God's Politics by Jim Wallis

God's Politics by Jim Wallis

Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican? And since when did promoting and pursuing a progressive social agenda with a concern for economic security, health care, and educational opportunity mean you had to put faith in God aside?

While the Right in America has hijacked the language of faith to prop up its political agenda--an agenda not all people of faith support--the Left hasn't done much better, largely ignoring faith and continually separating moral discourse and personal ethics from public policy. While the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. The consequence is a false choice between ideological religion and soulless politics.

The effect of this dilemma was made clear in the 2004 presidential election. The Democrats' miscalculations have left them despairing and searching for a way forward. It has become clear that someone must challenge the Republicans' claim that they speak for God, or that they hold a monopoly on moral values in the nation's public life. Wallis argues that America's separation of church and state does not require banishing moral and religious values from the public square. In fact, the very survival of America's social fabric depends on such values and vision to shape our politics--a dependence the nation's founders recognized.

God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition--that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). Our biblical faith and religious traditions simply do not allow us as a nation to continue to ignore the poor and marginalized, deny racial justice, tolerate the ravages of war, or turn away from the human rights of those made in the image of God. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not. In the tradition of prophets such as Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Desmond Tutu, Wallis inspires us to hold our political leaders and policies accountable by integrating our deepest moral convictions into our nation's public life.

Jim Wallis is president and founder of Sojourners and editor in chief of Sojourners magazine. He is a bestselling author, public theologian, national preacher, social activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. Wallis has written ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It and The Great Awakening, and is a frequent speaker in the United States and abroad. He has written for major newspapers and appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, on shows such as Meet the Press, Morning Joe, Hardball, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The O'Reilly Factor, and on NPR. Wallis also teaches at Georgetown University and has taught at Harvard University. He is married to Joy Carroll, is the father of Luke and Jack, and is a Little League baseball coach.

SKU	CIN0060558288A
ISBN 13	9780060558284
ISBN 10	0060558288
Title	God's Politics
Author	Jim Wallis
Condition	Well read
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Zondervan
Year published	2005-02-01
Number of pages	416
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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