Sojourners in the News

"There is nothing quite like the African bush to soothe and rejuvenate." That experience was conveyed to me by a South African church leader who has been helping plan the speaking tour I just arrived for here in this beloved country.

Jim Wallis, the prominent US author, activist and theologian together with his trailblazing theologian wife, Joy Carroll Wallis will be in KZN for a series of public events this month, hosted by Diakonia Council of Churches in Durban.

As Jim Wallis, a New York Times bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and acclaimed commentator on ethics and public life, has frequently noted: “Budgets are moral documents.” The moral aspects of Virginia’s budget have been addressed by the various faith communities in the Commonwealth and have been persuasively articulated by the Catholic bishops of Virginia in their statement (April 11, 2014) on expanding Medicaid: “Our advocacy is informed by...teaching that, first, everyone has the right to life, and second, healthcare is a right – not a privilege – that flows from the right to life itself… Virginia should start accepting federal money that can provide nearly 400,000 of its poorest residents the health insurance they currently lack and desperately need.”

FIFTY YEARS AGO, on Aug. 20, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act into law. It had already been a momentous year. The Civil Rights Act was signed in early July, end- ing legal segregation. Mississippi Freedom Summer was underway, with hundreds of volunteers joining in voter registration cam- paigns. The effort to overcome poverty was the next step toward economic empowerment.

If there is one thing that most Christians of all denominations agree on, it is abortion. A 2012 Gallup poll found that 54% of American Catholics and 57% of Protestants/Others consider themselves “pro-life.” Every presidential election, we hear of prominent pastors raising questions about a candidate’s position on abortion. And while organizations such as Sojourners have tried to emphasize additional issues which ought to concern Christians as they go to the polls, the reality is that abortion is still a central issue for many people. This is not altogether a bad thing; since the earliest days of Christianity, the church has always had a special concern for unborn and abandoned children, taking them in and caring for them when others do not. These days, however, whether or not it is an accurate portrayal, “pro-life” Christians are more associated with picketing abortion clinics, hanging pictures of dead fetuses in public places, and gathering for the March for Life than welcoming such children into their homes.

That's why I read and talk to and with and pray with and alongside Ann Voskamp and Ben Moberg; Glennon Doyle Melton and Derek Rishmawy; Jennie Allen and Krista Dalton; Deeper Story and Christ and Pop Culture; Rachel Held Evans and John Blase; Jen Hatmaker and Nish Weiseth; The High Calling and Converge Magazine; Seth Haines and Jes Kast-Keat; Lore Ferguson and Emily Maynard; Joy Eggerichs and Relevant Magazine; Sojourners and The Werewolf Jesus Blog; Sarah Bessey and Jonathan Martin; Karen Swallow Prior and Religion News Service; Jefferson Bethke and Kristen Howerton.

Testimonies were coordinated by three groups: Creation Justice Ministries, the Washington-area chapter of Interfaith Power and Light and the progressive evangelical group Sojourners.

“The science is clear,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, the senior director of mobilizing for Sojourners, an evangelical organization with a social justice focus. “The calls of city governments — who are trying to create sustainable environments for 25, 50 years — that’s clear.” Ms. Harper was one of about 20 interfaith activists who quietly sang “Hallelujah” and Jewish spirituals in a prayer circle outside the environmental agency’s 12th Street entrance here on Tuesday. Mr. Yearwood and three other faith leaders spoke at the hearings on Tuesday, and about 20 others did on Wednesday.

President Obama nominated Rabbi David Saperstein this morning to be the next—and first non-Christian—United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.