The Swamp – Chicago Tribune – Blogs.
This is the text of the Democratic Party's radio address (audio link here):
"I’m Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics. I was surprised and grateful when Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid called to say his party wanted to set a new tone and invite, for the first time, a non-partisan religious leader to deliver their weekly radio address and speak about the values that could unite Americans at this critical time.
"So, I want to be clear that I am not speaking for the Democratic Party, but as a person of faith who feels the hunger in America for a new vision of our life together, and sees the opportunity to apply our best moral values to the urgent problems we face. I am not an elected official or political partisan, but a religious leader who believes that real solutions must transcend partisan politics. For too long, we have had a politics of blame and fear, while America is eager for a politics of solutions and hope. It is time to find common ground by moving to higher ground.
"Because we have lost a commitment to the common good, politics is failing to solve the deepest crises of our time. Real solutions will require our best thinking and dialogue, but also call us to transformation and renewal.
"Most Americans know that the important issues we confront have an essential moral character. It is the role of faith communities to remind us of that fact. But religion has no monopoly on morality. We need a new, morally-centered discourse on politics that welcomes each of us to the table.
"A government that works for the common good is central. There is a growing desire for integrity in our government across the political spectrum. Corruption in government violates our basic principles. Money and power distort our political decision-making and even our elections. We must restore trust in our government and reclaim the integrity of our democratic system.
"At this moment in history, we need new directions.
"Who is left out and left behind is always a religious and moral question. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the health of a society was measured by how it cared for its weakest and most vulnerable, and prosperity was to be shared by all. Jesus proclaimed a gospel that was “good news to the poor.”
Right on. I'm on a mailing list for Sojourners magazine, a publication of Wallis' that a former vicar of Holy Moly turned me on to. I am greatly cheered to see that people of faith on the Left side of the political divide are finally finding their voices and speaking out, after working quietly for years for the poor and for peace-and-justice issues while the folks on the Right kept blathering on about sin.
I pointed out in a comment in the Swamp blog that Jesus had a lot to say about feeding the poor and caring for the needy, but very little to say about sin, nothing at all to say about homosexuality, and accepted everyone without condemnation. Yes, He said "sin no more." But then He minds his own business, which I take to mean as an example of relying on one's own conscience.
[tags]Jim Wallis[/tags][tags]Poverty[/tags][tags]Speaking Truth to Power[/tags]