Sojourners in the News

Stephen Mattson, on the faith-based site Sojourners, accuses posters of making fun of stuff that’s normal for all but the world’s most privileged.

In a piece over at Sojourners, Jamie Calloway-Hanauer notes that Steinem frequently speaks of the effects of religion on the feminist cause.

Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, and best-selling author of books such as “God’s Politics.” Stephan Bauman, president and CEO of World Relief, an international organization with 4,000 staffers and 40,000 volunteers.

5. The social justice movement and poverty The social justice movement is gaining popularity among young Christians today. In his most recent encyclical, Pope Francis critiqued the free market and attacked income inequality. Jim Wallis of Sojourners once argued for an increased minimum wage because he says “God hates inequality.” How should Christian libertarians respond to the social justice movement and the left’s concerns about poverty and economic justice?

The quote is from an article that appeared on the Sojourners website yesterday. I thought it deserved to be highlighted, and so I made it into a meme image.

Forward: This is the first piece of mine to have been published in a major American magazine. It seems fitting that this milestone was marked in the pages of Sojourners, a magazine with a robust history of faith-rooted activism (including anti-war and anti-violence activism), and whose “commitments are faith in action in three strategic areas: racial and social justice, life and peace, and environmental stewardship.” I was honored to have the opportunity to write a piece for Sojourners, and was amazed this week when the copies of the February edition arrived at my apartment by how powerful it felt to see my piece printed (and to see my name in the contributors list with Margaret Atwood and Bill McKibben!) This piece weaves new interpretations with old understandings of my decision to refuse military service and the stories that accompanied it. I am proud of this essay, and grateful to have the opportunity to share it.

Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a Christian social-justice organization, is convinced that reform is inevitable. “Immigration reform is going to pass — there’s no doubt about that. We’re not going to deport 11 million people,” he said. “The question is, how much longer must we wait, and how much more suffering will be inflicted on so many more people?” The next weeks and months will be filled with renewed activity, as a coalition of law-enforcement officials, the faith community and business and labor groups come together to get reform across the finish line, he said. “Washington, D.C., is the most dysfunctional city in the country. We’re known for our political conflict. Immigration reform has the chance to really be an exception — an exception to our practices of political conflict,” he added. “We’ll fix our politics by fixing our broken immigration system.”

Jim Wallis’s On God’s Side comes in two parts. In the first, he argues that biblical Christianity involves not only the personal, individual standing of the Christian before God and the individual’s relationship with Christ, but also a deeply communal element that inspires genuine concern for one’s neighbors. In the second, he fleshes out how these sometimes-competing concerns ought to inf luence Christian political thought and engagement. Wallis’s inspiration for the title of the book is a quote from Abraham Lincoln—“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side”—and he uses this second half of his book to explore exactly what being “on God’s side” would entail, tackling several prominent and hotly debated issues ranging from the structure of the American political system to specific policy issues.

Dillard University will welcome renowned gospel artist Kirk Franklin to the campus on Feb 6., an appearance made possible by the university’s signature ‘Brain Food’ presidential lecture series. Franklin will be the latest in a cast of diverse, distinguished presenters on the historic New Orleans HBCU campus this semester, joining Martin Luther King Jr. speechwriter Clarence Jones, CNN Political Analyst Sunny Hostin, and faith-based social justice activist Jim Wallis.