Is Jim Wallis Asking the Right Question?

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Jim Wallis and his books. When I first read God’s Politics, I was excited about a different direction Christians ought to take with regards to politics and religion. He wrote entire chapters on issues such as the immorality of the Iraq War, an alternative approach to dealing with global terrorism, and pointing out glaring heresies committed by the “God and country” Religious Right folk.

I read The Great Awakening while on an airplane to Cambodia, after I had done a bit of studying economics and politics, and I started having concerns about Wallis’s politics. I had no issues with his theology, but his politics seemed to stretch a bit beyond what I was comfortable with. While I cannot recall all of my impressions, it just seemed a bit of a stretch to adopt certain political policies simply based on biblical precepts. As Greg Boyd points out, calling anything “God’s politics” can be a dangerous approach.

Wallis’s organization, Sojourners, has a daily blog where he writes about once a week, regarding current events, theological and religious reflections, and in large part issues regarding social justice. In fact, “social justice” is a very big part of the mission of Sojourners, something which I think is incredibly necessary to counter-balance this too often ignored and neglected subject of Christian behavior. Christians, especially those on the so-called “right,” need to read Wallis for his critique of the lack of Christian action in social justice. On the other hand, Jim Wallis seems to have very little knowledge of basic economics, or he ignores it believing good intentions and enlightened legislation can bypass the laws of basic human action. Reading his blog writings makes one wonder if he has any desire in getting down to the “real problem,” so to speak, or if he’s more interested in finding an easy scapegoat to blame (i.e. “free market,” the “invisible hand,” or “greediness”).

So when his new book, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street, was announced, needless to say I wasn’t too excited about what I was going to read. Most of the time, Wallis’s good intentions and veneer of social justice sound great, but are rather void of any economic understanding. I stopped by the bookstore to skim through the book, and found that the inside jacket cover quotes Wallis: “When we start with the wrong question, no matter how good an answer we get, it won’t give us the results we want.” It’s kind of ironic for me, because that’s the same thing I think whenever I read a new blog post on his blog! But the essential message of the book is this: we can ask all sorts of questions about our economy and its recovery, but the best question we ought to ask is, “how will this crisis change us?”

I think this is a good question, and I’ve decided to write a series of posts in response to each chapter. The book arrived today, so expect some new posts soon.