Dominance of the religious right over our politics is finally finished

According to a prominent liberal Evangelical, there is a major political and generational shift going on among Evangelical Christians in America.

Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners Magazine, told Jon Stewart on Tuesday's Daily Show, "Two things have happened since we last talked. I've got some good news and some great news. The good news is, the dominance of the religious right over our politics is finally finished."

As the audience cheered and applauded, Wallis continued, "Even the better news is now a new generation has come of age and they're applying their faith ... to the biggest issues that face us: the moral scandal of poverty, the degradation of the environment -- which we call God's creation -- the threat of climate change, Darfur, human rights, the exclusive use of war to fight evil."

Stewart questioned whether a religious left might not wind up being just as rigid as the religious right, but on the other side. Wallis replied that he wasn't expecting that to happen, because people in this country "don't want to go left or right, they want to go deeper, they want to go to a moral center."

"Politics in America is broken," Wallis said, explaining why he anticipates a new social movement, rather than a new political movement. "Social movements often rise up to change politics when it fails. And the best social movements often have spiritual foundations."
"Why does it always have to be tied in to faith?" Stewart asked, pointing out that at the same time as the 19th century abolitionists were appealing to religion, so were the supporters of slavery. "Isn't there a way to have a right and wrong?"

"Religion has no monopoly on morality," Wallis agreed, acknowledging that all the great social movements have had a significant component of people of faith, but never exclusively. "And there's a whole new denomination now," he added, "called the spiritual but not religious, that's growing all over the country."

"The two great hungers in the world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice, and the connection between the two is the one the new generation is just waiting for," Wallis concluded.

He cautioned, however, that "when people of faith get to the public square, they shouldn't say, 'My religious view is this.' They should speak in moral language that is inclusive of everybody. ... I care about not someone's religion, but what their moral compass is."