Jim Wallis Answers Glenn Beck

I was tickled to read Jim Wallis' response to Glenn Beck's speech in Washington last Saturday, because it started off in much the same vein as my own:

An Open Letter to Glenn Beck from Jim Wallis

I think we got off on the wrong foot. I listened to your speech last Saturday and heard a lot of things that we agree on. In fact, I have used some of the same language of our need to turn to God, and the values of “faith, hope, and charity” (love). What I would like to find out, and others would too, is what you mean by that language. Until last weekend, you have consistently described yourself primarily as an entertainer, and the public has known you as a talk show host. But last Saturday, you sounded more like an evangelist or revivalist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I know we disagree significantly on many issues of public policy, but you said that people can disagree on politics and still agree on basic values and try to come together. Maybe we should test that. . . . 

If you'd like to read Wallis' entire letter, click here. If you don't know Jim Wallis, check out his blog on the Sojourners website. Wallis is entitled to challenge Beck because the talk-show host has maligned him by name as a leader of "social justice Christianity" which Beck attacks as a perversion of faith and an infection in the American body politic.

Tell me what you think! I welcome comments on my blog. (But I moderate them to keep spammers off.)


--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor