Holy Unholy Alliances

Isaiah Poole

June 28, 2006

Here is a scene that only a person like Jim Wallis could pull off: Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and a top lieutenant in the House Democratic leadership, was giving a sermon-like speech Tuesday afternoon to a rainbow-colored crowd in the Hart Senate Office Building. The audience was dominated by casually-dressed people in their 20s and 30s sitting on the floor of a large, open room, giving the space the feel of a rally in a church basement. Sitting behind Clyburn, listening appreciatively and waiting his turn to speak, was Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., an archconservative whose outspoken stands against gay marriage and support for President Bush’s economic policies have put him at or near the top of the progressive movement’s enemies list.

Wallis, who is trying to unite political matter and antimatter into a potent force to “make poverty history” in the United States and globally, could not have been more pleased. Wallis is the evangelical theologian who is the editor of Sojourners magazine and the author of “God’s Politics,” the 2005 book that criticized religious and political leaders on both sides of the political spectrum for missing what he sees is God’s call to care for the least among us and to create a just world.

Yesterday, Wallis and a small army of people attending the “Pentecost 2006: Building a New Covenant for America” conference fanned out to congressional offices to forge what Wallis is calling a “grand alliance between liberals and conservatives that makes overcoming poverty a nonpartisan agenda.” They were trying to get members of Congress to sign on to the “covenant” with three main planks:

• “Work must work and provide for family economic success and security;” in other words, workers should receive a living wage.
•  “Children should not be poor,” and child poverty should be cut in half within 10 years.
•  “Extreme global poverty must end,” and the United States should commit an additional one percent of the federal budget annually to international aid.
  

It was all music to my ears—as long as I ignored the discordant notes just outside the hall.

Clyburn spoke shortly after an address by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., whose forays into compassionate conservatism included a book that sought to shame working mothers into giving up their jobs and called public schools an “aberration.” (Other elected officials who stopped by included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.) Clyburn recalled a New Testament injunction that “faith without works is dead” and said that such issues as protecting the environment, providing food and health care assistance, and education aid are “faith issues.” He issued this warning to his political colleagues, including Brownback: “Yes, we have heard your words. You have some great expressions. We are now looking at your works.”

Brownback followed with a speech that included a quotation from Jesus Christ: “To whom much is given, from him much will be required.” Speaking in a manner that moved the crowd, he told of his trips to Africa, including the Darfur region, to see refugee camps and people suffering from AIDS. He closed by imploring listeners to “take this moment and not harvest it for political advantage but harvest it for the poor.”

But Brownback is also among the senators who have supported President Bush’s tax cuts, which represent the antithesis of an ethic of requiring much of those who have much. Brownback supports cutting the estate tax, which would leave money in the hands of the wealthiest Americans instead of “harvesting” it, to borrow a word from Brownback, to help pay for the programs Wallis is trying to advance.

I asked Wallis afterward about his forging alliances with politicians who were using precious Senate floor time that day to vote on what they said was a problem of such severity that the Constitution had to be amended to address it: isolated incidences of flag-burning.

“I’m one of those people” who thought that the flag-burning debate was a waste of time, Wallis said. He also said that his outreach to conservatives is not a sign that he has gone soft on issues critical to progressives, such as the occupation in Iraq. In fact, he used his address at the conference Monday night at the National City Christian Church to condemn the war and the toll it has taken on American lives and resources.

But Wallis called what he is doing “an effort to change politics,” at least when it comes to the issue of eradicating poverty. “We are going to form alliances where we can, but always stick to our principles,” he said.

He spoke of a lesson he said he learned from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “He taught me that you don’t compromise your convictions on war because of a broader issue like civil rights. He paid the price for that.”

There is another principle that Wallis seems to have borrowed from the practical, strategy-driven wing of the civil rights movement: No permanent friends, no permanent enemies; just permanent interests. Will Wallis succeed in uniting diverse politicians behind his permanent interest of eradicating poverty? As long as political leaders believe that a politics of self-interest over the public good sells, and as long as the public proves that with their votes, that will be unlikely. In the meantime, Wallis will build alliances when he can with whoever is willing to join, and at times that will make progressives tremendously uncomfortable. But Wallis is not a politician or even a movement activist; he is answering to what he believes is a prophetic call. And as they pursue their higher goal, prophets will along the way say and do things that will leave even their closest allies scratching their heads.