GOP and the Poor

Mitt Romney says the darnedest things.

Take, for example, when he said, “I like being able to fire people.” Well, what he actually said was, “I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

Now he says he doesn't care about the poor.



But one of government's chief responsibilities is to protect the poor. Government is to protect everyone, but especially the weak against the strong: the unborn, children (where their parents fail), widows (if they have no family), orphans, and the poor (if they are genuinely destitute). The Bible promises divine wrath for those who "devour" the poor (Prov. 30:14).

But the poor who really are poor are usually forgotten, powerless, easy prey, and exploited even by the governments that are supposed to protect them. We don't have as many of them as some would have us believe, as the Heritage Foundation points out. But that does not make those who are genuinely poor, especially for reasons other than vice, people to be ignored.

See my Worldmag.com column on this topic, "Romney and the Politics of the Poor." I also have an article coming up in Relevant magazine that speaks to this subject.

Let me add two points.

Romney distinguishes between “the very poor” and “the heart of America, the 95% of Americans who are right now struggling.” The Census Bureau is certainly using inflated figures when it claims that 1 in 7 of us is poor, but the figure is likely to be higher Romney's 5%. However many there are, they are a serious moral concern.

The governor is right to be concerned as he is with the middle class. One would think that they could take care of themselves. They have skills, education, and desire to provide for themselves. But they need protection precisely against the government which hampers the economy with one hand and with the other shreds the social fabric by neglect and meddling. If government would just restrict itself to its proper role, the middle class would spring back in fine shape.

Ron Paul vs God on Politics

Rep. Ron Paul has much to his credit. He is honest. He is true to his principles. He is incorruptible. As for those principles, he is a faithful constitutionalist and so he holds to a restrictive view of what government should do. This stands in sad contrast to most government officials who view the details of the constitution rather carelessly. Dr. Paul, an OB-GYN, has also been a strong defender of the unborn.

But Paul holds these views from libertarian convictions, not Christian ones. He himself is a Christian, but he believes that one's faith is an entirely private matter with no business expressing itself in public policy. How does he know this? Libertarianism tells him so. You see what the controlling authority is.



In "Christian, why Ron Paul?" (Worldmag.com), I argue along these lines.

"Biblical government not only secures us in our lives and property so that “we may lead a peaceful and quiet life.” It also actively cultivates a moral environment that facilitates people’s ability to live their lives “godly and dignified in every way” and pass such moral habits along to their children (1 Timothy 2:2). Libertarians like Ron Paul deny this fundamental biblical political principle. As a result, Ron Paul’s America would look more like It’s a Wonderful Life’s Potterville than Bedford Falls. What is worst in us, unchecked and undiscountenanced, would flourish among us, freely chosen but encouraged by those who would exploit their neighbor’s moral weakness for gain."

Norman Horn of LibertarianChristians.com ("Can a Christian be a Libertarian?") argues for Christianb Libertarianism as a Third Way in American politics.

"Libertarianism treats man’s sinful nature realistically. James Madison famously quipped that if men were angels no government would be necessary. Christian libertarians take this a step further, saying that it is precisely because men are not angels that government must have extraordinarily limited powers."

But in saying this he neglects what Madison--also in Federalist Papers No. 51--takes very seriously: the need also for government to restrain the iniquity of the governed.

Joe Knippenberg at First Things ("Libertarianism and Christianity") cites both my column and the Horn argument before concluding:

Non-pseudo-Nietzschean libertarians have always struck me as somewhat Pollyannaish in their assumptions regarding the power—more precisely, the lack of power—of human sinfulness. They see sinfulness in government, but somehow assume that the rest of us will be “good enough” with only the most minimal restraints. What’s more, they seem to assume that a “merely individualist” public philosophy won’t have untoward consequences for our common lives together.

(As an aside, for this reason, I don’t believe that Ron Paul is racist, despite the newsletters that went out in his name many years ago. In this video montage, he makes a compelling case that libertarians believe in the freedom of every individual, regardless of race, whereas racism requires seeing people as groups.)

Vaclav Havel 1936-2011

The statesman of the Velvet Revolution is dead. Vaclav Havel at age 75.

Hear his reflections on the recent upheavals in the middle east.




Read his 1978 essay, "The Power of the Powerless," from Open Letters, Selected Writings 1965-1990.

The Pundit-People Divide Over Gingrich

A political campaign is an extended job interview. I wrote about looking at Herman Cain's appalling knowledge gaps from that perspective ("Cain Blows His Job Interview"). If you look at Newt Gingrich's candidacy in the same way, he should get a quick dismissal. Look at his references. People who worked with him and know him best are warning us in the strongest terms to stay away from him. Would you hire someone for senior management (or for anything) with references like that?

I review the application materials in "The Gingrich Gap."

Peggy Noonan calls him “a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, ‘Watch this!’” While recognizing his virtues and great accomplishments, she calls him “ethically dubious,” “egomaniacal,” and “erratic and unreliable as a leader.” George Will says Gingrich “embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive.”

David Brooks, a remarkably genial fellow, told Time, “I wouldn’t let that guy run a 7-Eleven let alone the country.” Joe Scarborough shares this judgment, calling Gingrich “an ideological train wreck and the worst manager this side of Barack Obama.” Expanding on Noonan’s “egomaniacal,” Brooks writes that Gingrich “has every negative character trait that conservatives associate with ’60s excess: narcissism, self-righteousness, self-indulgence and intemperance.” Charles Krauthammer shares this judgment: “Gingrich has a self-regard so immense that it rivals Obama’s—but, unlike Obama’s, is untamed by self-discipline.”

Most recently, an editorial in The National Review cites “his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas” when he was speaker of the House. “Again and again,” the editorial continues, “he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public.” Though that was then, “there is reason to doubt that he has changed.”

At the Fox News Iowa degate last night, Rick Santorum reminded us that when Gingrich was Speaker of the House in the 1990s, there was a conservative revolt against him.

It seems that the poor references are finding their way the the desk of Joe Citizen. Newt is slipping in the polls in Iowa. That is death to the Gingrich ascendancy. The Iowa caucuses are two and a half weeks away which is an eternity in this roller coaster primary, lots of time to join Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry in the reject file.

Newt appears to be scaring people to Romney. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, Mitt Romney has moved into the lead.



Mitt could take Iowa and New Hampshire, then roll on the the nomination. Mature, center-right administration would be a relief from the Social Democratic Revolution of the last three years.

Crony Capitalism Attacked from the Right

Crony capitalism is not capitalism at all. That should be the cry from the right.

And that is my complaint in last week's Worldmag.com column, "Crony Capitalism vs American Liberty." I quote GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman saying, “Capitalism without failure is not capitalism.

I draw attention to conservative former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, another GOP presidential contender, who has aligned himself with the Occupy Wall Street concerns. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe last week, Roemer spoke in defense of liberty when he said that “somewhere between Wall Street and K Street the system is corrupt. Here’s why. A big check gets first in line; everybody else is out of sight. This country is not fair at the top.”

Here is Andrew Klavan in a Manhattan Institute comedy video arguing that the socialist left is actually plucked from the same government-sucking ideological sty.

It's Bad!

Someone who appreciated my book and quoted it on his blog, D.X. Turner from Texas, has alerted me to this informative juxtaposition. The first graphic is a quote from Vermont Independent (socialist) Senator, Bernie Sanders.

Turner adds: " The truth is that entitlement spending, what Bernie conveniently labels as "the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor" is the primary driver behind the deficit." He then supplies this telling chart.

That little ball way over on the left hand side is virtually all federal spending that you can think of. You know, the departments of this, that, and the other thing. If President Rick Perry forgets to eliminate one, it won't make much difference.

The obvious conclusion is that our problem centers around two words: benefits and entitlements. Unless we unite around a plan to bring these under control, we are soon to be Greece, Italy, and the rest of them.

D.X. Turner blogs at Arguing with a Fencepost.

Our Latest Authoritarian Temptation

Everyone's approval ratings are scraping the ground. People are talking about a third party candidate. People have a low view not only of politicians, but of politics itself. But that means a low view of the mechanics and possibility of self-government.

In my column at WORLDmag.com last week ("Doubting Democracy at the Impasse"), I recount some recent developments that has turned people off in this way, and I give some shocking examples of some prominent people who toy with the idea of autocracy--just for a while--and who should know better.

North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue suggested that we suspend the upcoming election cycle so that congressional leaders would be free simply to do what is right for the country without having to worry about political consequences:

I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.

This brought to mind the public nostalgie du fascism of another prominent political liberal, multiple Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman, who just 18 months ago repeated ever so cautiously what he boldly published in his 2008 book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, that if we could just have Chinese government for a day, we could nicely Obamafy the country into proper shape, then go back to our usual gridlock.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I conclude, "In 1944, Judge Learned Hand described the 'spirit of liberty' as 'the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.' That is the democratic republican spirit. It is humble regarding oneself and respectful of one’s neighbor. Living by the rule of law is one way we express that spirit. The answer to political paralysis is not less politics, but more: political discussion, political involvement, and political accountability on Election Day."

Black and Tired

It is not liberal to be concerned about racism and about the problems of one particular race. Here is Anthony Bradley's promotional video for his book, Black and Tired (Wipf & Stock, 2011).



Anthony Bradley is associate professor of theology and ethics at The King's College in New Yorki City where I teach.

Failing Their Political Oral Exams

Here, Herman Cain fails his political oral exam. It is not a matter of failing an ideological litmus test. It's not a matter of tripping up on an obscure question, like, "Who is the president of Uzbekistan?" He is clearly not qualified for the job. He doesn't need to know what a president needs to know. He doesn't have the requisite experience.

He didn't know that China has nuclear weapons, though they have had them since 1964.



Now this obvious ignorance of what's been going on in Libya in 2011.



This follows Rick Perry's disqualifying performance last week.



That would get you bounced from America's Got Talent. Why not also the race for the presidency?

Big Government Inevitably Bad Government

The debate between the left and right in our politics today is a debate over the size and roll of government. Lisa Sharon Harper and I have the same debate.

Lisa dismisses this as a "mantra" and as a false dichotomy between big and small government. She claims that the real choice is between good and bad big government. But where is this good big government apart from in the imaginations of liberals?

In his review of Left, Right and Christ in World magazine, "Left, Right, Fight, Fight, Fight," Marvin Olasky tells us why.

Centers of power attract power-seekers who then attract money-seekers, and the result is a new ruling class: In a fallen world, equality of result is an ever-receding horizon. ... Most evangelicals also favor limited government and political decentralization, because we know both from the Bible and from history that concentrations of political power lead to oppression.

I am deeply grateful to Marvin for writing the foreword (with Jim Wallis) to this book. In his review, he has nailed the issue separating the two of us, drawing attention to why the tragically misguided Evangelical left is not just biblically wrong but morally dangerous.

A Cupp of Blessing

There are certain shows that authors pray will invite them to be guests. Oprah etc. The Glenn Beck Show is one of them. If Beck holds up a book and says, "Buy this!," sales shoot to the moon.

Well, thanks to the good offices of my friend Dinesh D'Souza, my co-author and I got onto the show on GBTV, Beck's highly successful Internet-based network. Beck himself was out of town, so SE Cupp hosted, and sales indeed catapulted. We went from #200,000 on the Amazon list to #7,800 just 24 hours later.



They even played the promotional video beforehand.

Lisa says the darnedest things in these situations, and does not realize just how problematic her views are. At the AEI event, she dropped jaws by saying that the Republicans take from the poor and give to the rich, whereas the Democrats take back from the rich and give to the poor. Yes, Robin Hood is the model for good government.

At the book launch we organized at Union Theological Seminary, she claimed that the high rate of single motherhood among black families is because black men are simply unavailable. They are either in prison or we have killed them in our wars because recruiters "target" minority communities. (Hmm. How then are the babies conceived?) That got more than a few people upset and bewildered.

At this event, it was her views on abortion which showcase her contorted attempts to remain in good standing in the Democratic Party and with her Democratic friends.

Here are some responses I have encountered:

1. "Does she always pull that bait and switch on abortion? One minute you are talking about when life begins, the next moment she introduces the “scientific standard” of viability, and then third she equates viability with when life begins."

2. "Fascinating discussion on abortion. I’ve never heard anyone say, essentially, 'I think abortion is murder, but if scientists tell us it’s not…well, what can we do?'"

3. "Some modest philosophical confusion: "Life begins before conception!" Ummm... And, the "legislate according to the lowest common denominator, which is science" argument was a really weird version of it. I have no idea what she was arguing there. She started by explaining how she needed to win the argument...and then ended up saying we ought to leave "religious" premises aside but lose the argument anyway (with life beginning at viability)."

4. "Lisa's "faith committment" in the public square on economic equality but not the protection of life in which she turns to "science" as the lowest common denominator is telling. First, science tells us that the human being is a human being. Second, we all were prevented from making such a case in the public square because the matter was taken out of our hands by robed men in R v. W. Third, would she be willing to use the standard of science on economic matters? No, because science (particularly social science) shows us the devestation brought on by the welfare state."

5. "Lisa Sharon Harper was confused about when life begins? Every medical book or biology book will tell you that life begins at conception. Lisa Sharon Harper said we should look to science when talking about this subject then ignores what science says. Lisa, life begins at conception. Science says so!"

Autobiography-in-Chief

As I was preparing to despair of having anything to offer as a column this week, I remember something that crossed my mind regarding presidential narratives. We put a lot of emphasis on it when choosing a president. Perhaps it's our democratic character. "Tell me how you're just like me." Or, "How American are you? Can you show how you've embodies the hope we all share as Americans? Perhaps a log cabin story?"

But hwere are the stories in this cycle of candidates?

So where are the narratives in the current Republican field? Mitt Romney? Fighting your way up from being the son of a Michigan governor to being co-founder and CEO at Bain Capital just doesn’t sing well. Herman Cain has a good story, working his way from po’ boy (his term) in Georgia to restaurant magnate and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. But his problem these days is too many stories.

So I review all the recent ones. Mostly the successful ones. It is interesting how many of them involve the abuse of alcohol. One might think that if you want your kid to be president you should start drinking heavily.

Read "Presidential Narratives" in WORLDmag.com.

Borger on my Book

Byron Borger at Hearts and Minds Books, gives this review of Left, Right and Christ. Actually, it's more of a notice than a critical review.

Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics Lisa Sharon Harper & D.C. Innes (Russell Media) $22.99 As the election season proceeds I am sure I will revisit this often, drawing on each author's important points as I write, teach, and talk about a Christian perspectives on politics. Perhaps it will serve you in such a way as well. As you might guess, this is a co-authored debate-style book, with a Christian who is a committed Democrat and a Christian who is a committed Republican each explaining how their faith and Biblical insights compel them to align themselves (even if always provisionally, as they both insist) towards more-or-less liberal or conservative public policies. D.C. Innes is a popular professor of political science at The Kings College in New York (and an Orthodox Presbyterian minister) while Ms Harper is an activist for Sojourners in DC who has worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Marvin Olasky writes one forward to the LR&C; he is known for his insistence on a stauchly conservative Christian worldview (he writes often for World magazine) and he writes here "If this isn't a conversation starter for Christians, than nothing else will be." Jim Wallis of Sojourners has another forward, again noting that this book will certainly stimulate good discussion and deep thinking. I hope to write more carefully about this book in the future but don't wait for my input. You get the point: this is ideal for book clubs, conversation-starters, to tweak our ideas by reading more than just one viewpoint, to give to that person who just doesn't get your viewpoint.

There are six or seven endorsements on the inside, each by folks I really respect (who hold to pretty diverse socio-political viewpoints, in fact, from Carl Trueman and John Armstrong to Jonathan Merritt and Nicole Baker Fulgham. David Gushee says "One might have thought there was nothing new to say in or about this burnt-over disctrict, but in their sharp, yet civil, dialogue Innes and Harper offer provocative and creative new reflections." Thanks to Mark Russell for his good work in shepherding this project and for designing such an attractive, clear, fair-minded, interesting, contemporary book. Here's a fun video piece they did to capture the usefulness of this vibrant conversation. Enjoy.

Notice how the advertisement at the end says something like "wherever fine books are sold." We would be one of those places. As I hope you know we care about these very fine books and stock them because we think they will helpful to you and yours. Let us know what you think, and use the handy link to the order page.

Theology, Philosophy and Policy

The full, hour-long video of my American Enterprise Institute "Values and Capitalism" luncheon event for Left, Right and Christ has been posted.



Along with it is a nice article by Elise Amyx describing the exchange between Lisa and me. She has this nice reflection on the wild leaps that Lisa Sharon Harper makes from which she finds in Scripture to the public policies she confidently advocates.

Political philosophy is where theology and policy meet; it is where the two worlds are reconciled, yet Harper jumps the gun and avoids the “high level battle of ideas.” Her argument is seemingly aligned, but not soundly intertwined. Because she approaches policy from a consequentialist view, she has failed to recognize the political philosophy implied by the policies she supports, which is not solely theological but rather one of “big government.”

Clearly, her James Madison University education has served her well.

Cain's Truth Issue

The aspect of the Herman Cain controversy that concerns me most at this point, since nothing is proven and accusers are anonymous, is the candidate's lying responses.

Cain told the National Press Association—with cameras running and with the nation watching—“I am not aware of a settlement.” But later he described in detail the legal and financial settlement the National Restaurant Association reached with a particular woman on his behalf. It didn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d forget. Defending himself against the contradiction, Cain quibbled over specific terms, like settlement as opposed to agreement. It seemed unsettlingly Clintonian.

In "Trusting Cain" (Worldmag, November 3, 2011), I argue that the civic relationship, like any relationship--like friendship, marriage, or even business--has trust at its center. Politicians should guard it like gold. Few of them do.

If Cain were a good politician, which he prides himself on not being, he would understand that the American people are a very forgiving people. If from the start he had said that he did some terrible things back then and that he has repented of those things and God has forgiven him, and then called voters also to forgive them, I have no doubt they would. But instead he went the usual lies and cover-up route.

I'm not impressed. But I have never been impressed.

Innes and Harper at AEI

Friday was a big day. I took the Acela down to DC to speak at a luncheon event at the American Enterprise Institute. They invited me and my co-author, Lisa Sharon Harper of Sojourners, to speak about our book, Left, Right and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics. We each spoke for about 15 minutes and then took questions. AEI has released five clips from our remarks. Here are my two.

In this one I talk about God's purpose in establishing government.



In this one, I state that a more fully Christian view of government is that it must secure not only individuals, but families and the fabric of cummunities in general.



Here they catch Lisa in her astonishing Robin Hood view of the Republicans and the Democrats. When she was a girl in 1976, she followed her mother around campaigning for Jimmy Carter. "Why are we Democrats, Mom?," she asked. Mom said that whereas the Republicans take money from the poor and give it to the rich, the Democrats take back from the rich and give it to the poor. "It stuck," she said.



Yup. Apparently it's that simple. Politics is the practice of plunder and counter-plunder. That view is not unique to my co-author. It is the standard, Sojourners, left-wing Evangelical view. For this reason, I think that Left, Right and Christ is a valuable book for setting side-by-side the poilitical alternatives for the Evangelical community.

Update: Here is the whole hour! Jaw dropping moments here.



Here we are the same day on Fox's Lauren Green Show.

More Weirdness from Herman Cain

Here is another reason that you don't put someone up for President who has never held elected office. This new Herman Cain ad is just plain weird. Who puts his campaign manager in a testimonial ad? And if you did, why would you let him blow smoke at the camera? And then Cain's creepy grin? What was that supposed to accomplish?



Will the Tea Party do for America what they did for Nevada (nominate the erratic and unelectable Sharron Angle) and Delaware (nominate the utterly incompetent and unelectable Christine O'Donnell), giving us ruinous, far left government?

Mitch Daniels, where are you?

Left, Right and Occupy Wall Street

People are comparing the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street. Okay. Let's do that.

Tea Party people have jobs and families.  The Occupy Wall Street crowd is peopled largely by scruffy college students and full-time radicals with no clue as to how things really work. No one gets arrested at Tea Party rallies. There is no public copulation or distribution of condoms. I don't recall a theme of anti-semitism at Tea Party rallies. Not like this woman at an L.A. Occupy Wall Street west coast spin-off. 



Tea Partiers have no record of issuing death threats to their opponents. 

Like this:

we are going to sow the kind of choas [sic] you are unequipped to deal with,” the email said. “And you’re going to find yourself in a country where you and your wealthy friends are gonig [sic] to be hunted.”

...and...

“Let me slit your throat you corporate whore ... I would slaughter your family as well if given the chance.”

Now where were we? Oh yes...No one in the Tea Party wants to destroy the foundations of the country. They want to strengthen and return to them. The Tea Party also has a coherent and focused message: stop the spending and reduce the debt. Occupy Wall Street, by contrast, is a movement without a message. If OWS has any clear message, it's "I'm silly, young, and passionate. Co-opt me!"

On that subject, on HuffingtonPost.com Lisa Sharon Harper and I have dueling columns for the next few weeks. This week I wrote, "Dreamers at Occupy Wall Street."

I begin with the humorous tag line, "If Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" was the anthem for the 60s protests, the anthem for Occupy Wall Street has to be Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain." [Follow the link to the original video of McClintock singing the song]"

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.

I end with this surely-to-be-unheeded warning to the Evangelical left who are frantic with over-realized eschatology.

What I see in the Evangelical political left is a dangerous, and I believe unbiblical, combination of Utopian expectations for government combined with an unjustifiably optimistic willingness to empower government for this breathtaking work. They want the Kingdom of God on earth; they want shalom fully realized now through political and economic reform. But if they came into the power they would need for this, they would quickly find their own movement co-opted by opportunists and their beautiful new day turned into a nightmare.

The in my Worldmag.com column today, "The Occupiers and the National Divide," I lament that Obama's embrace of OWS will just further deepen our national divide. "It will further radicalize the division in our country between the Friends of ’76 viewpoint of standing by our founding political tradition of limited government and the 20th century progressive vision of benevolent, centralized, technocratic oversight of all things."


Obama came to office promising "hope and change" in connection with being a "post-partisan president" who would take us beyond left and right, liberal and conservative, red state and blue state. But he meant that in the same way the the Soviet Union said they wanted world peace, by which they meant world communism. Obama wanted to make political debate irrelevant in an administrative state when everything was decided by liberal technocrats. Hence, Karl Rove today with truth, that Barack Obama is "the most rigidly ideological modern president." He doesn't actually believe in politics, the essence of which is self-government among equals.


By the way, in the Worldmag.com column, I cite a Douglas Schoen OWS survey that revealed “nearly one-third (31 percent) would support violence to advance their agenda.” One of my students saw immediately that in the event of violence, much more than that would get caught up in the frenzy. Another WSJ article goes into the details of the survey to reveal subtleties in the data.

Our Ambivalence About Justice

Can you call yourself a political community, i.e., "a people," if you disagree with one another over what justice is. Both Aristotle and Augustine would say no.

That is the subject of my recent WORLDmag column, "Cheering Justice." Even Evangelicals (the Evangelical political left notwithstanding) seem ambivalent about the government's role in retributive justice.

In the end, the problem comes down to theology, not political theory. People do not believe that God has revealed Himself in the Bible as “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, justice, and truth” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 4). I find this squeamishness, even among some of my evangelical Christian students, about God’s retributive justice—about the effective execution of divine wrath by God’s appointed, sword-bearing agents—a cause for cultural and political concern.

If divine authority does not stand behind political office, then police power and the power of war become simply means of control, not instruments of justice. If there is no divine justice, no transcendent standard of good and evil, then politics is just as Thrasymachus told Socrates in The Republic, “the advantage of the stronger.”

Look at that! Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine all in the same post on current politics! How do people function in life without knowing these authors?

The Gospel Seen from the Left

Here is my co-author, Lisa Sharon Harper, answering the question, "What is an Evangelical?"


Lisa Sharon Harper: What's an Evangelical? from Sojourners on Vimeo.

I have entitled this post "The Gospel Seen from the Left." Should it read "The Left seen from the Gospel?" Any comments?