Wallis is right on the money

The reason Glenn Beck has decided to attack Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners is because Wallis is an Evangelical Christian who writes about (gasp!) money. Beck has continued to pound on Wallis and his "spread the wealth social justice nonsense" because Wallis wrote a new book, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street that argues "The operating principle of God's economy says that there is enough if we share it." Not only did Wallis write about this, he insists on going around talking about money and sharing.

Oh my. Sharing, God and economy in the same sentence? No wonder Wallis has become a target of the far right-wing. It gets worse. Wallis backs up the idea of 'God's economics' with his biblical perspective because Wallis is an Evangelical Christian. This is exactly what has made him a target of Beck and Co. The secular far-right is too far out, and too numerically small to have any real political power unless they can attract Evangelical Christians.

The secular tea-bagging crowd is a motley collection of nihilists who are not even close to the American mainstream. The far-right needs to take Christian Evangelicals with them in their effort to bring the American government to a stand-still; otherwise, they don't have the numbers, or the cultural clout.

Wallis, because he is an Evangelical Christian who writes about reforming the economy according to biblical principles, is a clear and present danger to the secular far-right. Evangelical Christians actually do read the Bible, and there they are familiar with the message of scripture that we must love our neighbor as ourselves, and that includes making sure our neighbor is has a job, a place to live, and a modicum of health care. Wallis' work is very appealing to devout Christians who take biblical principles seriously.

Beck's attacks can appear scattershot, such as the ones currently about Wallis, but they are carefully constructed. Beck is best understood a performance artist, and very clever in his circular arguments, as, for example, when he is trying to be racist without appearing to be racist. 'Now I'm not saying...' is usually followed by exactly what he's saying. He is a comedian in a theatre of cruelty format. His own values, however, are harder to discern.

It really takes the insights of another comedian, Stephen Colbert, to best describe Glenn Beck's values in relation to the economy. Beck is clearly a "moneytheist." In Colbert's "Truthiness Encyclopedia," Wikiality, he defines "moneytheism" as "the American faith in the free market." Wallis' book on the economy has a section that attacks the "Greed is Good" ideology.

Need we say more?

By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite  |  March 25, 2010; 3:18 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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