Profiles: Jim Wallis
PROGRESSIVE EVANGELIST
A new force is emerging in American politics that is trying to separate the “right” from the “religious.” That force is Jim Wallis, ’72, an Evangelical Christian leader who combines Christian values with progressive politics. Wallis’ book, God’s Politics: Why The Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper Collins, 2005), has topped the New York Times best-seller list for four months. “It has sold 200,000 copies in hardback,” Jim notes. “We’ve gone to 50 cities, for town meetings disguised as book signings. Many people—a silent majority— embrace Christian values and also are politically moderate or progressive. The ‘Right’ has made religion into a partisan weapon, but religion should not be used as a political wedge. It should unite us. Fighting poverty, for example, should be a bipartisan commitment and a nonpartisan cause.”
A native of Detroit, Wallis chose to attend MSU over the University of Michigan and calls his student years “the best four years of my life.” He was an R.A. in Armstrong Hall for three years and became a student activist, organizing for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam. After MSU he attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago, where he met others who combined faith with activism. In 1971, they founded Sojourners (www.sojo.net), which published a magazine dealing with faith, politics and culture that he still edits. In 1995, he founded Call to Renewal, an anti-poverty group based in Washington D.C., where he currently resides with his wife and two children. He also teaches a weekly class at Harvard and speaks throughout the country. “
My avocation is to build movements,” says Jim, who served as pastor for the Sojourners’ community. “What changes history are social movements, especially those based on faith.” He looks to South Africa’s Bishop Desmond Tutu, who opposed Apartheid, as his friend and mentor. “The key,” he notes, “is to first galvanize the religious community and then the broader public.” Given his book sales alone, he appears to be doing just that.
