Evangelical Progressive Jim Wallis Should Stay Out Of Vatican / American Nun Leadership Dispute

I saw progressive evangelical Jim Wallis post on the Vatican / American Catholic nun thing yesterday. Today that post has made it's way to Huff Post which will should make it the talk of the religious web today. See Having the Sisters' Back .

I actually like Jim Wallis though I often disagree with him a good bit. Not too long ago I saw a very good debate between Wallis and conservative Baptist  Al Mohler on Social Justice and the Church. There was agreement and disagreement. Long story short Wallis thinks the Church should proclaim ,and take position on various social Justice issues. Mohler thinks what the Church should take positions on is much more limited by scripture. However he saw the role of the "Church" as forming Christians that should take social justice positions. An interesting but important difference.

I like that Jim Wallis versus the Jim Wallis I often see on the net throwing bombshells all over the place.

But it appears that Wallis has now entered the Catholic debate.

Here is my view . Wallis needs to decide if he will be a friend or a pastor if he wishes to contribute to this internal Catholic matter. I will put this in term of marriage.

When there is a dispute between married couples friends are sometimes the worst people to put in their two cents. Nine times out of ten friends of the married couple will take sides. A Friend will validate every complaint a spouse has against another spouse. While this is appealing  to one spouse it often does help the couple to reconcile.

A Pastor on the other hand understand LIFE and marriage is complicated. Generally fault does not lie with just one party. Thus a pastor does not generally have one spouse's back over another.

It's pretty clear from his post that Wallis is a Friend and not a Pastor in my view. The situation here is complicated , and it appears that Wallis is making a ton of assumptions about how all this went down.

I was tweeting with a very far left ex nun on this matter. She admitted to me that within the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) there is are in fact many nuns /sisters that are not happy with their leadership and have points of disagreement. Wallis seems obvilious to this. This is not a war on nuns /sisters but a dispute over some pretty important Church teaching.

Wallis as a outsider should perhaps be wary of entering this domestic dispute. But if he does he should enter in as a pastor role , not a friend. If not he will just cause more damage , and like friends to a marriage not have to deal with most of the hurt they caused.