What Gives You the Authority to Speak for "The Faith Community"? Or Is This Just Your Latest PR Stunt?
This is from the Sojourners' website.
My comments are in the indented block quotes.
On Monday, November 21, Jim Wallis and 45 National Faith Leaders will hold a Faith Summit on Poverty. There will be a press availability with Jim Wallis and other faith leaders at 12 noon- 1:00PM at Jury's Hotel, 1500 New Hampshire Ave., Washington, D.C. Contact Jack Pannell, 202/745-4614 for more information.
A meeting of 45 people is not what I would call a mass movement.
STATEMENT BY JIM WALLIS:
The prophet Isaiah said: "Woe to you legislators of infamous laws & who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan." Today, I repeat those words.
The prophet Isaiah was condemning active oppression by the rulers. He was not speaking about reductions in welfare spending by the civil government. This is because the Mosaic law did not authorize welfare spending by the civil government.
When our legislators put ideology over principle, it is time to sound the trumpets of justice and tell the truth.
"Ideology" is a code word for "principles that I don't like."
It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty.
In other words, private property is a moral disgrace. Trying to keep some of your money away from the State bureaucrats is therefore immoral. This is guilt-manipulation for political power's sake. It is the Social Gospel in action.
This is not what America is about, not what the season of Thanksgiving is about, not what loving our neighbor is about, and not what family values are about. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget reconciliation bill that diminishes our compassion, as Jesus said, "for the least of these." It is morally unconscionable to hide behind arguments for fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. It is dishonest to stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business. It is one more example of an absence of morality in our current political leadership.
For Jim Wallis, morality grows out of the barrel of a tax collector's gun. It is therefore immoral to reduce the percentage of your income that middle-class government bureaucrats will extract to cover their salaries in the name of the poor.
Budgets are moral documents that reflect what we care about.
Indeed, they are!
Budget and tax bills that increase the deficit put our children's futures in jeopardy -- and they hurt the vulnerable right now. The choice to cut supports that help people make it day to day in order to pay for tax cuts for those with plenty goes against everything our religious and moral principles teach us. It says that leaders don't care about people in need. It is a blatant reversal of biblical values -- and symbolizes the death of compassionate conservatism.
If only this were true. "Compassionate conservatism" is a political slogan justifying confiscation by the State in the name of Jesus. But such is not to be. The cuts will not amount to much. Federal government spending on welfare will not fall. It rarely does. It did under Clinton, however. I don't recall hearing you designate Clinton as immoral for this budget-cutting. But maybe you did. If so, it's time for you to condemn the 2005 vote as the fruit of Bill Clinton's vision: "to end welfare as we have known it" -- a slogan that he tried to fulfill.
The faith community is outraged and is drawing a line in the sand against immoral national priorities. It is time to draw that line more forcefully and more visibly.
What, precisely, is the "faith community"? How large is it? Where did you get the authority to speak for it? You don't speak for me. Am I and the charities I support to be defined as "not the true faith community"?
I applaud those House members who have stood up for better budget priorities and fought hard all year to keep issues of basic fairness at the forefront of this debate. And I thank those on both sides of the aisle who stood up and did the right thing in voting against this bill, despite pressure from the House leadership. These strong voices provide some hope for getting beyond an ideology that disregards the role of government for the common good.