God's Politics

Take Back the Faith
Co-opted by the Right, Dismissed by the Left

Many of us feel that our faith has been stolen, and it's time to take it back. In particular, an enormous public misrepresentation of Christianity has taken place. And because of an almost uniform media misperception, many people around the world now think Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American? What has happened here? And how do we get back to a historic, biblical, and genuinely evangelical faith rescued from its contemporary distortions? That rescue operation is even more crucial today, in the face of a deepening social crisis that cries out for more prophetic religion.

Of course, nobody can steal your personal faith; that's between you and God. The problem is in the political arena, where strident voices claim to represent Christians when they clearly don't speak for most of us. It's time to take back our faith in the public square, especially in a time when a more authentic social witness is desperately needed.

The religious and political Right gets the public meaning of religion mostly wrong -- preferring to focus only on sexual and cultural issues while ignoring the weightier matters of justice. And the secular Left doesn't seem to get the meaning and promise of faith for politics at all-mistakenly dismissing spirituality as irrelevant to social change. I actually happen to be conservative on issues of personal responsibility, the sacredness of human life, the reality of evil in our world, and the critical importance of individual character, parenting, and strong "family values." But the popular presentations of religion in our time (especially in the media) almost completely ignore the biblical vision of social justice and, even worse, dismiss such concerns as merely "left wing."

It is indeed time to take back our faith.

Take back our faith from whom? To be honest, the confusion comes from many sources. From religious right-wingers who claim to know God's political views on every issue, then ignore the subjects that God seems to care the most about. From pedophile priests and cover-up bishops who destroy lives and shame the church. From television preachers whose extravagant lifestyles and crass fund-raising tactics embarrass more Christians than they know. From liberal secularists who want to banish faith from public life and deny spiritual values to the soul of politics. And even from liberal theologians whose cultural conformity and creedal modernity serve to erode the foundations of historic biblical faith. From New Age philosophers who want to make Jesus into a nonthreatening spiritual guru. And from politicians who love to say how religious they are but utterly fail to apply the values of faith to their public leadership and political policies.

It's time to reassert and reclaim the gospel faith -- especially in our public life. When we do, we discover that faith challenges the powers that be to do justice for the poor, instead of preaching a "prosperity gospel" and supporting politicians who further enrich the wealthy We remember that faith hates violence and tries to reduce it and exerts a fundamental presumption against war, instead of justifying it in God's name. We see that faith creates community from racial, class, and gender divisions and prefers international community over nationalist religion, and we see that "God bless America" is found nowhere in the Bible. And we are reminded that faith regards matters such as the sacredness of life and family bonds as so important that they should never be used as ideological symbols or mere political pawns in partisan warfare.

The media like to say, "Oh, then you must be the religious Left?" No, not at all, and the very question is the problem. Just because a religious Right has fashioned itself for political power in one utterly predictable ideological guise does not mean that those who question this political seduction must be their opposite political counterpart. The best public contribution of religion is precisely not to be ideologically predictable or a loyal partisan. To always raise the moral issues of human rights, for example, will challenge both left and right-wing governments that put power above principles. Religious action is rooted in a much deeper place than "rights" -- that place being the image of God in every human being.

Similarly, when the poor are defended on moral or religious grounds, it is certainly not "class warfare," as the rich often charge, but rather a direct response to the overwhelming focus on the poor in the Scriptures, which claim they are regularly neglected, exploited, and oppressed by wealthy elites, political rulers, and indifferent affluent populations. Those Scriptures don't simply endorse the social programs of the liberals or the conservatives, but they make it clear that poverty is indeed a religious issue, and the failure of political leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failing.

It is precisely because religion takes the problem of evil so seriously that it must always be suspicious of too much concentrated power -- politically and economically -- either in totalitarian regimes or in huge multinational corporations that now have more wealth and power than many governments. It is indeed our theology of evil that makes us strong proponents of both political and economic democracy -- not because people are so good, but because they often are not and need clear safeguards and strong systems of checks and balances to avoid the dangerous accumulations of power and wealth.

It's why we doubt the goodness of all superpowers and the righteousness of empires in any era, especially when their claims of inspiration and success invoke theology and the name of God. Given the human tendencies of military and political power for self-delusion and deception, is it any wonder that hardly a religious body in the world regards the ethics of unilateral and preemptive war as "just"? Religious wisdom suggests that the more overwhelming the military might, the more dangerous its capacity for self- and public deception. If evil in this world is deeply human and very real, and religious people believe it is, it just doesn't make spiritual sense to suggest that the evil all lies "out there" with our adversaries and enemies, and none of it is "in here" with us—embedded in our own attitudes, behaviors, and policies. Powerful nations dangerously claim to "rid the world of evil" but often do enormous harm in their self-appointed vocation.

The loss of religion's prophetic vocation is terribly dangerous for any society. Who will uphold the dignity of economic and political outcasts? Who will question the self-righteousness of nations and their leaders? Who will question the recourse to violence and rush to wars, long before any last resort has been unequivocally proven? Who will not allow God's name to be used to simply justify ourselves, instead of calling us to accountability? And who will love the people enough to challenge their worst habits, coarser entertainments, and selfish neglects?

Prophetic religion always presses the question of the common good. Indeed, the question, "Whatever became of the common good?" must be a constant religious refrain directed to political partisans whose relentless quest for power and wealth makes them forget the "commonwealth" again and again. That common good should always be constructed from the deepest wells of our personal and social responsibility and the absolute insistence to never separate the two.

I am always amazed at the debate about poverty, with one side citing the need for changes in personal behaviors and the other for better social programs, as if the two were mutually exclusive. Obviously, both personal and social responsibility are necessary for overcoming poverty. When this absurd bifurcation is offered by ideological partisans on either side, I am quickly convinced that both sides must never have lived or worked anywhere near poverty or poor people. That there are behaviors that further entrench and even cause poverty is indisputable, as is the undeniable power of systems and structures to institutionalize injustice and oppression. Together, personal and social responsibility creates the common good. Because we know these realities as religious facts, taught to us by our sacred Scriptures, religious communities can teach them to those still searching more for blame than solutions to pressing social problems.

But recovering the faith of the biblical prophets and Jesus is not just about politics; it also shapes the way we live our personal and communal lives. How do we live a faith whose social manifestation is compassion and whose public expression is justice? And how do we raise our children by those values? That may be the most important battle of spiritual formation in our times, as I am personally discovering as a new father. Our religious congregations are not meant to be social organizations that merely reflect the wider culture's values, but dynamic countercultural communities whose purpose is to reshape both lives and societies. That realization perhaps has the most capacity to transform both religion and politics.

We contend today with both religious and secular fundamentalists, neither of whom must have their way. One group would impose the doctrines of a political theocracy on their fellow citizens, while the other would deprive the public square of needed moral and spiritual values often shaped by faith. In a political and media culture that squeezes everything into only two options of left and right, religious people must refuse the ideological categorization and actually build bridges between people of goodwill in both liberal and conservative camps. We must insist on the deep connections between spirituality and politics while defending the proper boundaries between church and state that protect religious and nonreligious minorities and keep us all safe from state controlled religion. We can demonstrate our commitment to pluralistic democracy and support the rightful separation of church and state without segregating moral and spiritual values from our political life.

Neither religious nor secular fundamentalism can save us, but a new spiritual revival that ignites deep social conscience could transform our society. Movements do change history, and the strongest ones are those with a spiritual foundation. Most important of all is the spiritual power of hope, which may be the only thing that can finally overcome our too characteristic cynicism. Hope versus cynicism is the key moral and political choice of our time. This book is about the politics of hope.

The 2004 Election

Every week of the 2004 campaign, I did interviews with reporters who started the conversation by saying, "I am doing a story about religion and the election." And religion turned out to be one of the critical factors in the election.

That was demonstrated by a National Public Radio story in mid-September 2004 about a swing voter in West Virginia. Now in her seventies, this woman had voted in every election since she was twenty-one years old. But this time, she felt more conflicted than ever. She told the reporter she thought the war in Iraq was a mistake and was turning into a real mess. "We shouldn't have gone to Iraq," she said. "I feel Bush took us into that." But, she said, she liked the way he talks about his Christianity and brings his faith into what he's doing. On the other hand, "We have lost so many jobs in West Virginia," she said, and that caused her to lean away from the president again. But then she said she was with him on gay marriage and abortion. Her conflicts exemplify both the policy and cultural issues that defined this campaign.

When reporters started talking about the religious issues of this election being abortion and gay marriage, I often corrected the narrow perception that reduces all Christian ethics and values to one or two hot-button social issues. I talked about how poverty, the environment, the war in Iraq, and our response to terrorism were also key religious and moral values questions that were important to people of faith. That wider perspective always made sense to the reporters, and their stories took on a broader view of the issues at stake.

The coverage of religion and politics has begun to change. Some journalists honestly admitted to me that they used to cover only what members of the religious Right had to say about politics, because they were the loudest voices; but this year the media saw more moderate and progressive religious voices having much more visibility and impact and, therefore, some members of the press wanted to present a more balanced coverage.

Sojourners' successful petition/ad campaign—"God is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat"—probably helped a lot. It suggested that endorsing political candidates is a fine thing, but ordaining them is not—the way that some leaders of the religious Right named George W. Bush as "God's candidate" in this election and proclaimed that real Christians could vote only for him. Just making it clear that good people of faith would be voting for both George Bush and John Kerry in this election for reasons deeply rooted in their faith was an important statement. It also directly challenged the singleissue voting that comes from shrinking all our religious and moral values down to only one or two issues, and said that all candidates should be examined by measuring their policies against the complete range of Christian ethics and values. On that wider and deeper list of religious and moral values were poverty, the environment, war, truth-telling, human rights, our response to terrorism, and a "consistent ethic of human life" that included abortion, but also capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics, and genocide around the world. From the ad's August placement in the New York Times on the first day of the Republican National Convention to its appearance the weekend before the election in USA Today, with placement in more that fifty local city and college newspapers in between (often by local churches and student groups), the God is not a Republican or a Democrat campaign created vital and rigorous dialogue across the country within the religious community and beyond and became a significant media discussion.

Differences in how the campaigns and candidates treated the issue of religion in the 2004 election year were very stark, with the Republican Convention appearing at times to be a "praise service," according to religion writer Amy Sullivan, especially before the prime-time television coverage. The Bush campaign's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, made no secret of his intent to reach out aggressively to conservative religious voters. But in doing so, the Bush re-election team seriously overstepped the proper boundaries of church and state by suggesting religious "duties" that included turning over congregational membership lists to local Republican parties. That offended even members of Bush's own religious base like Richard Land of the Southern Baptists, who said such partisan activities were "inappropriate" and that he was "appalled" —an honest and honorable criticism.¹ In mailings to churches in some states, the Republican National Committee suggested that liberals (read Democrats) would ban the Bible and accept gay marriage if they were to win.

I have never seen such outrageous behavior by a political party in trying to manipulate religion for its own agenda while so disrespecting the faith of millions of other believers who disagree with the Republican political agenda. What do such tactics say about the Republicans' respect for the black churches, when the African American vote was again almost 90 percent for the Democrats? Is something wrong with their faith? Do black churches ban the Bible? The Republicans virtually claim to own religion. And the Democrats still don't seem to know how to take back the faith.

If the Republicans overstepped in their religious outreach, the Democrats understepped in their effort to be more religion friendly than they have in the recent past. Listening more carefully to religious voices both inside and outside the Kerry campaign would have provided more strategic help and public capacity in speaking directly to the important issues of religion in politics and seeking to broaden their definition in this election campaign.

To be fair, the Democrats, both at their convention and in their campaign, did try to offer a new open door to the religious community in important ways, and Kerry began to talk about how his own faith influenced his values. But Kerry could have done much more to speak to religious audiences, talk to the religious press, and redefine the religious issues at stake in this campaign by moving away from just abortion and the Eucharist, and including poverty and war. The Democrats should be much more willing to use moral and religious language in defense of economic fairness and justice. But they shouldn't make the same mistake the Republicans have made in trying to co-opt religious leaders and communities for their political agenda. Nor should they suggest that religious people have an exclusive hold on the issue of morality, thus disrespecting millions of Americans who have deep moral concerns about the direction of their country but no religious affiliation. The issue here is not religiosity per se, but rather the moral compass a political leader or party brings to public life. Religion is often a critical factor creating that compass, and therefore is an appropriate campaign discussion, but faith is certainly not the only issue. But, as a frustrated Democrat lamented to me after the election, "My party is still afraid of the 'G' word."

The Democrats' fledgling attempts to reach out to the religious community and counter the now infamous "God Gap" between the two parties have been steps in the right direction. But with its loss in November, there is little question now that the Democratic Party should move much more deliberately to embrace religious communities and concerns, to use moral and religious language to argue for social reform, and to learn from the lessons of progressive religious movements in American history as they advance their agenda for the future. In large part, the desire to affirm progressive religion is coming from spiritually devout Democratic elected officials, who feel they have been religiously disrespected not only by Republicans but even by those from within their own political ranks.

What did progressive religion have to say about this election?

Religious and political conservatives often raise the issues of abortion and gay marriage. I have clearly disagreed with the Democrats on abortion, believing that Christians can be both progressive and pro-life. I've urged the Democrats to be much more respectful and welcoming of pro-life Democrats. Someday, a smart Democrat will figure out how both pro-choice and pro-life people could join together in concrete measures to dramatically reduce the abortion rate by focusing on teen pregnancy, adoption reform, and real support for low-income women. That would be so much better than both sides using the issue as a political football and political litmus test during elections, and then doing little about it afterward. I also have strongly affirmed the critical importance of strengthening marriage and family and of supporting parents in the most difficult and important task in our society, but have also supported gay civil rights and legal protection for same-sex couples.

If the Democrats could take the opportunity of a political defeat to really reassess their language and style, the way they morally frame public policy issues, and their cultural disconnect with too many Americans including many people of faith, they could transform the political discourse. But it will require a serious reassessment. And if they are further willing to re-examine their positions on some of the cultural/moral issues the Republicans beat them with in 2004, they could virtually change the political landscape. If the Democrats could be persuaded by both good political sense and sound moral values to moderate some of their positions by becoming anti-abortion without criminalizing an agonizing and desperate choice, and being profamily without being anti-gay, they would change politics in America by giving permission to millions of voters who would naturally vote for them except for the cultural and moral divide they feel with Democratic language and policies.

But there were two issues in the 2004 election year that most tugged at my heart, worry my Christian conscience, and compel me to faithful citizenship and discipleship. The first is poverty, the second is war.

As the Bush administration began, I joined a small group of religious leaders to meet with the president-elect in Austin, Texas. To his credit, George W. Bush invited both those who had voted for him and against him. We encouraged him to commit himself to a concrete and measurable goal in the battle against poverty—such as cutting child poverty by half in ten years, as the British Labour government under Tony Blair had pledged. I thought a Republican president, in the name of compassionate conservatism, could make new progress on the critical issue of poverty, much like Nixon's going to China. I told him he should surprise everybody with an aggressive antipoverty agenda. I supported the president's faith-based initiative, much to the chagrin of Democratic friends, but from the beginning of the Bush presidency many of us have had a very consistent message: significant resources must be committed to serious poverty reduction, not just in a faith-based initiative but especially in budget decisions, tax policies, and spending priorities.

Two years later, a statement organized by Call to Renewal and signed by thirty-four Christian leaders across the theological and political spectrum concluded, sadly, that the president had failed the test of resources and priorities, which made our continuing support for his faith-based initiative increasingly untenable. Without the resources and policies to seriously reduce poverty, the faith-based initiative became words without backing, faith without works. A faith-based initiative could have been done differently, with the resources and policies to back it up, but this one has turned out to be a big disappointment, with policy failures such as the denial of child tax credits to low-income families that would have brought the biblical prophets to the White House lawn.

Other priorities were just more important to the Bush administration than poverty reduction. Tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy were more important, the war in Iraq was more important, and homeland security was more important—all without the key recognition of how poverty, despair, family instability, and social disintegration undermine our national security. A budget based on a windfall of benefits for the wealthy and harsh cuts for poor families and children is an unbiblical budget. The good people who have run the White House faith-based office were clearly not the ones making policy and budget decisions for the Bush administration. One result of the lack of White House leadership has been the steady rise in the number of people, families, and children living in poverty in each of the last three years, according to the 2003 U.S. Census report. And that is a religious issue.

In his speech to the 2004 Republican Convention, the president spoke about many important issues—education reform and opportunity, health care security, job training, support for low-income families and neighborhoods. There were new and promising directions in his notion of "an ownership society," which focuses on things such as tax credits, educational equality, and home ownership for lower-income families as an alternative to relying on only entitlement programs.

In an August 2004 article in the New York Times Magazine, conservative writer David Brooks laid out a vision for "progressive Republicanism" that has a clear role for the positive action of government to make work actually work for low-income families, with a whole range of wage supplements and wealth creation for poor working families.² There were signs of such a vision in the Bush speech. But the president failed to deal with how his central domestic priority, making permanent his tax cuts that most benefit the wealthy, will simply not allow such positive government initiatives—because of a lack of resources. The Brooks vision will never be possible if Republicans stick to their characteristic anti-government ideology that is so reluctant to spend money to reduce poverty. George W. Bush has not changed that mentality, but rather submitted to it. Until it changes, the poor will continue to suffer.

From what I have seen and heard of George W. Bush (including in small meetings and personal conversations I've had with the president) I believe his faith to be both personal and real. And I also believe that he has a heart genuinely concerned for poor people. But I think the president is often guilty of bad theology. On the issue of poverty, George Bush believes in a God of charity, but not a God of justice. And after September 11, George

Bush's theology became much worse and much more dangerous.

The heart and passion of President Bush's speech and of the whole Republican Convention was a ringing defense of the Bush administration's war on terrorism and the war in Iraq; and an attack on John Kerry as too weak, indecisive, and unfit to command, bolstered by the Swift Boat attack ads on John Kerry's Vietnam record.

In the furious August 2004 debate on that topic, the press eventually began to scrutinize the credibility and accuracy of those attacks on Kerry's military service (after the damage had already been done), but mostly stayed away from the most controversial question about Vietnam—whether the war was fundamentally and basically wrong, and characterized by the regular commission of war crimes. That's what the young and decorated naval officer John Kerry said when he testified to Congress after he came home from the war. I was a young antiwar organizer then. I still say today, thirty years later, that what Kerry said about Vietnam was true then and is still true now; and it was John Kerry's finest political hour.

But the election showed that our country is still polarized over Vietnam and is now polarized again over another war. There is no disagreement in America about the need to protect our families, our nation, and the world against terrorism and that this vicious and, yes, evil terrorist violence must be defeated. But whether that goal and our national security were advanced or whether they were seriously damaged by the war in Iraq is indeed the real and divisive question. Nobody was willing to take the word of a "madman," as the president has caricatured his war opponent, but many of us, including almost every major Christian body in the world, believed this "war of choice" to be unnecessary and unjust.

Even as an opponent of the war, I found the most moving part of Bush's convention speech to be the stories of his times with military families who had lost their precious loved ones. Those losses are heartbreaking for all of us (as the loss of Iraqi lives should be too). Spending time with those who have lost a brother, a son, a daughter, a mother or father, a husband or wife has been a heartbreaking experience for me too. But the most heartwrenching question is whether those deaths were, tragically, unnecessary.

Congress voted to give the president the authority to go to war, and Bush misused and abused that authority in why, when, and how he took America to war. Now we are in a real mess and George W. Bush should not be allowed to get away with the deceptions, incompetence, and consequences of this awful war. The war in Iraq was wrong from the start. A Christian president ignored the conviction of the vast majority of the world's Christians that the war in Iraq was wrong and that there is a better way—a more effective and morally consistent way to fight terrorism.

Bush's war in Iraq is the beginning of a long-term strategy of preemptive war and mostly unilateral American foreign policy that is both mistaken and terribly dangerous for the future. My older son is six years old, and my other son is almost two. If America's present course continues, they will be facing endless war in their lives, perhaps even still in Iraq and who knows where else. Many Americans believe there is a better way, including many people of faith.

The Political Problem of Jesus

I do lots of radio shows, especially talk radio—everything from conservative evangelical Christian and Catholic radio to black gospel radio, National Public Radio, drive-time talk radio, liberal Air America, and left-wing Pacifica radio. I was doing an interview with Air America one day when host Al Franken asked me about Jesus. He told me he was a Jew but not practicing or particularly devout, yet was sincerely puzzled over how some people could think Jesus could ever support tax cuts for the rich while the poor saw their meager resources slashed so dramatically. He just didn't get it. A lot of people don't.

I had lunch one day with the head of a major nonprofit housing provider for the poor, who put the question to me again, saying, "I am a reader of the New Testament, and I just don't understand how a right-wing economic agenda can be squared with the clear teachings of Jesus on wealth and poverty in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."

That's the problem with the economic and political agenda of the religious Right—most people know what Jesus said about these things, whether they are Christians or not. And the conformity of many conservative evangelical leaders to the political Right and its agenda that favors the wealthy over the poor and middle class just doesn't make any sense to them. They know that Jesus was not pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American, as we described at the beginning of this chapter. So why are so many conservative evangelicals oblivious to the teaching of Jesus, they wonder. Why do "family values" groups support the Republican right-wing economic agenda when it hurts so many low-income families? And how can some even claim that God is pro-war? Most people just don't get it, because they know that Jesus was on the side of the poor and the cause of peace. The politics of Jesus is a problem for the religious Right.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor," and opened up his own ministry by proclaiming, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (which was a direct biblical reference to the Jubilee Year in the Hebrew Scriptures where, periodically, the debts of the poor were cancelled, slaves were set free, and land was redistributed for the sake of equity). People such as U2's lead singer, Bono, see the contemporary relevance of such Scripture for issues such as global poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, and so do many of his young fans—so why don't others see it? In Matthew's twenty-fifth chapter, Jesus speaks of the hungry, the homeless, the stranger, prisoners, and the sick and promises he will challenge all his followers on the judgment day with these words, "As you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." James Forbes, the pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, concludes from that text that, "Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor!" How many of America's most famous television preachers could produce the letter?

In a world of violence and war, the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," are not only challenging, they are daunting. The hardest saying of Jesus and perhaps the most controversial in our post–September 11 world must be: "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." Let's be honest: How many churches in the United States have heard sermons preached from either of these Jesus texts in the years since America was viciously attacked on that worldchanging September morning in 2001? Shouldn't we at least have a debate about what the words of Jesus mean in the new world of terrorist threats and pre-emptive wars?

Jesus knows no national boundaries or national preferences. The body of Christ is an international one, and the allegiance of Christians to the church must always supersede their national identities. The words of Jesus stand as a virtual roadblock to any nation's pretension to rationalize and sanctify the preference for war. Jesus's instruction to be peacemakers leads either to nonviolent alternatives to war or, at least, a rigorous application of the church principles of just war.

Christ commands us to not only see the splinter in our adversary's eye but also the beams in our own, which often obstruct our own vision. To name the face of evil in the brutality of terrorist attacks is good theology, but to say they are evil and we are good is bad theology that can lead to dangerous foreign policy. Self-reflection should provide no excuses for terrorist violence, but it is crucial to defeating the terrorists' agenda. Christ instructs us to love our enemies, which does not mean a submission to their hostile agendas or domination, but does mean treating them as human beings also created in the image of God and respecting their human rights as adversaries and even as prisoners. And Christ calls us to confession and humility, which does not allow us to say that if persons and nations are not in support of all of our policies, they must be with the evildoers.

The words of Jesus are either authoritative for Christians, or they are not. And they are not set aside by the very real threats of terrorism. They do not easily lend themselves to the missions of nation-states that would usurp the prerogatives of God. The threat of terrorism does not overturn Christian ethics.

Also at issue here is the politics of fear. Jesus says, "Be not afraid," an attitude that could undermine the entire basis or our current foreign policy. Effective campaigns of fear easily co-opt anxious people—believers and unbelievers alike—and could lead our nation and our world to decades of pre-emptive, unilateral, and virtually endless war, despite the clear warnings of Jesus's own words.

The issue here is not partisan politics, and there are no easy political solutions. The governing party has increasingly struck a religious tone in an aggressive foreign policy that seems much more nationalist than Christian, while the opposition party has offered more confusion than clarity. In any election we choose between very imperfect choices. Yet it is always important to examine what is at stake prayerfully and theologically.

This examination among evangelicals became clear in the 2004 Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility, an unprecedented call to social action from the National Association of Evangelicals. In contrast to the Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson era, evangelicals are now showing moral leadership in the fight against global poverty, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, and sustainability of God's earth.

These changes represent both a reaction against overt partisanship and a desire to apply Christian ethics to a broader set of issues. Many people of faith have grown weary of the religious Right's attempts to narrow the moral litmus test to abortion and gay marriage. For example, when likely voters were asked in a 2004 poll whether they would rather hear a candidate's position on poverty or on gay marriage, 75 percent chose poverty. Only 17 percent chose gay marriage.3 Any serious reading of the Bible points toward poverty as a religious issue, and candidates should always be asked by Christian voters how they will treat "the least of these." Stewardship of God's earth is clearly a question of Christian ethics. Truth telling is also a religious issue that should be applied to a candidate's rationales for war, tax cuts, or any other policy, as is humility in avoiding the language of "righteous empire," which too easily confuses the roles of God, church, and nation.

War, of course, is also a deeply theological matter. The near unanimous opinion of religious leaders worldwide that the Iraq war failed to fit "just war" criteria is an issue for many Christians, especially as the warnings from religious leaders have proved prophetically and tragically accurate. The "plagues of war," as the pope has referred to the continuing problems in Iraq, are in part a consequence of a "Christian president" simply not listening to the counsel of religious leaders who tried to speak to the White House. What has happened to the "consistent ethic of life," suggested by Catholic social teaching, which speaks against abortion, capital punishment, poverty, war, and a range of human rights abuses too often selectively respected by pro-life advocates?

The religious Right's grip on public debates about values has been driven in part by a media that continues to give airtime to the loudest religious voices, rather than the most representative, leaving millions of Christians and other people of faith without a say in the values debate. But this is starting to change as progressive and prophetic faith voices are speaking out with a confidence and moral urgency not seen for twenty-five years. Mobilized by human suffering in many places, groups motivated by religious social conscience (including many evangelicals not defined by the religious Right) have hit a new stride in efforts to combat poverty, destructive wars, human rights violations, pandemics like HIV/AIDS, and genocide in places like Sudan.

In politics, the best interest of the country is served when the prophetic voice of religion is heard—challenging both Right and Left from consistent moral ground. The evangelical Christians of the nineteenth century combined revivalism with social reform and helped lead movements for abolition and women's suffrage—not to mention the faith-based movement that directly preceded the rise of the religious Right, namely the American civil rights movement led by the black churches.

The truth is that most of the important movements for social change in America have been fueled by religion—progressive religion. The stark moral challenges of our time have once again begun to awaken this prophetic tradition. As the religious Right loses influence, nothing could be better for the health of both church and society than a return of the moral center that anchors our nation in a common humanity. If you listen, these voices can be heard rising again.

From God's Politics by Jim Wallis. HarperCollins Publishers. Used by permission.

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