Gods Politics

Since when did believing in God and having moral values make you pro-war, pro-rich, and pro-Republican? In America why do moral values and belief in God seem to make people pro-war, pro-rich and pro-Republican? Jim Wallis's major New York Times bestseller is a scathing indictment of the way that right-wing evangelicals in the US have hugged their Bibles, worn their flag pins and self-righteously attempted to co-opt any discussion of religion and politics, while at the same time ignoring the very values they profess to defend. The Left, he argues, hasn't done much better, largely ignoring faith and continually separating moral discourse and personal ethics from public policy. Wallis issues a passionate call for America's government and religious communities to be more accountable to the key values of the prophetic religious tradition - 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). These are the values of love, justice, reconciliation and community that are at the core of what many people believe, whether Christian or not. God's Politics is a powerful, prophetic book that points the way for the future, not only of American society but also of rich western societies everywhere which are losing touch with the values that really matter. Jim Wallis, adviser to the White House, outspoken Christian activist and founder of the Sojourner Magazine compellingly puts this theory into practice, letting his own beliefs guide him those times where opticians have tried to align God with policy instead of aligning themselves with God. Looking at where the American right gets it wrong and the left misses it altogether, he takes apart the assumption engrained in US thinking (and in the West) that the United States is the unprecedented force for goodness in a fight against enemies Christian culture labels as "evil." With stinging criticism of US foreign policy and the war in Iraq, the author looks at the problems of our gross misinterpretation of the Christian ethic and draws the conclusion something must be done if we want to see a new dawn in political discussions within our own society and the rest of the world. With a much-needed call for Christian ethics in politics on both the left and the right, Wallis argues passionately for a new kind of thinking in politics which, he claims, is catching on fast.