I tried to read that Wallis book, God's Politics -- he takes the 8 paragraphs on the flyleaf and repeats them with slight rephrasing for (no shit) 374 pages. It's unreadable, but sublime in its own way.

@1, I think that's the formula for every self-help / lifestyle-management / business philosophy book, isn't it? Let me guess -- were there any vague anecdotes?

I think Beck is discovering that when you go walking around in the sewer the likelihood of stepping in nasty things is pretty high.

It would be nice if more Christians focused on social and economic justice as moral issues instead of sexual matters.

This reminds me of a recent Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times: Learning From the Sin of Sodom Kristof writes...

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

. . .

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

Of course lefties in the mainline american protestant tradition have been saying the same thing for ages--at least since Walter Rauschenbusch (1907). For some reason, no one pays any attention to them. Maybe they should get better publicists or something?

@4 Well, look at it this way: you own a media outlet, which of the following will draw more people to your media outlet?

1. Coverage of mainline protestants pursuing social and economic justice initiatives, or

2. Glenn Beck ranting about communism?

Is it any wonder that no one pays any attention to them?

Heck, just look at Slog. Any time a religious nutjob says something stupid, it gets a post. Why? Because it's sensational, it's going to get a lot of page views and comments. You wouldn't get that if you posted something about religious people NOT doing dumb shit. "Non-crazy" "moderate/liberal" Christians can speak out against religious extremism all they want, no one's ever going to cover it. Not as long as people like Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson exist.

Roma @3, you linked Ed Cohen instead of the Kristof column you wanted.

Oh please. Real Americans(TM) don't give two shits about what Jim Wallis thinks, and wholeheatedly agree that helping people is just like eating a Nazi/Commie/Socialist sandwich.

Let me check:

1. Rich.

2. Pharisee.

3. Liar.

4. Throws stones first.

Yup, Jesus would kick Glenn Beck to the curb.

@5 is totally correct. There are a lot of mainliners doing really awesome, progressive stuff right now, but you will never hear about it because it is boring and non-controversial. Even when those of us on the progressive end of the spectrum speak out against what is happening on the other side, it doesn't ultimately matter because we aren't doing crazy stuff to get attention. Nobody is protesting military funerals because they haven't repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" yet, and nobody will because people on the progressive side of the great divide have more tact and sense than that.

#5, #9: are you saying that because nobody makes a fuss about boring stuff like actual social justice .. that nobody should make a fuss when somebody compares social justice to Nazism and Communism?

Thanks, Rob. I was bicolumnning and mistakenly copied the Cohen one.

"Bicolumning"--love it! My usual excuse is "multi-tabsking."

I'm an evangelical Christian and I've been boycotting Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and the like for as long as I've heard of them. Many of us have to spend a lot of time apologizing for hateful moronic douches like them and if I could send a message to them at all it would be this: "Christianity. You're doing it wrong."

Glen beck just loves this country, why do you hate sarah palins kids?

Great picture of Beck. He looks like he has a corn cob up his ass. That or a turd he couldn't quite shit out.

The NYT article talks about Mormon scholars who were specifically asked about what Glenn Beck said and said he was gravely mistaken. Much of the LDS Church is fucked up, but this is still considered central to their interests.