Jim Wallis Talks Faith's Role In Politics, Gay Marriage And Immigration

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/jim-wallis-faith-politics-immigration_n_3024458.html

Jaweed Kaleem

Posted: 04/05/2013 7:59 pm EDT | Updated: 04/06/2013 12:11 pm EDT

NEW YORK -- A little over a year ago, during some of the most heated moments of the presidential election, the Rev. Jim Wallis went on a three-month sabbatical.

The president and founder of Sojourners magazine and the progressive Christian organization of the same name, Wallis is one of the most politically active religious leaders in Washington, D.C., a familiar figure on Capitol Hill who has spent decades lobbying politicians from a liberal evangelical perspective on poverty issues. More recently, he has been a key member of influential Christian groups in the Beltway pushing for immigration reform, gun control and environmental protections.

But last January, he stopped doing interviews, going on television and speaking on the radio.

"I'd get up early, have some quiet space, exercise and write all day and read all day and I'd watch the news cycle at night. The more I did, the most depressed I got," explained Wallis, who visited The Huffington Post newsroom on Friday to discuss the book he penned during his time off, On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned about Serving the Common Good. "The vitriol. The screaming. The polarization. The paralyzation. The hate. The fear. And I thought we've lost something really significant, this ancient idea called the common good."

more at link

[We People]

1. He's right - the Common Good is more & more a foreign concept in the U.S.

More like an alien concept, since it's rarely taught, verbalized, or discussed anywhere in the general public. Even the word "public" carries a kind of stigma because that concept has been marginalized and replaced by "the private sector" and "the free market."

Without that vision and experience, there's no real democracy in this country.

I mourn our loss of it every day, and I took it for granted all my life. It's tragic.

(Thanks for posting the article - bookmarked.)

[cbayer]

2. Welcome to the Inerfaith group.

I like Wallis. I have had issues with his views on GLBT rights, but he seems to be coming around on that.

The common good is a concept hard to find when a lot of people are under duress, but still a value worth reminding ourselves of.