The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change

Rating:
Summary: A needed alternative to the "religious right"
Review: Please ignore the media's obsession with portraying all people of faith as right wing Republicans.

Wallis understands that being a Christian is not about intolerance to minorities, or unbridled capitalism. Wallis understands Jesus' ministry to the poor and warnings to those in power and with great wealth of the responsibilities they have to "the least among us."

While the mass media continues to consult the likes of Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc for the "Christian" view, pastors like Wallis are reminding us the faith in God is not about power grabs and ostracizing others.

Rating:
Summary: Please take your hands out of my pockets
Review: Through flawed reasoning, Jim Wallis concludes that personal wealth is immoral, unjust, and wrong. He insists that the path to freedom consists of limiting the resources of very wealthy people.

If you follow Jim Wallis's line of thinking, no one deserves vast personal wealth. Therefore, people who have achieved it must have their wealth limited by society -- in other words, give it back. After all, society made it possible for the rich to accumulate their wealth in the first place, right?

Wrong answer. Wealth is a product of personal financial responsibility and determined work. We live in the greatest country in the world, simply because it is possible in America for people to overcome poverty and ascend to personal financial freedom in a single generation. In other words, we have the ability, through our own talents and ingenuity, to create wealth. To make money, if you will.

What would be the incentive to do so, if once we achieve personal financial freedom, we are compelled to support others who are unable or unwilling to do what we have done. Charity should be a personal choice, not a social demand. Certainly not a legislated requirement. If income is capped, there will be no incentive to achieve. People will not continue to perform if the result of their accomplishment is social outrage, programmed guilt, and deliberate taxation to restore them to some median level of income.

And if those who are currently the investors, the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, and the corporate visionaries are disincentivized for performing, chances are good they will CEASE TO PERFORM. In other words, if you place a limit, a legal limit, for whatever moral reason you think matters, on the amount of money people are allowed to earn, they will stop trying to earn more than that amount.

An entrepreneur or a high-powered executive invests all he or she can into reaching their goals. At stake may be their money, their time, their reputation, their commitment, possibly their relationships. They would not be willing to take those risks without the chance for the reward.

The bad news is that if their willingness to take risks and outperform other people dies, then the "magic" fortune that they could accumulate, the one Jim Wallis wants to tap to fund his social spending programs, will vanish. It will cease to exist. It is an economic fact.

Entrepreneurs, visionary executives, and high earners will no longer be there to run big businesses, to make big investments, to build big successes. And without them, the companies will not succeed. No one will be employed.

These are the economic realities that Jim Wallis has overlooked. As good as his vision sounds, unless he can personally fund these ideas, he can not advocate them. To do so is the equivalent of giving the pay check of every American to the federal government, and allowing the government to redistribute it according to need.

Sound good? Communism failed.

I would personally like to thank each of my employers for creating their businesses and offering me a chance to work with them. I hope that my contributions helped to make you successful. The wages you paid me were fair, and I earned them honestly. The value I got was equivalent to the value I gave.

How great our country would be if more people were willing to give credit where credit is due: to the successful business men and women who employ us.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ for all Christians!
Review: Wallis may be the most balanced voice in our culture today. In The Soul of Politics, he first tears away at silly conservative notions of "me first" and "us against them". He especially dresses down the radical religious right for misappropriating the sacred name of Jesus for the sake of obtaining raw political power. But just as you begin to think Wallis is a left-wing liberal, he rips into "feelgood" liberal approaches to society that have been proven failures. Instead, Wallis suggests a new polemic, really rooted in the prophets of old, that teaches both personal, moral responsibility and genuine, Christian compassion. He rejects false choices of left versus right and invites all people of faith, especially Christians, to create a new politics of community, compassion and civility. Wallis is a noted Evangelical. He's currently a fellow at Harvard but also heads the Christ-centered "Sojourners" magazine and urban ministry in the nation's capitol. Please...read The Soul of Politics. You will be challenged and encouraged!