Hallelujah
It's been a while since I threw propers at Rev. Jim Wallis, the guiding spirit of Sojourners and the emerging champion of a religiously informed politics with a decidedly more progressive bent than what Dobson, Tony ("Norman Bates") Perkins and their radical colleagues have to offer. In his latest "Hearts and Minds" column, Wallis calls the drive of "conservatives of faith" to remake the federal judiciary in their own intolerant image for what it is: An attempt to hijack Christianity.

After the "Justice Sunday" event, and the controversy surrounding it, some of the sponsors are denying they ever claimed that those who oppose them are hostile to people of faith. Yet their words stand for themselves. In the letter announcing the event on the Family Research Council Web site, Tony Perkins wrote: "Many of these nominees to the all-important appellate court level are being blocked...because they are people of faith and moral convictions.... We must stop this unprecedented filibuster of people of faith."

So, I told the Louisville rally that when someone has stolen our faith in the public arena, it is time to take our faith back. "Justice Sunday" was an attempt to hijack Christianity for a partisan and ideological agenda. Those on the Religious Right are declaring a religious war to give their version of faith religious supremacy in America. And some members of the Republican Party seem ready almost to declare a Christian theocracy in America. It is time to take back both our faith and our Constitution.

It is now clear there are some who will fight this religious war by any means necessary. So we will fight, but not the way they do. We must never lie or misrepresent the facts or the truth. We must not demonize or vilify those who are our opponents. We must claim that those who disagree with our judgments are still real people of faith. We must not fight the way they do, but fight we must. A great deal is at stake in this battle for the heart and soul of faith in America and for the nation's future itself. We will not allow faith to be put into the service of one political agenda.

One hope I hold through all of this is that, if people like Wallis grow in prominence and visibility by reclaiming the faith-informed tradition of Henry Ward Beecher and Martin Luther King Jr., more secular-minded liberals will realize what a (potential) friend we have in Jesus, and his followers. While religious and non-religious progressives are always likely to disagree on issues like abortion, the recognition that we substantially share a larger moral framework would lead to a more positive politics, and in time to better societal outcomes as well.