Reflections from the Heart

Okay. I admit it. I am a liberal, progressive, left-wing radical. I have been a "Liberal" ever since I protested against the Vietnam War and the Kent State massacre on the University of Denver campus in the spring of 1970. Not withstanding a four-year stint in the Navy (my attempt to avoid the Vietnam draft), I have always found myself on the left side of U.S. politics. As the years have progressed I have consistently been aligned with liberals in every political issue debated. I have even spawned liberals as witnessed by my daughter's active campaigning for John Kerry in the small towns of Iowa this last fall and by my son's adamant involvement in underground music. (If you mistakenly feel that the only true protest music ever to emanate from the hearts of mankind came from Woodstock, you should try listening to Anti-Flag, Propagandhi, Bad Religion, and Travisty and the Screw Ups.)

So it is with this true confession firmly established that I have begun reading Jim Wallis' book, "God's Politics." Of course I purchased his book because, as a progressive Christian, I felt a need to repair the damage to my Christian faith caused by the ostracism of the religious right in the election last fall. I was certain that finding like-minded Christians would help me to rally around the foundation of my faith and to give meaning and purpose to those tenets of Christ's teachings that I feel truly address the ills of society we face. Jesus was a healer and a forgiver. As followers of Christ we are called to be like Him in every respect. The self-righteous and narrow-minded attitudes of the Christian Right, in my opinion, are killing the essence of Christianity. It was in the reading of Jim Wallis' book that I was to experience justification and confirmation. As Jim puts it, it was to take back the faith that had been stolen from me by the Right-wing political agenda.

However, the aspect of Jim's book that points a finger in my direction and says I don't get it, has stirred within me a rumbling of uneasiness. What do you mean the Left doesn't get it? Most of us on the Left are very certain that it is the Right that doesn't get it. After all, they're the ones who have narrowed the 'sanctity of life' to a single litmus-test issue called abortion and in so doing have closed the world's mind to issues of poverty, health, war, and capital punishment as they pertain to the holiness of life. Isn't it the Right that has closed its doors to loving forgiveness and acceptance of all people by railing against homosexuality and the evil empires of darkness? Aren't they the ones who are focused on exploding personal wealth and theocratic patriotism at the cost of the global environment and with indifference to the burgeoning masses throughout the rest of the world?

The Left is right! And we have to find ways to move the world back into our ways of reason - or at least that is the way we tend to think.

I have not finished reading Jim's book at this writing but I am beginning to catch a glimpse of his vision that calls us to move from a Left vs Right approach. If we continue to rally ourselves around the Progressive Banner, we are no different then those we criticize. We too, become self-righteous bigots. We too, become too focused on our agenda and lose sight of God's agenda. We too, become the problem and not the solution.

Jim calls us to fight fundamentalism by becoming more faithful. If society is better served by Christian love, then we should become more loving. If the world is to move towards peace and reconciliation, then we need to study the Bible more earnestly and pray more fervently. Should we chose to take on the political agenda of the Christian Right then we will need to do so with a sound Biblical base, one that is wholly conclusive of all Christ's teachings, not just those that justify our beliefs.

It is with this new vision creeping into my mind that I have changed the name of this blog. It is my intent to no longer point fingers at the Christian Right and glorify the positions of the Christian Left. From now on my focus will be on the matters of the heart because, as doing so, it just may be possible that I will be focused where Christ wants me to be focused. Jim puts it this way: "We should talk less about the ideological categories of Left and Right, and more about what kind of people we want to be, what kind of community, what kind of world."¹

Jim, I disagree - it is all about the type of people, community, and world God wants us to be.

¹"God's Politics - Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it" by Jim Wallis, Copyright © 2005, publishers HarperSanFrancisco a division of HarpersCollins Publishers, pp. 68.