Meet the Refreshing Evangelical Who’s Leading a Revival—of “the Common Good”
[link:http://www.compassionrevolutionnow.org|
]
Pastor Jim Wallis has been arrested for protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, builds bridges between polarized politicians, and pushes Christians to worry less about gay marriage and more about justice. And even better—there’s a whole new generation following his lead.
Jim Wallis surprises people. He’s very much the evangelical pastor, with infectious warmth and an enthusiasm for preaching. But the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine is not out to convert people. He takes the teachings of Jesus seriously, challenging Christians to think first of justice for the poor and oppressed and to worry less about abortion and gay marriage. An inclusive “common good” is the core idea of his new book, On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned About Serving the Common Good.
For Wallis, doing this takes more than talk. He stands with people losing their homes to foreclosure and those opposing the Keystone pipeline—he’s been arrested nearly two dozen times. He’s served as an adviser to President Obama and appeared on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” where he called giant Wall Street executive pay packages “a sin of Biblical proportions.”
Sarah van Gelder: There’s a lot of emphasis on poverty in your book. I know that has a very solid theological foundation, but perhaps not one that is widely shared across the Christian faith. So I’m wondering if you can talk about the different ways people come at that question, and also about the statement of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar ... it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
Wallis: King is right; this is about justice.
I realized we'd lost something very foundational, the ancient idea called the common good. ... This idea is in all of our religious traditions, but it's also in our secular democratic traditions.
Too many people are hauling drowning people out of the river—which is a good thing to do—but not sending somebody upstream to find out who or what’s throwing them in. A lot of people are still trying to work with the symptoms and the victims—which is wonderful and compassionate—but now we need to look at the causes.
I was at World Vision yesterday, and I said, I’m hearing you say, “Don’t just give someone a fish, teach them how to fish.” I agree with that. Here’s another question: Who owns the pond? And who is controlling what’s happening to the fish, the ecosystem, and the water?
FULL INTERVIEW @ Yes! Magazine HERE: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/love-and-the-apocalypse/jim-wallis-the-common-good-in-a-violent-world
= new reply since forum marked as read
and have had much more opportunity to criticize religious "leaders" than applaud them.
I see signs of hope in many ways now in that regard.
