"God's Politics" by Jim Wallis: A Review

Given the recent kerfuffle between Kos and the Rev. Jim Wallis I thought some of you might be interested in my review of Rev. Wallis' book "God's Politics".  I wrote the review in 2005 when the book came out and posted it to my now defunct website.  The review begins with good things to say, but stick with it, the criticism comes at the end.  Ultimately, I am still conflicted about Jim Wallis, his work, and what he stands for.

God’s Politics
Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It

By Jim Wallis
Harper, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-055828-8

The author, Jim Wallis, is a well known evangelical preacher, professor, author, publisher, and leader of a group called "Sojourners" that puts out "Sojourners Magazine".  Their website, www.sojourners.com, is worth a visit.  He and his group are very interested in the intersection of faith, society, and politics, hence the book.  Mr. Wallis calls himself an "evangelical Christian".  Because of this, I was afraid the book would be yet another screed ala Ann Coulter full of hate speech against liberals accusing us of every sin under the sun.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Mr. Wallis sounds like no other evangelical Christian I have ever heard, which left me scratching my head about what the definition of evangelical really is.  The book attempts to accomplish a lofty goal, to define what the Christian position should be on a broad array of political issues from Iraq to gay marriage.  The sub-title of the book "Why the right is wrong and the left doesn’t get it", points out the author’s contention that on many major issues of the day one side is, and both sides may be, wrong.  It might sound arrogant for Rev. Wallis to attempt to "speak for" God on these issues, but he has worthwhile things to say nonetheless.

So where does Mr. Wallis, or or perhaps God, come down on the issues of the day?  He is firmly against the war in Iraq.  Mr. Wallis believes we were lied to about the need to go to war, and that the doctrine of pre-emptive war is wrong.  He also firmly believes that we need to defend America and win the war on terrorism (as we all do, regardless of what the Republicans say).  What Mr. Wallis proposes as an alternative to pre-emptive war is the most important thing he says in the book.  He has a foreign policy vision that actively attempts to protect America's vital interests through non-violent means.  One way of doing this is to actively promote world peace by "draining the swamp of terrorism" with economic aid to the countries that breed terrorists.  He would have us use coalitions to enforce international law, and make use of the International Court to prosecute national leaders for crimes against humanity.  Right before our invasion of Iraq in March of 2002 Rev. Wallis and a number of other religious leaders developed a plan for removing Saddam Hussein from power non-violently.  They approached several world leaders with their ideas.  President Bush had no interest.  However, Tony Blair and several of his cabinet ministers met with Rev. Wallis and his group on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.  We all know that this meeting did not alter the Blair governement's support of the war.  However, after the meeting one of the cabinet ministers said, "Things might have turned out different if we had known about this plan sooner."  Rev. Wallis foreign policy vision is fascinating and compelling.  I think our party has much to learn from him on this issue.

Rev. Wallis also tackles social welfare issues such as poverty and health care.  This is his best example of why the right is wrong and the left doesn't get it.  The right says the government should not help the poor because it promotes bad life choices and irresponsible behavior.  The left staunchly supports government help for all the needy, and says (supposedly) that people's choices do not matter.  Rev. Wallis points out, profoundly, that the Bible calls us to help the poor over 3,000 times.  The only thing God orders us to do more frequently than this is to not worship idols.  In the Bible there are instances of people helping people, and governments helping people.  Hence, it is a false argument about whether governement should help the poor or not.  God calls us to help the poor, so we should use all available means to do so.  Rev. Wallis rightly points out that the problem of poverty in America is too great to be handled by the churches alone.  So, the goverment can and should be involved in alleviating poverty.

Where Rev. Wallis takes issue with traditional Democratic party positions is on social issues.  For example, he is against abortion and gay marriage.  But even here he has profound things to contribute to the debate.  On abortion, he says that rather than arguing over when life begins, and who has the right to decide what, both sides should be working together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and lower the abortion rate.  This simply acknowledges that any woman facing an abortion is having to make a difficult decision.  Anything we can do to reduce the number of women who have to make that decision is a good thing.  Hence, Rev. Wallis says both sides of the abortion issue should be promoting sex education that discusses abstinence AND birth control, should be promoting better access to birth control, and should be making it easier for women who give birth but who can not take care of their babies to give them up for adoption.  I do believe these are ideas that all Democrats, and maybe even some Republicans, can get behind.  Rev. Wallis claims to be against gay marriage but supports "gay civil rights".  It would seem to me that being able to choose who you can marry would be a fundamental civil right, so I disagree with him on this issue.  However, he has interesting things to say about how in the institution of marriage the state and the church are pretty entangled with each other, and that it might be time for disentanglement.

I so far have had much praise for what Rev. Wallis has to say.  However, I have no praise for how he says it.  Rev. Wallis is a poor writer.  He frequently repeats himself, and rambles around on topics too much instead of getting to the point.  There were several times when I thought he had a perfect ending sentence for a chapter, and I was disappointed when I turned the page to find him droning on for several more pages on the same topic.  His writing and chapter structure is also formulaic.  The basic chapter structure is: 1. The existance of X (war, poverty, AIDS...insert your favorite cause here) is reprehensible.  2. The current left/right debate prevents us from action and misses the point.  3. However, there is hope...as I was saying to/writing to/praying with President Bush/Tony Blair/Archbishop of Canterbury/Archbishop Desmond Tutu the other day there is a growing worldwide movement of evangelical Christians who are working at a grass roots level to solve problem X.  This is what will save the world.  After numerous chapters following the same formula, I couldn’t stand it.  I put the book down for long periods of time (hence the delay in this review), and found myself skipping whole paragraphs to avoid hearing the same thing being repeated over and over again.  I challenge his assertion that evangelicals are becoming increasingly commited to world peace, fighting hunger, and the environment.  Polls show that something like 80% of evangelicals voted for President Bush.  They voted for a President and a party that is waging an unnecessary and immoral war in Iraq, refuses to raise the minimum wage, and wants to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  I see little evidence in this of growing evangelical support for any of these causes.  Ultimately, I found Rev. Wallis name dropping annoying, and I had to conclude that all these brushes with fame has made him a little full of himself.

I was also disappointed by some things Rev. Wallis did not say.  He covers an incredible number of issues in the book, and is at his best when he is proposing new and interesting solutions to intractable problems.  Sometimes though, he just says the right is wrong, the left is clueless, but provides no real propsals as to how to resolve a specific problem.  For example, he says it is important to provide health insurance for all of America's children, but has no proposals for how to go about doing it.  He also condemns the crassness of pop culture, and says it is hurting our country, but has no real ideas on how to alter pop culture without violating people's rights of free speech and expression.  I would have preferred he left these problems unexamined, as the chapters on these topics had nothing to contribute to the debate, and reading them was a waste of my time.  I was also a little disappointed, strangely enough, in has lack of use of Biblical quotes to support his positions.  Chapter titles such as "Budgets are Moral Documents", and "Amos and Enron" were intriguing.  I was open for a chapter and verse justification for the Democratic parties position on a variety of issues.  Alas, it was not there.

So, how do I really feel about the book?  It is a diamond in the rough.  It has many profound, interesting, and provocative things to say so is worth reading.  However, be prepared for a long slong through bland, repetitive, prose and for entire chapters whose relevancy will escape you.  Ultimately though, I beleive Rev. Wallis does us all a service by elevating the level of debate on some of the important moral issues of the day.