Chesterton called America "a nation with the soul of a church." In his Second Inaugural, Abraham Lincoln noted that North and South alike "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other . . . .The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes." Bob Dylan sang, "With God on Our Side." How Would God Vote? by David Klinghoffer and The Great Awakening by Jim Wallis have arrived just in time for the 2008 election.

Klinghoffer claims God for the right, Wallis claims Him for the left. Hence their respective subtitles: "Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative" and "Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America." The books are provocative, reasonably well-written, and persuasive to the choir. What isn't these days? Neither book lacks confidence, nor, for that matter, hubris. To say the right engages in triumphalism and the left in sanctimony probably is to indulge in both vanities.

Klinghoffer erects a platform whose planks address specific issues -- taxes, energy, guns, gay marriage, education, the death penalty, and more. Wallis takes a more general approach. Although Klinghoffer writes as an orthodox Jew, he speaks to conservative Christians. One chapter explains "Why I'm Not a Zionist but Christians Should Be." Many will find the argument a tad dense. Wallis writes as an evangelical eager to challenge the right on religious and political grounds, and to make his ideological allies more hospitable to people of faith.

If Klinghoffer springs more surprises, then neither he nor Wallis springs enough. While the sincerity, convictions, and intellects of the two writers are not in doubt, readers will be tempted to infer that in certain instances the politics preceded the theology. Klinghoffer veers close to discrediting his entire enterprise when he explains why he changed his mind on gun control. The massacre at Virginia Tech led him to say the control side may be right. He brings in God at the end, yet without offering compelling evidence of religious reinterpretation. That's pragmatism, not hermeneutics. And if God is a pragmatist, then it is best to consult not books such as the pair discussed here but those written by the late Sidney Hook. Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life endures.

Wallis spares himself similar embarrassment, but suffers from a penchant for bromides. He wins points by citing the prophetic example of Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop who served (and serves) as a beacon for liberty, justice, and piety in South Africa and throughout the world. (Tutu is not one of the African clerics cited by U.S. congregations entering into alliances with Anglicans in the Global South, alas.) Wallis too readily looks to the state to comfort the heavy laden. Klinghoffer does not grant the state its necessary role. A better balance is struck in The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society by Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth.

Klinghoffer frequently refers to Wallis; Wallis does not return the compliment/insult. Wallis' well-worn statement that God is not a Democrat or a Republican receives Klinghoffer's scorn on several planes. Let's put it another way: God is a Republican, and a Democrat, and an independent -- just as He is not only an American but also a Mexican, a Haitian, a Bolivian, a Pole, a Swede, an Israeli, a Palestinian, a Kenyan, an Angolan, a Persian, an Indian, a Thai, and a Korean. He is even French.

. . .

Believers cannot separate their faith from their politics. Religion covers the whole person with a seamless garment. Belief affects perspective. It ought not, however, translate into partisanship. Issues and circumstances change. A wise response to John Kennedy's 1960 speech to Baptist ministers in Houston came from a member of the American Jewish Committee who noted that he and a Catholic colleague might agree on all the crucial political issues, but that while their views may be "related" to their religious beliefs they were not "predictable" from them. The quality embedded in the comment is known as humility.

A life of discalced contemplation is not for all. Most prefer to live among the sweet temptations of this world. In fear and trembling the faithful strive to translate into social and political action what they perceive to be God's intentions. His will be done. The search for divine authority lends confidence even as it generates doubts. As imperfect mortals stumble toward a godly commonwealth, well might they remain mindful of John's First Epistle: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

A friendly employee of an auto service center in Glen Allen answered Klinghoffer directly and Wallis by implication. While running through the bill with a customer his eyes fell on the Klinghoffer book. He looked up, pointed to the title, and said, "He wouldn't." Amen. --Todd Culbertson Editor of the Editorial Pages Excerpts from what others are saying about Jim Wallis and David Klinghoffer:

Chris Satullo Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 19, 2008

[Jim] Wallis' critique of the Religious Right differs from that of secular liberals. You know, the people who reflexively call all evangelical activists "scary" and issue pious lectures about "separation of church and state" (scoldings that they somehow never give to the black pastors who regularly endorse Democratic candidates from the pulpit).

Wallis, by contrast, actually believes in sin, redemption, resurrection, revelation and all that Bible stuff. And he has no qualms about telling secular liberals they've got the First Amendment wrong. It's not meant to separate faith and life; it's meant to protect religion from government as much as the other way around.

But he has even less patience for the conservative preachers who've entwined their message with that of the Republican Party. Their failing is not that they cite the Good Book in the public square; it's that they've got what Jesus says all wrong . . . .

The first principle of Wallis' politics is this: "God hates injustice."

Michael Medved Townhall.com July 1, 2008

The subtitle says "Why the Bible Commands You to be a Conservative" and the book digs deep into scriptural text to emphasize that the Almighty demands individual commitment, rather than asking human beings to satisfy their obligations to their nieghbors through impersonal government policy . . . . [U]nexpectedly, Klinghoffer sees an aggressive foreign policy as un-Biblical, making the important point that the Judeo-Chritisan tradition quite naturally emphasizes domestic policy above international concerns. As former literary editor of National Review, and author of previous acclaimed volumes on Abraham and Jesus . . . David Klinghoffer is perfectly situated as both a veteran conservative and respected religious scholar to make this important contribution to public discourse. Some GOP partisans may object to his view of religious approaches to immigration or foreign policy, but they'll still feel refreshed and stimulated by this entertaining, important, occasionally inspiring and perfectly timed book.