A New Day

After probably a year of reading God’s Politics (okay, not that long, but maybe 9 months)….I’m FINALLY finished with it.

A brief, brief overview.

Part I: Changing the Wind
Basically discussed the idea of spirituality and politics going together, and how God is not a democrat or a republican.

Part II: Moving Beyond the Politics of Complaint
While protesting is good/okay, presenting alternatives is better (aka, not “what are you/we against?” but “what are you/we for?”

Part III: Spiritual Values and International Relations: When did Jesus become Pro-War?
Not responding out of fear, theology of empire, alternatives to war, peacemakers, curing causes, not just symptoms.

Part IV: Spiritual Values and Economic Justice: When did Jesus become Pro-rich?
Poverty- a biblical response; Left and Right working together to help eliminate poverty, budgets being moral documents, global poverty

Part V: Spiritual Values and Social Issues: When did Jesus become a Selective Moralist?
Having a consistent ethic of life (abortion, capital punishment, etc), racism in America and Family/Community Values

Part VI: Spiritual Values and Social Change
Hope vs. Cyniscism– let’s not just be cynical about the world, because that cynicism comes from a hopeless heart, instead, let us have hope that God can use us to bring help others around us, and that God uses His Church to change things. Let love compel (or propel ) us.

My favorite part of the book was probably the last chapter, just because it was very energizing and it shot down all those cynics that are on both sides of the lines (red and blue)….that God is Sovereign and He chooses to use you and I to bring about His Will…it’s just the way He designed it.  And we need to not trust in political systems, but trust Him.

Ways in which I am changed after reading this book:
1.  I now see ALL issues as moral issues, not just the ones the Right calls moral issues.  Not just abortion and homosexual rights and family values and those stereotypical Right issues, but also helping the poor, capital punishment, the way we spend money as a country, war, enviornment, etc.  It opened up my eyes to the lie that I was believing that some topis were “moral” and others weren’t.

2. I’m much much much more aware of the problem of low minimum wage and how people can work at minimum wage and still not have enough money to have shelter and food for their children and DEFINITELY not health care, higher education, vehicles and luxuries of the sort.  The economic state that we are in is messed up and caters to the rich.  Health care is a huge deal. Something like 41% of MIDDLE CLASS families do not have health care.  This, my friends, is a problem. For some reason, health care is viewed as a privilege in America, and not as a right.  This one issue puts many on the street (homelessness) because something significant goes wrong and they don’t have healthcare. I, in fact, am one of these people who don’t have it. If I get pregnant, we are in thousands dollars of debt (approx. $30,000-40,000 when all is said and done).

Wallis raises some really good questions and gives quite a bit of interesting information/facts/figures that I had never heard of before reading this book.  sometimes he gets a little wordy and says the same things over again, but for the most part, it’s a good read.  even if you don’t agree with everything he says (and i dont think you will), it’s good for dialogue.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Ideators, culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.