reciprocity

This is a message I sent to Jim Wallis.

Mr. Wallis,
My name is David Stefan. I am aware of your political writings. I have read much of your "God's Politics" book. You and I share many of the same political priorities and, like you, I attend an evangelical church and subscribe to orthodox evangelical doctrines.

Having said that, my political perspective is different from yours in a significant way. As I understand it, your founding premise is to achieve a scriptural balance in our political endeavors. Your introduction to God's Politics says "Because Scriptures spend so much time on the poor, we will too." While I agree that there is a great quantity of Bible passages that address the issue of poverty, that fact does not necessitate that this problem be addressed through government nor that it should take priority. Also, some of the most important commands are only given a few times throughout the Bible. The fact that they are not restated on each page does not lessen their importance. In other words, it seems to me that the case you make is not the strongest case that might be made.

I wanted to lay out some of the key points of common ground that I think all of us share as followers of Christ, whether we lean towards conservative/literal interpretation of the Bible or a liberal/metaphoric interpretation. I believe that these common points are also foundational components of progressive politics. I don't intend to unpack each of these extensively here, but rather I want to put them on the table for discussion and for everyone's consideration.

1. Reciprocity as derived from the Golden Rule and the command to love our neighbors. The idea of reciprocity is a foundational principle for most secular formulations of liberalism. Jesus says of the command to do unto others as we would have them do to us, "...this sums up the law and the prophets" Mt 7:12. It is a command that directly dictates the manner in which we are to relate to others. The laws that we support and advocate through our political involvement effect our neighbors and so this command is perhaps the most relevant in the Bible to the way in which we ought to formulate our political agendas.