God's Politics, or Jim Wallis's Politics? Part I

Being exposed to the more liberal strain of Christianity in college, I’ve come across some interesting ideas. I should state that for the purposes of this review, “liberal” Christian will mean liberal politically, not theologically. This review will assume from the outset that the reader is a theologically conservative Christian, as those are the only ones that should be reading Wallis’s book.

Since each chapter in the book is akin to an essay, I’ll be reviewing each one separately and posting them as I go. They will be out of order, as I find some sections more entertaining than others and therefore read them first. Until I figure out how to post them as PDF files, I will just copy-paste them here.

First up: Chapter 7: “Be Not Afraid: A Moral Response to Terrorism”

I was actually fairly impressed by Wallis’s statements in this chapter, up to about halfway through. In the first half, he paints a moving picture of his own response to 9/11, and correctly realizes that our responses to terrorism need to be deeply considered and morally just. He goes off topic at times, reverting to complaints about the administration’s domestic economic policies, but on the whole he refuses to submit to moral relativism and recognizes terrorism for what it is. Though he can’t seem to resist the temptation to take potshots against the US government for supposed injustices[1], he states that there is no morally justifiable reason for terrorism; that Bin Laden and company are not just out for a redress of grievances but want to create their own tyranny for the world. By saying this, Wallis gives himself far more credibility than many of his colleagues on the left who refuse to condemn terrorism because they hate the US.

Where Wallis goes wrong is his plan to defeat terrorism. He begins with a great insight that many people miss. He sympathizes with those in the Third World living in poverty, and rightly recognizes that:

Grinding and dehumanizing poverty, hopelessness and desperation, clearly fuel the armies of terror…Therefore, the call for global justice, as a necessary part of any response to terrorism, should never be seen as an accommodation, surrender, or even negotiation with the perpetrators of horrific evil. A serious agenda of global poverty reduction, for example, would be an attack on the terrorists’ ability to recruit and subvert the wounded and angry for their hideous purposes, as well as being the right thing to do…We must drain the swamps of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terror breed.[2]

Wallis could not be more right in this. Unfortunately, he fails to make the leap of logic that in order to do something about poverty in the Middle East, one first must do something about the corrupt and tyrannical governments that directly benefit from and intentionally perpetuate that poverty. He never elaborates on his poverty reduction plan, so it’s impossible to say whether what he wants to do would work or not. The fact of the matter is that most attempts at charity work on a vast scale in these countries fail, because their governments won’t allow them to succeed. Money intended for humanitarian purposes is simply stolen by corrupt officials. His plan to deal with this unfortunate reality, and therefore runs into the same problem that most simplistic and nonviolent solutions do—they are usually overly idealistic and are easily subverted by men with evil intentions.

The last section of this chapter is a 10-point plan for defeating terrorism. The first four are calls for moral clarity and consistency. His fifth point reiterates the plan for poverty reduction, which is quite necessary, but not in of itself sufficient. Points six, seven, and eight are admonitions against violence and war, and unilateralism. These will be addressed in greater detail in the next chapter. Point nine is an insight that eludes most pacifists—he calls for people to be peacemakers rather than just peace-lovers. Point ten recognizes that the fight against terrorism is indeed spiritual in addition to political, again something most shy away from for fear of being labeled a religious fanatic. Wallis should be given credit for not shying away from stating important spiritual truths.

UPDATE: I should say more about Wallis's anti-terror plan. He feels that the best way to defeat terrorism is to treat it as a law enforcement issue, relying on international cooperation and policing. This is all well and good, but the problem is that this is the way terrorism has been treated in the West for the last several decades, with no effect. Terrorists were arrested, tried, convicted as criminals, and sentenced to prison terms. The perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing were all prosecuted as normal criminals and sent to prison. This was greeted with ever escalating attacks, and finally culminating in the 9/11 attacks. Additionally, not all international actors are as committed as the United States to defeating terror. When one wishes to rely on the UN for counterterrorism, one must realize that the UN is populated by dictatorships that either actively support or passively condone terrorism, and will not aid or actively sabotage attempts to combat it.

[1] Wallis, Jim. God’s Politics: A New Vision for Faith and Politics in America. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005, pg. 97.
[2] Ibid, pgs. 99-100