Book Review: God’s Politics
Posted on: Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 at 12:25 amRead more about Book, DVD, etc. Reviews
I would love to recommend this book to other independent-minded political folks, but I can’t do that. To be honest, I put the book down halfway through reading it…it was a bit too torturous.
The book’s message is great: Jesus Christ and religious prophets/figures in general have taught and advocated for a different type of political vision that George W. Bush does. Ok. That message was made quite clear in the first few dozen pages. But the reason why I can’t recommend this book is because Jim Wallis (the book’s author) constantly hammers away at this point ad nauseam…and often by using the same exact wording time and time and time again.
Don’t get me wrong, Wallis comes off as a dedicated servant of God and I have no reason to believe that he’s not. As a matter of fact, I think that he is quite a devoted preacher and a religious intellectual that probably should be given more air-time on the radio and television shows. But putting literally the same thing over and over and over again in the book makes it a chore to read.
I was able to get over the erroneous facts in the book such as the United States is engaging in “empire building,” our country is involved in an “occupation” of Iraq, and the United States took “unilateral” action against Iraq…all of which are factually and historically incorrect. But beating away at the same point over and over again and then focusing so much of a book about “God’s Politics” on one issue (Iraq) really takes away from a book that could have had a great message about poverty and domestic policy.
Note: I skimmed the final chapters in the book, just more of the same from the beginning of the book. The book is not independently minded, but it is written from the viewpoint of a liberal religious person. Some of you may enjoy that point of view, but I’m still searching for a political commentator that includes religion in their writing in a fair, independent way.
