Now that moral issues have hit the liberal Left like a ton of red bricks, they are trying to figure out how to extricate themselves from the weight of the pile. They are being counseled to talk about values. Good enough. But whose values? What values? Unless they change their views on homosexuality and abortion, to name only two value-laden issues, they can only talk about values.
Those on the Left value the pro-abortion position. They believe that homosexual sodomy is a civil right. Don’t expect them to change their position on these two highly charged (im)moral issues. Their base rests on these two foundation stones. James Carville is talking about how the Democrat Party needs to be “born again,” not in a religious sense but politically. What he’s really calling for is a face transplant. It will be the same liberal worldview but with a new image.
The big lie is on its way. The rhetoric will shift to moral values of another type: the environment, helping the poor, health care, and war and peace issues. For decades, liberals have been saying that religion must be kept separate from politics, unless, of course, the Bible can be used to support a liberal agenda. Last night, I heard Cornell West of Princeton cite the passage from Amos 5:24 that appears on the civil rights memorial in Montgomery, Alabama: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” For him, “justice” is using civil government to take money from “the rich” and give it to the poor. Theft, even if it’s done by politicians, is not justice. In reality, the poor are hurt by high taxes. It’s spending, saving, and investing that makes an economy grow. There would be no shortage of jobs if taxes were reduced by at least 50%.
Just prior to the election, I debated Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine. Wallis took the position that the Bible addresses more than just abortion and homosexuality. He claimed that there are 2000 verses that speak to poverty. This may be true, but he never said how the Bible actually describes how the poor should be helped. Like Cornell West and Jesse Jackson, who’s using the same post-election moral rhetoric, his solution is to give civil government more authority to confiscate wealth and redistribute it to the poor. As Gary North writes, liberal “values are about sticking a gun into a successful person’s belly, taking his wallet, removing an unstated percentage of the money, and handing the wallet back. ‘See you at the next election.’”
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Here’s how one liberal minister sees the issue: “The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issuesCcivil unions, abortionCas almost the total content of ‘moral values.’ And yet you can’t read the Old Testament without knowing God was concerned about the environment, war and peace, [and] poverty. God doesn’t want 45 million Americans without health care.” This is a good first step. The Bible is in fashion again. But for decades, ever since the Moral Majority cranked up in 1979, “biblical values” came to mean by the media and the religious and political Left as the language of “theocracy.”
The Left wants it both ways: Deny Bible-believing Christians the moral high ground by separating religion and politics when it comes to the life and death issue of abortion and the nation-judgment practice of homosexuality (Rom. 1:18-32) while allowing the religious and political Left freedom to mix religion and politics so civil government can confiscate wealth in the name of “social justice.” Sounds like a Liberal theocracy to me.