Gary North

On October 6, 2005, Jim Wallis drew a verbal line in the rhetorical sand. Congress must not pass the Administration's minimal budget cuts on welfare spending. Read my assessment of his challenge here:

The Senate passed the bill, 51 to 50. The House passed it with two votes to spare. The President will sign it.

This is always the risk of drawing verbal lines. Those who are supposed to be afraid of your line may ignore the warning.

When the warning is made by someone who cannot deliver the votes, politicians pay no attention. The coin of their realm is votes.

The Social Gospel evangelicals can't deliver the votes.

Mr. Wallis has remained silent regarding what his next line in the sand will be. When he comes up with a new one, it will be ignored, too, for the same reason: no voters.

This is the price of becoming a political activist for a movement that is so small as to be hidden in the error rates of public polls. When the poll says "plus or minus two percent," Social Gospel evangelicals disappear into the statistical noise.