The Bible Calls for Moral Action on Climate Change. Here's the introduction of an Op-Ed from Jim Wallis at TIME.com: "To ignore climate change is to abuse the moral call to care for the environment, and generations to come will suffer. Some of the most inspiring words in the entire Bible are found in the opening pages of Genesis. Here we are told that humans were created in God’s image and given a divine mandate to care for Creation (Gen. 1:26-31). Our vocation—our calling—is to partner with God in preserving and sustaining the earth with all the creatures and species that God has made. The word used in most translations is “dominion,” and the true meaning is what we would today call “stewardship...”
Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Paul Douglas| May 21, 2014
Source: Sidney Daily News| May 21, 2014
The idea for Change the World started in 2010. Slaughter wrote a book called “Change the World: Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus.” It challenged Christians to step outside the church walls and get out into their communities. Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis, in his forward to the book, wrote, “Mike’s challenge is simple and direct: Quit worrying about getting people into your church and start finding new opportunities to move people who are already there out into God’s service.”
Source: Campaign for America's Future | The Rev. Dr. William Barber II| May 21, 2014
Editor’s Note: Rev. William Barber will speak atthe New Populism Conference on May 22. We share this piece by Rev. Barber that was originally posted at Sojourners. We will waive conference registration fee for people who want to attend starting after 2:30 p.m., to hear Sen. Bernie Sanders (at 4 p.m.), and Rev. William Barber (at 4:30 p.m.) who will close the conference.
Source: The New York Times | Margalit Fox| May 21, 2014
In Atlanta, Dr. Harding joined the department of history and sociology atSpelman College, becoming the department chairman. At the same time, he contributed speeches for Dr. King.
His most memorable, described in 2007 by Sojourners, the progressive Christian magazine, as “one of the most important speeches in American history,” was commissioned amid the United States’ escalating involvement in Vietnam.
Source: The Christian Century | Edward Blum| May 21, 2014
In the 1970s, evangelicalism had not yet become tethered to conservative politics. Carter, a Democrat, received almost 50 percent of the evangelical vote (Nixon had received 84 percent in 1972). The evangelical left of Ron Sider and Jim Wallis took shape in the 1970s too. In that decade evangelicalism seemed noteworthy less for being conservative than for being cool.
Source: The Washington Post | Al Kamen, Colby Itkowitz| May 20, 2014
There was Obama press secretary Jay Carney’s daughter (Carney hitched a ride in the motorcade to catch the game). Jim Wallis’s (a former member of Obama’s faith council) son. On one team was senior Obama adviser David Plouffe’s son. And NBC’s “Meet the Press” host David Gregory’s son and daughter are teammates with Carney’s kid.
Source: Time Magazine | Jim Wallis| May 20, 2014
Some of the most inspiring words in the entire Bible are found in the opening pages of Genesis. Here we are told that humans were created in God’s image and given a divine mandate to care for Creation (Gen. 1:26-31). Our vocation—our calling—is to partner with God in preserving and sustaining the earth with all the creatures and species that God has made. The word used in most translations is “dominion,” and the true meaning is what we would today call “stewardship.”
Source: Time Magazine | Jim Wallis| May 20, 2014
How do you get your Little League team to get their hitting going? Get a surprise visit before your game from President Barack Obama! Our excited kids won 12-1.
I’ve been a Little League baseball coach for 10 years and 20 seasons; first with my 15 year-old sophomore son Luke who has graduated way beyond his Dad coach to high school varsity baseball, and now with my 11 year old son Jack—who got to meet the President of the United States at his game on Monday night. The expressions on the kid’s faces when Obama walked on to their field were magical and priceless.
Source: MySteinbach | Jack Heppner| May 19, 2014
In his book, The Great Awakening (2008), Jim Wallis notes that the most common biblical support for an exclusive focus on internal piety is Jesus’s statement in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world.” The assumption is that this means God is not concerned about this world but rather on interior and other-worldly matters. Wallis suggests that such a conclusion is not warranted. He notes that Jesus’ kingdom is not “of” this world in the sense that it is not “from” this realm. This is corroborated in the final part of the verse which says, “But now my kingdom is from another place.” Perhaps the Phillips translation says it best with “My kingdom is not founded in this world.”
Source: The Washington Post | Lillian Cunningham| May 19, 2014
"Don't go left, don't go right, go deeper." This has been the longtime mantra of Jim Wallis and his organization Sojourners, a Christian social justice group that he presides over and helped found in the 1970s. Today Wallis is a leading voice on the intersection of faith and politics, one often known to counterbalance the religious right (though he himself doesn't identify as liberal).
Source: Financial Planning| May 18, 2014
Catherine Cuellar serves as executive director of the Dallas Arts District, the largest contiguous urban cultural neighborhood in the United States and world headquarters of the Global Cultural Districts Network. For two decades she has worked as an award-winning multimedia journalist for national public radio stations and programs, Sojourners magazine and The Dallas Morning News among others. Previously, Ms. Cuellar spent five years as communications manager for the sixth-largest electric power grid in the U.S., Oncor.
Source: Associated Baptist Press | David Gushee| May 16, 2014
The Evangelical Immigration Table, which includes voices ranging from the Southern Baptist Convention to the National Association of Evangelicals to Sojourners, calls for immigration reform that.
Source: The Washington Post | Lillian Cunningham| May 16, 2014
Sojourners founder Jim Wallis is regarded as an accomplished public speaker, but he grew up with a stutter.
Source: Chicago Crusader| May 15, 2014
Moss is an honors graduate of Morehouse College and received his DMin from Chicago Theological Seminary, and MDiv from Yale Divinity School. Moss has been featured in EBONY and Sojourners magazines and is a blogger for Huffington Post. With his father, the Rev. Otis Moss, Jr., he wrote “Preach! The Power and Purpose behind Our Praise.” Moss is married and has two children. Order from UCC Resources www.uccresources.com, your local bookseller, or Amazon.com. “The Gos- pel According to The Wiz And Other Sermons from Cinema” by Otis Moss III / ISBN 978-0-8298-1991-5 / 160pp / Paper / $17.
Source: The Good Fight | Ben Wikler| May 15, 2014
Rev. Jim Wallis left evangelical Christianity to fight for social justice—and then found his vocation by mixing them together. Now, he's a spiritual adviser to Obama, a force in immigration reform, and our guest. Plus: a new Win Report.
Source: News Taco | Jo Ellen Kaiser| May 15, 2014
Jo Ellen Green Kaiser is the executive director of The Media Consortium. Passionate about mission-driven independent media, Jo Ellen has worked for a succession of independent magazines, including stints as executive director and editor-in-chief of Zeek, managing editor and associate publisher of Tikkun, and publisher of LiP: Informed Revolt. She is driven by a belief that democratic societies thrive only when their members have access to accurate information and informed opinion. She is the co-editor of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Response to Justice (Jewish Lights) and co-led the Righteous Indignation Project. She has written about Jewish social justice publications including the Jewish Daily Forward, Sojourners, Tikkun and Interfaithfamily.com. She is ZEEK’s board chair.
Source: Huffington Post | Jim Wallis| May 13, 2014
This post was co-authored with author and consultant, Dalia Mogahed.
The brutal abduction of several hundred Nigerian schoolgirls has stunned and outraged the world. A violent organization called Boko Haram, and its leader Abubakar Shekau, took credit for the kidnapping more than 300 female students from their classrooms at gunpoint, from a government-run school in Chibok, on April 14. In his subsequent video, the smiling terrorist leader told the world they would sell the teenage girls "into the marketplace" or forced marriages; in his latest, he claims the girls have converted to Islam. Shekau has claimed that God told him to do all of this. That is a lie. It is an abomination. It is a blasphemy against God, and people of faith from all traditions should denounce his words.
Source: Ecumenical News International| May 13, 2014
The group include civic society leaders and includes Robert George of Princeton University, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, journalist Kirsten Powers, George Marlin, chair of Aid to the Church in Need-USA, Lynne Hybels of Global Engagement of the Willow Creek Church and Mark Tooley, President, Institute on Religion and Democracy.
Source: Associated Baptist Press | Bob Allen| May 12, 2014
Other lead signers included David Beckman of Bread for the World, Richard Killmer of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America, David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and Jim Wallis of Sojourners.
Source: Relevant Magazine | Jesse Carey| May 12, 2014
Jim Wallis on The Daily Show
Sojourners founder, author and theologian Jim Wallis has been a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart multiple times since 2005 to discuss the intersections of politics, religion and activism. In this throwback clip from Jon Stewart’s early days on the Comedy Central staple (starting at 12:52 in the video below), the two discuss Wallis’ popular book God’s Politics. The discussion primarily involves the religious implications of the then current political issues, morality and activism. But in a more personal moment, Wallis tells Stewart (who is Jewish), “The Hebrew prophets used humor and truth-telling to make their point. Which I think you do very well. So maybe you’re one of the prophets.”