Many Americans, religious or not, believe this country is facing a moral and spiritual crisis, one that has fundamentally to do with values. For people across the political spectrum, restoring moral values to our public policies and discourse has become a critical issue. But while the Religious Right has successfully portrayed itself as the exclusive protector and purveyor of moral values in politics, "Who Speaks For God?" illustrates that, in fact, the policies and positions it espouses fly in the face of Christian values and doctrine, and have had a harshly divisive effect on our society. In "Who Speaks For God?, " Reverend Jim Wallis examines what historical Christian values, teachings and scriptures tell us about how to reinstate the sense of spirit, soul and meaning to our public policies and debates, and why it matters now more than ever before--as poverty and homelessness increase and racial rifts tear us apart while our political leaders grow more fractious and their debate more partisan. "Who Speaks For God?" is a manifesto that presents an alternative vision for infusing a sense of meaning and values to our politics, a vision built around Compassion, Community and Civility. Compassion is the first test of politics, from a religious perspective: How it treats the poor, the vulnerable, the weak, the children, is a virtual measure of a nation's righteousness according to the prophets, and in that light the material will look at our social policies and welfare reform. Whether it builds or destroys Community is a second test of a nation's politics, and the proliferation of gangs and urban violence attests to the need for a new approach. Civility--the character of politicaldiscourse and decision making--is clearly lacking from the highly divisive political debate, characterized by the "politics of blame" in which the Religious Right has blamed the poor, the homeless, blacks, gays, feminists, and liberals for a striking array of sins; this section will reject the extremes from both the Right and the Left to envision a "moral center" for politics