On the God’s Politics blog, Jim Wallis posts some encouraging thoughts, following up on his suggestion that he and James Dobson debate evangelical political proirities. Wallis says:
In his letter [calling for the resignation of National Association of Evangelicals public policy director Rich Cizik, over Cizik’s emphasis on the global warming problem], Dobson named the “great moral issues” as “the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.” I [Wallace] said in my last blog that I believe the sanctity of life, the integrity and health of marriages, and the teaching of sexual morality to our children are, indeed, among the “great moral issues of our time. But I believe they are not the only great moral issues.” As many writers have been saying in this blog, the enormous challenges of global poverty, climate change, pandemics that wipe out generations and continents, the trafficking of human beings made in God’s image, and the grotesque violations of human rights, even to the point of genocide, are also among the great moral issues that people of faith must be – and already are – addressing.
Wallis also notes that the NAE just concluded its annual meeting, and that
The only mention of Rich Cizik, whom the Dobson letter had singled out and called upon the NAE to fire, came with these words in the official NAE press release:
Speaking at the annual board banquet, Rev. Richard Cizik, NAE vice president for governmental affairs, quoted evangelical theologian Carl F. H. Henry in his wake up call to evangelicals sixty years ago: ‘The cries of suffering humanity today are many. No evangelicalism which ignores the totality of man’s condition dares respond in the name of Christianity….
Speaking of a new generation of evangelicals that has responded to those cries, Cizik said: ‘We root our activism in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross and are giving it a proper temporal focus by emphasizing all of the principles that are found in the Bible. We come together in a positive way as a family bonded by the love of Christ, not as fractious relatives. We desire to be people known for our passionate commitment to justice and improving the world, and eager to reach across all barriers with love, civility, and care for our fellow human beings.’
Wallace senses that
the NAE Board, and its president Leith Anderson, know that a new generation of evangelicals wants that same sound theology and good balance, and believe that Christian moral concerns (and God’s concerns) go beyond only a few issues. Recognizing how their broader agenda is resonating with evangelicals around the world, the NAE announced that at its fall board meeting in Washington, D.C., October 11-12, “the association will host an ‘International Congress on Evangelical Public Engagement,’ drawing prestigious leaders from around the world to meet with American leadership around the principles of the Association’s ‘For the Health of the Nation’ document.” It seems the broader evangelical social agenda has solid support and is moving forward.
So, Wallace says, “let’s have the big debate; and make it into the kind of deep and necessary conversation among the people of God that it needs to be.”
Amen to that.