09.10
Defending the Opposition. Let’s Quote Fairly Please
It seems that somebody has dug up a quote from Jim Wallis in 1976 where he claims that Christians will flock to Marxism in the coming decades. While I’m absolutely no fan of Wallis, I am always immediately suspicious of any quote that is only a sentence long, or even worse, a fragment of a sentence. So I decided to hunt down the source of the quote. It came from a book called Mission Trends No. 4, edited in 1979. It’s an amalgam of articles written by various proponents and opponents of so-called liberation theology. Wallis’s entry in the book is actually a reprint from a 1976 issue of Sojournors magazine. It turns out, as I suspected, that the quote doesn’t adequately reflect what Wallis was trying to say. Here is what I believe is the original source of this misquote that is going around:
This is an amazing discovery. Yet, it is not so surprising given Jim Wallis’ consistent support for socialism and against capitalism or the American way of life throughout his writings. In fact, in 1979, the journal Mission Tracks published an interview with Wallis. He told the reporter it was his hope that “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.”
This is so grossly mischaracterized that it makes me sick. They didn’t get the name of the book right. It wasn’t an interview. And it’s obvious that they doctored it by saying that he said it was “his hope.” He never said that. It’s obvious to me that this isn’t simply a misquote. It’s intentionally deceiving. I’ve seen about ten sites using this fragment of a sentence as proof that Wallis is in the tank for Marxism. But, if you look at the whole article in context, it becomes clear that this statement was purely a prediction based on what he thought would be a natural reaction among Christians to what he has always seen as the mother of all socioeconomic evils: capitalism. As I said, I don’t agree with Jim’s political views at all, but it’s not fair to quote him dishonestly like that. Here’s a more accurate quote from his original article, which I scanned:
As more Christians become influenced by liberation theology, finding themselves increasingly rejecting the values and institutions of capitalism, they will also be drawn to the Marxist analysis and praxis that is so central to the movement. That more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes is therefore predictable.
…growing numbers of Christians will join the movement and seek to provide a convincing religious rationale and justification for what is defined as historically inevitable, will join for many of the same reasons that their predecessors put their faith in capitalism, when, at its inception, it too seemed to be the hope of the future.
The reasons for the new Christian alliance with Marxism (which is much further advanced in Europe and elsewhere than here) will be understandable: an acute sense of political injustice, a sharpened social analysis which perceives the essential corruption of the present system, and a compassion for those who suffer from the existing order of things.
Unfortunately, it has been the conformity to the inevitabilities of history that has been such a common and debilitating failing in the history of the church. The distinctive and decisive witness to the Word of God, and the uniquely crucial role that can be played by the gathered community of God’s people, can become obscured or completely lost in that process of conformity.
You see now how dishonest it was in the reference at the top. It’s obvious when seen in context that he’s predicting a sort of overreaction by Christians toward collectivism in the political realm as they become disenchanted with capitalism. History since 1976 has proved him right and wrong. Many Christians have taken on a more collectivist attitude in the political realm, but a vast majority have gone hard right. It was in the two decades after he wrote this article that we saw the emergence of the “religious right” as a force in American politics. That movement, if it ever was a true whole to start with, has now, thankfully, fallen by the wayside. But you can’t deny how much sway it had. He may preach Marxism from the pulpit every week for all I know, but when it comes to this article he’s not guilty of Marxism, he’s simply guilty of making bad predictions, which we all do.
I’m going to leave it here for the time being. Tommorrow I’m going to give another quote from the original article and go in a different direction with it. Like I said, I don’t think Jim is at all correct in his Christian political philosophy and I’ll show that tommorrow. In fact, I think his ideas do more harm than good. But, the point I’m making here is that it’s dishonest to take something out of context like that. Epecially when the original source material is so hard to dig up. It took me a few weeks to track down a copy of this book using Amazon’s third party sellers. If you have to use a partial sentence fragment to prove your point then go back and start over. It makes your argument look weak.
