Reading notes

I sincerely hope this trend, as reported by Thomas Schaller in the Baltimore Sun, is true:

“Evangelicals — especially the new generation of pastors and young people — are deserting the religious right in droves,” wrote Jim Wallis, author of God’s Politics, in a February commentary in Time. “The evangelical social agenda is now much broader and deeper, engaging issues like poverty and economic justice, global warming, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, genocide in Darfur and the ethics of the war in Iraq.”

As I’ve said many times, I see the Religious Right as having little connection to biblical Christianity other than serving as an example of what Jesus said not to be and do.

OTOH caring about poverty, economic justice, healing, stewardship of creation, and eliminating killing and war, as Jim says is now part of the evangelical social agenda — now these things are at the heart of biblical Christianity!

So there’s hope. And hope for change remains vital for the hearts of certain white folk (as of November 2006):

Though exit polls showed only a slight improvement for Democrats among white evangelicals, who remained loyal to the GOP, Democrats received a rise in support from Catholics and secular voters.

Any Christian (of any variety) who still identifies with the GOP is not paying attention to one or the other. I think the two radically different worldviews — Christian and Republican — cannot be reconciled:

You will fully recognize them by their fruits. Do people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?

Even so, every healthy (sound) tree bears good fruit [worthy of admiration], but the sickly (decaying, worthless) tree bears bad (worthless) fruit.

A good (healthy) tree cannot bear bad (worthless) fruit, nor can a bad (diseased) tree bear excellent fruit [worthy of admiration].

I think in history there’s seldom been a more diseased tree than today’s U.S. Republican Party. Thank God most of us see that now. (Endless unjustified war is an unmistakeably bad fruit no one can ignore forever; it stinks to high heaven.)

I infer article author Thomas Schaller may not be as convinced as Wallis that the transformation of evangelical Christianity is well under way, given his focus on how the harm evangelicals do by voting Republican is being minimized, rather than on the good they can do by voting more consistent with their faith’s core values, which are (by today’s definitions) liberal/progressive.

Even that is progress worthy of praise, though: First do no harm.