Sydney Anglicans are among those Christians embracing a growing movement that recognises God does not belong to one political party and that social justice is part of God’s agenda.
American author Jim Wallis, Executive Director of the influential Sojourners magazine has been in Sydney this week for a number of events highlighting the Micah Challenge, the church based arm of the "Make Poverty History' campaign.
The popular campaign, publicised by U2’s Bono, is being actively supported by many Sydney Anglican churches.
"God is not Liberal or Labor, Republican or Democrat," Mr Wallis says.
"The challenge for Australia is to ensure religion provides a moral compass."
Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth, who was invited to a special breakfast meeting with Jim Wallis yesterday, says Mr Wallis's visit reflects a growing awareness amongst evangelicals that God wants us to address the needs of the poor.
"There is a growing interest amongst evangelicals in addressing world poverty," says Bishop Forsyth.
"However it is much harder to find agreement on the social policies needed to address this issue."
Mr Wallis' theory is outlined in his new book God Politics: why the American Right gets it wrong and the left doesn’t get it (Lion Books).
He believes that US President George Bush and the Republican Party have distorted Christianity by reducing its agenda to a debate on sexuality and abortion alone.
Right-wing parties have gotten away with this, argues Mr Wallis, because the Left fails to understand the significance the biblical worldview plays in shaping how Christians vote.
"They have conceded the territory of religion, values, even God, to a religious and political Right, and then they define it in very narrow, partisan ways, making religion into a wedge issue to divide us, and not a bridge to bring us together," Jim Wallis told ABC's Religion Report yesterday
"A lot of your listeners will be surprised to hear an American Christian voice who doesn't think God is an American, or only a Right-wing Republican cares only about gay marriage and abortion, but [who applies] faith to HIV-AIDS and Dafur, and the environment, and in fact poverty."
Mr Wallis thinks Christianity has driven ‘progressive’ politics in the West.
“Every major social reform movement, abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, child labour, law reform and of course civil rights, led by the black churches, every one of those was fuelled and led in large part by religion."
However he adds that progressive politics has become "rights politics' losing "the language of the common good'.
"So I think progressive politics needs progressive religion to win, politically."
