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Man with a movement
Jim Wallis is in the vanguard of a new force of politically motivated Evangelicals in the United States. Brian Draper asked him how far they might go
 Old campaigner: Jim Wallis speaking at a rally in Washington in 2005. He was later arrested on Capitol Hill. PA |
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“SOMETHING is clearly happening!” Jim Wallis must believe it. He keeps repeating the phrase, consciously or not. Dressed head-to-toe in black, like a latter-day Johnny Cash, his enthusiasm is infectious. It doesn’t feel as if the US political commentator, head of the Sojourners network, and best-selling author, is simply trying to talk things up. “The energy is electric now,” he says, “and you feel it all over the United States.” He sounds more like an old-time revival preacher than like a social activist who was kicked out of church as a boy for dragging up the subject of the poor and campaigning for Christians to engage socially as well as “spiritually”. Indeed, revival is exactly what’s on his mind. Mr Wallis has just finished writing The Great Awakening: Reviving faith in politics in post-religious-Right America, “which is all about revival. I’m going to start preaching “justice revivals” around the country,” he says. The word “justice” puts clear water between the popular understanding of revival and what he means by it. “Revival was never about ‘Get them all into the church and stop them having sex.’ Instead, it was about changing the slave trade, women’s suffrage, child-labour law reforms, civil rights. . . Church historians tell us that spiritual activity isn’t revival until it has changed something in society, not just in people’s inner lives.” Mr Wallis is convinced that the greatest issues of our time can be tackled head-on only through a revival of faith. “I want to see the mountains moved,” he declares with a gravel-voiced gravitas that makes you believe that, perhaps, a mountain could, indeed, jump into the sea at his behest. “HIV/AIDS is a mountain. Global poverty is a mountain. Climate-change is a moun-tain. These mountains have to be moved. “The Bible says that, with faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. I don’t think we’re going to move them from the Left or the Right with a ‘programme’ or just a ‘mobilisation’. Instead, it will be a moral change, a change of political will — and one that involves personal transformation, because movements always do.” Neither will movements, he believes, be sustained by the celebrities who’ve helped to put social justice onto the global agenda — a point he made to the U2 singer Bono at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. “I said to Bono: ‘You know I love you, and I support you, and I’m your friend. But if we’re depending on celebrities to change public opinion, we’re in trouble. We need a revival of faith in the US and around the world. We need justice revivals.’ “And he perked up and said, ‘Justice revivals?’ and from memory began to quote Luke 4: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. . .’ That’s what you should preach!’ “And that’s what we’re going to preach. Because Luke 4 says that if this gospel isn’t good news to poor people, it isn’t the gospel of Jesus.” JIM WALLIS believes that his movement is gathering momentum both from the bottom up, and from the top down. “It has to be both, because if you have nothing on the ground, you can’t influence those at the top,” he says. From the top, he reports that it’s both church and political leaders who are coming on side. He says that, in the US, the religious Right is losing its grip on the political agenda, which it restricted to issues of personal morality. Key leaders such as Bill Hybels, from the “seeker-friendly” Willow Creek Community Church, and Rick Warren from the “purpose-driven” Saddleback Church, have now broken from the Right, he says. “The religious Right is not dead, but its era is over, its monologue is over, its dominance is over. Now it’s a conversation.” Churches have moved so far, so quickly, from their traditional moorings, that when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Miliband, visited the US from Britain to discuss climate change this month, he spoke directly to Evangelicals. “The Evangelical community is a significant player on climate change now,” says Mr Wallis. “That is a huge shift. The Right tried to stop that, and failed. Utterly failed. So we have the chance now to see a movement bubbling up that has a voice in politics.” Since the publication of his book God’s Politics in late 2005, which entered the New York Times bestsellers’ list at number four, the activist has reached hundreds of thousands with the message of its subtitle, that “The Right gets it wrong and the Left doesn’t get it”. And since numbers mean a lot in US politics, now the politicians are listening. Earlier this month, a forum he arranged with the three Democratic presidential candidates — Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama — was broadcast on CNN, topping the TV ratings in the US for that night, Mr Wallis relates proudly. The forum, “On Faith, Values and Poverty”, gave each the chance to discuss how his or her personal faith would affect public policy. Mr Wallis knows all three and counts them as friends. “To be honest, that’s why it worked,” he says. “But they all saw it as an opportunity to express their faith and go public with it. All of them realised its value.” This was, he believes, “a real sea-change moment for politics in the US — politicians talking so openly about faith and connecting it to poverty, to HIV, to the war in Iraq and foreign policy. . .” The fact that these were Democrats “made it even more amazing — quite amazing. The idea that God is a Republican has gone. That’s a big change, and more than I could have expected in this short time.” Mr Wallis is convinced that the Democratic candidates are not cynically courting a religious constituency. “They are genuinely people of faith. Their faith is personal and real.” One of the three is destined for the highest office, he believes (he won’t be drawn on which), and is convinced that his influence will bear fruit. “One of them is likely to become the next President. So we are getting much closer to a movement that can shape politics than we’ve ever been before.”THE EFFECT of such personal relationships is not lost on him, especially as theology has affected so much of President Bush’s agenda during his last two terms.“It’s the worst theology we’ve seen in the White House for a long time. It’s a dangerous political and theological regime. They believe God is an American. Their idea of the Kingdom of God is American hegemony. It’s un-Lincolnesque. Lincoln said, don’t ever worry that God is on your side. Worry and pray that you are on God’s side.” |
 Signing a copy of his best-selling reflection on US politics PA |
| So, does he try to shape the theology of those running for office? “Oh, I do. I’ve had theological discussions with all three of them about these topics, and will continue to do so.” But he is also clear that he must not get too close. “Desmond Tutu supported the ANC in South Africa until they became government; then he stepped back and became the prophetic voice speaking to them. I’m not endorsing any one of these Democrats, but helping and encouraging all three to put our issues on the agenda. If one wins, we’ll step right back and hold them accountable. No inside jobs here.” He also plans to work from the outside as Gordon Brown takes power in the UK. Nevertheless, he has known Mr Brown as a friend over the past decade and is enthusiastic about his ascent. “I was asked on television the other day, ‘What’s one word you’d associate with Gordon Brown?’ I said, ‘Passion.’ “‘Passion?’ they replied. ‘Dour old Gordon Brown? Passion?’ But my experience of Gordon Brown is that he has a passion over the reduction of global poverty. I believe and hope that he wants to make this his legacy. “His recent speech in India, about ‘inclusive globalisation’ and what that means, was very good. I saw him right after that and told him it was terrific. He quoted Gandhi, who said you must always look to see how the most vulnerable person will fare in any new arrangement. Now, to have a British Prime Minister do that. . . I think Tony Blair cared about Africa a great deal, but I think Brown will build on that and hopefully take that further.” The challenge for Mr Brown, he believes, is to make change happen. “Powerful people benefit from maintaining the status quo; powerless people are being crucified by it. To change that requires leadership. “He’s always wanted this job, and I’m glad he finally has it, and we hope he does his very best. But he needs some help from the outside. Many of us who would call him a friend will encourage him, support him, and challenge him to provide the best leadership that I think he’s capable of.” What about the disappointment that replaced admiration for Mr Blair? The largest political demonstration on British soil — against the Iraq war — left thousands, if not millions, feeling powerless to make a difference. So can Mr Wallis’s wave of faithful optimism really break on these shores, too? “Tony Blair made an archetypal mistake over Iraq; otherwise his legacy would have been far more hopeful,” he says. “In many ways he provided good leadership. I have affection for him, but no one can whitewash his mistake. “But Brown doesn’t have this hanging over him,” he continues. “He’ll be free to put his own stamp on foreign policy.” His greatest test will come, Mr Wallis believes, over the US stance on Iran. “This is one American saying: ‘Do not follow the American lead this time.’ It is a disaster. This time, the British have to publicly and visibly resist American intervention in Iran. We have to get through a year-and-a-half of George Bush until this dangerous regime is removed from power.” There are, however, grounds for global optimism, he suggests. “Imagine 1968 in the US if Bobby Kennedy had lived, to work on the inside, and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X would have lived to push from the outside — what a different country we could have been. “Imagine if you have a Gordon Brown in London, an Obama, Edwards, or Clinton in America, a Kevin Rugg in Australia. . . Leaders like that, with an international movement around global poverty, climate-change, Darfur — there’s a possibility of real change. But not without the movement.” It is hard to imagine a movement in which the weary, the powerless, the conservative Christians, the new New Labourites, and Democrat politicians all combine to create heaven on earth. But Jim Wallis leans forward, his eyes glinting. He quotes from the end of his new book: “Imagine the revival of faith sparking a social movement. Imagine filling convention centres with people, but then having thousands of small groups grow up in neighbourhoods all across that city. “Imagine young people offering their gifts, energy, and lives to the movement; imagine those who have been alienated coming back, and those having faith for the first time. Imagine this kind of movement not being co-opted by politics, but holding politics accountable.” If it is really true that something is happening, then one thing is clear: Jim Wallis is one of those who are making it happen. |
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