Interesting interview with a progressive evangelical
Interesting SF Gate interview today with Jim Wallis on “Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.”
Jim Wallis, a left-wing evangelical Christian who believes Democrats need to affirm the role of faith in shaping public policy…argues that conservative Republicans have taken control of the discussion about religion and morality in this country and have used hot-button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to divide the electorate. Now, he says, Democrats need to get back into the conversation…
And:
I’m meeting evangelicals who believe in the centrality of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible but don’t want Jerry Falwell speaking for them. I’m meeting Catholics who don’t want to be represented by right-wing bishops who instruct them to only vote on one issue (abortion) and ignore the whole rest of Catholic social teaching. There are mainline Protestants who feel like they’ve been left out of the conversation and disrespected, and people at black churches who feel like this has been pretty much a white conversation.
While I’m still dumb enough to think that the framers of the Constitution meant what they damned well said on the subject of religion and government, I’m also a realist, and Wallis’ approach strikes me as lot more tolerable than the alternative….
[THX to Brian Angliss of Daedalnexus for passing this along.]
lullaby pit 
Seems to me the constitution says that congress can’t mess with the religious establishments (and nonestablisnments) of the various states, not that folks with religions beliefs (or unbeliefs) shouldn’t allow them to affect their politics.
interesting. i wonder if the book is good reading.
the thing is … i know a bunch of dem politicians in town, and i myself am a liberal and former catholic, and the thing is, as far as i can tell, we just ain’t the type of people to talk about God and Jesus all the damn time. it seems that requires a *very* unique candidate, and hell, i’m sure we would’ve rolled any eligible left-leaning evangelicals last year. the people may want less conservative representatives to speak for them, but where are we going to find these people? shall we start molding 15 year olds now?
it’s all about the black vote. oh wait, the right has already discredited folks like jesse jackson. i’m still at a loss.