[Grovenet] Turning politics of religion upside-down

[Eric Canon]

>From today's Oregonian, a breath of fresh air:

The Rev. Jim Wallis declares that the war in Iraq
is disastrous, that global warming is
cataclysmic, and that the biggest threat to
national security is global poverty.

The religious right has lost control of the
agenda. Their monologue is over. The students mob
me afterwards. They say, "I didn't know
Christians could care about poverty or the war in
Iraq." I tell them, "Your job is to clear up the
confusion."

Some people have narrowed the focus of faith to
the topics of same-sex marriage and abortion. But
in churches across the country, the conversation
is becoming wider and deeper. Ministers are
talking about poverty, Darfur, sex trafficking
and the disastrous war in Iraq.

By focusing on abortion and same-sex marriage,
the right is losing. I am an evangelical
Christian, and I tell people, "We can't ignore
the thousands of verses in the Bible on another
subject, which is poverty. Fighting poverty's a
moral value, too." Protecting God's creation --
the Earth -- is a moral value. For a growing
number of Christians, the ethics of war is a
religious and moral issue, too.

http://tinyurl.com/ggopa