Ed Lasky
The tangled web woven by George Soros served as a safety net for Barack Obama when he needed rescue from the exposure of Jeremiah Wright as an America-hating radical. Pastor Jim Wallis lied about receiving money from George Soros's Open Society Institute. His organization, Sojourners, is a leftist "social justice" type of ministry. He and Sojourners have a history with Barack Obama that I have been tracking for a few years. When the Jeremiah Wright scandal erupted, candidate Barack Obama had to find religion -- fast. Fortunately for him, he had a backup pastor in place and ready to go: Jim Wallis. Apparently, Obama felt right at home with Wallis. The New York Times published an article on the pastors to whom Barack Obama has reached out. Having thrown his longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright, Junior under the bus during the campaign when Wright's radical views became a political problem, he is in need of spiritual counsel or a least cover.
The disturbing point is that of the 5 pastors listed, Jim Wallis is the only one credited with influencing Obama on policy issues.
Why might this be a cause of concern? The New York Times reports:
The pastor in the circle who has known Mr. Obama the longest is Mr. Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and movement based in Washington. In contrast to the other four, his contact with the president has been focused more on policy than prayer.
I have written about Wallis in the past:
He and Sojourners have an anti-Israel animus -- just as did Pastor Wright. The magazine and church bulletins published under the aegis of Pastor Wright carried manifestos from a Hamas leader ; Sojourners magazine has also carried pro-Hamas pieces.
But Pastor Wright and Jim Wallis share much more: a stark anti-Americanism and a radicalism sharply at odds with the vast majority of religious figures in America.
Investors Business Daily has been running a superb series of editorials on Barack Obama. The paper continues its insightful series by examining the ties between Barack Obama and Jim Wallis:
Like Wright and Obama, Wallis believes that biblical faith compels radical social action. Their political ministry is called the "social gospel," but it's really just socialism dressed up in a cheap tunic. They refuse to separate personal faith from political activism, whether at home or abroad.
In the '80s, for example, Wallis and Wright rallied to the cause of the communist regime in Nicaragua, and protested the U.S. arming of the Contra rebels. Wallis, in fact, marshaled thousands of "Witnesses for Peace" and joined them in Nicaragua, making it known they were willing to take a bullet to stop the anti-communist insurgency.
Wallis is more eloquent than Wright, but he preaches the same anti-American message. According to discoverthenetworks.org, he once called the U.S. "the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs."
Like Obama, Wallis got his start in Chicago, where he too was involved in community organizing. He forged ties with black gang leaders, including at least one known cop-killer. [...]
Wallis agrees with Obama that American racism and capitalism are to blame for inner-city poverty, and echoes his oft-repeated call for "economic justice." They share a spread-the-wealth vision, including subsidizing the working poor beyond expanded tax credits and minimum-wage hikes. [...]
Wallis may couch his Bolshevist views today. But in 1979, he was quoted in the journal "Mission Tracks" saying he hoped that "more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes."
Also, in a separate column, I reported on ties between Obama and the Sojourners:
Presidential candidate Barack Obama has established ties with Sojourners: a liberal Christian group (with the emphasis on liberal) as a way to burnish his religious credentials and gain political strength. This very same group is supportive of Hamas, a vicious Palestinian terror group responsible for the deaths of many innocent people and a group that indoctrinates its youth to hate. Not to mention dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. What gives, Barack?
Obama spoke at their forum in Washington, D.C. last month ; he also spoke at the Sojourners Pentecost conference last year where he received an award.
After Obama became president, he appointed Wallis to serve on the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a government group charged with the responsibility to strengthen "community organizations" (and we know what that means) and allow them to cut through red tape and get things done -- pronto!
Meghan Clyne is a journalist who has been very astutely covering this group and its agenda -- one that has very little to do with religion as it is commonly perceived. Instead, it has become yet one more government group to push Obama's agenda in the direction he wants: leftward. Obama is using this group to push global warming, climate change, and green initiatives on America's churches and through community groups.
Clyne at the Weekly Standard:
Apparently, the president's council envisions the "partnership" between government and religious institutions as a means of spreading the administration's environmental warnings, rather than just a way to help churches feed the hungry and clothe the poor. Faith-based organizations, the report notes, can take "a prominent leadership role in influencing policy, education, and action in those areas."
How exactly can the government enlist congregations in the climate-change fight? Step 1: Set up an office at the Environmental Protection Agency "to actualize the potential of faith-based and community groups and their networks across the country toward greening and retrofitting buildings"...
The council has plenty of other ideas for blurring the thin green line between church and state. Claiming that "one of the few areas where jobs are being created is the clean-energy sector" and that "faith- and community-based groups can play a critical role in connecting government green job programs with those that need them most," the report suggests that the administration "encourage the Department of Labor, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other Federal agencies to work cooperatively with faith-based and neighborhood organizations to ensure that low-income communities and workers with barriers to employment are targeted when creating green job training programs.
Wallis is undoubtedly all on board with this agenda...and a lot more that may have very little to do with faith as most Americans think of it. But that has been Wallis's camouflage all along. Religious titles can be used to banish all sorts of criticism or analysis and to give one instant respect. After all, Pastor Jeremiah Wright was perfectly acceptable (church membership?-check) until the videos of him denouncing America, white people, and Israel came to light.
Wallis, too, has enjoyed the credibility that comes with a title. He had the opportunity to play a part in electing Obama to the presidency.
Back in 2008, I noted that Obama was forced to throw Jeremiah Wright under the bus but needed to burnish his Christian credentials, so he called upon Wallis to help him. Wallis played a role as a front-man because most liberal journalists are, frankly, too biased or lazy to dig a bit deeper into Wallis beyond the title Pastor. Obama rewarded Wallis with a role in government, where Wallis can promote his own leftist agenda.
Wallis, like Wright, is less a pastor and more of an extreme partisan. He doesn't like America, but he but does likes Hamas, Marxism, and Obama -- and he is a liar, to boot.
A perfect "Pastor" for payola from the likes of George Soros.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/soros_has_a_pastor_close_to_ob.html at August 25, 2010 - 01:42:56 PM CDT
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