Sojourners magazine, the Sabbath, and Jim Wallis

I'm encouraged by the title of Jim Wallis' book God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, his magazine "Sojourners", and this article I read about the Sabbath in his magazine. His selling point, as the Amazon editorial puts it, is that "the true mission of Christianity--righting social ills, working for peace--is in tune with the values of liberals who so often run screaming from the idea of religion."

I often wonder at the audacity of television personalities and political parties. I wonder, how conservatives so devorce themselves from the causes that they hear espoused every week in their churches, namely protecting G-d's creation, feeding the poor, and equal rights for all people? And how, equally mystifying, can liberals not see the that the ethics of religion provide a moral basis for the causes that they themselves demand? Finally, and most frighteningly, what forces are at work to diminish the voices of reason in mitigating this conflict. Why is it that only the screaming heads are allowed to speak?

Seperately, as a Sabbath-observer, I found the article about the Sabbath in his magazine quite refreshing as well. The idea is that observing a day of rest (not just any day, but the 7th day, the day G-d commanded) never was just a rule observed by a people by rote. This day, for it's observants, provides psychological rejouvination, and a reminder every week that there are things, ethical things, that we as a people maintain, from which we will not shy away. Every week, we have a physical reminder that we separate our inner selves to G-d.

There's so much more to say. I'm not going to say it all here.