Ralph welcomes Reverend Jim Wallis, the Leader of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, who calls out Republicans on gun safety and identifies white churches as a threat to democracy. Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, speculates on why Trump and Pence have not been subpoenaed to appear before the January 6th committee.
Reverend Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, and commentator on religion and public life, faith, and politics. Reverend Wallis is the Leader of the Center on Faith and Justice in the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, and he is the founder and ambassador of Sojourners.
We face, right now, a test of democracy, but also a test of faith. There is White Christian Nationalism. White Christian Nationalism is the principal obstacle to democracy, the principal threat.
Jim Wallis
When the contrast between corporate CEO salaries and the average workers’ went from 25 or 30-to-one, which is still the case in parts of Europe and Japan, to 500-to-one, I said theologically, religiously there is no justification for that. And that’s a sin. Corporate salaries of that level are a sin.
Jim Wallis
[A number of institutional leaders are] going to have a test of conscience, a test of faith… And I think it’s callout time. Calling out the sin.
Jim Wallis
We would have gun safety tomorrow were it not for Republicans. Republicans have blood on their hands. And we’ve got to say that again and again and again.
Jim Wallis
Bruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.
Here we have the January 6th Committee involved in the greatest, most important investigation in the history of the United States… Because we have credible evidence that there was an attempt— open and notorious — to prevent the peaceful transfer of Presidential power for the first time in over two centuries. And this wasn’t just by false pretenses. This was by use of force and violence.
Bruce Fein
This wasn’t violence that erupted because there weren’t peaceful avenues of redress. The Trump people had brought over 50 lawsuits– lost all of them. They had the opportunity… to protest peacefully with signs or whatever in front of the Capitol. So this clearly was an attempt to basically abandon the rule of law.
Bruce Fein
Throughout history, over 2000 years, every major religion warns its adherents not to give too much power to the merchant class. Because the merchant class was singularly focused on money, on profits, and they would run roughshod on far more important humane values in their quest for gold.
Ralph Nader
Corporatism is systemic racism.
Ralph Nader
Jesus Was A Progressive