Activism

Jim Wallis 4-24-2008

In The Great Awakening, I wrote,



Imagine something called Justice Revivals, in the powerful tradition of revivals past but focusing on the great moral issues of our time.


Imagine linking the tradition of Billy Graham with the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.


Imagine a new generation of young people catching fire and offering [...]

Diana Butler Bass 4-24-2008

Several weeks ago, a pair of doves built a nest on a front windowsill at my house. My family watched as the mother bird laid two eggs, as they hatched, and as the young chicks feathered. We grew attached to the winged family who made their home with ours.


Two mornings ago, I was checking on the baby birds when a grackle (a large blackbird that a friend calls the "Darth Vader" of the bird world) swooped down and [...]

Rich Nathan 4-16-2008

Jim Wallis, in his book The Great Awakening said,

Imagine something called Justice Revivals in the powerful tradition of revivals past, but focusing on the great moral issues of our time. Imagine linking the tradition of Billy Graham with the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine a new generation of young people catching fire and offering their gifts, talents, and lives in a new spiritual movement for social justice. Imagine such revivals taking place in [...]

Jim Wallis 4-03-2008

I want to personally invite you to Washington, D.C., on June 13 through 16 to participate in Pentecost 2008: Training for Change. For more than a decade, we have held an annual mobilization around the time of Pentecost to lift up a vision of overcoming poverty to the nation. I believe that with your help we can make this a pivotal year of elevating poverty to the top of the national agenda, [...]

Gabriel Salguero 2-19-2008

What about the mosaic revival is comforting? As a Latino evangelical leader, one of the things I am asking is moving beyond polarization. In this mosaic revival, we know that though politics is not the whole solution, it will be a vital part. We need the nexus of clergy, good government, activists, entrepreneurs, moms and dads, educators, etc. As a Christian who is part of the mosaic revival, I cling to one thing: my commitment is to Christ and the gospel first, not to any political [...]

Jim Wallis 2-14-2008

Tuesday night, I spoke at the historic Park Street Church in Boston, where the second Great Awakening evangelist Charles Finney preached in 1831, calling people to faith in Jesus Christ and then to enlist in the anti-slavery campaign. William Lloyd Garrison delivered his first abolitionist speech here when he was only 23 years old. I was facing a packed church on a Tuesday night, full of 600 20-something evangelicals who want to be a generation of new abolitionists - focusing on the most [...]

Jim Wallis 2-13-2008

The most considerable evidence that we're entering a "post-Religious Right America" is the shifting political agenda and theological emphasis of a new generation of 20-something evangelicals. I meet them all the time on the road; they are coming out of the woodwork for The Great Awakening book events in mass numbers.

I travel with one of these young evangelicals, a missionary kid who grew up in the former Soviet Union and who recently graduated from Bethel University in St. Paul, [...]

Jim Wallis 2-11-2008

Sunday morning a week ago I preached at the beautiful Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, California. Their service blends the best of the Anglo/Catholic Episcopal tradition with the creative San Francisco one-this time beginning the recessional with dragons celebrating the Chinese New Year. Offering a sermon on hope with the light of a dozen stained glass windows dancing in the huge Gothic Cathedral [...]

Administrator 2-05-2008

Snapshots from the road: Portland, Oregon.

Last week we began the national 20-city book tour for The Great Awakening in Portland, Oregon, at a majestic old venue called the Bagdad theater. It's a renovated 1920's era cinema, one part Grand Old Opry and two parts Ali-baba

Cara Boekeloo 2-04-2008

During the 2004 election cycle, I was bombarded repeatedly with messages about how young voters had failed to be involved in the electoral process. My generation-the Millennials-was failing to live up to its potential, it seemed. This time we're starting to shake things up-and people are taking note.



Motivated by growing economic inequalities, a declining environment, excessive war, [...]

Jim Wallis 2-01-2008

This post is drawn from a message I sent to our staff at Sojourners, thanking them for their hard work and support as I begin the exhausting pace of The Great Awakening book tour. I'd like to share it with you as well. I really need your prayers, and wanted to share with you the prayer that I will be saying everyday-likely again and again! It is from Charles de Foucauld. He was a French aristocrat who joined the French army in Algeria, then left it, lived there identifying with the [...]

Tom Sine 2-01-2008

Discover what God is doing through a new generation of risk-takers, innovators, and prophets at The New Conspirators. We have asked these young conspirators, who comprise at least four new streams, to share their stories, dreams, and struggles on Feb. 28-March 1, 2008, in Seattle. These four streams include: the new monasticism, the mosaic [...]

Jim Wallis 1-31-2008

I'm on a plane to Portland, Oregon, to begin the West Coast swing of The Great Awakening book tour that will also take us to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego-all back to back. The events are quite diverse and very interesting, from universities, churches, various civic forums, [...]

Becky Garrison 1-25-2008

John Sayles' comments about how film can be a vehicle for social change got me thinking about the positive signs of social change I've been observing recently as a journalist. Simply put, a global spirit seems to abound these days that infuses religion, politics, and the culture at large and transcends organizations and individuals.


On Jan. 21, I attended a lunch hosted by

Mary Nelson just posted on MLK's Riverside speech, but I have some reflections to add. I'll admit that I took a "day off" yesterday instead of a "day on," making a four-day weekend backpacking trip in the Adirondacks with some buddies. But I did [...]

Mary Nelson 1-22-2008

Martin Luther King's sermon at Riverside Church linked the devastating Vietnam war to the struggle over poverty. I began working that year in an under-resourced community and wore a "Bread not Bombs" sweatshirt to anti-war demonstrations. Sadly, not much has changed. The amount spent on the Iraq war (CBO estimate $9 billion a month, up to $1 trillion total), if directed elsewhere, would virtually ensure [...]

Jim Wallis 1-16-2008

An unfortunate exchange of words between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama this week threatened to explode into real conflict, involving the always volatile U.S. issue of race. The dust-up was as unexpected as it was unfortunate, and was sparked in part by comments made about the respective roles of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson in achieving the historic goals of the civil rights movement. But race is the wrong way to view this escalating war of [...]

Jim Wallis 12-19-2007

The year of 1968 was very significant in my life, and a decisive one for the nation. It was the year when the hopes borne by the social movements of the 1950's and 60's were dashed by the assassinations of, first, Martin Luther King Jr., and then Robert F. Kennedy.


If Robert Kennedy had lived to become president on the inside (as he surely would have) and Martin Luther King Jr. had lived to lead a movement from the outside, the U.S. and the world might be very different today. But the [...]