Jim WallisReviews

Focused on the 2004 presidential election, God’s Politics is a sweeping commentary on the two-party American political system. Jim Wallis believes that American leaders have a vision problem: a basic lack of vision. Therefore, Wallis recommends adopting a vision of justice borrowed from the pages of the Old Testament prophets. He believes, as I do, that our political system spends too much time, energy, and money on partisan bickering, acknowledging that every important social movement in American history (abolition, suffrage, civil rights) has started with a cause and vision capable of unifying diverse community and political leaders. Moreover, these movements were led by godly men and women who sought to live out the biblical mandate for justice in all areas of life. Wallis calls for “a new vision for the common good that could inspire us all to live lives of service and to a whole new set of public…priorities” (pg. 28).
In answering the question of how our faith should influence our political activities, Wallis writes that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, the left or the right, have embraced a holistic vision for domestic or international justice and morality. While often focusing justly on social issues, too many Democrats have espoused a faith that is separate from their private lives and shy away from using moral or spiritual terminology. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have often attempted to co-opt religious issues for political gain. This was particularly evident in George W. Bush’s campaigns, during which the religious right was heavily courted through appeals to a very narrow spectrum of morality issues (abortion and gay rights). Christians on the Right have many healthy things to say about personal morality, but their social decisions show a lack of commitment to the common good in terms of economics and international diplomacy. Wallis calls for a new option that would combine the more conservative moral values of the Right with the social concerns of the Left. (I would like to see this as well.)
Recently, I have been thinking about the continued disenfranchisement of America’s poor, so I am particularly interested in Wallis’ discussion of poverty and the “Burger King Mom” (pg.. 221), who is working hard and still struggling to pay rent each month. I must admit that I had never considered the context of Mark 14.7 in the way he describes it – the disciples have the poor precisely because they are followers of Christ. Concern for the poor must be a plank (or several planks) in the platform of each Christian politician, for true religion is to help the needy and powerless (James 1.27). Wallis challenges both conservatives and liberals to stop placing blame, start developing creative solutions, and take leadership responsibility for the poverty-perpetuating policies they create. Similar to Paul Marshall in Thine Is the Kingdom, Wallis calls on large corporations to move away from simple profit toward the idea of common good and highlights the connection between racial prejudice and poverty. I agree that our country has a very long way to go toward economic righteousness and that we have a great deal to learn from the legacy of leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. about how we can unite our diverse politic under a common banner of integrity and justice.
While I found God’s Politics to be a bit self-indulgent at times, I basically resonated with much of Wallis’ critique of the American political system. Many of my peers share my sense of disillusionment with our current two-party system, which seems to so often present a choice between the lesser of two evils instead of a choice for the common good. I am a bit uncomfortable with the way in which Wallis sometimes places the ideals of democracy side-by-side with God’s mandates, but I do believe that we have a useful system by which we can affect a great deal of positive change through a vision of holistic justice.

This book invites us to become part of a new spiritual and social movement and make a difference.

Reflects the strength of a growing ecumenical movement that in the 1980s brought together pacifists and the issue of subscribed to the just war doctrine -- all of whom have found themselves united on the question of nuclear war.

The Soul of Politics responds to signs of cultural breakdown and political impasse with a resounding call to reintegrate politics and spirituality. The author shares why both liberal and conservative visions are inadequate to the challenges before us.

Jim Wallishas dared to make the salvation that is in Jesus Christ historically specific. He has proclaimed the gospel in the context of the American obsession with affluence, good feelings, and global domination. The call to conversion is both prophetic and pastoral, both tough and tender.

An anthology of essays on the renewed conscience of Christian churches as they relate to struggles for peace and social justice.

Jim Wallis' major new book is a scathing indictment of the way that conservative evangelicals in the US have self-righteously attempted to co-opt any discussion of religion and politics. And, while the Right argues that God's way is their way, the Left pursues an unrealistic separation of religious values from morally grounded political leadership. God's Politics offers a clarion call to make America's religious communities and its government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life and pro-family. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community at the core of what many people believe, whether Christian or not.

Author brings together various views on Biblical characters--from evangelical, charismatic, Catholic and ecumenical backgrounds.

Jim Wallis thinks our life together can be better. In this timely and provocative book, he shows us how to reclaim Jesus's ancient and compelling vision of the common good -- a vision that impacts and inspires not only our politics but also our personal lives, families, churches, neighborhoods, and world.

As this isn’t the first book on racial justice, not even the first book on the topic written by a Christian that I’ve read, there wasn’t a whole lot of new information. Not sure that’s what I was looking for, maybe just the topic approached from a Biblical perspective. Here, it falls a bit short.

Certainly, there are a lot of Bible verses quoted and referred to, and Jesus’s response to things he encountered, etc. But overall, the Gospel Wallis talks about is not the ultimate Gospel. There is talk of sin, our need for change, redemption, repentance, but all in the context of interpersonal relationship. I’d like to see the book that talks about how if we are rightly related to God and see ourselves and others correctly through his eyes, how that would change our hearts and actions. This book, on the other hand, has a different base and motivation.

Wallis shares a lot of his personal experience and long history of working toward racial justice, and tho from time to time it can come across a little as patting himself on the back for it, it mostly serves as a testimony to a life lived to know and love others who are different from him. He has obviously done a lot to be an ally, and he has a lot of ideas of how that can look in an every day kind of life.
I also liked that he had actual statistics for disparities along racial lines, related to economics, interactions with the justice system, etc.

Overall, the biggest takeaway for me was the continued exhortation to get involved, get to know other people with different skin tones than yourself and engage in their lives. His own story alludes to this being a difficult and messy road, but one that has borne much fruit and helped change lives. I also appreciated his suggestion for outright rejection of racial classifications. It had sort of been in my head “wouldn’t it be nice if we could train ourselves out of that thinking”, but he actually had a couple of ideas on how to do it.

I am still processing his information.

In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America. ~Amazon

A powerful book, showing some of the current problems in the US and some solutions on how to address these problems. The use of religion, in particular Christianity, as the vehicle to implement these solutions could be the way to get people on both sides of the aisle to listen (we really need to get away from only having two sides). Definitely worth reading.

Discusses breakdown and political impasse, and argues for social justice and responsibility.

This book is a powerful exhortation to white Christians to learn about and combat the systemic injustices in our society that operate against people of color. He brings statistics, personal stories (his own and others), and biblical arguments together well. If you are already willing to believe in white privilege and the stories of communities of color, this book will be an excellent resource and motivator.

I read this book as part of a Christian men's group that meets every Friday morning. One of members decided to drop out of the group for the time we read the book. His reason was the same as many others who will never open this book: the name on the cover. For better or worse, many conservatives see Jim Wallis as a puppet of the radical Left, funded by the likes of George Soros; therefore, whatever good is in this book, they will never read it.

The book also has some structural difficulties. While each of the chapters is well-written and stands well on its own, they lack a overall coherence. For example, after multiple chapters talking about African-Americans, he devotes an entire chapter to immigrants. This is a very important and moving discussion, but it does not fit well in the flow of the rest of the book. Two of the chapters are not as much his work as summaries of other very important documents (the Justice Dept. report on Ferguson and the President's task force on 21st Century Policing).

The final chapter does a good job of bringing these threads together and offering advice on how to move forward and cross the bridge in the title. He thinks it will be the result of the actions of millions of individuals meeting and learning from people different from themselves. We each have a responsibility to break out of our homogeneous social circles and become friends and neighbors with people of different colors and economic situations than ourselves.

Meeting a need of mine to think about my spirituality and how to approach the current political race.

"Through interviews and biographical profiles, Cloud of Witnesses introduces us to a company of modern witnesses - peacemakers, martyrs, saints - who have embodied the gospel challenge of our day. We meet Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement; Fannie Lou Hamer, champion of the freedom struggle in Mississippi; Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and prophet of peace; and Martin Luther King, Jr." "Some have endured persecution: Martin Niemoeller, the pastor who spent years as Hitler's prisoner; Jon Sobrino, who escaped the massacre of his Jesuit community in El Salvador; Brian Wilson, the peace activist whose legs were severed by a train carrying weapons to Central America." "All of them - whether from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, or the United States - give proof and inspiration that the gospel can be lived in our time."--BOOK JACKET

I like Jim Wallis' stories. The stories illustrate his efforts to create a shared vision. In the past few weeks since the election, I've been repeating, like a mantra, the title of Chapter 21, "The Critical Choice: Hope versus Cynicism." It's essentially a spiritual choice, but one with some structure, so let's call that religious, because unless we do this together, there is nothing left. We do this in community, with a certain shared vocabulary; it is not possible in a private spiritual bubble. I'm grateful for his persistent prophetic voice, calling us together.

A good exploration of where the differences arise between Christan conservatives and liberal Christians, Wallis provides an overview of the political landscape of recent years.

God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and
our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious
tradition.

Wallis at his best, showing how the Kingdom of God is not represented by either political party.

Summary: Explores our nation's deeply ingrained history of racism and particularly the challenges facing white Christians in bridging these racial divides.

"The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another."

The author of this book contends that this sentence, in a 1987 issue of Sojourners, was the most controversial sentence he ever wrote. The controversy behind that statement supports the thesis of this book, that racism is America's "original sin," a part of our beginnings as a nation that we have wrestled with throughout our national existence, but never truly repented of.

Wallis begins with his own story of growing up in Detroit and working with Butch, a black man who opened his eyes to two very different Detroits and two different realities--for example "the talk" that all black parents have with their children when they learn to drive that white parents do not have with theirs. This concerns how to act if stopped by the police, where to put one's hands and so forth. He considers Ferguson, and Baltimore, two cities riven with turmoil after police-involved shootings of black men as parables revealing the racial fault lines in the American story. He then reviews our past history and current demographics and events to show that our attitudes around race are indeed our national "original sin" that only profound repentance can heal.

The next chapters explore the nature of true, rather than superficial, repentance, and that this means for the white community to which he writes a "dying" to our whiteness as we recognize the "white privilege" we have enjoyed. I suspect that for many this may be some of the most controversial material. I find this language uncomfortable. I grew up in a working class neighborhood and didn't feel terribly "privileged" compared to more affluent people in the suburbs ringing my city. It was not until later years that I understood blacks had been red-lined out of our area of the city and I had the benefit of attending one of the best city schools with over 95 percent of the students being white. I began to realize the privilege that I had enjoyed in a racialized society. It also separated me from blacks in my city, made them an "other" who were treated differently in retail establishments, by the police and more. Real repentance means, even though I didn't choose this "privilege," to acknowledge that I have benefited from a sinful division of people, to not hold onto or idolize "whiteness" and to begin to intentionally seek a very different future.

The place, Wallis contends, where we begin, is the church, still a highly segregated entity. It means listening to different ethnic voices, and submitting to leadership from ethnicity other than one's own. Another important place to begin is in the policing of our communities, where police move from being warriors to guardians and where police become integral part of the communities they protect and serve so that both they and their communities affirm both that black lives matter and that blue lives matter. It begins with advocating for restorative justice rather than a new form of Jim Crow justice with differential incarceration rates for the same crimes depending on one's race.

Dealing with the sin of race extends to our immigration policies. Until our recent election cycle, there was a growing conversation in the evangelical community supporting immigration reform. Reading this post-election seemed like reading from a different world. Even the chapter title, "Welcoming the Stranger" seems foreign. Wallis then concludes the book talking about "crossing the bridge to a new America." One of the most compelling passages for me was the interaction Wallis had with a group of fifth graders in a Washington, DC public school, who asked Wallis why Congress seemed afraid to change the immigration system. He writes:

"I paused to consider their honest question and looked around the room--the classroom of a public school fifth-grade class in Washington DC. I looked at their quizzical and concerned faces, a group of African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and European American children. Then it hit me.

'They are afraid of you,' I replied

'Why would they be afraid of us?' the shocked students asked, totally perplexed. I had to tell them.

'They are afraid you are the future of America. They're afraid their country will someday look like this class--that you represent what our nation is becoming.'"

Re-reading this passage, I think of a Sunday School song I grew up with, admittedly one that indulged in some stereotypes about skin color for which I apologize, and yet that represented the underlying gospel values of my white evangelical congregation:

"Jesus loves the little children; all the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight.

Jesus loves the little children of the world."

Wallis's quote challenged me with the reality of whether we will love all the children of the world that God is gathering in our country, or fear them. Will we see that fifth-grade classroom as the realization of our deep gospel values, and strive for churches that reflect this in our love and our life. Or will we remain racially separate, hiding behind walls of fear, saying that it is OK for Jesus to love these children as long as they are somewhere else in the world.

Wallis contends we stand at the approach to a bridge between the racist America of the past and a different America that values "all the children of the world" in our midst. His book is an invitation for white evangelical America to walk the way of repentance and cross that bridge rather than walk away from it. I'm reminded that God does not forbear forever. If we miss this chance, dare we presume there will be another?

If it were up to me, I would require every American, especially every white American to read this book now and talk about it. I'll have the talking opportunity in a couple of weeks when my local reading group gets together.
Jim Wallis is a hero of mine. He is the founder of Sojourners, an evangelical Christian who understands that the faith is about how we treat each other. His springboard for this little book is the fact that by 2045 the United States will no longer be a country with a white majority. The European American population will be a minority among minorities. The trouble comes when this white minority continues to cling to its white privilege, which benefits us every day in ways that we white people are ignorant of.
Wallis chooses statistics carefully and notes when they are not available. (For example, nobody is keeping a total of the number of men of color killed annually by police officers in this country.) He then analyzes what he sees and offers the beginnings of solutions. Chapter titles give an overview of the contents:
Race Is a Story; The Parables of Ferguson and Baltimore; The Original Sin and Its Legacy; Repentance Means More than Just Saying You're Sorry; Dying To Whiteness; A Segregated Church or a Beloved Community?; From Warriors to Guardians; The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice; Welcoming the Stranger; Crossing the Bridge to a New America.
White parents may be able to guess the content of the talk that all black parents have with their young sons about police officers. This white woman was incredibly naive about the effect of the War Against Drugs on the black community. The arguments grow out of Wallis's faith, but people of all faiths and no faith will be welcomed and challenged by reading this book.

An updated and revised edition of a previous work by Wallis.

The theme around which the book revolves is the concept of the "common good," what is best for the whole community of people. Wallis then brings his characteristic viewpoints and theology to bear on various subjects relevant to modern culture in light of his endeavor to seek after the common good.

Wallis writes well although there always is that bit of "humblebrag" about his efforts sprinkled throughout. He continues to attempt to marry a strong sense of individual morality with social justice, presenting the strengths of each side of the liberal/conservative divide: a concern for the marginalized in society, the state of race relations, helping people around the world, seeking the welfare even of enemies, civility in politics, making politics worth participating in again, righting economic wrongs without fleecing the rich, etc., while also affirming the integrity of life and the importance of family. He even starts talking about food choices!

For those who have read other works by Wallis most of this will sound familiar, but for those who are new to Wallis it provides a helpful introduction and wide scope of his theological and social viewpoints. For many in Evangelicalism it can be quite attractive since he is trying to straddle both the worlds of "conservative" Christian doctrines and principles along with a strong commitment to social justice and rooted in the Gospel.

Wallis strongly accepts the social and legal legitimacy of same-sex relationships and seems to even find room for them theologically but attempts to water down those views and call for inclusion of "multiple viewpoints" on the issue, at least for the time being, so that maybe through dialogue it will all be sorted out (...and of course we know on whose terms and in whose favor). He's also a big believer in egalitarianism and female leadership roles.

Even if you disagree with him on some things it is good to have to wrestle with what Wallis has to say to expose whether one's viewpoints are really rooted in Scripture or in some sort of cultural consensus that may not be entirely faithful to what Scripture has to say. This would be a good place to start.

**book received as part of early review program½

A bit dated, but still a good perspective on what we need American politics. A worthy read for any Christian American.