AS SOME of you have no doubt already heard, the Post American [the original name for Sojourners] and our entire community will be moving, in early September, from Chicago to Washington, D.C. ... The Post American, first published in late 1971, began as a quarterly tabloid and has developed into a monthly magazine with a broadly ecumenical, national, and international readership. ... The final decision came less through an analytical process of weighing the pros and cons and more as a result of a growing sense among us all that Washington, D.C., was the right place for us to be.
It seemed rather ironic, at first, being a group that holds little confidence in the American political system and has come to question the wisdom of viewing the exercise of political power as the road to meaningful and fundamental change on both biblical and historical grounds. Change comes, we suspect, more through the witness of creative and prophetic minorities who refuse to meet the system on its own terms but rather act out of an alternative social vision upon which they have based their lives. Such a definition of the church seems, to us, more consistent to the New Testament. Slowly, we came to believe that, perhaps, the most appropriate place for such a community was in the midst of an environment characterized by urban conflict and the idolatry of political power rather than a place more withdrawn from such things.
Jim Wallis is the founder and former president of Sojourners. He is the inaugural holder of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Chair in Faith and Justice at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and director of its new Center on Faith and Justice. His latest book is The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy.
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