Jesus Politics: Should preachers go jump in the lake?
This is what makes Martin Luther King’s rhetoric so captivating; he understood the need to give his listeners something positive to hold on to, after he made one of his withering critiques of the situation at hand. A moral issue is more than just a bitch session. In fact, that’s one of the great shortcomings of Conservative Christianity these days: it’s too focused on what other people are doing wrong, not enough on building a better world for everyone. So you’ve got to tell folks that you’ve got a better idea.
Wallis says something similar:
Choosing Life, Sojourners Magazine/January 2004
First, saying no is good, but having an alternative is better. Protest is not enough; it is necessary to show a better way