Mr. Wallis,

You are Democrat through and through. And a Liberal Democrat at that. Why be vague about that? Revival does not come with an altered Gospel. What happened in 1968 is that the hippies became liberals and they became the "progressives" of today. What's most fascinating is the lacking in the content of their character. It's all about excesses and permissiveness with them now as then. On the left, it is still 1968 with a PDA cell phone now. Watch the next Hollywood awards ceremony and see.

Posted by: Donny | December 18, 2007 9:11 PM

Do people who "favor...unlimited abortions" also generally favor unlimited, lying, greed, lust, pride, gluttony, etc.?

They must, because they oppose such things being illegal.

Posted by: D4P | December 19, 2007 8:12 AM

Thanks for your prayer, too.
....and why, exactly, are you an idolator? Perhaps I would know if I had read every post on every forum on beliefnet ;-)
Signed, he of the other blog
joyfulreality.blogspot.com

Posted by: Witness for Peace | December 19, 2007 8:59 AM

Ok then I'll be one, too. Jesus did this, David did it, and on and on. His will is that we should seek him and bring our requests before him. So your prayers ARE conforming to God's will. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and PETITION make your requests known" So call it idolitary--I'm spelling it that way 'cause it sure aint idolatry!
Blessings,

Posted by: Witness for Peace | December 19, 2007 11:23 AM

Moderatelad yes , we need to move forward !

I am not sure what Mr Wallis considers victory however , a democrat winning the election ?
Is his idea of diversity of Faith the religious right going away, just democrats winning elections ? I don't get it , the majority of years since 1968 we have had democrats with majorites in the Senate and House . We have had a Supreme Court for the most part siding on the leftside of social issues . We had a revolution in government spending and entitlements that appears to at least show you can spend billions on issues and still have those issues get worse .

Anyway , appreciatte your prayers . Our men in uniform , for our leaders , for those in need .
God Bless us , everyone .

Posted by: Mick Sheldon | December 19, 2007 1:45 PM

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 3:23 PM

'So it is no wonder that all the heartfelt prayers in the world for troops' protection have not been, and will never be answered,...'

So my prayers are a waste of time - I am wrong to ask the Almighty to protect them and keep them safe. I am not demanding, telling, bullying - just asking. So then I am wrong to ask God to stop the seziures that the son of a friend of mine is having. My prayers for my son and several of his friends that are traveling back home for the holidays would be better not said. My fasting and praying on behalf of our missionaries all around the world - don't bother.

Blessings this holiday season and I will try to remember not to pray for you and your family to have a great time together...
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | December 19, 2007 3:50 PM

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 4:26 PM

Instead, you consider Christ's commands to His own as foolishness, preferring to be saved by the "practical reality" of "Smith and Wesson" as you said earlier.

BULL - I never said that. (and it is Smith and Weston)

How do you know that the Almighty is not answering my prayers? I am one of 7 people in our church that each has taken a day of the week. We pray for the safety of the men and women from our small congregation that have been called into action in Iraq and Afganistan along with others that have been brought to our attention. To date - every one that we have prayed for has returned home to their family and friends. My list currently has over 20+ names on it and about 10+ have been removed as they are home and not scheduled to return.

I believe that is proof that God has been answering our prayers on behalf of the military personnel.

Blessings -
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | December 19, 2007 4:42 PM

Wow, That is quite nasty Mr truth . Praying for men in harms way is out of God's will ? Maybe protecting them will save more lives then not .

You can quote all the scripture you want , if you don't have Love , you really are missing out on the bigger picture .

God Bless,

Posted by: Mick Sheldon | December 19, 2007 5:39 PM

Truth your perception is as off as your theology .

Praying for a person to be free from harm on the battlefield has nothing to do with wielding any sword . That is so sad to only be able to see it that way . Even the birds have God's eye on them . Would you not pray for a police officer also ? Or only when they are doing something you would agree with , like protecting your loved ones maybe ?

The greatest soldiers from our culture almost alays are those in battle who saved lives .

Courgeous men who stood tall for peace have also died , would you comment on those praying for those poor souls as having a lack of God behind them . Do you realize you are coming very close to the Phelps theology .

A young kid , wearing or not wearing a uniform on a battlefield should have all the prayers possible by any man who speaks about our Christ as knowing Him .

I use my real name when I am having a conversation . I am flawed , I need prayer all the time , we all need to be lifted up and prayed for as those who I pray for . You choose who can have prayer and does not deserve it .

If you only pray for those you agree with , you must have a shallow prayer life my friend .

Reach out and love someone !

God Bless ,

Posted by: Mick Sheldon | December 19, 2007 6:47 PM

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 5:21 PM

'...mentioned that you prayed ONLY for a small group of soldiers...'

I don't - I pray for them all. Yes I have names, some from this site that are there or their children are there. But I do pray for all our military personnel all over the world and for victory in Iraq along with peace in the Mideast.

'...God is not only not under any obligation to protect them while they violate His will,...'

God will answer my prayers as He see fit. Just because I pray for protection and victory does not mean that he will. I believe as Charles Colson has stated that we have met the criteria of the 'Just War' in this case.

I believe that we should try to be at peace with everyone. But there are some that do not desire to be at peace with us regardless of what we do or say. They are attacking peace loving people all around the world and will continue to do so. I do not see where we as believers just have to lay down and let them kill us and others without protecting ourselves. They are killing more people than the Allied forces are in Iraq according to UN stats. They intentionally kill women and children where we avoid putting them into harms way. Yes, we fail at times - but we do not go out and seek them to kill them like the radicals have proven they do.

God does exsist - period. We live in a fallen world and sometimes that world has gone to war. Frankly - I don't believe that there ever has been a time when the whole world is at peace. As I see history, when the world has been brought into war, in the end righteousness has prevailed.

I love the old hymn...

Then pealed the bells more loud and sweet
God is not dead nor does He sleep
The worng shall fail - the right prevail
with Peace on Earth - Good Will to Men.

May we see an end to the conflict in Iraq with a victory for the Allied forces and the Iraqi people.

Blessings -
.

Posted by: moderatelad | December 19, 2007 8:48 PM

Chuck Colson is a confused man these days.

He now says there was an argument to be made that the original pre-emptive war did not satisfy Just War Theory after all. But, since a mistake has been made, we now need to stay.

Just War Theory was developed when Constantine made a heretical version of Christianity Rome's official religion in exchange for ending Rome's martyrdom of Christians, who through non-violence had come to threaten the empire's hegemony in a way that no armed foe ever did.

Thus began the church's Babylonian Captivity, where the imperial strain of Christianity rivalled and eventually exceeded the bloodthirstiness of all the pagan religions and apolitical regimes that went before, culminating in the mass atrocities engendered by its offspring in the twentieth century.

Any analysis of Just War Theory, which few invoking it have the courage to do, though they utter it like a mantra as if its mere pronouncement were a magical spell, reveals current policy drastically fails its requirements. But leaders had already secretly determined to go to war, regardless of either evidence or morality and simply sought confirming pronouncements regardless of the truth. Just War Theory was simply another empty slogan as grist for their mill as they clergy-shopped for religious approval in just the same cynical manner that intelligence was cherry-picked.

Colson has blood on his own hands as a proud, unrepentant marine officer - which predates his conversion - who still mindlessly considers the Vietnam debacle as just - a war in support of colonialism that at best was misunderstood as a Manichean battle between capitalist good and communist evil, when that is not how the Vietnamese people themselves viewed it. Four million of them died in support of self-determination at our hands, while 58,000 of us died trying to deny it to them while destabilising all of southeast asia and setting the stage for athe atrocities of Pol Pot in our wake. Yet today, we have most-favored trading with the same government that defeated us, and we don't see them as evil any longer. If only we had allied with Ho Chi Minh when he requested our assistance against the French colonials after their return after the Japanese occupation, when he used Jefferson's Declaration of Independence as anti-colonial Vietnam's model!

Colson has abrogated everything he once stood for in his Prison Fellowship, supporting torture of prisoners and undermining the constitutional protections for prisoners he once championed. As an old man, he has turned as callous as Martin Luther did, when he went from being an advocate of Jews to making calls for burning them out of homes and synagogues - which was eventually used as justification for Nazi policies by Lutheran and Catholic alike. Many of our elderly clergy seem to become rigid and angry as they age, a symptom well-known to occur in those suffering the early stages of senile dementia.

Moreover, as his co-conspirator John Dean has credibly outlined, Colson never admitted nor repented of far greater crimes of Watergate that he was never charged with, such as arson used for political provocation.

Here is one of the elderly Colson's recent theological non-sequiters:

"Reformer John Calvin called the soldier an 'agent of God’s love' because 'restraining evil out of love for neighbor is an imitation of God’s restraining evil out of love for His creatures.'

We are blessed that so many fine men and women are willing to wield the sword on our behalf in this country. But are we, in turn, willing to respect and honor those sacrificing for us? And if not, can we blame them if one day they decide to lay down their arms?"

[Colson might as well say, with the loathesome Lt. Calley, that he had to destroy the village to save the village.] Quite the opposite - we should honor and respect above all those who have the courage to lay down their arms for sake of conscience, instead of blaming them as men like Colson do conscientious objectors.

Note that Jesus Himself called us to lay down our sword, and warned that "he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword." Of course, with the angry, violent John Calvin, who burnt those who theologically disagreed with him at the stake, Colson has an apt model for his "reform" religion that identifies soldiers killing and dying on the battlefield standing in for Christ's own sacrifice on the cross, which is really just a Christianized update of the old pagan parochially narrow nationalistic military cult.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 10:14 PM

In reality, I have no enemy - except myself.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 11:47 PM

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 19, 2007 10:14 PM

Your assessment of Colson is...I'm lost for words. But that you bring up Watergate just shows your underlying hatred for conservatives and respect for people with differing opinions. As much as I disagree with Wallis - I would never have labeled him because of his views as you have Colson.

Not worth discussing any further.

As for Colson going to prison for Watergate - he went because it was determined that he had one FBI folder that he should not have had. Had he made the content public - as he has talked about decades later - it would have been determined that he could have it. It contained names of gov't operatives in other countries that if they were 'outed' could have cost them their lives. The Dems in Congress at that time knew this and didn't give a #$%& as long as they could by any means put another nail in the Nixon coffin. (something about Wilsons wife comes to mind - oh - she wasn't 'legally' an operative when she was 'outed')

Blessings -
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | December 20, 2007 8:13 AM

The book entitled "The French: Our Oldest Enemy" exaggerates quite a bit(at least the title does; I haven't read it), as the French fleet at Virginia Capes made possible Washington's victory at Yorktown. Not to mention "Lafayette, we are here!"
But for most of WWII the Paris government was allied with the Nazis, not us. The French fleet, although dispersed around the Mediterranean and N. Africa, mostly refused to escape and join the Allies in 1940, and in 1943 a battleship named after the pirate "Jean Bart" had an extended gun battle with the U.S.S. Massachusetts. The French finally surrendered to our friendly (?) invasion of North Africa. In other words, they were hard to liberate! So we owed them precisely nothing in Vietnam. Sadly, diplomacy is complicated, as you said.....

Posted by: Witness for Peace | December 20, 2007 9:07 AM

Posted by: Witness for Peace | December 20, 2007 9:16 AM

'...the French resistance was...'

But the resistance was different than the regular military. The resistance in many of the occupied countries across Europe were invaluable to the Allied forces. My family in Sweden supported many of these groups during WWII

Blessings -
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | December 20, 2007 10:19 AM

Bringing up Watergate doesn't show hatred for conservatives. However, if someone were to make support for the abuses of power that were part and parcel of the Watergate scandal and what it touched on identified with conservatism, then not only would it not be true, it would discredit conservatism. It's germane because right now, the dark spirits of Watergate animate the warp and woof of our own political landscape with some of its apprentices now the journeymen wielding the tools of power. Bringing up Just War Theory, along with Colson's now wavering support for his original 2003 justification, just has to draw in all the foundations and context that has led to that misapplication, if we really want to understand.

I was a supporter of Richard Nixon in 1972, naively so. Maybe I just liked his friendship with Elvis. In any case, what's true in retrospect is that the man who put wage and price controls on the economy was no conservative. When the truth came out that couldn't be denied, via tapes, investigations and all, Nixon was forced to resign or be impeached - with his key Republican supporters making sure he knew that they would be voting for impeachment. We can forgive Nixon, but he harmed the body politic and the precedent of him never repenting before he was pardoned gave the opening for some of his supporters then, now attempting rehabilitation of his imperial presidency, writ large.

I used to listen to Chuck Colson on Breakpoint for more than a decade, almost every day. I own the original printing of his book, Born Again. What can you say when a man goes off the rails? It's sad. What does appear true is that the Colson hubris reared its ugly head eventually - the same character flaw that got him in trouble in the first place. Colson's a wealthy, powerful man, who gave up nothing for Christ after all. His being born again in a showy way was probably the only possible way for him to regain prestige after being discredited. What is it about having a radio or TV platform that immediately confers respectability without any other qualification? Media figures become royalty speaking ex cathedra just by the rnge of their megaphone.

Now you say he never did anything wrong anyhow back then.

If he thinks that too, then his conversion is suspect, for without repentance there is no redemption. The probability is that the combination of advancing age, with its decline in his intellectual discernment, along with the built-in internal conflict of his trying to serve two masters, the militaristic nationalism he never repented of (which was the impetus for his Watergate sins after all), as well as Christ, came to a head during the war fever of 2003. Colson became an political apostle of war posing as a religious leader, though who appointed him is unclear. As the scripture warns, if you try to serve two masters, there will come a time when you will have to choose. Colson has chosen to compromise his loyalty to Jesus in favor of patriotism. It's a choice that we need to pray that none of us mistakenly make, by the power of the Holy Spirit. And may Chuck Colson see the error of his ways as well, for his own error influences others who mistakenly assign him a kind of unquestioning spiritual authority.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 20, 2007 11:48 AM

Mick Sheldon,

You don't seem to realize that soldiers of any nation, whether Christian or not, are commanded to murder the other hapless souls"

Yikes Mr. truth , to win an arguement you don't need to tell me what I know and not know . First of all this is an arguement that has no winners . I have a different [perspective then you

But for the grace of God those soldiers are serving in Iraq then you or I . That police officers every day are put into positions that their safety are compromised . God answers prayer , so I pray for their safety .

Truth says
"A soldier is not a police officer - a peace officer - regardless of your confusion. "

Often a soldier takes a role as a police officer when there is a riot , rneigborhoods that are in Iraq as of now . During a riot the National Guard will be called out in this country , your distinction between a police officer and a boy or young lady in the National Guard that is unable to have Christ looking out for his safety is a strange religion . What Faith are you ?

"Do you pray for our enemies as Christ commands?"

Yikes , you see soldiers as the enemy , but you say prayers for them go unanswered . But now you ask do you pray for the enemy ? Don't you pray for the soldiers in Iraq ? The civilians being murdered and injured by the terrorists , and the terrorists to know the love of Christ ?

Does not the enemy , American soldiers deserve prayers for their safety , not to injure others , but for safety .

You see a difference between a police officer going to a hostile neigborhood in order to protect lives then a 19 year old boy who has been exposed to X Box , Media Matters , Hanity and Holmes , and a strange culture that is in this country who has been ordered to Iraq and indeed has been in situations to save or perhaps as you say to take lives . You sit in judgement of his motives ? What religion says you are to do this , where have you read this ability is affordable to you .

Just as the police officer , I think it depends on what he is doing and how he does it . I bel;ieve you have taken the belief you have the motive of the person that is being prayed for known by you .

I see your point , not your love or compassion however .

Posted by: Mick Sheldon | December 20, 2007 1:44 PM

When an active war zone and soldiers engaging in firefights with each other is conflated with policing in America, then the militaristic mindset that's captured our society in its foreign policy threatens to engulf our own domestic freedoms, just as Madison predicted.

When everyone outside America is viewed as a real or potential "enemy," and policing inside the nation is increasingly seen as just another war theatre with militarized SWAT teams, then mounting violence, brutality and imprisonment with less and less legal protection should come as no surprise. We end up just as we treat others after all. Consistency has its own imperatives along the track we choose.

Many police and their armchair "law and order" backers increasingly adopt an "us vs. them" mentality and come to see the citizenry that don't live in just the soft manner they do as enemies - except, perhaps, the elite class they envy and from whom they take orders, and become increasingly distant and unaccountable to those they police.

As in the dystopia of "Blade Runner," "if you're not cop, you're little people."

The view you have of the policing function in America is dystopian. It sounds like American cities ought to be considered incipient ungovernable Baghdads in your view where traffic mistakes become executable crimes.

Saying the word "love" doesn't mean you're loving, sighting down an AK-47 to blow a "perp" away, or "wasting" criminals in a rush of inflated testosterone while popping steroids - as too many cops do, just like our baseball and NFL heroes.

Are you aware of the hidden steroid abuse in the military? It's epidemic there as everywhere else, as Christian morals fall away and raw power is seen as the ultimate arbiter of what's right.

Surrendering to living by the sword is a nightmare of national horror show dimensions. It seems not only are we fighting "them" there, we're going to be fighting "us" here.

Thank God for true heroes like Bart Campolo and their clear vision.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 20, 2007 2:16 PM

It's completely unclear how the military in Iraq are defending America first - unless it means, primarily, not taking any chances and killing anything that they think might be a threat to their own safety - even according to the Cheny 1% threat paradigm - since they are the only "America" in Iraq. That's why when a marine slays an Iraqi police officer, as just occurred, the US military locks up one hundred Iraqi police in response the primary mission of the military in Iraq is to defend itself and no one else.

Clearly, the occupying army are not police, for that is not the function of police, to protect and serve - themselves.

You say it's not murder - but that's just because
training teaches solders to be moral ciphers, no longer responsible for their own actions. They are told by chaplains that this burden is no longer theirs to be responsible for - that it is those in the command chain who now have the responsibility of moral beings. The soldier is not a free moral agent - in fact, free moral agency can be grounds for prosecution under the Uniform Military Code. Thus the moral responsibility is always pushed further up the command chain, until it ends - essentially, nowhere, as we have seen. The civilian leaders say they defer to the military commanders, while the military commanders say they are constrained by the civilian leadership, and the obfuscation is revealing that a moral quagmire has been recognized for which no one wants the guilt.

Nevertheless, we have walking wounded, who despite all the assurances, carry a clear sense of moral culpability for the atrocities they have seen or even perhaps participated in. No amount of semantics or legalistic posturing can eradicate that deeply seared realization when it comes, even if it's sufficient for uninformed civilians who prefer o look the other way, and similarly avoid moral choices.

A belief that a sufficient military might that can never be challenged, by either friend or foe, or even all against one, projected throughout the globe, is an argument in favor of worldwide domination and subjugation in pursuit of security. Forgive me, but I don't see how that differs in any way from the aspirations of any other national security states that have sought world dominion by subjugating others and turning them into satrapies. It is arrogant in the extreme to believe that the country one lives in is the one with the right to do that to all others, who will never be able to have their own wishes in the matter taken into account or be represented in the halls where their fate is to be decided.

This paradigm conflicts so deeply with historical and essential American beliefs about governance and democracy, that it will be necessary to forgo either imperialism or genuine domestic democracy.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 20, 2007 3:22 PM

Keep preaching Jim and have you read this?

Courageous Nonviolence
by Ron Sider, founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action, and the author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger

At the first Christmas, the angels proclaimed, 'Peace on earth.'

Just-war and pacifist Christians together can make it happen.

The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history. In Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century, Jonathan Glover estimates that 86,000,000 people died in wars fought from 1900 to 1989. That means 2,500 people every day, or 100 people every hour, for 90 years.

In addition to those killed in war, government-sponsored genocide and mass murder killed approximately 120,000,000 people in the 20th century-perhaps more than 80,000,000 in the two Communist countries of China and the Soviet Union alone, according to R. J. Rummel's Statistics of Democide.

It is ironic, then, that the 20th century also produced numerous and stunningly successful examples of nonviolent victories over injustice and oppression.

The best-known campaigns are probably those led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. King's nonviolent marchers changed American history. (The fact that the police and National Guard sometimes guarded civil-rights marchers does not change the fact that King's movement was overwhelmingly nonviolent.)

And Gandhi's nonviolent campaign defeated the British Empire and won India's independence. In contrast to Algeria's violent independence campaign, in which one in every 10 Algerians died, only one in every 400,000 Indians died in India's nonviolent struggle.

One of the most amazing components of Gandhi's campaign was a huge nonviolent "army" (eventually over 50,000) of Muslim Pathans in the northwestern section of India.

These are the same people we now know as the Taliban in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border! Even when the British humiliated them and slaughtered hundreds of them, they remained faithful to Gandhi's nonviolent vision.

THE REST:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/december/27.44.html

Posted by: eileen fleming | December 20, 2007 3:46 PM

I've just completed reading the comments through 12/20/'07@2:53PM. It seems to me that too often the very clear message of John 3:17 is forgotten, as are the many many other admonitions about "judging." God, the Creator,the Primal Source, et al., is LOVE. Our litigious society filling the court dockets with often petty grievances.
Jim Wallis expressed his prayer. As
prayer is always, in reality, our personal discourse with Our Maker; who are we to say "He is wrong?"
I've often said that the listener to
our prayers must get led to tears or laughter with our sniveling attempts to be "right, correct, humble etc., ad nauseam."
As difficult as it may be, let us each try to live up to the Great Commandment and quit judging our sisters and brothers of the world.
Why don't we try it?

Posted by: Elderveteran WW II/Korea | December 20, 2007 4:08 PM

Good Luck on your new book. From where I sit in Texas "The Third Way", nonviolence, seems dim right now.

Posted by: Jerry Bozeman | December 20, 2007 4:41 PM

Thank you Jim Wallis. Your "Prayer for 2008" is a model for all of us to keep the focus of living close to the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are a diverse society with diverse opinions. Diversity, like varieties of sound, can be a pleasing symphony. ----a retired Baptist minister and teacher.

Posted by: Quentin Sewell | December 20, 2007 5:03 PM

It's inieresting that you look back on 68. I was a teen during those times and remembered learning about MLK's murder and we high school students closed down our high school the next day. I agree that no matter who is president the door is open for change. Those of us who are progressive Christains need to sieze the moral high ground as did Dr.King so that major change can happen

Posted by: alex | December 20, 2007 5:53 PM

Greetings, all, and Advent Blessings!

I find Sojourner Truth's comments very challenging. And unlike Mick or Moderatelad, I think I can see that ST is not lacking in love for "our" soldiers (or "theirs" for that matter), but rather pointing out that Jesus taught time and again that violence is not the answer, and is not in harmony with God's will.

I don't presume to know what that means about how, or whether, God answers prayers for military personnel. I think our prayers are the yearnings of our souls, and if we yearn for the safety of these men and women, it is right and natural that we should bring that before God.

However, that does not excuse us from a hard examination of whether what we seek through prayer is in conflict with God's will. And while I'm not brave enough to venture into absolutes here, I think that we have good reason to doubt, given the words of Jesus in scripture, that military campaigns are what God wants for the world. And as Christians, we don't get off easily with the old playground defense: "He started it!"

On another note, I'm not sure, Moderatelad, why you chose to preface your otherwise excellent first comment with a reminder of a previous injury. It reads rather childishly, especially for those of us without the time to read every post and every comment section exhaustively.

Thanks, ST for your thought-provoking posts. It's rare that I really plough through such long posts, but this time felt rewarded with something really to think about.

Posted by: sangerinde | December 20, 2007 6:14 PM

The Original Sojourner Truth said:

"Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

"Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

"Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

"Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."

It seems to me that most folks desperately argue about irrelevant theology in order to avoid the real issues of justice and love.

Posted by: JWH | December 20, 2007 6:32 PM

Not to denigrate MLK or pretend his efforts weren't significant, but comparing MLK to Ghandi is like comparing an arrow to an intercontinental ballistic missile. Ghandi confronted the British Empire; MLK worked with the support of the Federal Government and was able to rely on established law. Ghandi freed one of the most populous countries in the world from colonial domination; MLK obtained some social advances for Americans who had suffered from discrimination. That's a far cry from freeing an entire nation from a powerful ruler.

Posted by: jsens | December 20, 2007 7:27 PM

1968 - Death of so many good men and women, RFK and MLK being two of the more famous. Over 50,000 more on that black wall in Washington, not to mention the millions of Vietnamese dead.

If RFK had lived the war would have been ended, not continued on and on so he could have a secret plan to end it to and get reelected - per Richard Nixon.

Many of us who supported RFK were not hippies as one commenter said, but having lived through those years and to see conservatives take us back to a war to further their agendas of hate once again makes me wish I had been a hippie, moved to Sweden and raised my family in a more civil environment. I did not, chose to spend 28 Navy years serving this country and as JFK said* I am very proud to have done so.

Thank you, "eileen fleming" for your remarks about the USS Liberty. The ship was manned by my fellow sailors and cryptology technicians - spooks - they knew too much and were killed by a ruthless government only to be abandoned by our own. I had three friends on her. They all said that our flag was flying, that the Israeli pilots even shot up life boat our sailors put into the water. Their goal was to sink the ship and have zero survivors. Only when the gun boats got there on orders to finish the job did the carnage stop - Israeli sailors looking eye to eye with American sailors could not do it.

To know what would have been had RFK or MLK not been killed is very hard to say. I do know by Reagan’s first term our country began to make a swing back towards division and hidden racism. Nixon started his famous “Southern Strategy” followed by Reagan’s famous speech on “states rights” in the heart racism at the time. He may not have been a racist, but he and his handlers knew the code words to appeal to those racist voters still angered over the voting rights and other equal rights laws. So just maybe with the next couple of elections we can start our turn back to what was good about 1968.

May His Peace be with all of us, Merry Christmas.

* ”Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think he can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction…’I served in the United States Navy’” – John F. Kennedy

Posted by: RandyT (USN Ret.) | December 20, 2007 7:48 PM

The Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words to express! LOL!

Thus... my corrected "prayer grammar"

For those who follow Jesus to be generous in forgiving others and to courageously "turn the other cheek," disarming those who would destroy, with love

For those who follow the Way to resist the temptation to seek godly ends through demonic, violent, anti-Jesus means that betray His Way

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus

Tim

Posted by: Duh-sciple | December 20, 2007 9:01 PM

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | December 20, 2007 3:22 PM

So - to the greatest generation that faught in WWII in the European Theater against Hilter and in the Pacific Thearer against Japan. ST would like you to know that you are all 'murders'. You are guilty of murder and the Almight will judge you accordingly. Not sure that there is any forgiveness for you as you are unrepentant of your crimes.

Did I get that correct ST?

Blessings -
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | December 20, 2007 11:33 PM

1968 handed us on of the greatest losses in American history with the assassination of Reverend King. He was so successful in affecting social change not just because of his message of change, but because of His never-changing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, backed up by his emulation of Christ's life.

In Romans, Paul, the most prolific writer of the New Testament, tells us that laws are powerless to set us free from the evil in this world, Dr. Kings knew this, and he knew the answer to the problem just as Paul wrote decisively in Romans 8:3-4:

"God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us." (from The Message)

Political change via law is important, but that will never truly change anything until hearts are freed from sin and are ablew able to live free, by faith in Jesus Christ and healing by His Spirit first! I wish the Rev. Wallace and his friends would teach this like Jesus and His Apostles did. First, point people to the Only One who can redeem the eternal problem of sin and death, then work for change in those whose lives are now able to live free from corrupt social behaviour. It cannot work any other way!

If you don't agree, please show me the chapter(s) and verse(s) that say otherwise.

Posted by: Dennis Anderson | December 21, 2007 12:05 AM

Thank You Sojourner T for your powerful and thorough arguments, both theological and historical. And thanks nad2 for the great Kucinich quote. There is not a single candidate other than Dennis with such depth and nuance of thought. This is not a partisan message, but what the Bible calls wisdom. I find Jim Wallis's confidence in mainstream democratic politics and vague populist discontent to hold little real hope.

Dennis Anderson, there are many lines in the prophets in which God speaks of being weary of religious obligations prayers and incense, that he wants justice. I believe your ideas may be meaningful at times but as a core theological premise, they are an inducement to passivity and self righteousness measured by personal piety.

As for John Calvin . He killed religious opponents who criticized him, who committed no crime of property or person. This is the ultimate logic of theocracy embraced by the dominionists.

The arguments against peacemaking all seem to invoke WW2. This was a war between imperialist powers about who would control global resources. The allies that fought Hitler had their own histories of imperial expansion in which they invaded other lands, murdered millions, and scapegoated and exploited the weak. They were OK with German aggression until it turned on them. Hitler was an expert at media manipulation, the techniques of public relations firms were pioneered in Nazi Germany. His propagandists used many of the same lies and fears which were used in Vietnam, Iraq, Chile, Iran and El Salvador by the US to justify invasions, wars , covert violent coups etc. Hitler hated liberals, Jews, freethinkers, and leftists. He loved capitalism, opposed abortion and used populist appeals to scapegoat those he hated. In this way he come to power democratically and then abandoned democratic processes for bullying and finally for his version of a unitary executive.

Fascism is not a thing of the past and it has little to do with skinheads and is not inherently antisemitic. It is a mixture of capitalism, militarism, strong man government, violent repression of dissent and a kind of populism which focuses on ethnic, cultural or national patriotism.

Posted by: jonabark | December 21, 2007 2:45 AM

I have great respect for you, Jim, but I must comment on the inaccuracy of the phrase 'election of Gordon Brown'. Mr Brown was not elected to the post of Prime Minister of the UK. He is there by deceit, trickery, back stabbing and disloyalty to Tony Blair. I know you know the parliamentary system works differently to the system in the US so please do not make statements that imply he has any kind of madate from the British people. If an electon were held today, the Labour party would be out on their ear and the Conservatives would be sitting in Number 10 - heaven help us. Mr. Brown is currently reaping the consequences of his thirst for power as one scandal of governmental imcompetance after another is revealed. If this man really is your friend as you seem to have implied on previous occasions, speak to him forthrightly about honour, integrity and honesty because he certainly needs to hear it from someone and his party cronies are too busy covering their repective backsides.

Otherwise, I also hope and pray that 2008 will be a year where real change begins to happen, that we will seek justice, learn to love mercy and most importantly choose to walk humbly with our God and with each other.

Blessings,

Posted by: ML | December 21, 2007 4:34 AM

Mr. Wallis
May I first wish you and your staff an incredible Christmas and a wonder-filed, blessed and hope filled New Year.
I read your prayer for 2008.
I want very much to pray that prayer with you
However I am not as optimistic as you are.
Please give me some of your hope and courage.
It is a bleak world and bleaker country
and most bleakest church.
In my heart, is what is in my voice.
No offense to Sarah MacLachlan, who sings plaintifully, " find me a river that I can skate on".
My words come out, " Find me a river that I can escape on."

Posted by: Dominic Fuccile | December 21, 2007 7:06 AM

Actually historically speaking King and Ghandi are quite comparable in ideology, practice and social justice theology. But I did want to correct one thing. King did not have the support of the federal government till much later. When he first started everyone was against him including conservative black pastors.

That's why Hoover tailed and taped him. They (federal, local and state) governments did everything in their power to discredit him and at times were complicit in assasination attempts. So again it is fair to point out and even compare King's dismantling of the caste system in America to the caste system in India.

p

Posted by: payshun | December 21, 2007 8:58 AM

Moderatelad,
Listen to the Gospel. When did Jesus, the nonviolent one, tell us to wage war to secure the peace? He told us to put away our swords and to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Tertullian, an early church leaders, said that when Jesus disarmed Peter he disarmed Christians. You might get swiftly dispatched to heaven as did many martyrs in the early church. But, just maybe, you will begin to change the course of the world from war to true peace. An acorn will never become a palm tree. Military might will never produce true peace.
Blessings of true peace

Posted by: Joseph Mahon | December 21, 2007 10:17 AM

"I am in agreement with you that war is wrong. But there are people out that that do not share our values or faith. Even though we desire peace and hate war - what are we to do when they attack us and kill our citizens? Are we to just sit by and wait our turn to be dispatched to heaven?"

Such a minimalist statement. Most parents want their children to grow up and be happy. It may look different depending on culture and experience but most parents don't want to send their kids off to die.

To answer your question yes. That's what the martyrs did and look at what their faith brought us. None of us would be Christians today w/o their brave sacrifice. Let me dispell the notion that they just sat around. They fled, they hid, the stood up to their accusers, were tortured and did not turn their backs on their God. Some watched their children be tortured and watched their children die w/o renouncing Jesus. So if that's what it takes then that's what it takes. It's better to do that than to drop bombs on innocent people.

p

Posted by: payshun | December 21, 2007 12:09 PM

Moderatelad wrote:

So my prayers are a waste of time - I am wrong to ask the Almighty to protect them and keep them safe. I am not demanding, telling, bullying - just asking.

Would you also include your "enemies" troops in those prayers? According to Romans 12-13, you have to.

Posted by: Kevin Wayne | December 21, 2007 12:51 PM

"A more spiritual option might be that Jesus was calling Peter to deeper faith in God. I think he is calling mankind (through the example of Peter) to trust God even when death is on the table. That's one of the ultimate standards of faith."

More manna- thanks!

Matthew 5:44
"But I say to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;"

Matthew 16:26
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Matthew 10:28
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Elizabeth Daniele

Posted by: Elizabeth Daniele | December 21, 2007 1:10 PM

Jim,

You are kinder and more of an optimist than I am.

Christ said, "You cannot serve God and Mammnon" and we live in a culture that has chosen to serve Mammon. And the developments that you talk about since 1968 show the results of that decision!

The fundamentalist evangelical church, by and large, does not confront that culture becuase, by and large, the fundementalist evengelical church (of which, by the way, I am a member) has become a civil religion in which salvation has been replaced by patriotism, the cross has been replaced by the American flag,and theology has been replaced by political ideology. Perhaps what we need is another Martin Luther, the young one, not the callous old one you speak of, who will confront the church of the 21st century with its departure from what Christ created it for and called it to be.

David Vignali

Posted by: David Vignali | December 21, 2007 4:40 PM