God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It [Hardcover]

Jim Wallis (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 11, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Secular liberals and religious conservatives will find things to both comfort and alarm them in Jim Wallis's God's Politics. That combination is actually reason enough to recommend the book in a time when the national political and theological discourse is dominated by blanket descriptions and shortsightedness. But Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, offers more than just a book that's hard to categorize. What Wallis sees as the true mission of Christianity--righting social ills, working for peace--is in tune with the values of liberals who so often run screaming from the idea of religion. Meanwhile, in his estimation, religious vocabulary is co-opted by conservatives who use it to polarize. Wallis proposes a new sort of politics, the name of which serves as the title of the book, wherein these disparities are reconciled and progressive causes are paired with spiritual guidance for the betterment of society. Wallis is at his most compelling when he puts this theory into action himself, letting his own beliefs guide him through stinging criticisms of the war in Iraq. In his view, George W. Bush's flaw lies in the assumption that the United States was an unprecedented force of goodness in a fight against enemies characterized as "evil." Indeed, although both the right and left are criticized here, the idea is that the liberals, if they would get religion, are the more redeemable lot. Wallis's line between religion and public policy may be drawn a little differently than most liberals might feel comfortable with, and while he pays some lip service to other faiths most of his prescription for America seems to come from the Bible. Still, for a party having just lost a presidential election where "moral issues" are said to have factored heavily, God's Politics is a sermon worth listening to. --John Moe

From Bookmarks Magazine

God’s Politics has struck a chord with contemporary Americans who, according to bestseller lists, are buying Wallis’s book in droves. Regardless of how critics feel about the author’s religious beliefs (evangelical Christian) and political leanings (traditional on family values; progressive on issues like poverty and social justice), they are hard-pressed to argue with his central tenets: God belongs to no single political party and true faith transcends political categorization. Wallis writes that liberals and conservatives alike should work for a "new spiritual revival … that could transform our society." While at least one reviewer complains that Wallis glosses over the religious left’s failures, no one denies that he has produced a timely, thought-provoking book.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperSanFransisco; 1ST edition (January 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060558288
• ISBN-13: 978-0060558284
• Product Dimensions: 1.3 x 6.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (245 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #574,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, preacher, and international commentator on religion, public life, faith, and politics. He is president and CEO of Sojourners, where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine. He regularly appears on radio and television, including shows like Meet the Press, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the O'Reilly Factor, and is a frequent guest on the news programs of CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and National Public Radio. He has taught at Harvard's Divinity School and Kennedy School of Government on Faith, Politics, and Society. He has written eight books, including: Faith Works, The Soul of Politics, Who Speaks for God? and The Call to Conversion.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 188 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Should be on EVERY campaign reading list January 19, 2005

By Robin Orlowski

Format:Hardcover

This book is very thought-provoking. The author sees a place for religion, arguing that the exclusion of religion from the political sphere is unrealistic. It does not reflect the way which Americans have and continue to make policy.

Even liberal politicians are motivated to enter public life and work on behalf of other people because of their own religious convictions according to this book. Denying that these are moral values and their roots in religious belief damages our own standing. This denial then feeds into a stereotype that the left is bereft of any morals or opposes religious people.

At the same time. Wallis takes on the 'religious right' who have comadeered Republican Party infrastructure since the late 1970's/early 1980's. He argues their current interpretation of 'good' public policy is also counterproductive to good public policymaking; anybody not sharing their worldview instantly becomes demonized. Because there are so many different religious perspectives in America (even among Christian denominations themselves) religious right actions actually undercut the standing of religion throughout American society, as practiced by these groups religion becomes percieved as something which is harsh, judgemental, and exclusionary.

I appreciated this book's complex view of religion. It clarifies that the problem is not religion itself, but how we employ it in public life which is the real problem.

136 of 146 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time- January 16, 2005

By MovedbyMusic

Format:Hardcover

I have waited for years for someone to finally write a well-written book on the balance between political secularism and faith. A book that does not go overboard on any issues. A book that does not go into guttersniping or is so full of proselytization that the fanaticism makes you want to run and hide under a blanket. This book is incredible because it puts common sense back into emotionally charged issues that skew people too far in either direction. I think what keeps happening is that people posture so much to the far left or far right espousing God as their compass they lose their perspective in what is realistic and factual. They are so hell-bent on making someone else see their point of view they leave no room for consideration of another option.

I found myself agreeing with so much this author had to say. We are not about being a religious-based society but we are about having faith, compassion and spirituality. We have never been about disassociating conscientiousness from religious freedoms.

I so highly recommend this book I wish I could give it ten stars.......

121 of 131 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Matthew 25: 31 - 46 Are you a sheep or a goat? January 13, 2005

By hobbsey

Format:Hardcover

I've never met Jim Wallis, so unlike a previous reviewer I can't speak to his political aspirations nor to how writing this book may help him in that regard.

Speaking only for myself I can say that Jim's approach to the Christian faith, and the fact that he has given voice to that approach, is a great relief. It is leadership like Jim's and ideas and actions like those taken by Sojourners and Call to Renewall, that make it possible for me to continue to identify myself as a Christian. That has not always been an easy thing to do in liberal company.

While the writing in this book isn't always the sharpest, nor the construction the cleanest, this book is very approachable, very readable and (more importantly) extremely timely in the moral life of our country. It is time for people of "values", and Christians in particular, to stop aligning themselves with secular parties or along other political demarcations.

Jesus' message, the Good News, the Gospel, and the life it calls one to, is not about Red States vs Blue States. It's not about being a Donkey or an Elephant. It is about being on God's side, the common good. More than anything else, people of conscience need to ask themselves if they are aligned with the sheep, or the goats.

The action that Jim Wallis calls us to in this book is not about political parties. It's about taking the great commission seriously. Jesus didn't tell the apostles to go out and make converts, but disciples. He taught that when the great judgment comes we won't be questioned on our party affililations, our church membership, nor even on whether we believed that Jesus is God. But, according to Jesus, we will be questioned about how we took care of each other - especially the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. Those are the "values" that we need to examine and then act upon if we are turly to be called a Christian nation.

Read this book and you will be challenged to do better in those aspects of your life and you may begin to challenge your representatives to do the same.