It seems everyone is going green these days – even churches. Government-funded efforts to get the gospel of climate change reform into churches reignited the ire of Fox's Glenn Beck, which in turn earned an attack from lefty evangelical leader Rev. Jim Wallis.
Wallis, founder Sojourners magazine, a ministry of the liberal evangelical Christian group Sojourners Community, accused Beck of assaulting “the gospel-based commitment to justice,” after Beck criticized President Obama's faith-based initiative act on his Fox News program [1]. Beck said the initiative was pushing a liberal agenda into churches through the EPA and claimed the new initiative was a progressivist effort to bring a “fundamental transformation of
Wallis retaliated with a recent column [2] on liberal blogspot Huffington Post, challenging Beck about the “biblical meaning of social justice,” in which Wallis believes. Beck's description of social justice as “a perversion of the gospel” and comparison of social justice to Marxism, Communism, and Nazism spurred Wallis' third column directed towards Beck.
Wallis addressed the growing oil spill in the
Wallis further portrayed Beck as a bigot who can't see beyond his own political viewpoint, stating that the disagreement “is about our faith, not our politics; and the truth is that your attack is really just about your politics.”
Easy words to say about others, but Wallis himself blurs the line between those two entities. In the column, Wallis supported his belief that “our role as stewards of creation that spurs us to take leadership in urging the government to do its part” by quoting, not the Bible, but the disputed report [3] made by Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships:
“Houses of worship can exert a powerful influence when they practice good energy stewardship and preach and teach about conservation as a moral value, it has a powerful influence.”
Odd that Wallis used a government report – political in nature – to buttress what he called a “Biblical concern.” Surely, if energy conservation is truly a moral value worth being preached like the gospel in
But with the lucrative career that Wallis has built by twisting commands from the Bible to fit his left-wing beliefs, perhaps his lack of actual Biblical support and blending of politics and faith should come as no surprise. After all, Wallis believes a socialist version of the Biblical gospel – that the gospel is all about the redistribution of wealth in society, as he admitted in an interview [1] with Interfaith Voices radio host Maureen Fiedler.
Wallis has molded the Biblical command to help the poor to fit the social justice gospel, which revolves around the belief that only the government can effectively solve the world's problem with poverty. Social gospel's dependence on government power is clearly evidenced in Wallis' own description of biblical justice [4]:
“Biblical justice involves standing with the most vulnerable, as well as changing structures, institutions, systems, and policies, especially in democratic governments where we have the opportunity to do so.”
The Biblical command to help out the poor and needy is not under question, the method of carrying out that command is. Jesus helped out the poor with his own individual efforts – he never pressured the government of his day to do it for him.
Like this article? Sign up for "Culture Links," CMI's weekly e-mail newsletter, by clicking [5]here. [5]