Glenn Beck spoke out against the concepts of social and economic justice, citing that they have always been the code words of Socialists, Communists and the radical Left used to bring about societal changes in favor of those ideologies. He recently told his audience that if their church mentions social or economic justice to run far and fast; seek another parish and inform Church officials of what you have found. While some members of the clergy like Evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr. understand and support what Beck is saying, radicalized ministers and priests left over from the crazy 1960’s aren’t quite as understanding.
The usual routine of a radical is to shut out opposing views rather than engaging in debate but that is the good news. In areas where radicals have already attained control and realized their ultimate goals, those with opposing views are usually murdered instead. Religious radicals are no different and those that espouse social justice and other Marxist views are firing back. Rather than debate Beck’s charges, they are trying to organize yet another boycott of the advertisers that support Beck’s programs. The Rev. Jim Wallis is an evangelical leader, CEO and president of Sojourners, a Christian networking group in Washington, D.C and was the first to cry foul over Beck’s focus on religious radicalism. But anyone that knows who Jim Wallis is should not be surprised by his outrage.
Jim Wallis was raised in a traditional evangelical Plymouth Brethren family. The Plymouth Brethren are a conservative evangelical movement that can be traced back 1820’s Ireland. The “Brethren” rejected the Church of England because they felt the Church had ignored or distorted many of the old traditions of Christianity. Apparently, the conservative nature of the Brethren didn’t appeal to Wallis as his slithered over to the radical left. While attending college at Michigan State University, Wallis was President of the Socialist front group, “Students for a Democratic Society” where he developed an interest in political activism that would eventually lead to more than twenty-two arrests for civil disobedience. While studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Wallis joined with other young seminarians to form the core group of what would become the Sojourners.
Wallis is actively fighting Beck’s claims that Churches speaking of social justice are promoting Socialism but wouldn’t you know it, the Sojourner’s teachings are overwhelmingly Socialist in nature and even the name of their first published news paper, “The Post American”, speaks volumes about their basic ideology which is more about radical politics than religion. Yes, Jesus spoke about charity and caring for the poor but the charity Jesus spoke of was to be willingly offered by the faithful. Government redistribution of wealth is not charity and even if your money happens to end up in the pockets of the poor through the some government entitlement, it holds no weight in the balance books of heaven because the contribution is neither conscious nor willing. Wallis is more concerned about the loss of political momentum that was steering the nation towards Socialism than he is about the poor and so-called disenfranchised. Like any good Marxist, Wallace simply uses the impoverished to forward an agenda and he shouldn’t be taken serious by anyone.
Not that Wallis has much to worry about. Even as we face the reality of a twelve trillion dollar national debt, Congress hasn’t found the nerve to say “no” to deficit spending and the crippling agenda of an equally radical President. International organization such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank could care less about our financial burdens because their member nations, like many of our own citizens, have become used to the flow of Federal money to relieve them of the burden of developing their own economies. Billions flow from the United States each year to fund development projects in foreign nations while many of our own people are hungry and homeless. Truthfully, we probably wouldn’t have as many hungry and homeless as we do now if they weren’t so useful to the Progressive agenda. Government largess will not relieve our poverty, only the renewal of the American free market and the restoration of our Constitutional right to self determination can break the cycle.
Oh I can see it now. The forces of Progressivism including Jim Wallis, will gather like a storm cloud to block any initiative that may roll back government social programs and unfortunately, many Americans have become so used to the idea of government solutions that they will reluctantly agree. After all, we can’t do that….people will starve! Oh really? In 1887, Texas suffered a severe drought that devastated hundreds of farms in that area. The farmers needed new seed because the crops had failed so completely that it couldn’t even provide a sufficient quantity of seed that the farmers could use to begin again. In response, the Congress passed the “Texas Seed Act” and passed on to then President, Grover Cleveland for his signature.
President Cleveland vetoed the bill saying: “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood…”
Can you imagine the outcry if a modern President took such a courageous stance in the defense of the Constitution? Why, he would be called a murderer or worse. When Reagan tried to reform welfare he was called “mean spirited”; when Bush tried to re-privatize Social Security he was called a “Nazi” and these were just reforms, not the total dissolution of the government entitlement structure. Some claim that is because Progressives have no faith that people can attend to these needs without government while I have a far more cynical view. I fear that Progressives actually use a campaign of carefully crafted propaganda to convince the general public that those that have are mostly too corrupt and greedy to help their fellow men and the few that aren’t do not possess the resources. They even argue that to force people to accept charity is demeaning and that an enlightened society must be able to provide for the poor and destitute without that horrible stigma attached to it.
I would argue that the stigma Progressives refer to used to be called gratitude and for them to claim the recipients of charity are demeaned somehow, they would first have to confuse virtuous humility with shame. So what happened to those poor Texas farmers that President Cleveland thumbed his nose at? The resolution Cleveland vetoed would have appropriate ten thousand dollars for the purchase of seed for the stricken area. The President’s faith in the brotherhood of the American citizenry was not only justified, but surpassed. Private donations to help the stricken farmers totaled over one-hundred thousand dollars; more than ten times the amount authorized by Congress.
The net effect of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” is that we now spend incredible amounts of money to keep people in poverty and if someone should take a menial entry level job and attempt escape the system; they are pretty much guaranteed the loss of all of their government benefits. With that kind of societal “compassion” in place, what hope or incentive do these people have of becoming contributors instead of recipients? In contrast, the programs FDR’s enacted to combat the effects of the Great Depression only spent one one-billionth of what the Federal government currently spends on social programs. He did however, set the stage for future Progressives, like Johnson, to justify nearly anything in the name of “social justice”.
Paul
The usual routine of a radical is to shut out opposing views rather than engaging in debate but that is the good news. In areas where radicals have already attained control and realized their ultimate goals, those with opposing views are usually murdered instead. Religious radicals are no different and those that espouse social justice and other Marxist views are firing back. Rather than debate Beck’s charges, they are trying to organize yet another boycott of the advertisers that support Beck’s programs. The Rev. Jim Wallis is an evangelical leader, CEO and president of Sojourners, a Christian networking group in Washington, D.C and was the first to cry foul over Beck’s focus on religious radicalism. But anyone that knows who Jim Wallis is should not be surprised by his outrage.
Jim Wallis was raised in a traditional evangelical Plymouth Brethren family. The Plymouth Brethren are a conservative evangelical movement that can be traced back 1820’s Ireland. The “Brethren” rejected the Church of England because they felt the Church had ignored or distorted many of the old traditions of Christianity. Apparently, the conservative nature of the Brethren didn’t appeal to Wallis as his slithered over to the radical left. While attending college at Michigan State University, Wallis was President of the Socialist front group, “Students for a Democratic Society” where he developed an interest in political activism that would eventually lead to more than twenty-two arrests for civil disobedience. While studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Wallis joined with other young seminarians to form the core group of what would become the Sojourners.
Wallis is actively fighting Beck’s claims that Churches speaking of social justice are promoting Socialism but wouldn’t you know it, the Sojourner’s teachings are overwhelmingly Socialist in nature and even the name of their first published news paper, “The Post American”, speaks volumes about their basic ideology which is more about radical politics than religion. Yes, Jesus spoke about charity and caring for the poor but the charity Jesus spoke of was to be willingly offered by the faithful. Government redistribution of wealth is not charity and even if your money happens to end up in the pockets of the poor through the some government entitlement, it holds no weight in the balance books of heaven because the contribution is neither conscious nor willing. Wallis is more concerned about the loss of political momentum that was steering the nation towards Socialism than he is about the poor and so-called disenfranchised. Like any good Marxist, Wallace simply uses the impoverished to forward an agenda and he shouldn’t be taken serious by anyone.
Not that Wallis has much to worry about. Even as we face the reality of a twelve trillion dollar national debt, Congress hasn’t found the nerve to say “no” to deficit spending and the crippling agenda of an equally radical President. International organization such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank could care less about our financial burdens because their member nations, like many of our own citizens, have become used to the flow of Federal money to relieve them of the burden of developing their own economies. Billions flow from the United States each year to fund development projects in foreign nations while many of our own people are hungry and homeless. Truthfully, we probably wouldn’t have as many hungry and homeless as we do now if they weren’t so useful to the Progressive agenda. Government largess will not relieve our poverty, only the renewal of the American free market and the restoration of our Constitutional right to self determination can break the cycle.
Oh I can see it now. The forces of Progressivism including Jim Wallis, will gather like a storm cloud to block any initiative that may roll back government social programs and unfortunately, many Americans have become so used to the idea of government solutions that they will reluctantly agree. After all, we can’t do that….people will starve! Oh really? In 1887, Texas suffered a severe drought that devastated hundreds of farms in that area. The farmers needed new seed because the crops had failed so completely that it couldn’t even provide a sufficient quantity of seed that the farmers could use to begin again. In response, the Congress passed the “Texas Seed Act” and passed on to then President, Grover Cleveland for his signature.
President Cleveland vetoed the bill saying: “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood…”
Can you imagine the outcry if a modern President took such a courageous stance in the defense of the Constitution? Why, he would be called a murderer or worse. When Reagan tried to reform welfare he was called “mean spirited”; when Bush tried to re-privatize Social Security he was called a “Nazi” and these were just reforms, not the total dissolution of the government entitlement structure. Some claim that is because Progressives have no faith that people can attend to these needs without government while I have a far more cynical view. I fear that Progressives actually use a campaign of carefully crafted propaganda to convince the general public that those that have are mostly too corrupt and greedy to help their fellow men and the few that aren’t do not possess the resources. They even argue that to force people to accept charity is demeaning and that an enlightened society must be able to provide for the poor and destitute without that horrible stigma attached to it.
I would argue that the stigma Progressives refer to used to be called gratitude and for them to claim the recipients of charity are demeaned somehow, they would first have to confuse virtuous humility with shame. So what happened to those poor Texas farmers that President Cleveland thumbed his nose at? The resolution Cleveland vetoed would have appropriate ten thousand dollars for the purchase of seed for the stricken area. The President’s faith in the brotherhood of the American citizenry was not only justified, but surpassed. Private donations to help the stricken farmers totaled over one-hundred thousand dollars; more than ten times the amount authorized by Congress.
The net effect of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” is that we now spend incredible amounts of money to keep people in poverty and if someone should take a menial entry level job and attempt escape the system; they are pretty much guaranteed the loss of all of their government benefits. With that kind of societal “compassion” in place, what hope or incentive do these people have of becoming contributors instead of recipients? In contrast, the programs FDR’s enacted to combat the effects of the Great Depression only spent one one-billionth of what the Federal government currently spends on social programs. He did however, set the stage for future Progressives, like Johnson, to justify nearly anything in the name of “social justice”.
Paul
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