Reading notes

Virtually conceding religion (and many religious voters) to the Republicans is not only terrible strategy, it seriously diminishes the debate over the meaning of religion and public life. …

What happened to the biblical imperatives for social justice, the God who lifts up the poor, and the Jesus who says he will judge us, and the nations, by how we care for “the least of these”? How a candidate deals with poverty is a religious issue, and the Bush administration’s failure to support poor working families should be named as a religious failure. Fighting pre-emptive and unilateral wars based on false claims is also a religious issue—Iraq was not a “just war” in theological terms. Neglect of the environment is another serious religious issue.

If the Bush administration has failed on these counts, it is a religious problem and not merely a political one. But where are the Democrats saying that? The failure to define their concerns in moral and religious terms is, among other things, a gross political miscalculation.

I always look to Jim Wallis for insight into the intersection of faith and politics.

The failure of the Bush administration and its Christian Right supporters to heed the Gospel is appalling and vividly clear to me, but I’ve paid insufficient attention to the Democratic Party’s also-serious shortfalls that Jim highlights here.

One of the reasons I’m led to support Dr. Dean, I think, is that he’s not the Democratic Party. The movement he’s started aims to transform the Democratic Party and the country (with God’s help, IMO — the movement’s tangible spirit of hope is a telltale clue). Dean’s movement is therefore tremendously threatening to the domination systems in place throughout government and the media. Hence its fierce opposition by those powers.

Of course I could be mistaken. Of course I’m exhibiting bias even though I wish I weren’t. But my discernment tells me here’s where the grace is, here’s where transformation is happening, and as that discernment is stronger than any other I’ve had in years, my faithful response is to run with it.

[via Theoblogical.Net]