I took it that he was saying that, when they move into the political arena, people on "the religious right" tend act in a way that treats issues of wealth and poverty as relatively marginal, and to support policies that operate against the wellbeing of poor people.

In other words, on your point C - "perceiving good in both public and private aid - but determining a different balance of the two as more effective" the suggestion is thatbthey put the balance in the wrong place. And I get the impression that, for some people anyway, there may be a resistance to actually "perceiving good in both public aid" at all", but a tendency to see public aid as a necessary evil at best.

But your suggestion, Jim, that people on the left typically put all their trust in state solutions, and fail to get involved in more direct and personal types of help towards people and groups who need it, well that is diametrically opposed to my experience over many years. Perhaps it's a different picture in the States, but it doesn't square with what I have known throughout my life.

Of course there are always people who will use whatever excuse comes to hand, to walk by on the other side, but you also find them sometimes amongst the most outwardly religious members of society, just as was true 2,000 years ago on the Jericho road.

Sydney Carter, whose politics were much the same as Jim Wallis expressed it well when he wrote When I needed a neighbour...