A message for Christians who claim Bush is one

[LTRS]

I have converted several Christians over to support for Kerry with this article. To me, it's ludicrous that anyone would consider *Bush or the republican party to be examples of Christians worthy of emulation or support.

I hope I don't get in trouble for this, but I am posting the whole article because it's not longer available online as far as I can tell. I would urge all to cut and paste it and distribute to your Christian friends.


Recovering a hijacked faith
By Jim Wallis | July 13, 2004

MANY OF US feel that our faith has been stolen, and it's time to take it back. A misrepresentation of Christianity has taken place. Many people around the world now think Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and pro-American? What has happened? How do we get back to a historic, biblical, and genuinely evangelical faith rescued from its contemporary distortions?

That rescue operation is crucial today in the face of a social crisis that cries out for prophetic religion. The problem is clear in the political arena, where strident voices claim to represent Christians when they clearly don't speak for most of us. We hear politicians who love to say how religious they are but fail to apply the values of faith to their leadership and policies.

When we take back our faith, we will discover that faith challenges the powers that be to do justice for the poor instead of preaching a "prosperity gospel" and supporting politicians who further enrich the wealthy. We will remember that faith hates violence and tries to reduce it and exerts a fundamental presumption against war instead of justifying it in God's name. We will see that faith creates community from racial, class, and gender divisions, prefers international community over nationalist religion and that "God bless America" is found nowhere in the Bible. And we will be reminded that faith regards matters such as the sacredness of life and family bonds as so important that they should never be used as ideological symbols or mere political pawns in partisan warfare.

The media like to say, "Oh, then you must be the religious left." No, and the very question is the problem. Just because a religious right has fashioned itself for political power in one predictable ideological guise does not mean those who question this political seduction must be their opposite political counterpart.

The best public contribution of religion is precisely not to be ideologically predictable or a loyal partisan. To always raise the moral issues of human rights, for example, will challenge both left- and right-wing governments who put power above principles. Religious action is rooted in a much deeper place than "rights"-- that being the image of God in every human being.

Similarly, when the poor are defended on moral or religious grounds, it is not "class warfare," as the rich will always charge, but rather a direct response to the overwhelming focus in the Scriptures, which claims they are regularly neglected, exploited, and oppressed by wealthy elites, political rulers, and indifferent affluent populations. Those Scriptures don't simply endorse the social programs of liberals or conservatives but make clear that poverty is indeed a religious issue, and the failure of political leaders to help uplift those in poverty will be judged a moral failing.

It is because religion takes the problem of evil so seriously that it must always be suspicious of too much concentrated power -- politically and economically -- either in totalitarian regimes or in huge multinational corporations that now have more wealth and power than many governments. It is indeed our theology of evil that makes us strong proponents of both political and economic democracy -- not because people are so good but because they often are not and need clear safeguards and strong systems of checks and balances to avoid the dangerous accumulations of power and wealth.

It's why we doubt the goodness of all superpowers and the righteousness of empires in any era, especially when their claims of inspiration and success invoke theology and the name of God. Given human tendencies for self-delusion and deception, is it any wonder that hardly a religious body in the world regards the ethics of unilateral and preemptive war as "just"? Religious wisdom suggests that the more overwhelming the military might, the more dangerous its capacity for self and public deception. Powerful nations dangerously claim to "rid the world of evil" but often do enormous harm in their self-appointed vocation to do so.

The loss of religion's prophetic vocation is dangerous for any society. Who will uphold the dignity of economic and political outcasts? Who will question the self-righteousness of nations and their leaders? Who will question the recourse to violence and rush to wars, long before any last resort has been unequivocally proven? Who will not allow God's name to be used to simply justify ourselves, instead of calling us to accountability?

In an election year, the particular religiosity of a candidate, or even how devout he might be, is less important than how his religious and/or moral commitments and values shape political vision and policy commitments. Understanding the moral compass a candidate brings to his public life and how his convictions shape his political priorities is the true litmus test.

Jim Wallis is convener of Call to Renewal and executive director of Sojourners.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Shopaholic]

1. You're probably going to get hand-slapped by the Moderators

for posting this in its entirety but I want to thank you for it.

[faithfulcitizen]

2. thanks, do you have a link? :)

[LTRS]

3. No link, sorry - it's offline now

... which is why I posted the whole thing, which I will probably get spanked for -- oops. But since it has helped me convert some people by reminding them of their true Christians values, I will gladly take the swats in the hope that others will pass it on to their Christian friends.

[shockingelk]

4. Link to full essay

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/07/13/recovering_a_hijacked_faith/

[LTRS]

5. Thank you

Looks like I'm not so good at finding stuff online as you are. Now I'm really going to get it from the mods. :)

[Cha]

6. Thanks! I'm bookmarking this thread and

showing it to a friend of mine who is unsuccessfully trying to show a "Christian" woman that, as you say, it is "ludicrous" to vote for bush on that assumption.

[chappaquadem]

7. Using fundie language

If Kerry would talk to some of these Southern Christians using their own rhetoric, he might be able to convince some of the people in southern swing states to vote for him. The Repubs have the Southern Christian thing locked up because they wisely couch their positions using religious rhetoric. I would suggest to the Kerry campaign, for instance, a commercial showing a preacher reading the tale of the Good Samaritan juxtaposed with images of Bush and cohorts going to church and other images of Dems actually doing the things like advocating for the poor, meek, and infirm would get the message across.

[gauguin57]

8. An article that talks about how bogus Bush's "conversion" was!

How Laura forced him to seek spiritual help; how Barbara Bush propagated the "Christian Conversion" story, how Bush didn't pay attention in Bible study, and in fact disrupted the class ... I knew his Christianity was bogus, but when I read this article, I had the facts!

Gail Sheehy in Vanity Fair, Oct. 2000

http://gailsheehy.com/Politics/polimain_bush3.html

Pertinent snip:

"In 1985, Don Evans urged Bush to join a new kind of men's group—a franchised Community Bible Study program for men, a precursor to the Promise Keepers. ... But (banker Don) Jones doesn't remember Bush taking that spiritual exercise very seriously either. The pastor would ask a question from the lesson: "What happened to the Jew on his way to Jericho?" "He got his butt whipped," Bush shot back.

And when his attention span was exceeded, he set his watch to go off in the middle of the pastor's spiel. The other men guffawed, and the following week they all set their watches and the class turned into a cacophony of alarm bells. Jones, who can point to the exact date when he became a born-again Christian, never heard Bush describe a conversion experience. "He never said he was spiritually empty. It's my understanding that his profession of faith was made in 1986, after the Reverend Billy Graham visited."

Two strong women in his life have taken on the soul-wrestling job for Bush—his mother and his wife. Barbara Bush is in charge of mythmaking. Probably mindful of Big George's savaging by the Christian right, Mrs. Bush told reporters that her son has always read the Bible. (Bush challenged that myth in a recent interview with The Washington Post: "No, I wasn't reading the Bible when I was younger.") It is also his mother who likes to tell the conversion story... It was actually his wife who gave Bush the wake-up call.... It was subsequently reported in major newspapers that Laura Bush repeatedly challenged her husband, saying, "It's me or the bottle," or "It's me or Jack Daniels."