August 31, 2006

Published February 8, 2006

Director’s Corner

by TIM HARRIS

Jim Wallis, the Editor of Sojourner magazine and author of the bestselling “God’s Politics,” was in town this week to talk about religion and social change. Part of his rap is how “the left doesn’t get it.” Religion has played a huge role in major social movements, he says (think MLK), because that’s where you find people who are willing to make commitment to an ideal the center of their lives. Faith = Hope = Action = Social Change. You can bet that the evangelical right gets this.

He decries the “secular fundamentalists” who have little use for their religious allies. What he describes is real. Just this week, an otherwise sensible friend of mine seriously argued that we should stop tolerating religion since it inevitably leads to intolerance.

Part of the problem, obviously, is that the wrong people have gotten the corner on God. We see the strongest commitment and the most effective political mobilization from those who have reduced religion to blind worship of militarism, opposition to abortion, bigotry against sexual minorities, and free market economics. No wonder God has a bad name.

My suspicion is that if the more socially progressive elements of the church woke up to the times we live in and showed a bit more backbone, most of the “left” would come around pretty quickly. We live in a time that is desperate for real moral leadership. There’s some mountains that need moving.