7 QUESTIONS FOR JIM WALLIS

SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR JIM WALLIS

1.    1.   Why do you consistently present yourself as a moderate or a third-way person and deny that you are a liberal?  On virtually every issue other than abortion you take a liberal, often very liberal, position.  You advise many candidates about how to get the Christian vote.  In all cases that I know about your assistance goes to the more liberal candidate in a race.

2.     2.   Why did you call Marvin Olasky a liar when he said that you have received substantial funds from George Soros?  Investigation shows that your organization has received $300,000 from Soros, so faced with undeniable evidence, you now admit it.  As I understand it, you have apologized privately to Olasky but since you called him a liar publically, shouldn’t your apology be public?

3.      3.  Why are you are a strong believer in redistribution of wealth when Scripture defends private property?  In all the history of writing about private property rights, no statement is stronger that what is found in Exodus: “Thou shalt not steal.”

4.       4.    Why do you frequently use the words “we” and “our” without defining them?  You blur the line between we Christians and we Americans.  For example in God’s Politics you say “We must also ensure that those who are unable to work are cared for by our society.”  Are you saying we Christians or we Americans?  If you want to impose all Christian values onto society, isn’t that a theocracy?  And sometimes when we Americans is appropriate that does not necessarily imply government involvement.

5.     5.   Why do you promote fear?  I know that in God’s Politics your chapter on terrorism is entitled “Be Not Afraid,” but in Sojourners editorials on immigration you promote fear.  Your April, 2010 commentary contained the following: “…do you think undocumented parents will now go to the police if their daughter is raped or their family becomes a victim of violent crime?”  “Parents or children of “mixed-status families” (made up of legal and undocumented, as many immigrant families are out here) could be arrested if they are found together. You can be arrested if you are ‘transporting or harboring’ undocumented people. Some might consider driving immigrant families to and from church to be Christian ministry — but it will now be illegal in Arizona.”  Apparently the Arizona police are more to be feared than terrorists.  But the real problem is that Christians are not to live in fear, yet you selectively incite it.

6.    6.   Why do you see helping the poor as always motivated by justice and not compassion?  If ten  starving poor people presented themselves to you, five of which were victims of injustice and five of which were not, would you only feed the victims?  Compassion is a much better motivation.  The emphasis on justice makes people feel like victims, whether they are or not, and leads to bitterness.  Compassion leads to gratitude.

7.   7.    Why do you often suggest that the year of Jubilee was for the purpose of redistributing wealth?  In the four passages of Scripture where Jubilee is mentioned, there is no hint of redistribution of wealth.  Jubilee was for the purpose of keeping the promise land divided among the Jews as God had originally done it, thus land went back to original owners every fifty years.  According to the Jewish Encyclopedia it was seldom observed, and only then when all the original tribes were in possession of Palestine.  After that is was mostly ignored or only observed nominally in anticipation of the return of all tribes to Israel.  It was all about the Promised Land and not at all about violating people’s property rights as you suggest.

SARAH PALIN VS BARACK OBAMA IN 2012

What if Barack Obama ran against Sarah Palin for President in 2012?  I have done an exhaustive survey – two people.  The first voted for Obama in 2008 but is quite disenchanted and he said that he would vote for Palin in this imaginary race.  The second voted for McCain last time but would vote for Obama because Palin is an ideologue.

MY DISCLAIMER

I am not a huge Palin fan.  In a Republican primary I would very likely not vote for her.  I hope she does not run.

FIVE REASONS TO VOTE FOR PALIN IN THIS CONTEST

1. Yes, Palin is a conservative ideologue.  Obama is a liberal ideologue.  Which is better for the country, conservatism or liberalism?  Conservatism encourages freedom, personal responsibility, human flourishing, and substantial opportunity for the poor to rise out of poverty.  Liberalism squelches freedom with regulation, creates state dependency, diminishes human flourishing, and hurts the poor.
2. Honesty.  Palin is honest about her idealism.  Obama is not honest about his liberalism.
3. Who will work with the whole government?  As governor of Alaska Palin consistently worked with the Democrat minority.  Obama has worked with the minority about as little as any president in 100 years.
4. As Christians, we want to minimize abortion.  Palin is pro-life and would work to stop abortion funding where possible.  Obama is strongly pro-abortion.  A Palin presidency would save hundreds or perhaps thousands of babies.
5. Conservatives help the unemployed get jobs.  Liberals help the unemployed get a government check.

Our economy is on an unsustainable path to bankruptcy.  It was started on that path by George W. Bush.  But most of the push down that path has come from Barack Obama.  Palin, much more than Obama, would reverse that course.

SHOULD ABORTION INFLUENCE OUR USE OF RESOURCES

A person could be completely pro-life and yet feel like abortion is the law of the land and that is not going to change any time soon.  It's a done deal for the foreseeable future so perhaps Christians should put their resources (their time, energy, votes, money, etc.) into other issues.

I agree that abortion is and will be the law of the land for the foreseeable future, however, I think Christians can save the lives of defenseless infants by investing heavily in pro-life things.

EXAMPLE 1


 In 1996 the Presidential race was between Bob Dole (pro-life) and Bill Clinton (pro-abortion.)  A Christian could have said that since Dole would be unable to change abortion laws he (the Christian) would consider giving his support to Clinton.  Here is why that turned out to cost human life.

In 1996 and again in 1997 Bill Clinton vetoed partial-birth abortion bans.  Bob Dole would not have.  When George W. Bush became president partial-birth abortion was banned.  Thus the election of Clinton gave four extra years of partial-birth abortion.  Since there were about 2,000 such abortions per year, the election of Dole would have saved 8,000 human lives.

EXAMPLE 2

Pro-life legislators are inclined to pass parental notification laws which undoubtedly reduce the number abortions.  Helping elect such legislators and pass such legislation saves babies.

EXAMPLE 3

Pro-life legislators are inclined to disallow using public funds to pay for abortions and again, this must diminish the number of abortions.  The number of abortions is probably reduced by thousands but what if it is only dozens.  Those dozens of helpless children are worth saving.

There are many other pro-life issues from which we could make examples.

So even if we cannot change the fundamental law of the land, we can pour our resources into saving some.  Relative to a million abortions per year, saving a few thousand does not sound like much, but we must remember that a few thousand human lives are a huge thing.  9/11 took 3,000 lives and we were rightfully outraged.  So Christians should pursue the pro-life agenda with full enthusiasm.

THE KORAN AND THE MOSQUE

 BURNING THE KORAN AND THE MANHATTAN MOSQUE

BURNING THE KORAN IS WRONG

1.      Yes, of course, it is bad because it angers soldiers fighting against our soldiers and thus imperils our men and women in combat.

2.      But, it is wrong more fundamentally.  As Christians we should want to win Muslims to Christ, not offend them.  So the Florida pastor is being very foolish.

SO WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THIS?

1.      Christian extremists form in small groups, like the thirty followers of the Florida preacher.  This compares to Islamic extremists who form in groups of thousands.

2.      Christian extremists burn books as compared to Muslim extremists who kill innocent people.  Even moderate Muslims are harsh by Christian terms.  Imam  Feisal Rauf is said to be a moderate who wants to promote harmony.  Clearly this is not true.  He is creating massive disharmony with the proposed Manhattan mosque.  This “moderate” Muslim has also refused to condemn the terrorist group Hamas.  “Moderate” for the Muslim community does not seem to be so moderate.

3.      Since 9/11 some people have tried to establish moral equivalence between the Islamic religion and the Christian religion.  It just ain’t so.  I know it sounds arrogant to say it, but Christians seem to be morally superior to Moslems.  Not spiritually superior.  We are sinners just as bad as they are.  But the crimes against humanity are much greater in the Islamic world.

Imagine two remote African villages untouched by the outside world.  Now missionaries appear at each village, Christians at one and Muslims at the other.  Fast forward three years.  In the village influenced by Christian missionaries you will likely see a medical clinic, linguists working on putting the local language into writing, and a few converts who have freely chosen Christianity.  In the other village all the natives are forced to eat a particular diet, follow a strict dress code, and pray five times a day to a God they might not even understand.  In this illustration we see the difference.

THE FOUR MEN WHO CAUSED THE RECESSION

1 & 2 BARNEY FRANK (D) AND CHRISTOPHER DODD (D)

Frank is head of the House Financial Services committee and Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

These two men used their substantial power to press banks to make subprime loans to lower income people.  The result was that people got mortgages who could not afford them.  This led to a massive default rate and the mortgage meltdown that started the dip that led to the recession.

Are you doing a low-income person a favor if you saddle him with a huge debt that he cannot pay?  Of course not.  As a Christian my heart breaks for the poor people badly hurt by these loans.  Frank and Dodd ought to be ashamed.  They acted like they were helping but they were hurting.

Subprime loans are made at interest rates below the rates the market dictates.  This is one more instance where the poor would be better off if markets where not interfered with and government intervention had not happened.  (I am not saying government should never interfere – just that it interferes too much.)

Much of the pressure for banks to make subprime loans came through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two private financial institutions with government backing.  Their irresponsibility was seen for many years prior to the recession.  In 2002 and again in 2003 the Bush White House tried to get legislation for greater regulation of these two entities.  Both times the regulation was blocked by Democrats.  Again in 2006 they tried.  This time Republicans got the bill out of committee but did not have the votes to pass it on the floor.  Fannie and Freddie went recklessly on.  For more on this, watch the video.

3 & 4 GEORGE BUSH (R) AND HENRY PAULSON (R)

The mortgage problem was serious and should have caused a dip on or economy.  But our economy was strong and this should have been nothing more than a dip.  BUT enter George Bush and Henry Paulson.

Bush did the one thing a leader should never do.  He panicked.   He said things like “… our entire country is in danger.”  Paulson persuaded Bush that disaster was looming if he did not do something.  Bush passed bailout dollars for banks, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and car makers.  At this point we can say that these measures did not help.  Government spending seldom does.

The public observed this desperate behavior and followed the administration into panic.  It is no surprise that the recession followed.

FINAL THOUGHT:  Okay I admit it.  It is a little over the top to blame the recession on just four men.  But it is not exaggeration to say that these four men played a huge role in what followed..

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL. BUT ...

Climatologists tell us that for the past twelve years the earth has not been warming.  Some people suggest that this data proves that there is no global warming.  But it seems to me that most people agree that a true warming trend started in the 1850s.  This warming has been, on average, about 1.5 degrees C.  For the past twelve years we might have been in a plateau and the warming will resume, or we might be at the peak.  For Christians, there are two fundamental questions.

QUESTION 1

Is global warming bad? 

(For this question and some comments about it, I am indebted to a marvelous lecture by Jay Richards which can be accessed through the website for The Acton Institute: www.acton.org.  Here is a link to the lecture, which is one hour. http://www.acton.org/media/20080417_christians_and_global_warming.php) 

When Jay Richards speaks to this questions he mentions that one college professor virtually thought he should be imprisoned for voicing such heresy.  But an argument can be made that a small amount of warming can be good.  Growing seasons can be lengthened, helping some populations get food.  Because ten times more people die from extreme cold as opposed to extreme heat, lives would be saved.  Obviously excessive warming would be bad.  There have always been warming and cooling trends so a good scientific enterprise would be to determine the optimum global temperature.

QUESTION 2

Is human behavior responsible for global warming?

Unlike the first question this one has been frequently asked and hotly (sorry) debated.  I recommend you watch a debate between two Evangelicals, E. Calvin Beisner and David P. Gushee.  It is an excellent resource and available on DVD for under $20 and I have seen it on CD for just a few dollars.  It is titled Evangelicals & Global Warming: A Formal Debate.  You can buy it at www.nicenecouncil.com or Amazon.  While some would have us believe that the question has already been decided in the affirmative, the debate shows that the skeptics have a case.

Why is there strong presumption that humans are responsible for global warming?

Here is my take:
     1. Scientists discovered that the earth is warming.
     2. Some scientists hypothesized that this is due to human activity increasing levels of CO2.
     3. Grant requests were made to research this possibility.
     4. Grant givers, many of whom are very liberal and prone to believe in redistribution of wealth, found this hypothesis to hold great promise for them.  If humans were at fault, then the highly developed nations, especially the United States, owed a huge debt to the rest of the world.
     5. Liberals found a wonderful justification for redistribution of wealth
     6. Liberal grant givers created a climate (sorry again) in which scientists had to express support for human causation of global warming if they wanted grant money for their projects.
     7. Many scientists asserted human causation of global warming in order to get grant money for their projects.

The intimidation suggested above is not just conservative paranoia.  It is documented by Dr. Richard Lindzen in an article in the Wall Street Journal of April 12, 2006.  Dr. Lindzen is an atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at M. I. T.

We should note that the tide is turning.  Scientists by the thousands are now expressing doubts about human causation of global warming.

WHAT DO FDR & JESUS HAVE IN COMMON

My daughter attends Renovatus Church in Charlotte, North Carolina where the pastor is Jonathan Martin. Naturally I get some CDs of his sermons. I listened to one in which he mentioned how much he dislikes fear-mongering by politicians and I thought he was right on the money.

If I am not mistaken, the most common admonition in Scripture is, “Fear not.” John 4:18 says, “perfect love casts out fear.” If the Bible consistently tells us not to be fearful, perhaps we should even apply that to politics. The Bible would not go as far as FDR who said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” but the spirit is the same.

The blog Provocative Christian (http://provocativechristian.wordpress.com/category/god-is-sovereign/) gives two reasons why we should not be afraid. The first is that God is sovereign and the second is that Jesus is with us. That blog post is an excellent read.

But politicians want us to be fearful. Why? Because they think that certain fears will drive us to vote particular ways or provoke us to tolerate legislation they want to pass. This problem exists among conservatives as well as liberals.


Here are some examples from the left.

1. Concern about nuclear weapons has given rise to a Doomsday Clock in New York. It was recently reset to six minutes until midnight – doomsday. The odd thing is that the clock was started in 1947 when it was set to seven minutes to midnight. In the fifties it was reset as close as two minutes from Doomsday. One would think that after sixty years of sitting on the edge of our seats worried about nuclear devastation, those involved would get the clue that things are not as urgent as they had thought.

2. I used to get volumes of direct mail from the ACLU. They would sometimes strongly suggest that if Jerry Fallwell was not stopped, we would have an exclusively Christian government in no time and religious freedom would be a thing of the past.

3. Global warming has been a fruitful vineyard for fear. Remember the Time magazine cover that said, “Be afraid. Be very afraid?” Many of the prophecies concerning global warming have been without reason or restraint.

Fear-mongering from the right is just as bad.

1. A direct mail piece said, “In the next 120 days, they’re launching an all-out attack on your family.”

2. Another says, “Should Washington liberals force your child’s religious school to hire homosexual instructors?”

3. A talk show host said, “Liberals are trying to destroy our government from within.”

4. From a right-wing web site and speaking of a coming food shortage: “We may be facing the biggest disaster in our countries history.”


In Newsweek of Dec 24, 2007 Barack Obama rightly said, “We have been operating under a politics of fear: fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants, …” To be balanced he should have added fears of population disasters, environmental destruction, or right-wing takeovers.

So what should a Christian do if God calls him to work on an issue? He or she should work on it with passion and energy, but he or she should not be full of fear about that issue. When the day’s work is done and the Christian lays his head on his pillow, he or she should not lose one nanosecond of sleep due to anxiety, because God is in control and Jesus is with us.