Debra Rae

Religion Baiting: Seducing The Evangelical Right, 

Part II

©2007 Debra Rae

Creation Spirituality

When New Testament tenets are devalued by design, would-be progressive evangelicals succumb to postmodern fallacy that ours is an age of new images—notably, images that portray Christian fundamentalism as outmoded and, well, downright tired. Compliments of Editor Matthew Fox, “Creation Spirituality,” in contrast, advances social and ecological justice by means of a “new story” of our origins and culture—this, minus grand meta-narrative (i.e., a bigger picture inclusive of accountability to Divine intervention).

Dogma that ever-escalating taxes and regulations promise to solve social and economic problems mirrors Charles Darwin’s true claim to fame—that being his hapless theory of historic optimism. Darwin contended that, over time and apart from God, human thinking, philosophy, and destiny are improving progressively. Eventually, a sort of utopian, one-world order will emerge—enabled and empowered by collective cosmic consciousness.

The liberal left attracts visionary futurists. Trouble is, “Under the name of liberalism, [the American people] will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without knowing how it happened.”  True, yes; new, no. These are the words of one Norman Thomas. Prophetic for 1921, don’t you think?

Right on cue, Pastor Jim Wallis founded an anti-capitalist magazine called Post-American through which he calls for redistribution of wealth and government-managed economies—known in religious terms as “social justice.” Wallis’ organization and magazine, both sharing the name Sojourners, never criticize a Marxist state. In a 1979 interview, in fact, Wallis told the reporter it was his hope that: “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.”

This is from a man who, for thirty years, has supported Communist regimes—not least of which were Sandinista Communists in the 1980s. In 1983 Joan Harris with Accuracy in Media observed that Wallis sided with the public relations arm of an El Savadoran terrorist group FMLN. All fifty-three position statements in Sojourners (whether on Israel ’s right to exist, human rights, terrorism, socialism, or capitalism) all aligned with official positions of the Soviet Union at the time.

Evangelicals best take heed that any “new story” preaching a foreign gospel may well invite those susceptible to “every wind of doctrine,” but the fruit thereof is bitter, no matter how appealing its packaging.

Social and Ecological Justice