The Pietist Schoolman

One of the major reasons people of faith could find Wellstone attractive was his commitment to a “moral liberalism.”

This type of engagement is the liberal alternative to the theory of compassionate conservatism (argued, for example, by George W. Bush’s speech writer, Michael Gerson). The themes of contemporary “moral liberalism” can be found in the writings and activity of such people as President Barack Obama, Marian Wright Edelman of the Children’s Defense Fund, Martin Luther King, Jr., theologian Vincent Harding and editorialist E. J. Dionne. Such writers as Jim Wallis, Lisa Sharon Harper, Charles Marsh, David Gushee, Jimmy Carter, and John Perkins can emphatically articulate it in the evangelical community.

The starting premise is that “moral liberalism” can be located in the prophetic teachings of the Old Testament, the life and ministry of Christ, and the “radical discipleship” characteristics of the Early Church. In an interview with Mordecai Specktor of the American Jewish World of Minnesota, Wellstone reflected on his prophetic Jewish heritage. Calling Wellstone “a great Jewish soul,” Spector writes:

He said that as he grew older, he appreciated more deeply how his parents has imparted their values and concerns to him — notably, a love of education and ideas and a “passion for justice, if I can put it that way.” His parents, Leon and Minnie Wellstone “were always on the lookout for decent people’s basic liberties. They were the best. Pretty amazing people.”

Paul Wellstone was not a pious, go-to-shul Jew, but his Jewishness was expressed in energetic activism for a more just social order that has been a durable strand of the modern Jewish experience. As Bernard Raskas, Rabbi Laureate of Temple of Aaron Synagogue in St. Paul, sees it, Paul was a critic of injustice in the Jewish prophetic tradition.

“Somebody called him a mensch (a kind and generous person),” Raskas said during a lengthy telephone conversation we had Sunday night. “He was more than a mensch. He stood for what the prophets stood for. He spoke the truth from the prophets, and he moved me very deeply as a rabbi.”

“A lot of my identity, a lot of what informs me,” Paul Wellstone told me last April, as he searched for the right words, “I mean, I think the prophetic tradition of our faith is that to love God is to love justice. And, hey, I don’t meet that goal, but I try to do everything I can to live by that.”

Paul then segued to the topic of human rights — “a big part of my passion in foreign policy” — which he again related to the “history of Jewish people, of persecution, of my own family.” The people around the world who challenged the most repressive governments were Paul’s heroes, and he fought for them within the corridors of power.

These same themes can be found in a 1998 interview with Michael Lerner in the Jewish magazine Tikkun, where Wellstone stated:

Well, when I speak about the need to provide every child with a decent education including the pre-school preparation for kindergarten that some children get and others do not or to provide every citizen with decent quality health care, I don’t think I’m talking only about economics, this is a politics of values. Sure, this is about economic opportunity, but it’s also a call for our community to be our best selves by identifying with our highest values. I’ve spoken to union workers about what I call “the new isolationism” in America, an isolationism not in foreign affairs but in human affairs. It used to be that we would understand of those most downtrodden that “there but for the grace of God go I.” But today we are told we must face all our problems by ourselves. Basically, the refrain of this society has become: “You are on your own.”

I talked to a friend last night who has Parkinson’s disease – and she told me the health care system’s  basic response is “You are on your own.” If you have a child who is developmentally disabled, “You are on your own.” I want to challenge this. So I want to put together the hared hitting bread and butter politics along with the issues of a politics of value…