Monday, April 08, 2013

Jim Wallis Evolves. Sort of.

So over on Religion Dispatches Sarah Posner has the "not so breaking news" that Jim Wallis has evolved to favoring marriage equality.

Sort of.

From her piece "The “Prophetic” Voice of Jim Wallis Jumps on Marriage Equality Bandwagon:"
Wallis doesn't come right out and say he supports marriage equality, but embarks on a Heritage Foundation-inflected lecture about "recovenanting, reestablishing, renewing marriage." He then adds, "I think we should include same-sex couples in that renewal of marriage."

"I think we've got to talk about how to include same sex couples in that deeper understanding of marriage," Wallis pronounced, adding, as if he'd happened upon an excellent talking point to fit with his book promotion, "That could be the common ground. So yes, I support equal protection under the law."
You should read the whole thing. But it sounds to me like Brother Wallis could use a refresher course on Matthew 5:37 (that would be the "let your yes be yes and let your no be no" one.) Seriously!

As for "the common good" I find that a more than a bit ironic coming on the 50th Anniversary of the Letter from the Birmingham Jail by the one who died for the commitment to the ideal that "No one is free while others are oppressed."

It's lovely that Wallis is "evolving" on granting my marriage the same protections his has -- truly. But in point of fact it is LONG past time for one purporting to "a leader of the religious left" to support a Protect Marriage Movement that protects all marriages and Family Values that value all families.

2 comments:

JCF said...

But it sounds to me like Brother Wallis could use a refresher course on Matthew 5:37 (that would be the "let your yes be yes and let your no be no" one.) Seriously!

Or else I would respond, "I spit you out because you are neither cold nor hot." (Rev 3:16)

Ty said...

This is a completely bizarre reversal. The last time I checked up on them, Sojourners refused to make any particular statements about gay rights at all - preferring to insist that it wasn't their issue. I do appreciate their stance and the challenge they present to the evangelical community, trying to prod them out of their malaise, to wake up to the reality of hunger and poverty in the larger world. It always struck me as odd that they stuck to that with such a myopic intensity that they might ignore issues of justice in their own homeland. Now that they seem to be doing that, it still seems odd.