Why the Time is Right for God’s Politics
Richard Pierard Wednesday, 1 March 2006
Jim Wallis, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005). 416 pp. $25.95.
Due to unwise political commitments by its leaders, American evangelicalism is in a crisis. In the past evangelicals played leading roles in the abolitionist movement, prairie populism, promoting urban relief and reform measures, and even prohibition. Fundamentalism muted its social vision but the post-World War II "new evangelicals" tried to restore this. They made a serious mistake, however, by linking conservative theology with conservative political and socio-economic views, a marriage which I labeled some years ago as an "unequal yoke." Thus, they were largely on the sidelines in the struggles over the vital issues of the later 20th century—war, poverty, racism, and environmental protection.
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