History of Sojourners

1970s

Sojourners began at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Il., in the early 1970s when a handful of students met to discuss the relationship between their faith and political issues, particularly the Vietnam War. In 1971, the group created a publication that would express their convictions and test whether other people of faith had similar beliefs. What emerged was a publication committed to social justice and peace: The Post-American.

In the fall of 1975, the fledgling Christian community moved to Washington, D.C., where both community and magazine took the name “Sojourners.” The biblical metaphor of "sojourners" identifies God's people as pilgrims—fully present in the world but committed to a different order. The community lived together in inner-city Washington, D.C., in shared households, practiced various forms of economic sharing, formed a worshipping community with neighbors, organized around local neighborhood issues, established a housing justice organization, after-school programs for children, and food distribution programs for underserved families. On a national scale, the community coordinated national events focused on peace and social justice, while the magazine circulation continued to grow.

1980s

This was a decade when the readership of Sojourners magazine grew significantly. Sojourners provided national leadership in the Nuclear Freeze movement, which helped to change the national conversation around nuclear weapons. Sojourners staff engaged in moral witness against the United States’ destructive foreign policies in Central America. Sojourners team traveled extensively in the U.S. and around the world building relationships with justice and peace advocates and providing unique perspectives not found in mainstream journalism. Our work toward racial and economic justice in the United States continued, while we also formed increasingly close relationships with anti-apartheid Christian activists in South Africa. Sojourners community gave birth to a variety of more formal ministries, including Sojourners Neighborhood Center (1980-2001) that ran after-school and summer programs for children and met other neighborhood-based needs.

1990s

In the 1990s, Sojourners shifted from a model of intentional community to the model we still embrace today: We are a committed group of Christians who work together as a not-for-profit organization to live a gospel life that integrates spiritual renewal and social justice. During this decade, Sojourners was active in witnessing for peace and justice amid conflicts in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, among others. Sojourners also closely covered the Los Angeles uprising in response to racialized police violence. Amid the ascendence of the Religious Right and its ever-deepening alliance with the Republican Party, Sojourners offered a faithful alternative not allied with any political party. We said, “All politics is personal, but for Christians it should not be partisan.”

From 1995 to 2006, Sojourners formed an organization named Call to Renewal, with many other partners and organizations, to unite churches and faith-based organizations across the theological and political spectrum to end poverty in the United States and lift up those whom Jesus called "the least of these." For more than a decade, Call to Renewal convened the broadest Christian table on poverty in America.

2000s

Shortly after Sojourners celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2001, September 11th brought to the United States a new era of foreign wars and nationalism dressed up in Christian garb. Sojourners was a leading public voice in opposition to the U.S. invading Iraq. In 2005, the success of Sojourners founder Jim Wallis’ book God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It brought unprecedented levels of visibility to Sojourners and our mission. During this decade, Sojourners significantly increased its coverage and organizing work on immigration reform, addressing climate change, and negotiating cuts to publicly funded safety nets for those who were poor, sick, children, and elderly. As magazine editor Julie Polter said, “Budgets are moral documents.”

The debut of the God’s Politics Blog (the predecessor to this website), the SojoMail weekly email newsletter, and Preaching the Word, ushered us into the digital age. In 2006, Sojourners and Call to Renewal united organizationally while the focus on mobilizing churches on poverty continued to be a priority for Sojourners’ advocacy work. A highlight was a young senator from Illinois named Barak Obama gave a keynote address on faith and politics at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference in Washington, D.C.

2010s

As the Great Recession ushered in the 2010s, Sojourners continued its witness around issues of economic justice, hunger, and poverty. In 2011, Sojourners co-founded the Circle of Protection, a group of Christian organizations and churches committing to protecting from budget cuts government programs that help poor and hungry people. Our journalistic focus included the opioid epidemic, sexual abuse scandals in churches, racial justice, investigations into the prison-industrial complex, dignity for women and girls, Standing Rock protests, Tar Sands activism and climate change, changes in immigration policy, and the rise of America’s “forever wars.” We also began tracking a far-right libertarian project called the Tea Party that subsequently gave rise to larger authoritarian political forces in the U.S. During this era, Sojourners launched a series of gatherings called The Summit: World Change Through Faith and Justice, which brought together leaders of faith and justice movements from around the world to share their stories, successes, and challenges.

2020s and Beyond

Sojourners marked its 50th anniversary with the theme “Building the Faithful Future,” a vision for our next 50 years built on a firm foundation of faith, hope, and prophetic witness to the truth. We have engaged and survived a global pandemic. And now we are celebrating the rising of grassroots democracy networks, mutual aid networks, anti-war demonstrations, innovative church experiments, new scriptural insights, refreshed global relationships in Vatican City, Korea, Israel and Palestine, Europe, Ghana, and more. As we look to the next 50 years, we seek to revive and extend the concept of the Beloved Community, a moral vision rooted in scripture, unique to the American civil rights movement, and able to generate joyful energy for dignity, justice, and equality for all and for God’s good creation.

We are excited to broaden our communities and strengthen our relationships in ways that deepen our faith in God’s care and transcend political, racial, and religious differences that may separate us so that together we can celebrate a more just and equitable world. This mission is way bigger than Sojourners, but we are uniquely positioned—through our magazine, ministries, and mission—to make a lasting and significant contribution for the common good. Thank you for joining us on this joyful journey. Welcome. You belong here.