Quick follow up on the above . . .

MM, if you've read the book, what does Wallis wish Bush had done differently in Iraq? The Heartland Center team studied a series SOJO put out after 911 and he was basically advocating against war in Afghanistan in favor of nonviolent solutions (nothing specific, however). I know he opposed the war in Iraq as well, but I don't understand what he would have recommended that wouldn't have left Saddam and his cruel sons in power. . . and that was the main problem there.

It's pretty typical of Greenies to never condone war and to always maintain there are better alternatives, even if they can't say what they might be. I don't think they have a clue how to deal with Islamic terrorism; most spiral dynamics teachers say the same. They don't understand how terrorist Red can kill guiltlessly and joyously, and don't see why you need a Blue guy like Bush to stomp on them.

He wanted to remove Saddam from power without an all-out war. I don't know what combination of pressures would have worked, and I believe Wallis is at a loss to explain how this could have been done.
He mentions Rome's opposition several times in this interview/debate with Mr. Tate, formerly of the Christian Coalition:

http://www.booktv.org/Feature/...hedid=338&segid+5595

You can see that he seeks a pragmatic approach on
prolife issues and gay civil unions, on faith based initiatives and single mothers.

quote:

Can we find common ground? We must.

Yes, that�s an interesting article by Charles Haynes. Thanks for posting that, MM. But I challenge that premise�and I think for good reason. Sometimes there is no common ground nor should we try to make any. We can be civil, sure. We can be nice, you betcha. We can be gentlemanly or womanly, of course. But this writer cites Lincoln as a peacemaker and conciliator (which he intended to be in his second term), but Lincoln in his first term would not compromise over the preservation of the Union. Same thing applies to the abolitionists. They would not compromise over slavery. There was no "common ground" there was only a few political acts such as the Missouri Compromise that allowed the problem to fester. It�s difficult to find common ground on something like slavery. What, do we make certain people free six months out of the year and slaves for the other six months? Both sides today feel the same way about a number of issues. It�s doubtful a pro-lifer could or should compromise on the issue of abortion, for instance.

I will not compromise on certain principles. And that�s a good thing because one of them is that I am uncompromising when it comes to the right of my opponent to say what he or she wishes � despite conservatism�s opponents not always returning that favor. I wish them no ill will, but I do not want to find common ground with Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi or Ted Kennedy. I want to defeat them�politically. I don�t want to split the difference on a few issues that I think are vitally important and uncompromisable.

It�s all the rage these days to "kumbaya" with one�s opponents, to find common ground, etc. This is only necessary if one or both parties are taking their politics and ideology a bit too seriously � and that is exactly what I see happening, especially from the left. One should have this picture in their mind of Ronald Reagan and Tip O�Neil who were bitter political opponents by day but who would share a drink, a few stories, and many a laugh as fellow Irishmen by night.

The moral isn�t that we shouldn�t be passionate about our beliefs. It�s that I think we should realize that the compromise process comes after both passionate, "uncompromising" sides have butted heads, and not before. There can and probably should be no other way. So in the end the problem I have with people talking about finding common ground is that we�re really talking about two different things. The political process by its very nature is a process of contrasts. While drawing such contrast we needn�t be so uncivil and indeed this incivility to can poison the entire atmosphere. But when calls of "kumbaya" go out, resist them. Take stock that you are being fair and civil, but there is no automatic need to compromise your values and principles just because the other side is using scorched earth tactics. Too often the side that is not being particularly uncivil is tainted by the side that is. Then there follows the usual calls for all parties to "find common ground". Well, if you�ve been watching closely you�ll find that the people yelling for "common ground" one day are usually the ones spitting the most outrageous venom the next. It�s a tactic to gain the high ground, not common ground, and this plea has been repeated so often that a lot of people have begun to believe it.

Let us be a bit more savvy in this political world that surely is far more uncivil than it needs to be. This same uncivil world is the same one that has, in fact, politicized the notion of "common ground" and, at least in my opinion, severely tainted this notion. We�re going to have intense political differences and that�s a good thing. A rush too early to kumbaya can mean settling for some ugly compromises that are far worse than a few harsh words spoken in the public arena.

These are good exchanges, reflecting something of the complexity of the larger situation.

It should be noted, here, that regime change in Iraq was the "official policy" of the U.S. toward that country long before the war in 2003; Clinton established it after they booted the U.N. in 1998. During the interim, there were any kinds of pressures put on Saddam. There was also encouragement for the Shiites to rise up after Gulf War I in 1991; when they did, Saddam slaughtered them. We are not talking about a reasonable man, here.

As for compromise and common ground, there is sometimes more than both sides let on, Brad. Re. abortion, for example: neither side really thinks it's a good thing, and both could work together to provide alternatives to abortion. This could be done even while disagreeing over the legality of abortion. Why this hasn't happened, however, is largely due to stubborness on both sides of the issues -- all-or-nothing thinking. E.b., some pro-life advocacy groups will settle for nothing less than the complete abolition of abortion and will not get behind any legislation that makes a dent in the existing laws. Then there are pro-choicers who won't condone any restrictions whatsoever, including parental notification for minors seeking abortion (you can't take an aspirin in school without parental permission -- go figure!). Both sides fear "domino" effects and so they refuse to budge an inch, and stubbornly so. Meanwhile, lots of potential common ground goes unturned, as politicians and activists on boths sides don't want to be viewed as caving to the other.

Why this hasn't happened, however, is largely due to stubborness on both sides of the issues -- all-or-nothing thinking. E.b., some pro-life advocacy groups will settle for nothing less than the complete abolition of abortion and will not get behind any legislation that makes a dent in the existing laws. Then there are pro-choicers who won't condone any restrictions whatsoever, including parental notification for minors seeking abortion (you can't take an aspirin in school without parental permission -- go figure!). Both sides fear "domino" effects and so they refuse to budge an inch, and stubbornly so.

I think you quite accurately have described the dynamic, Phil. And thus we can all pity the poor politicians who have the difficult task of condensing what are often diametrical positions into written law. It�s often a thankless job. Nobody gets everything that they want. But that�s the nature of the job. As Otto Von Bismarck said, "Politics is the art of the possible." Conversely, public opinion is by nature not so beholden to compromise. We may dream what large dreams we will and at that stage there is no cost to the dreaming. It is the arena of politics where these large differences are worked out and smoothed over�hopefully by wise and honest politicians. (Or where these differences are amplified by sycophantic politicians who care only for their own power.) When we don�t have an abundance of wise and honest politicians then we can get into big trouble fast. I�ll let someone else criticize the right. There is no shortage of that from the liberal press who are hypervigilant and who exaggerate any perceived faults. But the rhetoric coming from the left is truly appalling. I see little wisdom and not much honesty. If we have become a polarized society then I know exactly who should shoulder much of the blame�and, as I mentioned earlier, these are usually the ones bemoaning the fact that there is so little "common ground". Well, then stop tilling that ground with vile weeds.

I�m not quite sure of the "chicken or the egg" aspect of all this. Do our politicians fuss and fight so harshly amongst themselves because they are representing a people who are full of a "take no prisoners" attitude? Or is the public at large driven to take all-or-nothing polarized positions and attitudes because at the national level (with the backing of a complicit press) the politicians are acting like such spoiled children?

Ultimately I find I have to agree largely with your general attitude because I believe it is the responsibility of the electorate to set the tone in a democracy. If we wait for the politicians to create a better climate then we�re going to be waiting a long time. Generally speaking, I think the politicians reflect outwardly the attitudes that exist in the population at large inwardly. It�s up to us to change things. Although we�re born with the title "citizen", most of us do very little to earn that. Well, we�ve got to start earning it.

Good post, Brad. I think we are much in agreement on these matters.

Now I notice a peculiar thing, lately . . . that people like Hilary Clinton and now Howard Dean are realizing that Democrats will never win a national election if they don't pick up a Red State or two. And they also object to the very thing Wallis is -- that Christian conservatives do not speak for God in the political realm. That's true, of course. But the problem facing people like Dean, Clinton, and even prophets like Wallis is that they've so criticized traditionalists that it's difficult to believe them when they say they really care about the same things. When you write and speak mostly about liberal causes without touching on those traditional values somewhere along the line, and when you besmirch conservative Christians and politicians as a matter of course, it's not very believable.

There's also something of a straw man fallacy in the midst of all this -- namely, that people like Bush don't care about or support social programs. Good heavens, Bush hasn't cut ANYTHING since he was elected! On the whole, spending on education and social programs has gone UP, not down, under Bush. So I'm never quite sure what the objections, here, are really all about, except that Bush doesn't talk liberalese and he dares to say things like he thinks the Almighty has entrusted the U.S. with a mission to spread democracy. Tsk tsk . . . Burns liberals' butts.

Now, here's the kicker. Can anyone provide even ONE example where Bush or anyone associated with his admin. stated something to the effect that a vote against their policies was a vote against God? I can't.

Does Bush have a right to his opinion about a divine mandate for the U.S.?

Absolutely!

Does he even have a right to act on that in the political sphere?

Of course he does -- as have many presidents before him.

Has Bush manipulated public opinion with this language?

I don't think so, because he seems to really believe what he says and people who hold similar values voted for him on that basis.

So what's really going on, here? Knowing Jim Wallis through his writings, I'm sure he's a decent man and a good Christian. Nevertheless, I suspect "sour grapes" with regard to the last election.

Get over it, Jim. It's just possible that the Holy Spirit is working through this whole milieu even if not in the manner you would prefer.

Understanding that I haven't read the book (but I think I've gotten the gist of it), this sounds like a reasonable review of God's Politics from a reviewer at Amazon.com:

quote:

I am a Christian and a Democrat so I had hopes this book would actually take the debate about the role of Christians and the church in today's society to a new level. Was I wrong. This book comes off more as a Bush/Republican bashing exercise than a platform to showcase how faith and politics can work well together. Mind you, I appreciate the author's point of view but he is pretty redundant on many points, including the bashing (not to mention he cuts and pastes quite a bit from his work with Sojourners). In terms of his indictment of the Left, it's very soft shoe so don't be fooled by the sub-title.

All in all, I am pretty disappointed so far (still plodding through it -- at the halfway point now). From a Christian perspective, there is little in the way of Biblical references to support his point-of-view and from a political perspective he seems a little too ivory tower for my taste. The real world has serious problems today. Too bad this book isn't able to set the tone for people of faith to truly make a change. It is much better at confirming our anger and dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, that doesn't really do the job.

Phil said: But the problem facing people like Dean, Clinton, and even prophets like Wallis is that they've so criticized traditionalists that it's difficult to believe them when they say they really care about the same things. When you write and speak mostly about liberal causes without touching on those traditional values somewhere along the line, and when you besmirch conservative Christians and politicians as a matter of course, it's not very believable.

That sounds very reasonable to me. And I'm going to agree with you again and assume that Wallis is a decent man and a good Christian�but it sure appears as if Wallis is a decent man who, like so very many others, isn't aware of his own rather large biases. He will not have been the first, nor will he be the last, to try to package up a bunch of left-of-center ideas and present them as reasonable, milquetoast, non-dogmatic centrist material. Bzzzzt. Try again.

Phil said: So I'm never quite sure what the objections, here, are really all about, except that Bush doesn't talk liberalese and he dares to say things like he thinks the Almighty has entrusted the U.S. with a mission to spread democracy�. So what's really going on, here?

For many, like Wallis, it's probably only bias, a lack of information, and not yet having seen beyond the veil of propaganda that the left manages to slop in the path of anyone with any kind of formal education in their background. But for many others, I suspect, it's probably a case of good, ol' fashioned bigotry. Oh, it's merely political bigotry in the instance, but bigotry all the same. I can't prove this, but it's been my experience that liberals and the left are FAR more prejudiced than the right. Think now. Who deals more in slogans and symbolism? Who takes just about any issue and simplifies it into one-word slogans? This is the essence of characterization which is a first cousin to the stereotype. I'd say their hidden prejudice shows up in their attempts to over-compensate for it and thus you get these whacky quotas, affirmative action and such. You also see it in the near constant stream of transference and projecting that they do upon the right. How easily it slips off their tongue that the right are all bigots. Too easily.

I have neither the time nor money to do a formal study. But I would not be surprised if a scientific study bore my intuition out.

If Wallis admits to being wrong about Iraq, he might
have to admit to being wrong about Vietnam as well,
which Jane Fonda still hasn't done if you follow her
"My Life, So Far" book tour. Oh, well, the U.S. has still never made a formal apology for slavery, despite the pope, evangelicals, baptists and methodists having done so. Nobody's perfect.

He handled himself pretty well with the heavyweights
on Meet the (de)Press(ed):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7284978

This is the cspan square-off between Jim Wallis and a leading figure of the Religious Right:

http://www.booktv.org/Feature/...gid=5595&schedID=338

It's over an hour of crossfire and discussion.

I'm also reading The Soul of Politics, which Willis wrote a decade ago. Recommended!

caritas,

mm <*))))><

Thanks for the links, MM. Perhaps I'll look into them sometime. I subscribed to Sojourners for several years, so I have a pretty good idea where he's coming from.

(BTW, one can take different positions on Viet Nam and Iraq without contradicting oneself -- at least that's how I see it.)

I'm not sure about the reasoning and motives of the people in power who send others into battle, but the intentions of Americans have been good, although clouded by what might be called mythic membership awareness and a limited ability to comprehend the causes of war in others and ourselves. If we truly had this capability, then there would be no wars.

We had to stand up to worldwide communism, even if we had a part in creating the injustices which brought it about. My evidence to support this are the 15 nations that fell under communist control after Vietnam, including Pol Pot's "compassionate
communism."

The domino theory might hold up for democracy as well, since there were 40 democratic nations 30 years ago and there are 120 today. We are 3/4 of the way to a democratic world. That seems to me a beneficial and just ideal and worth fighting for!

michael'spolitics.com

I'm not sure about the reasoning and motives of the people in power who send others into battle, but the intentions of Americans have been good, although clouded by what might be called mythic membership awareness and a limited ability to comprehend the causes of war in others and ourselves. If we truly had this capability, then there would be no wars.

That's a very optimistic assessment, Michael. I'm not sure if the "we" part in your last sentence refers to America or to humanity? I'm sure you must mean the latter, as wars seem to start up in different places without the U.S. initiating them or even being responsible for the conditions that brought them about. In the case of ideologies like Naziism and communism, I don't even think understanding the causes can avert the conflicts, unless with this understanding comes a renunciation of the ideology. That's not always the case, as you know.

The domino theory might hold up for democracy as well, since there were 40 democratic nations 30 years ago and there are 120 today. We are 3/4 of the way to a democratic world. That seems to me a beneficial and just ideal and worth fighting for!

There you go! I think they're about to start toppling in the middle east.

I came across an article citing Jim Wallis' belief that both the President of the U.S. and Iran are to be equally feared because both are "fundamentalists."
- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Ar...Article.asp?ID=23425

quote:

The picture of these two fundamentalist leaders squaring off with nuclear weapons in the balance is a frightening picture, indeed. The president is very theological about his foreign policy and so is the Iranian leader. So, I'm not - I'm concerned tonight about this possibility of a fundamentalist square-off with nuclear weapons really in the balance.

As with most liberal Christians, Wallis demonstrates a lack of critical thinking skills in his tendency to project moral equivalencies that do not exist. The author of the article, Mark Tooley, is onto him, however:

quote:

So Wallis is now intervening between the two "fundamentalists": One is a Shi'ite theocrat, a former hostage taker who presides over an Islamic police state and wants to annihilate the Jews. The other is a Methodist former baseball club owner and Yale graduate who was elected by the world�s oldest democratic republic. Both are equally dangerous? Wallis is determined to make both of them behave, though he�s seemingly more concerned about the Methodist than he is about the apocalyptic Shi'ite.

In a similar vein "Words, Not War, with Iran," signed by Wallis and the six others, equally laments Iran�s nuclear weapons ambitions and U.S. desire to stop it, potentially with force. But Iran ends with the upper hand morally, as the statement suggests Iran could facilitate full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the "renouncing of any proprietary American claims on Iraqi oil and reconstruction contracts." Wallis hopes altruistic Iran will act as a partner in reducing the profits of Halliburton.

I don't know how Wallis justifies calling Bush a "fundamentalist." Bush does operate from a conservative theological perspective, and so I guess that's enough for Wallis. Anyone to the right of Wallis (95% of Christendom) is fundamentalist? I don't get it.

quote:

In his Australian television interview, Wallis explained that President Bush simplistically divides the world between the foreign "evil-doers" and the "righteous ones" in the U.S. "That bad theology I think leads to bad foreign policy and a dangerous confrontation perhaps now with Iran," he warned. Wallis shares that he had once hoped Bush would be a "social reform Methodist." But instead, Wallis deeply regrets that Bush has become a "kind of messianic American Calvinist."

In all if his theological dissection of Bush�s spiritual motivations, neither Wallis nor his fellow "religious leaders" had much to say about the theology of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his regime. While the Religious Left fantasizes about the imagined threat of American theocracy, it ignores the crimes of actual Islamic theocracies, like that of Iran�s despotic mullahs.

To say that that's a mischaracterization of the President's perspective shouldn't be necessary. It seems, more, a projection of Wallis' own simplistic views of who the good guys are, and are not. And note (as usual) the "pass" given to the overtly, explicitly, messianic aspirations of militant Islam.

Can a Christian justify violence in the face of Jesus' commands to not repay evil with evil and to turn the other cheek etc. Seems to me it would be extremely hard to run a country in today's world and remain true to the full gospel. But of course that is my opinion.

You are right Jacques. It is not only extremely hard it is impossible. Walking in the Spirit while living in the world necessitates tapping into the spiritual strength that comes from Christ, because the Truth doen't fit into any existing structure.

Not exactly "God's Politics," but here is a summary of political positioning among Catholics re: the Middle East crisis:


http://www.frontpagemag.com/Ar...Article.asp?ID=23951

On the contrary, the GOP is very concerned about losing white male Cathlolic voters, and some of them may recall John Pual II's shaking of his finger at the president.

The leader of 50 million evangelicals favors a genuine compassionate conservatism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard

This book has sold over 25 million copies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purpose_Driven_Life

It all spells a shift to the center, imo [/QB][/QUOTE]

MM:

Except for Bush's Patriot Act, I'm not very fond of his presidency either, but for different reasons than for those so far left of center cannot even name Islamic terrorism for what it is. But Pope Benedict seems fairly keen to the problem, and has been more confrontational from the start in identifying its nature, even going so far as to encourage the EU not to admit Turkey into its membership.