Jim Wallis says that by going back to the , Christians can change the way Washington does business.

God’s PoliticsBOB SMIETANA

hen he was six years old, had jobs and homes and enough to servatives and “secular fundamental- WJim Wallis gave his heart to at eat, while a few miles away, in a black ists” have turned faith into a “purely the prompting of a Plymouth Breth- neighborhood, that was not the case. private matter,” while ignoring what ren preacher, who warned Wallis that The questions didn’t go over too the Bible says about God. Jesus might come at any moment well, says Wallis. “Christianity has “The privatization of God is the and leave him behind, and a mother nothing to do with racism,” a church greatest heresy of the twentieth cen- who—instead of “preaching the wrath elder told him. “That’s political. Our tury,” Wallis says. “God is personal, but of God to a little boy”—told him that faith is personal.” never private.” God loved him and wanted him to be Wallis also got a warning: “Keep ask- Instead, God has something to say a child of God. ing those questions, and you’re going about every aspect of life. Just read the “So I repented of the sin and degra- to get into trouble.” Bible, especially the Old Testament dation of my fi rst six years—which was “That turned out to be true,” says prophets. substantial,” Wallis says, “and signed Wallis, editor-in-chief of Sojourners “In the prophets,” Wallis says, “the up.” magazine and author of the New York public God’s topics are labor, capital, At fi rst, Wallis was content going to Times bestseller, God’s Politics: Why the equity, justice, fairness—his targets Sunday school and youth group at his Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t are princes and rulers, employers and church. Then he did the most danger- Get It, who was a featured speaker at judges. He lifts up widows and orphans ous thing a young Christian can do. He 2005 Midwinter Conference for Cov- and workers. This God is a public God. started reading the Bible. enant ministers. Our job is to offer relationship with The more he read, the more he no- Wallis has spent most of his life get- God and then to enlist the converts in ticed that the world around him didn’t ting into trouble for trying to convince the agenda of a public God.” match up to what he saw in the Bible Christians, especially evangelicals, to In his new book, Wallis turns to and what he heard in church. So he take the Bible seriously; especially when the examples of the evangelicals of the began to ask questions. Like, “If Jesus it strays from personal topics like sex nineteenth century, who were “reviv- loves the little children, red and yellow, and stealing and into the public arena, alists and reformers.” Charles Finney black and white, why are there no black addressing politics, race, economics, was the “Billy Graham of his day,” who children in our church?” And, “Why and war and peace. invented the altar call so he could “get is life seem so different in the black In a conversation with the Compan- the names and addresses of his con- and white neighborhoods of ?” ion following his Midwinter speech, verts” and “sign them up for the anti- In Wallis’s neighborhood, everyone Wallis argued that both Christian con- slavery movement.” Those early evan-

6 | THE COVENANT COMPANION gelicals also helped lead the fi ght for ton ideological issues—like gay mar- undermines families. On the show, a women’s votes and to establish child riage—and uses them to stir up angry group of couples were taken to a re- labor laws. debate, which takes time and energy mote island with the hopes that they The legacy of public Christian- from solving more pressing problems. would cheat on one another. ity seemed to disappear after the civil “The right acts like gay marriage is “Infi delity, betrayal, broken relation- rights movement of the 1960s. What the end of civilization as we know it,” ships, and casual sex are undermining remains is a battle over private Chris- he says, “but it’s hard to see how that the health and integrity of our society,” tianity: with some on the left wanting would end civiliza- Wallis writes in God’s God’s Politics to banish the Bible from the public tion as we know it Politics. “. . . The real en- square, and others on the right limiting or cause all of the emy isn’t sex, but rather biblical morality to sexual sins. families to unravel the commodifi cation of God’s Politics takes both Democrats around the block.” everything—turning and Republicans to task. Democrats, On the other values into market val- Wallis says, have taken the constitu- hand, Wallis adds, ues, gutting the world tional idea of the separation of church “the left sees it as of genuine love, caring, and state to extremes. “I believe in the the premier civil compassion, connec- separation of church and state,” he says, rights issue of our tion and commitment, “but it does not mean the segregation time, like apartheid for what will sell, for of moral values and religious language or the Holocaust, example, on a from public life.” something worth Republicans, especially those af- dividing churches fi liated with the religious right, Wallis over. I don’t see that says, seem to believe that God is on either. I don’t think their side and that Christians have a this should be a faith duty to vote Republican. That duty is breaker.” Jim Wallis based on two moral issues: abortion While the ideo- and gay marriage. Wallis, who is pro- logical battles rage, children, like the life and opposed to gay marriage, still ones in the impoverished Columbia asks: “Are there really only two moral Heights neighborhood where Wallis issues?” has lived for thirty years, “fall through “I am an evangelical and I fi nd 3,000 the cracks.” He sees a family crisis in verses on the poor in my Bible,” he the United States that goes far beyond says, “so fi ghting poverty is a moral gay marriage—a breakdown in mar- television.” value. Caring for God’s creation, the riages and families stressed to their Still, what Wallis longs for are Chris- environment is a moral value. Talking limits that puts entire communities at tians who will “treat both Temptation about how, when, and whether we go risk. He agrees with groups like Focus Island and child poverty as morally of- to war is a moral value too. And telling on the Family that addressing family fensive.” the truth about going to war is a moral breakdown is absolutely critical. That’s unlikely, Wallis says, as long value too.” “Parenting has become a counter- as Christians buy into partisan politics, Wallis attempts to reach beyond the cultural activity in America,” he says. and continue to separate the personal ideologies of the right and the left, and “Liberal or conservative—we’ve got a aspects of the faith from the public bring the Bible to bear on all aspects of family crisis, we’ve got family break- faith, with liberal Christians neglect- life. He fears that Christians have been down, we have an unraveling of mar- ing the personal and focusing on the seduced by the Washington “blame riage and family and the kids are falling public, and conservatives trumpeting game,” which seeks power instead of between the cracks. Unless we reweave personal morals and ignoring social fi nding solutions to pressing human the bonds of family and community responsibility. needs. and extended family, the kids are just “Ideology has seduced us,” Wallis “Here’s how Washington works for going to be lost.” says. “It has seduced the churches by both Democrats and Republicans,” he Finding solutions to the family squeezing us into narrow political cat- says. “You take a problem, and try and crisis requires an intensive “focus on egories, creating ideological religion, fi gure out who is to blame, who you the family,” that emphasizes “family and robbing the nation of prophetic can pin it on. Then you take a poll—the values” and provides concrete support faith.” election is just the last poll—and see if for families. Wallis criticizes shows like One way out of the ideology trap is

your spin [on an issue] won.” Fox’s reality series Temptation Island Bob Smietana is features editor of the Com- The blame game also takes hot-but- as the kind of cultural infl uence that panion.

APRIL 2 0 0 5 | 7 “God’s politics reminds us to set aside partisan concerns and fo- he told the president during a one-on- cus on finding some common ground. of the people our politics one exchange. “Poverty is a common ground,” says always neglect—the poor, The concern over terrorism is a daily Wallis. “Parenting is a huge common the vulnerable, the left reality for Wallis, who lives about twen- ground. Those are two of the biggest behind.” ty blocks from the White House with common ground areas I can find. Do- his wife, Joy, an Anglican priest, and ing something about poverty, seriously, the hairs on the heads of every child their boys, Luke, six, and Jack, almost and doing something about supporting in the world; including those who two. While Wallis argues that “war is a parents, that would bring lots of people live in poor families in the U.S. and last resort” for Christians, he believes together across the dividing lines.” around the world. Too many of God’s there are times when military force is Helping families trapped in pover- children, says Wallis, start life behind necessary. Even then, he believes that ty has been a major theme of Wallis’s the eight ball—in the U.S. because of Christians must love their enemies, long career as a Christian social activist. poverty, failing schools, and crumbling even when those enemies are terror- Some of that comes from the lessons neighborhoods; and around the world ists. Our enemies are still created in the his mother taught him. Phyllis Wallis because they happened to be born in a image of God. That’s what the Bible told her five children (including Wal- country where basics like food, clean teaches us, says Wallis. lis’s brother Bill, a member of Trinity water, and health care simply are not “The words of Jesus are either au- Church, a Covenant church in Livo- available. thoritative for Christians or they are nia, Michigan, and his sister, Marcie, While speaking at the 2005 Covenant not,” he says. “And they are not set aside whose is helping plant Life Covenant Midwinter Conference, Wallis referred by the very real threats of terrorism. Church in Canton, Michigan, with her to what David Beckmann calls the “si- . . . The threat of terrorism does not husband, Alex Rahill) that they had two lent tsunami”—the estimated 30,000 undermine Christian ethics.” jobs at school. First was to make sure children who die each day from hun- Some critics have dismissed Wal- “nobody gets left out”—so if there was ger or disease caused by a lack of clean lis as too idealistic, that he insists on a kid who was an outcast at school, the water. Quoting from , biblical ideals which won’t work in the Wallis kids were to befriend him or her. the British chancellor of the exchequer real world. He refuses to believe that, The second was to always to stand up (the equivalent of the U.S. treasurer), insisting that the church has a vital role to bullies. Wallis said that “for the first time in his- to play in politics. Those lessons were reinforced by tory, we have the wherewithal to really “The best contribution the church an experiment that Wallis took part in do something about extreme poverty,” can make is to be independent, to while at Trinity Evangelical Seminary to help “the three billion people who challenge both sides,” he says. “God’s in Deerfield, Illinois. A group of his are living on less than $2 a day.” politics challenge everything about our classmates took scissors and cut out What is lacking, Brown told Wallis politics. God’s politics remind us of the every reference to the poor, the out- during a meeting, “is the moral and po- people our politics always neglect—the cast, the widows and orphans, the op- litical will” to address global poverty. poor, the vulnerable, the left behind. pressed, and foreigners and aliens in the “That’s your job,” Brown told Wallis God’s politics challenge our narrow Bible. Out went the Prophets, most of and a group of church leaders. ethnic, economic, and cultural self in- the Psalms, much of the Law of Moses, Wallis’s activism has him on the terest.” along with long sections of the teaching road, speaking at churches and uni- That kind of approach to politics, he of Jesus. Left behind was a Bible full versities, and, on a recent book tour, believes, can get politicians less focused of holes. Wallis often carried that tat- to Meet the Press and with on consolidating their own power, and tered Bible with him on speaking trips , where he presses a vision put them to work solving societal ills. to make a point—most Christians in of “the common good”—a politics that Not that Wallis has put all of his the U.S. have a similar Bible full of is concerned about the welfare of all faith in politicians. Instead, he hopes holes. of God’s children. In recent years, it’s to build a movement of people who At the heart of Wallis’s concern for brought him into contact with a num- are dedicated to a biblical vision of the the poor is an overwhelming convic- ber of prominent politicians, including common good and who are sustained tion about the love of God. “Jesus says several meetings with President Bush. by their faith in God. the very hairs on our head are num- He says that he’s been impressed by “My Bible says faith is the substance bered—this God knows us, this God the sincerity of the president’s faith, but of things hoped for, the evidence of knows everything about us—this God pushed him to go deeper in the Scrip- things not seen,” he says. “My best loves us—and wants a relationship with tures to address issues like terrorism. paraphrase of that passage is this: ‘Faith us,” he says. “Until you fight poverty and terror- is believing despite the evidence and If that is true, then God numbers ism equally, you won’t beat either one,” watching the evidence change.’” 

8 | THE COVENANT COMPANION