{"id":485,"date":"2009-04-02T11:19:58","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T11:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/limbaugh-joins-fight-against-p.html"},"modified":"2009-04-02T11:19:58","modified_gmt":"2009-04-02T11:19:58","slug":"limbaugh-joins-fight-against-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/limbaugh-joins-fight-against-p.html","title":{"rendered":"Limbaugh Joins Fight Against Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

I just saw this in my inbox from Sojourners! \u00a0Hint – it came yesterday, April 1.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Rush Limbaugh to Speak at Sojourners’ Mobilization to End Poverty<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"GetGet a free issue ofSojourners<\/i><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

In an inspiring display of bipartisan bridge-building, talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh has accepted Jim Wallis’ invitation to deliver a keynote address at Sojourners’\u00a0Mobilization to End Poverty<\/a>conference in April.<\/p>\n

\n

“I’ve always said the monologue of the extreme right is over, and a new dialogue has begun,” said Wallis. “Well, that dialogue is about to get a whole lot louder.”<\/p>\n

Limbaugh, longtime champion of conservative media, announced his acceptance of the invitation on his daily radio show. Interrupted occasionally by call-ins of incredulous listeners, Limbaugh detailed months of off-the-record conversations with Wallis during which the two forged a deep friendship despite political, theological, philosophical, ideological, ecological, anthropological, eschatological, and soteriological differences. That dialogue came to a head one night when an anguished and sleepless Limbaugh called Wallis after 3:00 a.m., seeking spiritual solace.<\/p>\n

“I responded like any good evangelical would,” said Wallis. “I told him he should read his Bible. And then I hung up and went back to sleep.”<\/p>\n

Vexed but desperate, Limbaugh grabbed his trusty KJV, fanned it open at random, closed his eyes, and thrust his index finger upon whatever page it might find, landing upon this passage from\u00a0James 5<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“I admit, of all the verses for him to read, this passage sounds a bit harsh–especially in the King James,” said Wallis. “But with 2,000 verses on poverty in the Bible, Rush was bound to hit one of them.”<\/p>\n

Limbaugh’s response to the Word was swift and dramatic:“Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”<\/a><\/p>\n

As part of Limbaugh’s dramatic change of heart, he has reciprocated Wallis’ speaking invitation by naming him the new co-host for his daily radio show, giving it a more faith-based focus.<\/p>\n

“The way Kathy Lee needed Regis, that’s the way y’all need Jesus,” said Limbaugh. “That’s what Jim will bring to the show on a daily basis–that good ole’ Red Letter Christian gospel!”<\/p>\n

Limbaugh further detailed his plans to team up with Sojourners and others to fight domestic and global poverty, issuing this challenge to all Dittoheads in a recent broadcast: “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to call upon their members of Congress to cut the number of Americans living in poverty in half in the next 10 years, and to support America’s commitment to the Millennium Devleopment Goals. … And always remember to recycle. … Oh, and one last thing: fur is murder.”<\/p>\n

Watch a video sneak preview of Rush’s speech at the Mobilization to End Poverty<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"090401-rush-limbaugh\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With Mobilization attendees and legions of conservative talk radio fans both reeling from this dramatic turn of events, many are asking what other surprises are in store for the Sojourners conference.<\/p>\n

\"090401-stephen-colbert-prayer\"Anonymous sources have confirmed that TV talk show host Stephen T. Colbert (pictured) will be delivering the prayer of invocation to kick off the event. Also, Bono has cancelled the free U2 concert for\u00a0emerging leaders<\/a>\u00a0due to lack of interest. Instead, band members The Edge, Larry Mullins Jr. and Adam Clayton will accompany Jim Wallis in leading the young people in a sing-a-long of church camp fireside favorites.\u00a0“Arky Arky”<\/a>\u00a0anyone?<\/p>\n

Okay, as you may have already guessed–April Fools! But seriously folks, come to Washington, D.C., this April for the Mobilization to End Poverty!<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just saw this in my inbox from Sojourners! \u00a0Hint – it came yesterday, April 1.\u00a0 Rush Limbaugh to Speak at Sojourners’ Mobilization to End Poverty Get a free issue ofSojourners In an inspiring display of bipartisan bridge-building, talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh has accepted Jim Wallis’ invitation to deliver a keynote address at Sojourners’\u00a0Mobilization…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nLimbaugh Joins Fight Against Poverty - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/limbaugh-joins-fight-against-p.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Limbaugh Joins Fight Against Poverty - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just saw this in my inbox from Sojourners! 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}