Jim Wallis on David Kuo and his book, Tempting Faith I should say that I’ve known David Kuo for years. We met at a retreat and began a conversation that has lasted ever since. He was and is a conservative evangelical Christian, as he said on 60 Minutes, and he was quite unhappy with the many contradictions and hypocrisies of Continue Reading
There he goes again, and I mean James K.A. Smith. I wish I didn’t like so much of what he says and writes, so I could dismiss him and chalk this up to something degrading, like some sort of condescending intellectual arrogance, because that’s how it has often struck me. And heck, I’m smart enough to freakin’ understand much of Continue Reading
Dave Winer expresses one small hope of mine: I pay taxes, I wish they were lower, but I don’t believe any of the bullshit the Republicans throw around about Democrats. I see the money they channel to themselves, the billions they spend on Iraq, as a major major tax, one that they’ve managed to hide, for now, but it won’t Continue Reading
In all this debate and discussion surrounding Kuo’s book, what I think Kuo misses (in what I have heard in interviews and read thus far in his book) is the absence of a concept of church as politic rather than upon “personal transformation”. Even most of what I see in “Christian Progressive” discussion is lacking a strong ecclesiology. This is Continue Reading
I actually first read of this when Ron Suskind relayed in his book “The Price Of Loyalty” a couple of years ago, in his chapter on John Diulio, the first appointee to Bush’s Faithbased initiative. “Just get me a f-ing faith-based thing,†eight words attributed to Karl Rove by author and former special assistant to the president, David Kuo, that Continue Reading
Amy Sullivan in a post on the God’s Politics blog, while reacting to the issues brought up by Kuo’s book: Once it came down to the hard work of actually putting the government’s money where Bush’s mouth was, however, well, there was always something else higher up the priority list. Like the elimination of the estate tax, for example. The Continue Reading
Kuo (by the way, Kuo is an excellent blogger, see the link to J-walking below) reacts to a comment by someone who may be an old acquaintance: Commenter: You are walking on a very slippery slope. We are not to be of this world but set apart. The approval of a liberal audience is not being set apart. Kuo: I Continue Reading
Ultimately the lesson Mr. Kuo hopes his fellow evangelicals learn goes far beyond this president and his policies. “At the end of the day,†he said, “politics is easy; God is hard.†Politics, by setting up very tangible enemies to be defeated, “gives the illusion of a solution,†he said, while God demands personal transformation. “What,†he asked, “is harder Continue Reading
Here’s my answer to my question in the previous post…..hat tip to Huffington Post LETTERMAN’S O’REILLY SMACKDOWN UPDATED What an a-hole O’Reilly is ….condescending , arrogant ….”spin free”. Yeah. He actually said after asking Letterman who ….is (somebody I didn’t recognize either), and Dave didn’t answer immediately, O’Reilly goes “Ya don’t….OK….so ” and then he said ” I don’t mean Continue Reading
This really is pretty unbelievable: NBC won’t run ads for the Dixie Chicks documentary because, in the words of the NBC’s commercial clearance department, “they are disparaging to President Bush.” Source: Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: October 22, 2006 – October 28, 2006 Archives#010638#010638#010638#010638#010638#010638#010638 It’s also interesting that NBC’s most hyped new show is all about resisting Continue Reading
Tony Campolo with a few blog posts at Huffington Link to The Blog | Tony Campolo | The Huffington Post
Jim Wallis reviews David Kuo’s new book on the Bush White House and their “faith-based” initiatives (or lack thereof): Bush talked a lot about his faith-based program, but never fought for it, according to Kuo. He believes the President’s stated campaign vision for faith-based initiatives “was one of the most important political addresses given in the last generation,” but he Continue Reading
Bart Campolo on a theme that will soon be under great discussion as David Kuo’s book hits the shelves next week: How the Religious Right is getting hoodwinked by the Bush administration. I have known this since hearing W’s quip about “you just got to set religion aside when you gotta job to do”. Uhhh….how in the world does something Continue Reading
From Brian McLaren: In each country, I heard Christian leaders – Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Traditional Protestants, and Roman Catholics – express amazement and dismay at the relative silence of the church in the USA. They see us, by and large, as a prime example of Bonhoeffer’s lament about Christendom “adjusting itself far too easily to the worship of power.” We are Continue Reading
This commenter on a Will Sampson post about the steady stream of lies by the Bush administration being exposed on a regular basis, is a perfect example of the accommodation of worldly politics (combined with an unhealthy dose of denial of what’s being exposed) with theology, and thus lends credence to the fears of those who express misgivings about the Continue Reading