny, poverty, and the loss of individual freedom and responsibility before God.

Jim Wallis Admits Taking Donations from Soros after Calling Marvin Olasky a Liar for Telling the Truth

Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today has a post on the Jim Wallis mini-scandal. It turns out that Wallis has been getting funding from billionaire leftist George Soros, who funds dozens of ultra-leftist organizations including pro-abortion, pro-same-sex "marriage" groups and faux "Catholic" groups that promote abortion and seek to fool Catholics into voting for Obama. It comes as no surprise that he has been helping Sojourners given its role of trying to fool Evangelicals into voting for Obama.

But the scandal is not so much that Sojourners got money from him - although he is one unsavory source of funding for a supposedly Christian organization - but that Wallis lied about it when he was accused of taking money from Soros.

Bailey quotes Marvin Olasky, who made the accusation:

Jim Wallis has admitted that Sojourners has received funding in the past from liberal billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Last month, Marvin Olasky asked Wallis to admit his affiliations on the left when reported on the money from Soros in World magazine.

George Soros, one of the leading billionaire leftists—he has financed groups promoting abortion, atheism, same-sex marriage, and gargantuan government—bankrolled Sojourners with a $200,000 grant in 2004. A year later, here's how Jim rebutted a criticism of "religious progressives" for being allied with Soros and MoveOn.org: "I know of no connections to those liberal funds and groups that are as direct as the Religious Right's ties to right-wing funders."

Since then Sojourners has received at least two more grants from Soros organizations. Sojourners revenues have more than tripled—from $1,601,171 in 2001-2002 to $5,283,650 in 2008-2009—as secular leftists have learned to use the religious left to elect Obama and others.

Apparently, shilling for Obama has been lucrative for Sojourners in its latest incarnation as a front organization for the Democratic Party: 5 million per year is not bad. Later, Wallis doubled down on his deceptive claim that he was a pure as the driven snow.

In a Patheos interview, Wallis suggested that Olasky was lying.

“It’s not hyperbole or overstatement to say that Glenn Beck lies for a living. I’m sad to see Marvin Olasky doing the same thing. No, we don’t receive money from Soros. Given the financial crisis of nonprofits, maybe Marvin should call Soros and ask him to send us money.

“So, no, we don’t receive money from George Soros. Our books are totally open, always have been. Our money comes from Christians who support us and who read Sojourners. That’s where it comes from. In fact, we’ve had funding blocked, this year and last, by liberal foundations who didn’t like our stance on abortion. Other liberal groups were happy to point out to them that our stance wasn’t kosher on abortion, so our funding was blocked.

“So tell Marvin he should check his facts, and not imitate Glenn Beck.”

It is kind of interesting how obsessed Jim Wallis is with Glenn Beck; Beck has obviously gotten into his head in a serious way. But it certainly wasn't very nice of Wallis to call Marvin Olasky a liar. Bailey quotes Olasky's response to Wallis' accusation:

Jay Richards of National Review and Olasky responded to Wallis. Here's Olasky again:

Want to see for yourself what someone apparently did not want you to see? Click here to download the PDF, go to page 225, and you’ll see the grant to Sojourners.

You can also see the 2006 grant by downloading the 990-PF for that year and going to page 125. And by the way, look at page 114 of the 990-PF for 2007: another $100,000 grant to Sojourners “to support the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign.”

Unfortunately for Sojourners and Wallis, the web pages did not disappear quickly enough. Bailey notes:

Wallis released a statement through a spokesperson to Patheos.

I should have declined to comment until I was able to review the blog post in question and consulted with our staff on the details of our funding over the past several years. Instead, I answered in the spirit of the accusation and did not recall the details of our funding over the decade in question. The spirit of the accusation was that Sojourners is beholden to funders on the political left, which is false. The allegation concerned three grants received over 10 years from the Open Society Institute that made up the tiniest fraction of Sojourners' funding during that decade -- so small that I hadn't remembered them.

That is one mealy-mouthed admission of guilt. There is no apology to Olasky and a lame attempt to justify himself while taking a feeble shot at conservatives in the process. No CEO of a non-profit would "forget" about a $200,000 donation from a foundation when his total budget was less than 2 million dollars. Jim Wallis has come a long way - or fallen a long way depending on your point of view.

It is now impossible to regard Sojourners as anything more than a front organization for the secular Left and the Democratic Party that has been seized by Leftist extremists.

For more details on the disappearing web pages, see Jay Richards' article at National Review Online entitled "Why is Jim Wallis Denying That He Received Grants From Deep-Pocketed Leftists Like George Soros?"

Jim Wallis Attacks the Tea Party: What are His Arguments?

Jim Wallis thinks Left-wing socialism is Christian but Tea Party libertarianism is not. He wants a debate. Fine, let's have it. I'm ready to debate Jim Wallis anytime. In what follows, I respond to his article. My emphases in bold and my comments are in [square brackets and red.]

"The insurgent Tea Party and its Libertarian philosophy is a political phenomenon, not a religious one. [OK, why is this relevant? Jim doesn't start off most of his articles by saying "Socialism (or Big Government Liberalism or the Welfare State) is a political phenomenon not a religious one. Maybe he should, unless he is trying to transform the Gospel into a political ideology. I think most Christians who support the Tea Party would agree that libertarian political philosophy is not the content of the Christian gospel but they would quite reasonably see Wallis's teachings as implying that Big Government liberalism, if not outright socialism, is the Christian gospel.] Like the Democratic and Republican parties it seeks to challenge, it is a secular movement, not a Christian one. As with both major political parties, people who regard themselves as Christians may be involved in, or sympathetic to, the new Tea Party; but that doesn’t make it “Christian.” [Just as Christian democratic socialist don't make democratic socialism "Christian."] But like the philosophies and policies of the major political parties, the Tea Party can legitimately be examined on the basis of Christian principles -- and it should be. [Agreed.]

Since the Tea Party is getting such national attention, our God’s Politics blog is going to begin a dialogue on this question: Just how Christian is the Tea Party Movement -- and the Libertarian political philosophy that lies behind it? Let me start the dialogue here. And please join in.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds individual rights as its supreme value and considers government the major obstacle. It tends to be liberal on cultural and moral issues and conservative on fiscal, economic, and foreign policy. [This is true of some libertarians but not all by any means. Many economic libertarians are actually social conservatives on cultural and moral issues. Libertarianism is an older political philosophy than welfare state liberalism - not a recent "phenomenon" - and it has historically been just one co-belligerent in the conservative coalition in America along with traditional conservatives and social conservatives like me plus neoconservatives and foreign policy hawks. I would see libertarians as allies even though I am not one personally. I do think they are much less dangerous than the socialists in the Democratic coalition Wallis is part of. I'm happy to support smaller government in alliance with libertarians who support moral standards as on the pro-life issue for example.] This “just leave me alone and don’t spend my money” option is growing quickly in American life, as we have seen in the Tea Party movement. [It may be growing but the opposite philosophy currently controls the Presidency, both houses of Congress and at least half of the Supreme Court. So the "take-over" is not exactly imminent.] Libertarianism has been an undercurrent in the Republican Party for some time, [this is an attempt to paint it as less than mainstream despite it majority status among America voters] and has been in the news lately due to the primary election win of Rand Paul as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Kentucky. [Typical Democratic talking points - attack Rand Paul - but, will this work any better than the attacks on the Arizona immigration bill which are now backfiring with independent voters?]

. . . snip . . .

Is such a philosophy Christian? In several major aspects of biblical ethics, I would suggest that Libertarianism falls short.

1. The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. [It is somewhat hypocritical to attack libertarians for emphasizing individual rights when you support a liberal philosophy that exalts individual choice on abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce and other issues concerning sexual ethics, family matters and the sanctity of human life. Why isn't Wallis attacking the "libertarianism" and "individualism" of the Left on these issues? When he sides with the social conservatives, THEN he will have the right to criticize the libertarians on individualism.] The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” [Yes, but it is a huge leap to define that "we" as the State rather than us Christians or the Church.] Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone. Both compassion and social justice are fundamental Christian commitments, [depends on what you mean by "social justice" here - if you are trying to smuggle in a commitment to socialism, that is not acceptable] and while the Christian community is responsible for living out both, government is also held accountable to the requirements of justice and mercy. Both Christians on the Right and the Left have raised questions about Libertarian abandonment of the most vulnerable — whether that means unborn lives or the poor. [As a pro-lifer, I'd rather take my chances with the Tea Partiers rather than with the supposedly compassionate Democratic Party!]

Just look at the biblical prophets in their condemnation of injustice to the poor, and how they frequently follow those statements by requiring the king (the government) to act justly (a requirement that applied both to the kings of Israel and to foreign potentates). Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well” (Jeremiah 22:16). Amos instructs the courts (the government) to “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). The prophets hold kings, rulers, judges, and employers accountable to the demands of justice and mercy. [Notice that there is nothing in these verses about socialism or the welfare state or redistribution of wealth. The prophets were talking about justice and the rule of law - major conservative principles. And they were critics of the advent of "big government" under the Kings.]

2. An anti-government ideology just isn’t biblical. In Romans 13, the apostle Paul (not the Kentucky Senate candidate) describes the role and vocation of government; in addition to the church, government also plays a role in God’s plan and purposes. Preserving the social order, punishing evil and rewarding good, and protecting the common good are all prescribed; we are even instructed to pay taxes for those purposes! Sorry, Tea Party. Of course, debating the size and role of government is always a fair and good discussion, and most of us would prefer smart and effective to “big” or “small” government. [It is not anti-government for libertarians to want government to stick to core functions of enforcing justice and national defense rather than intruding into every area of life and replacing the family as the main provider of income to most citizens. Libertarians are not anti-government; they just have a different view of its proper function than Wallis does.]

Revelation 13 depicts the state as a totalitarian beast — a metaphor for Rome, which was persecuting the Christians. This passage serves as a clear warning about the abuse of governmental power. But a power-hungry government is clearly an aberration [one wonders how much history Wallis reads when he throws out an over-generalization like that] and violation of the proper role of government in protecting its citizens and upholding the demands of fairness and justice. To disparage government per se — to see government as the central problem in society — is simply not a biblical position. [As Rom. 13 and Rev. 13 demonstrate, government can be either a servant of the people or an out-of-control monster and the bigger the government is the more of a danger it is. Libertarians don't disagree with that.]

3. The Libertarians’ supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin. [I'm glad Wallis has rediscovered the doctrine of sin all of a sudden! But . . . the Big Government Liberal's supreme confidence in the State is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin.] The exclusive focus on government as the central problem ignores the problems of other social sectors, and in particular, the market. [The typical Big Government liberal exclusive focus on the market as the problem ignores the problems of other sectors, and in particular, the State.] When government regulation is the enemy, the market is set free to pursue its own self-interest [the market does not have an "interest" because it is not a person - any more than a government office has an interest without someone filling that office who does have "interests." A market is a democratic mechanism for setting prices as opposed to prices being set arbitrarily by bureaucrats on the basis of central planning] without regard for public safety, the common good, and the protection of the environment — which Christians regard as God’s creation. Libertarians seem to believe in the myth of the sinless market [again, it is not the market that is sinful and to demonize the only economic system in the world to have lifted the majority of the population out of poverty like this is just irresponsible Marxist propaganda] and that the self-interest of business owners or corporations will serve the interests of society; and if they don’t, it’s not government’s role to correct it. [This places all power in the hands of the State. Apparently the Christian view of human nature and sin don't apply to anyone who gets elected or hired as a government bureaucrat. There is a difference between the proper role of government: to ensure the rule of law and uphold justice and the falsely expanded role of government to replace the market and ensure equality of outcomes.]

But such theorizing ignores the practical issues that the public sector has to solve. Should big oil companies like BP simply be allowed to spew oil into the ocean? [No libertarian I've ever met has ever said yes to that -a straw man argument coupled with an appeal to emotion.] And is regulating them really un-American? Do we really want nobody to inspect our meat, make sure our kids’ toys are safe, or police the polluters to keep our air clean? Do we really want owners of restaurants and hotels to be able to decide whom they will or won’t serve, or should liquor store owners also be able to sell alcohol to our kids? Given the reality of sin in all human institutions, doesn’t a political process that provides both accountability and checks and balances make both theological and practical sense? [Once all power is in the hands of the State, there is no check and balance. The key is balance. Some regulation is good but not all. Wallis is just as extreme as the straw man on the other side. ] C.S. Lewis once said that we need democracy not because people are essentially good, but because they often are not. Democratic accountability is essential to preventing the market from becoming a beast of corporate totalitarianism – just as it is essential for the government. [Here we are confusing two very different things: the rule of law and socialist redistribution of wealth by the administrative state. The State should enforce law with regard to corporations and ensure fairness. But it should not appropriate profits arbitrarily for its own purposes. This is a mixed up jumble.] And God’s priorities should determine ours, not the priorities of the Chamber of Commerce. [Wallis can't imagine God and the CoC ever being on the same page on anything! He has really drunk the Kool-Aid.]

4. The Libertarian preference for the strong over the weak is decidedly un-Christian. “Leave me alone to make my own choices and spend my own money” is a political philosophy that puts those who need help at a real disadvantage. And those who need help are central to any Christian evaluation of political philosophy. “As you have done to the least of these,” says Jesus, “You have done to me.” And “Blessed are those who are just left alone” has still not made the list of Beatitudes. [Most of those in the Tea Party movement have been more influenced by Christianity than by Nietzsche and Darwinand would agree with the need to help the poor and weak. There has never been a Nietzschean libertarian government anywhere in the Western world precisely because of the influence of Christianity, so this is another straw man.] To anticipate the Libertarian response, let me just say that private charity is simply not enough to satisfy the demands of either fairness or justice, let alone compassion. [Private charity is the foundation of the Western world and far more effective, far less corrupt and much more compassionate than government welfare checks. Government to government aid to Third World countries is generally a disaster. World Vision etc. is a much better option.] When the system is designed to protect the privileges of the already strong and make the weak even more defenseless and vulnerable, something is wrong with the system. [But Wallis's real problem with private charity is not that it won't be able to deal with absolute poverty (because it clearly can do so), but rather that it can't erase relative poverty by making the rich poorer and the poor richer until everyone is about the same. Only socialism can do that.]

5. Finally, I am just going to say it. There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. [First, the Tea Party is not all white. Second, does this mean that Wallis' lily white Episcopal Church must also be racist? Third, this is a dirty and low blow that is an insult to the tens of millions of ordinary middle class Americans who support the Tea Party.] Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. [Every member - only likely not?!] But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office? [How does Wallis know that? It is nothing but sheer projection onto the people he hypocritically claims to want to dialogue with. He is saying: "You are a bunch of racist bigots; I have no evidence but I just know it. Now, how about having a nice polite dialogue?" Now who is being prejudiced here?] It’s time we had some honest answers to that question. [Oh, and by the way you are all liars too. Now for the polite dialogue?] And as far as I can tell, Libertarianism has never been much of a multi-cultural movement. Need I say that racism — overt, implied, or even subtle — is not a Christian virtue.

Wallis sure has funny ideas about how to go about having a dialogue. But if you ask me, he would be better off hurling his rocks from a safe distance because he hasn't got much of an argument for his position.

Wallis versus Beck on Social Justice

Stu Burguiere, executive producer of the Glenn Beck Show, defends Beck against Jim Wallis' accusations in the Washington Post in an article entitled: "What Glenn Beck Meant About Social Justice." Here is an excerpt:

"Like everyone else in America, Glenn Beck thinks "social justice" ---if its defined as charitable outreach to the poor----is a good idea. He supports it, he believes in it, he does it.

So, what's the problem? I mean, "social justice" seems like such an innocuous phrase, right? It paints a picture of fairness. I guess that's why Father Charles Coughlin used it when naming his National Union for Social Justice and his publication Social Justice Weekly. Coughlin was an anti-Semitic religious broadcaster in the 1930s, and he used the banner of social justice to attack capitalism, warn of Jewish plots against "Christian civilization", and to promote his adoration for Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini.

This is part of the information Glenn revealed in a special TV show about American extremism of the 20th century. In the context of promoting that special, he began talking about how the far left was once again using this terminology to politicize churches. The specific example he named was Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

He told his listeners that if they were in a church that preaches Jeremiah Wright-style social justice, they should leave--or at least get educated on what exactly that means. It took him all of eight seconds to clarify the type of church he was speaking of, but that was long enough for most in the media to end the transcript.

Suddenly, Glenn was accused of attacking the central tenets of the bible, because he supposedly believed that any church that wants to help the poor should be immediately evacuated. This absurd narrative is mainly the product of Rev. Jim Wallis.

To restate the obvious, some simply use the term "social justice" as a substitute for "outreach to the poor." This is not the kind of "social justice" Glenn was talking about. The fact that this term has been utilized for purposes other than good Christian charity is well documented. One scholar explained it quite clearly: "it is true that term [has] been used by the right and the left for all kinds of ideological purposes that aren't necessarily the purposes of Christ." That scholar was Jim Wallis.

Read the rest here.

The issue between Beck and Wallis is not whether Christians (and all decent people) should give to charity. Everyone agrees we should.

But it is one thing to advocates charity and quite another to despise it as too little and too ineffective. Wallis advocates government assuming the power to confiscate everybody's income and redistribute it according to the dogma of equality of outcomes as administered by a bureaucratic class of experts. Beck says that people have a moral obligation to give to the poor. Wallis says they have a moral obligation to vote for political parties that will redistribute wealth by coercion. So it is really a "Private Charity versus Social Democracy" debate.

Do we only have "social justice" when we have a social democracy in which the income is redistributed by the government so that everyone is basically equal economically regardless of how productive each one is? If that is social justice, then Beck opposes it and so most Americans.

And so do most Christians, because while we follow Jesus' teaching and render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, we don't believe that everything belongs to Caesar. Only those who have sold out to Caesar believe that.

Jim Wallis is Pro-choice, Sort of, Probably, Maybe . . .

For some time now Jim Wallis has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the abortion issue. He seems to want credit for being pro-life while not actually being in favor of legal protection for the unborn. This is the so-called "abortion reduction strategy," which amounts to this: (1) elect the Democratic Party and the most liberal president in American history, (2) expand the welfare state as fast as possible, (3) sneak abortion coverage into government-funded health care plans, (4) export abortion to the Third World by funding organizations that do abortions there and (5) place no restrictions of any kind on abortion. If that is what "abortion redution" looks like; I'd hate to see a real pro-abortion program.

Keith Pavlischek, writing at First Things, analyzes where Wallis is coming from and the conclusion is pretty obvious. Wallis supports health care whether abortion is part of the deal or not because expanding government in health care is the priority. Here is where he gets to the heart of the issue:

"In addition, I told Wallis as bluntly as I could, that as far as I could tell his position and that of Sojourners was indistinguishable from the old Mario Cuomo position of being “personally opposed” to abortion while wanting to keep the procedure legal. I suggested that neither he nor Sojourners could honestly be labeled pro-life because, for that term to mean anything, it has to involve advocacy for the legal protection of the unborn. Wallis was equally frank in response. He simply rejected my suggestion that the “legal protection of the unborn” had anything to do with being pro-life. Both of us left that conversation with a clear understanding that Wallis was, quite simply,
pro-choice on abortion."

If there are any Jim Wallis supporters out there, feel free to mount an argument that Wallis is misquoted by Pavlischek, if you believe he was misquoted, but we need evidence to refute Pavlischek. I've read Wallis' books and editorials and listened to him speak and what Pavlischek says about Wallis' position rings true for me.

If Wallis really said and believes that "legal protection of the unborn" is not necessary to a pro-life position, then he is simply trying to re-define the term "pro-life" for his own political convenience. I and all the other pro-life people out there understand that being "pro-life" means being in favor of laws prohibiting infanticide, euthanasia and abortion. Unless Wallis is willing to stand with us on that fundamental point, he has to wear the label "pro-choice."

The Hypocrisy of Sojourners

A decade ago, Jim Wallis’ criticisms of the “Religious Right” seemed to me to have some merit. Here were some of his most telling points:

1. The Church qua Church should not be in politics. Evangelical churches that allow voter registration in services, that distribute voting report cards and allow Republican candidates to speak during the campaign risk allowing their primary mission of preaching the gospel to be compromised by their political involvement.

2. Conservative Evangelicals have sold their souls to the Republican Party and support it even when it is wrong for the sake of influence within the party. They thus have lost the ability or will to be prophetic and critical of the Republican Party. Not everything the Republican Party stands for is consistent with Christian morality.

3. The Religious Right is self-righteous and strident. It projects an attitude of “My way or the highway” and thus alienates sinners for whom Christ died who think the Church is not for them. People get tired of being hectored and lectured by self-righteous prigs.

4. The Religious Right does not bear a specific witness to Jesus Christ; it has embraced a bland form of civil religion that reflects the general culture rather than the Biblical gospel.

In my book Rethinking Christ and Culture, I took what I thought was a balanced approach to criticizing the failings of both the secular left and the secular right equally. And I tried to be critical of my own Evangelical tradition, as well as liberal Protestantism. I took some of the criticisms of the Religious Right from Wallis and others to heart and let them shape my thinking about faith and culture.

Now I’m sorry I did. Now I’m sorry that I let Wallis and co. make me feel guilty for being a conservative. I feel embarrassed that I fell for the line that Evangelicals are all wrong and that we should apologize for taking a stand for conservative beliefs and morals. I feel that Jim Wallis has let me down. In fact, I feel like I’ve been played for a fool.

He never was interested in developing a distinctly Christian position and most of those who hammered the Religious Right have now simply revealed their true colors as the Religious Left. I’m embarrassed because I should have seen it coming. What has happened to Sojourners over the past two decades is simply a repeat of history. Nineteenth century Evangelical Protestantism was invaded and distorted by theological liberalism imported from Germany and European socialism took the form of the Social Gospel movement that emptied churches, muted the preaching of the true Gospel and led to the dying hulks that dot the ecclesiastical landscape today called liberal Protestant denominations.

The latest e-mail blast from Sojourners contains further evidence, as if any more were needed, of the fact that the Religious Left has now become a perfect mirror image of what it once criticized in the Religious Right. Take the list above and apply it to the contemporary Religious Left. Change the names from Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Charles Colson to Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren. Then go through the list; they have imitated everything about the Religious Right that they once criticized.

1. Every e-mail urges congregations to distribute “how to vote” materials in their churches and when Barack Obama and other candidates for office speak in churches while on the campaign trail, Sojourners cheers them on and says “See, he is a Christian so you can vote for him.”

2. Wallis, Campolo and McLaren have totally sold out to the Democratic Party. You never hear a peep of criticism of either Obama or the Democrats without it being framed with an excuse. Every problem is the fault of “America” or “Conservatives” but the problem is never with Obama or the Democrats. Wallis and co. are deeper into the Democratic Party and more partisan than Robertson and co. ever were. I used to admire Wallis for being one of the few left-wingers to take a pro-life stand; but his uncompromising support for Obama shows how important abortion is to him today. Sojourners can't even stand up for marriage anymore lest their liberal supporters be outraged.

3. If you thought the Religious Right types could be moralistic scolds, just try listening to Wallis tell you what “God’s Politics” is! He knows and will enlighten the rest of us. The latest article by McLaren “An Open Letter on Health Care to Conservative Christians in the US” is a condescending, ad hominem attack on conservative Christians that does not debate the issues; it just directs conservatives to liberal websites where they are supposed to find enlightenment. But the idea that conservatives are interested in being made to feel guilty for holding to orthodoxy and traditional morality and for resisting the encroachments of an out-of-control federal government is just wishful thinking on his part. There is no reason for Evangelicals to listen to him anymore.

4. As for point four, just note that in the magazine and in his writings Wallis hardly mentions Christianity any more. It is always “people of faith.” Jesus is often mentioned, usually along with Ghandi. It doesn’t get much blander than this. The moral position from which Wallis operates is not specifically Christian, yet he tries to twist the Bible and the teachings of Jesus into supporting it. His overall worldview, however, owes more to the French Revolution and Jeremy Bentham than to the Bible or Jesus.

Sojourners has convinced me of one thing, however, and that is that you can’t live in this world without taking sides. It may be morally gratifying to take a position above the fray and to look down on all the poor benighted souls who are wrong in some way while you hover in the air never getting involved or taking sides. But it is not responsible or morally right. There really is a battle going on in this world between the Church and the forces of modernity and neutrality is not possible. Sojourners made its choice years ago and now conservative Christianity is its sworn enemy. I’ve made my choice too, but I’ve come down on the other side.

The Great Abortion Reduction Scam of 2008

Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren told us that voting from Obama was all right because Obama was in favor of reducing abortion. This was their way of trying to convince Evangelicals to vote Democrat even though Evangelicals know very well that abortion is evil and should be illegal.

So during his first week in office, late on Friday afternoon when no one was around, Obama rescinds the Mexico City Policy. The effect of his action is to promote abortion in the Third World. This policy was put in place so as to prevent fanatical abortion organizations from receiving US federal funding to try to solve the problem of poverty by means of encouraging the poor to kill their children. (For a detailed explanation of this policy see this wonderful pastoral letter from Bishop Joseph Martino to Senator Bob Casey: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/02/bp-martino-instructs-sen-casey-on-the-mexico-city-policy/)

Now that the election is over, we now have proof that Wallis and co. were merely front men in a partisan Democratic scheme to siphon off votes from Evangelicals who know that abortion is morally evil, but might be confused into thinking that the Democrats would reduce abortions by means of their pro-welfare policies. Now we know that it was all just a partisan scam.

You think that is too harsh? Consider this. Wallis and co. made a big deal of the study posted on the website Catholics in Alliance for Common Good that purported to "prove" that increased welfare funding to single mothers decreases abortion. Once the election was over, the study was pulled down and then replaced a couple of days later. The reason? The data on the number of abortions was "discovered" to be wrong. The study did not actually "prove" what it purported to prove. (See Michael New's article: http://www.moralaccountability.com/obama-on-abortion/holding-catholics-in-alliance-for-the-common-good-morally-accountable/)

A few weeks later, it was revealed that the Board chair of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, was an Obama fundraiser and even a member of his National Finance Committee. She raised over $350,000 for Obama during his run for president. Yet the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good organization claimed to be "non-partisan" as it consistently argued for positions taken by Obama. (See the article for more information: http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=32249&wf=rsscol)

For years, Wallis has harped on how bad it was that Evangelicals were "in bed with" the Republican Party and how corrupting it is to sell your soul to a party. He liked to give the impression that, being non-partisan himself, he was free to be "prophetic" rather than playing party politics, unlike the Dobsons and Colsons and Robertsons, who had sold out. What utter hypocrisy on Wallis' part! At least, Dobson, Colson and Robertson came right out and admitted that they were voting Republican, rather than trying to hide their partisanship behind a cloak of neutrality.

It is the right of Wallis, McLaren and Campolo to vote Democrat all they want. All I ask is that they stop trying to play both sides of the street by pretending that non-partisan people vote Democrat and only ideologues vote Republican. And they should admit that private, legalized killing is just not as important to them as increasing welfare. Let's debate the real issues, not "abortion reduction scams."

Jim Wallis Officially Declares Himself Pro-choice

In his blog entry today, Jim Wallis finally comes clean and admits what many have long suspected: he is now offically pro-choice on abortion, which means that he supports legalized private killing - so far only in the case of abortion. He writes:

"I support the president’s call for a new dialogue on the best ways to achieve abortion reduction while retaining his position on choice." For the whole post, see: http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/?p=5627

I suppose he may try to wiggle out of the implications of his statement here and claim that he supports the president, but not legalized abortion, but that kind of distinction simply does not hold up. You would never catch him saying he supports John McCain but not McCain's position on the war. Any such twisting of the obvious truth is simply not credible.

Ironically, this story appears on the day Obama frees up US government funding for programs that push abortion on the poor of the third world. So all this talk about "justice" and "mercy" and "care for the poor" really means: "If you are too poor (unlike us rich Westerners) then you should kill your children." Somehow, I would have thought that real, biblical compassion would not drive mothers to choose between food and shelter, on the one hand, and killing their children, on the other. But perhaps I misunderstand what Sojourners means by compassion.

As for "abortion reduction," does Jim Wallis only care about abortion reduction in America? The implications of Obama's decision to fund abortion-pushing programs in the Third World will undoubtedly have the effect of pushing up numbers of abortions there. Do third world children count? Do they each perhaps count as 2/3 of a Western fetus? With a single stroke of the pen, Obama has just pulled the rug out from under all the froth and fuss about "abortion reduction," something the Democratic Party platform never endorsed and something to which Obama is not really committed. "Abortion reduction" is nothing more than the fevered imagination of Wallis and co. working overtime trying to manufacture reasons (well, excuses) to support the culture of death candidate. If he ever actually comes up with a candidate who is really committed to abortion reduction, I'll be open to consider him or her. In the last election, however, it was the other guy who was actually in favor of abortion reduction.

Jim Wallis has been a Democrat and an Obama supporter for some time now and it is good to see the pretence dropped and the truth out there in front of everyone. He is pro-choice on abortion' I am not. I am anti-choice on abortion, just as I am anti-choice on murder and rape. Choice does not make intrinsically evil acts any less evil. I don't believe a society can long survive making the killing of the young, the disabled and the elderly a matter of private choice. This is an attack on the dignity of human life and the God in whose image we are all created.