God and Politics

As a moderate to liberal (proudly so) Republican, whose religious upbringing was mainline Protestantism, educated in a Catholic University by Jesuits (and later converted to Catholicism), I find it interesting that the conservative (and many times evangelical) right has hijacked God in America's eyes.

"The American Right has been able to define “moral values” narrowly, almost
exclusively in terms of wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. "

There is an interesting interview with Jim Wallis in Mother Jones Online that discusses the subject.

"I say at every stop, “Fighting poverty’s a moral value, too.” There’s a
whole generation of young Christians who care about the environment. That’s
their big issue. Protecting God’s creation, they would say, is a moral value,
too. And, for a growing number of Christians, the ethics of war—how and when we
go to war, whether we tell the truth about going to war—is a religious and moral
issue as well."

After being educated in a very religious activist university where social awareness and "Being a Man For Others" (flowing from Christian beliefs) permiated the air, I often find it disconcerting that some of these same moral values (social justice) are seemingly missing from the God of the Right. Sometimes, I get the feeling that those who believe in the God of the Right, think that poverty is a sin and is a judgment by God

" [Democrats] forget their own progressive history. Every major social
movement in our history was fueled in large part by religion and faith.
Abolitionism, women’s suffrage, child labor law, and most famously, civil
rights. Where would we be if the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had kept his
faith to himself? Here’s a party that was vitally connected to the civil rights
movement, led by black churches, now has driven so far [away], they’re
successfully portrayed by the Right as a secular party hostile to religion. "

"I think people who are religious or, say, even spiritual, have not felt like
there’s much of a home on the Left. That’s at least a huge political concern.
Even those who aren’t religious need to respect people of faith. The connection
the world’s waiting for is to connect the hunger for spirituality with passion
for social change. Because spirituality, when it isn’t disciplined by social
justice, in an affluent society, becomes narcissistic. . . . .becomes a commodity to be
bought and sold. So spirituality has to be disciplined by social justice."

God is not a Republican or Democrat.