The Common Good Running Amok In God’s Politics

Have any of you noticed that the concept of “the common good” is being used to justify every expansion of government power in our lives?

Take a look at Anne Hendershott’s treatment of “God’s Politics” at Catholic Advocate.  “God’s Politics,” as you may know, is the title of a book written by Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners. 

Though Wallis invokes the common good, he doesn’t think much of the Catholic faith:

The theme of “the common good” is woven throughout Wallis’ book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.” And, although he often speaks of enlisting Catholics in his cause, it is clear that Wallis has little respect for the Catholic Church itself when he writes on the opening pages of his book that he is leading a movement that will “Take Back Our Faith” and then lists a number of those who have hijacked the faith: “from pedophile priests and cover up bishops who destroy lives and shame the Church.”

Wallis and his “progressive”co-religionists have called for health care reform in the name of the common good, and now he’s on to financial reform.

Hendershott writes:

Wallis is powerful—but probably not nearly as powerful as he thinks he is.  In an article he posted on The Huffington Post entitled “Wall Street Repent!” he likens himself to Jesus when he recalls that in his conversations with financial leaders about ethics, some of the more recalcitrant have come to him “like Nicodemus, a religious leader who came to talk to Jesus in private—at night.”  This is hard to believe.

Read the rest at this link.