God's Politics

I should add to the list of books that I'm currently working though God's Politics, why the right gets it wrong and the left just doesn't get it by Jim Wallis .

I've been working on it for a while, almost a month now. I had been excited to read this book, I'd heard so many good reviews about it, and it ad been reccommended to me by a handful of people. People talked about it "flipping a light on" for them. They spoke of a broiling inner conflict and how this book was like a cool salve on painful wound.

Without going too far into my own personal turmoil.... I've been bothered recently by what would seem to be a disconnect between my spiritual self and political beleifs. How can the half of the nation that raises the banner of "christian morals" at every rally consistnently behave in such an un-Christ like manner. Why to thy get to keep the title of the "Christian Right" when anyone who has given Christs teaching even a cursurary reading would see that they are the very establishement Jesus preached against? And how had the political stream that i had come to affiliate myself with become the godless pagans? Why would I feel ashamed to pronounce myself christian at a democratic gathering? I really would.

I'm about three quarters of the way through the book. And so far I have agreed with nearly every word that the author has said he speaks about how poverty, social justice, honesty in politics, healthcare, debt, and foreign relations are all moral issues. That the "Right" has boiled moral issues down to gays, abortion and prayerin school. He's right, and I couldn't agree more, but I already knew that. And that's the reaction I'm having to the vast majority or the book, "you're right, I agree, I know this already, so what next?" If you've closely followed politics in the past 6 years this will probably be your reaction as well.

If you've kept half an ear open to politics, and you've started to feel that maybe something isn't right with our political climate as a whole (not neccessarily just ont he right or left, but a bit on both sides) then this book will probably be that wake up call that you need.

Case in point. Wallis tells the story about the run up to the Iraq invasion. He tells of how he, along with the religious heads of nearly every major denomination in America, wrote up a plan that would ensure the security of the United States, and legally remove Sadam from power without going to war. You'd be surprised to see the cooperation not only amongst christian denominations, but also non Christian affiliations as well. And equally surprised to see that your church leaders probably signed on.

I had already heard this story though. I heard of how they presented it to Tony Blair and how excited he was about the idea, how political leaders in the United states from both sides of the isle found the plan viable and preferrable to war, and I had already heard about how, just weeks before the invasion, this group of religious leaders was told by the white house that the president was not willing to see them. He had turned away leaders from his own Methodist church, refusing to listen to them when they put forth an alternative to war.

If your reaction is "ya, I heard that already" then you've probably heard most of the other things in this book. If you're reaction is "Our President? He really did that?" then by george go out and get this book and get to reading on it.