Fasting for Big GovernmentBy Mark Tooley
Evangelical Left icon Jim Wallis of Sojourners is deeply distressed that the Obama Administration has become less than messianic.  A growing conservative electoral resurgence must also disturb the political prophet, as he mournfully noted that "long-time senators are leaving public office," unwilling to champion Wallis-style statist causes in a hostile climate.
Having assumed that the Kingdom of God would break forth in a plethora of left-leaning legislation, form Obamacare, to cap and trade, to liberalized immigration, some on the Evangelical and Religious Left now wonder what went wrong.  Many probably join Wallis in feeling "lament" and "emptiness" during this ostensible "national and global crisis."
Wallis is so troubled that he is exploiting Lent, a season for Christian reflection and self-denial, to launch a "Daniel's Fast" of vegetables and berries. The biblical Prophet Daniel fasted when he could not eat the ritually unclean food of pagan Babylon, where he was captive.  Evidently, with Obama's agenda now stymied, Wallis believes he must resort to similar spiritual exigencies.
"I believe our nation is in deep trouble," Wallis fretted in a recent column, describing his worries.  "Politicians in Washington can't get health-care reform done. Comprehensive immigration reform is a crying issue of social justice for millions of our most poor and vulnerable families; but it may not even come up in Congress this session, for fear of unleashing a demagoguery that would make the battle over health care look tame. Enormous debts and deficits keep piling up, and a bipartisan commission to try to solve the deficit threat to future generations was just rejected - because it was bipartisan."
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