[continued from part 1]

Jesus did not establish bureaucratic institutions, weekly social gatherings, or houses of religious entertainment. He started a movement that demands that rather than spending our time establishing ever more luxurious churches, we must strive to establish God's kingdom of love and justice on earth as in heaven. The gospel he lived and died for summons us to treat all people and their needs as holy. This means instituting policies that fairly, equitably, and lovingly respond to the suffering and want of all of humanity.

Yes, respond lovingly, because Jesus' entire gospel is based upon love. But note well that the love he taught is not mere sentimentality; it is actively working to secure for one's neighbor what one wants for oneself. That is the difference between the politics of Jesus and the politics of politicians: Jesus' way acknowledges God as "our" God, meaning that all are children of God, and thus the needs of all are holy. It is this standard that separates the politics of Jesus from the politics of politicians.

In the politics of Jesus, then, every policy and policy proposal must be judged by Jesus' yardstick of love and justice. We must ask: Do our social programs treat the people's needs as holy? Do our tax laws? Do our health care policies treat as holy all in need of coverage? Do our foreign policies treat all people as children of the same Creator? Or do we treat those outside our borders as children of a lesser god and, therefore, worthy of only inferior chances in life?

Treating the people and their needs as holy should be the perspective of everyone who purports to be a lover of God and humanity, but it must certainly be the perspective of every religious and political leader who claims to follow Jesus. In the politics of Jesus, there can be no "politicians" in the sense of "professional" politicians, whose dedication is to power and self-aggrandizement rather than to principles. There must only be servant leaders, just as the son of God came not to be served, but to serve.

The goal of Jesus' movement, ministry, and politics is a new creation: a political order that truly serves the good of all in equal measure. Those who strive to practice Jesus' politics must always keep that as the focus of our prayers and our compassion, the focus of our love and our most faithful social action. It is not optional; it is required of every follower of Jesus. He declared as much in terms that left no doubt: "Whoever is not with me is against me" (Matthew 12:30). That is to say, if you do not work for, or in some real way support, the establishment of God's kingdom of love and justice, then your silence and inactivity ultimately serve the forces of injustice.

It will not be easy. It seems that every aspect of today's political culture militates against the gospel's call for truth, honesty, and sincere service in the public square. But this is as Jesus foretold it: "I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; ... you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them" (Matthew 10:16, 18 [RSV]). This means that in every political setting the true followers of Jesus will be called forth to speak truth to power and to find power in the truth. Even as many strut about proudly wearing their faith like crowns, the true followers of Jesus must hold dear his cross of self-sacrificial love.

All of this requires more than simply bearing Jesus' name. These things we must do if at the sunset of our lives we are to be counted among those who truly tried to love our neighbors as ourselves by living the politics of he who died so others might live.

 

Obery M. Hendricks Jr., Ph.D., is a professor of biblical interpretation at New York Theological Seminary and author of The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of the Teachings of Jesus and How They Have Been Corrupted.

It was a warm spring afternoon when Martin Luther King addressed tens of thousands gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the largest gathering to date in the growing struggle for civil rights.

King rallied the crowd with his stirring refrain: "Give us the ballot!" He called for the government, white liberals, white Southerners, and finally the African-American community to work, struggle, and sacrifice to achieve a more just, free, and integrated nation.

But more than 50 years later, few remember this speech delivered at the "Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom" on May 17, 1957. But the nation and the world are very much aware of a speech King gave only six years later at the very same location.

Why do we remember the 45th anniversary of the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," while largely ignoring a very similar march that occurred six years earlier?

For one, King's speech was better. "Give us the Ballot" is no "I Have a Dream." The speech helped cement the moment in our national consciousness.

Second, the media coverage was much more extensive in 1963 than it had been in 1957.  Thanks in part to media coverage, the August 1963 march became part of the national consciousness.

Also, the crowd was much larger. While exact attendance figures at such events are always disputed, the 1957 march drew around 20,000, while the 1963 event drew between 200,000 and 300,000 people.

But the biggest difference between 1957 and 1963 was not the quality of the speech, the media coverage, or the size of the crowd. No, these were mere consequences of a much bigger transformation.

In 1957, the march was an attempt to rally the nation around an issue. Building on the Brown vs. Board of Education decision and the Montgomery bus boycott, civil rights leaders tried to leverage their strength to exert pressure on the federal government. But in 1957, there was not yet a national grassroots movement for civil rights.

Although local communities were stirring and organizing, the 1957 march was at the dawn of the movement, and therefore did not galvanize the strength that would be obvious just six years later.

So what changed between 1957 and 1963?

1. The Sit-In Movement of 1960, which galvanized college students throughout the south to submit to physical abuse and arrest to ensure integrated lunch counters in southern dime stores.

2. The founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which provided a network of young civil rights activists who would be on the front lines of the movement throughout the 1960s.

3. The Freedom Rides, which forced the federal government to enforce national laws that called for integrated bus services on intrastate travel. When black and white riders were abused, beaten, had one of their buses firebombed, and eventually filled the jails of Mississippi, the nation became more aware of the courage of the African-American community and the horrific violence of segregationists and white supremacists.

4. The Birmingham Movement, where Bull Conner unleashed firehoses and police dogs on African-American children, leading many in the nation to the conclusion that integration and racial justice could be delayed no longer.

By 1963, a grassroots civil rights movement had emerged. The march represented the culmination of day-to-day organizing in small towns and cities throughout the South. Many in the crowd had been beaten, arrested, abused, lost jobs, and were reviled because of their courageous work for social change.

So we remember King's "I Have a Dream" speech and the 1963 March on Washington not because of a grand event or even a great speech, but because it was an event that galvanized grassroots power built throughout the South and throughout the nation. The 1963 march was not a tactical PR move, but a culmination of a movement that transformed our nation.

As we watch people fill arenas in Denver and the Twin Cities, many will be inspired as we listen to compelling speeches from both Democrats and Republicans. But remember, a collection of tens of thousands of people responding to a grand speech never changed anything, anymore than the millions who will gather for NFL and college football games this fall will have a great social impact on our world.

Speeches and conventions are fine, but the real social change happens on the ground, in our local communities, person-to-person, small group to small group, neighborhood by neighborhood. Jesus didn't usher in the kingdom of God at the Sermon on the Mount, but through a ragged group of disciples who changed the world.

During this election season and beyond, as Christ-followers, I pray we don't get so swept away by a few great speeches that we fail to do the hard work in our local communities that can help "God's kingdom come, God's will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Local organizing made all the difference between 1957 and 1963. In 2008, local organizing will determine if we have a national "feel-good" moment when we elect an African-American president or a female vice president, or whether we experience a transformed nation and a transformed world.

Troy Jackson is senior pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned his Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Kentucky. He is author of Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader, and a participant in Sojourners' Windchangers grassroots organizing project in Ohio to work on the Vote Out Poverty Campaign.

MoveOn.org pioneered the art of online political advocacy. As it celebrates its 10th anniversary, it can look at enormous successes and a host of new questions. Do politicians take mass e-mails seriously? Is advocacy by e-mail being replaced by text messaging and social networking? Can online activism be turned into on-the-ground organizing? They're questions that face every organization now using the same methods.

Duane Shank is the senior policy adviser for Sojourners.

The prophet Isaiah says that the Lord will be a stumbling block for many, meaning that the majority of us will have difficulties living the way we ought to. Working in the field of social justice only seems to add another dimension to that difficulty. Poverty, economic inequality, and eradicating racism, sexism, and the like are all issues that "progressive Christians" care about, but how much do we really say about how things got this way?

From my experience, the progressive Christian movement has shown that it can advise its constituency on how to assist in uplifting burdened communities, but I've noticed an absence in acknowledging what got us -- a collective "us" -- into places of suffering in the first place. Effective movements all have two key elements: first is a thorough understanding of the root causes of their issues in order to heal whatever the "disease" may be. The other is an unrelenting commitment to be a cure and not a treatment.  Where we are right now in history begs the question: Do we want to be a cure or just a painkiller?

To illustrate my point, let's take an example from sports. The fact that Washington, D.C.'s NBA team is now called the Wizards, rather than the Bullets, is a treatment -- not a cure of the disease of gun violence in our city and society at large. The "progressive" nature of those who eventually voted and officially changed the name acted more like "pressure valves" than healers. What's unfortunate with a lot of progressivism nowadays is that we've lost sight of what's necessary -- the sacrifices and the struggle -- that's called for to break down systems of oppression and exploitation, and for a new order to rise.

What we do instead is become a pressure valve that takes a step in the right direction to relieve some pressure of a situation, but usually stops once that initial victory is achieved. There's nothing inherently progressive about changing a name. What we should be focusing on is changing the culture of violence. Ironically, from where we stand today, perhaps D.C. needs to revert back to its old NBA name, or maybe the "D.C. Militias" would be a good one if the Supreme Court, in all of its infinite wisdom, is the Truth we are satisfied with.

Let's be clear: Walking in love and faith through Christ is hard because it involves the death of things we'd rather hold onto: pride, privilege, our egos, grudges toward certain people, etc. But the Bible tells us many times that those things that make up ourselves are going to have to die in order for us to truly live through him. Hebrews 12 reminds us that we "have not yet resisted to the point of shedding our blood" -- or in other words, we have yet to come to a place in our struggle where we are willing to give up our ways of life, that while they may allow us to live comfortably above others, they help foster the "isms" we protest against.

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This Training for Change conference was a good experience, one that I did not expect and that challenged me deeply. One of the tools we practiced was learning to tell our personal stories to build relationships with each other. I'm not very good at that, and I have a hard time finding the desire to open up to strangers.

But the more the ideas of "relationships" and "stories" were drilled in, the more they became real to me. I began to see the passion and the honesty in all of the other conference goers, which surprised me because I didn't know that there were people so willing and determined to create change in this society. It was very inspiring, and I was happy to get to know a great bunch of people. And the people who work for Sojo are crazy...about justice.

Donna Almendrala just graduated from UC Berkeley in May 2008 with a degree in Chemical Biology. She is currently looking for an outlet that will blend her science background and desire for social justice.

I, like most, have multiple tribes of which I consider myself a part. This weekend I ate with, spoke with, worshiped with, learned from, and was amazed by a new tribe of people. There was kinship, and a sense of shared experience, struggle, fear, and hope among this new tribe.

I was glad to hear something in Brian McLaren's session on "scared to talk politics in church?" It wasn't something Brian said but rather something from someone who doesn't look like me, and who had on a shirt I probably wouldn't wear. He spoke up in the Q&A at the beginning of the session (which was a fantastic idea, thanks Brian). This man had noticed in many conversations in the working groups and among conference attendees that while no one was out and out bashing either political party he noticed that more often people would speak favorably about the "more progressive" political party and "jabingly" about the "more conservative" political party. Now as one who is coming from a more conservative background and who is now very much wanting to find a political third way to let my faith fully inform my public policy, I noticed this underlying level in conversations happening here.

I understand that for many Americans who grew up democrat, progressive and Christian, or came to faith later in life, the current dominance of hyper-conservatives in the national faith conversation, namely the "religious right," has left them hurt, angry and wanting the balance to change. They have fought for justice and felt other Christians fighting against them.

This issue is real. The hurt is real and the pain is real. The polarization this country has experienced divides Christian who share the same Christ, just as it has divided the rest of the country. Theology may differ some or a lot, political agendas may be wildly different, and we may come from different sides of town, but we share a common God and ought to behave like it.

McLaren already planned to deal with this issue in his PowerPoint presentation. The conversation was wonderful when we came to that slide. He pointed to many places where conservatives are right and where they are wrong, and where democrats are right and where they are wrong.

All this being said- these people are my tribe. We share a faith in Jesus. I now share a budding passion for justice, ending poverty and for ending human trafficking with people who I have stayed separate from in my public and faith life. This conference is not the beginning of the process of reconciliation for me, but it is a major stepping stone in the continuing process. I am called to love my brother and the stranger.

God cares for the poor, so should I. God cares for the stranger, so should I. God cares for creation, so should I. God cares for the orphan, so should I. God cares for people who don't vote like me, so should I. God cares...so should I.

It sounds so simple to seek first the Kingdom of God. I make it very complicated.

Shelton Green works as a government affairs consultant in Texas and blogs at www.inreformation.com.

Yesterday I was in a class where we were trying to frame up the story of ourselves--not just an idealistic fluffy tale--but one that when you told it, others would understand in their gut why you felt the way you feel and maybe even get a glimpse of the "real" you and move a little bit closer to you as a person. A gentleman shared with me his negative feeling of experiencing that vulnerability. I do believe that most people feel this way...scared to go deeper....scared to really talk about raw happenings and going beyond the issues to a place that is personal. I think that may be very natural, especially surrounded by strangers whom you are meeting for the first time. In reality, being vulnerable to strangers has always been easier for me, than being vulnerable with those I am close to in many ways. I realized that I may be different than others in that respect, and I'm okay with that. Thinking about what this man said took me back to a page in The One Year Daily Grind by Sarah Arthur, a devotional I have been reading for the last year, that addresses what she calls "The Secret of Weakness".

"..the secret of weakness is not primarily about that God is trying to teach us in the midst of our struggles but how God wants to bless others in the midst of our struggles. People seek out the church, not necessarily because Christians are strong and vibrant and healthy, but because honest Christians have known what it is like to be weak. They have known suffering. They have felt the stab of pain and loss. They have held each other in their sorrow- they have knelt at the beds of dying people, prayed in the ER, handed tissues to someone at the end of a rough day. And the reason people come through the sanctuary doors week after week is not because Christians have it all together or have eliminated suffering from their schedules but because they are still able to say, after all this, 'We know that our Redeemer lives.'

The world is looking for saints to pray with who have known the depths of weakness, because that's where this world is. It doesn't want light, fluffy spirituality. It wants to kneel next to the Jobs who have seen the face of God. And that's what we as a Christian community can be for the hurting. Out pain and suffering are not some kind of spiritual liability. They're how God positions us to bless others."

This speaks to me in that I don't have to be ashamed of my weakness--that God can use it to help others that are hurting. Yesterday in the panel discussion: What about our faith calls us into this work? Embodying the Kingdom of God, Alexia Salvatierra and Alexie Torres-Fleming talked about how we need to work alongside the hurting. We can be so much more effective when we can pull from the depths of our souls the pains and trials we have suffered, and at the same time extend the hope that everyone deserves. We have a Savior to back us up.

Jessica Culp is a wife and mother, as well as a fundraiser for Cunningham Children's Home in Urbana, Illinois.

A few years back 50 Cent starred in the movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" about a young drug dealer who leaves his dealing to pursue a career as a rap star. The contrast is stark: utter poverty or incredible wealth. No matter the level of material poverty or wealth, believing that more "toys" is the goal will never overcome widespread poverty.

I ran into an acquaintance here at Pentecost 2008 who reminded me of how this "get rich or die trying" message is ingrained in our psychology at every economic level. As we caught up, he filled me in on how he's excited to be here because he just took a job in his hometown of Philadelphia as a community and church organizer. He's most interested in addressing the issue of the streets in Philly where poverty invades every inch of life, but "get rich or die trying," as 50 Cent likes to promote, is the ruling philosophy. Coming from a similar background, he has emerged with a different philosophy that drives him to bring change to the youth who are living in the same situation that he once found himself in. How does he empower his community to not fall into the trap of having getting super-rich as their only aspiration?

I have the same questions, but I come from a different economic background, solidly middle-class and college-educated for generations. I too work with youth struggling against socially imposed boundaries of class, race, poverty, and lack of education. At the same time, I am trying to work on my own struggle to overcome my culturally acceptable addiction to wealth (often glossed over as "practicality" or "security") with a theology of enough.

Conversations with others who come from different backgrounds are key to understanding how to answer these questions and lead the next generation. Although our lives have different backdrops, we agree that the get-rich gospel is not fulfilling. Together we're claiming similar values, asking similar questions, and reaching out to one another for answers.

Sarah Campbell is finishing her time as a volunteer in the Discipleship Year service corps in Washington, D.C., where she has been learning to break her cultural addictions through simplicity and intentional community. She is planning to study in a dual-degree program for a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Social Work.

As I attended Pentecost 2008 I was reminded that Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign is celebrating its 40th anniversary. On Friday, Mary Nelson (Board Member of CCDA) and I facilitated a workshop on "Building the Beloved Community." Building the Beloved Community was one of the central messages of Dr. King's ministry. The Poor People's Campaign of 1968 serves as a tangible example of what the Beloved Community looks like when lived out. In November of 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. and SCLC met to discuss what direction the movement should go in after the passage of civil rights legislation and the urban riots of the previous summer. SCLC decided to launch the Poor People's Campaign in response to the economic injustice that plagued many Americans of all races. The Poor People's Campaign was to be a widespread campaign of civil disobedience. The poor from across America would come to Washington, D.C. to challenge the government to pass an anti-poverty package that would include a commitment to full employment, a guaranteed annual income and increased construction of low-income housing.

The Poor People's Campaign included poor whites from Appalachia, poor African-Americans from rural and urban areas, poor Hispanics and Native Americans. This group all came together to build Resurrection City which became the headquarters of the campaign. This "city" consisted of shacks built by conference participants and included a school, an arts and cultural program, and a medical clinic staffed by volunteer doctors. In this community African-Americans shared gospel music with Appalachian whites who in turn shared their bluegrass music. This Resurrection City was a place of Beloved Community. Sadly, the goals of the Poor People's Campaign were not accomplished due to the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy, bad press, and days of constant rain.

The unfinished work of the Poor People's Campaign is now our responsibility. For forty years we have been wandering in the wilderness of economic injustice but if we can unite regardless of our differences to create the Beloved Community we can get to the promised land of economic equality.

One tangible way you can honor the legacy of the Poor People's Campaign is by joining Sojourners in its Vote out Poverty campaign. Participants of Pentecost 2008 are being trained to return home to mobilize their churches, campuses and communities to "Vote out Poverty." Building the Beloved Community is necessary to doing this work.

Onleilove Alston is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and serves Sojourners in the Policy and Organizing department as a Beatitudes Fellow. She is a student in the dual M.Div/MSW program at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In NYC she organizes with the Poverty Initiative and New York Faith & Justice.

I'll be attending Sojourners' Pentecost conference this weekend. Why am I excited? What am I expecting? I'm looking forward to honesty about the challenges we face when we are serious about overcoming poverty.

One of my greatest struggles around large issues like poverty is that I either feel like I'm not informed well enough or that I'm not doing enough. On one hand, I talk in circles about an issue without creating change. Or, I find myself working so hard for an issue that I lose my ability to engage in meaningful conversation with others who are not so gung-ho. Both understanding and action are important.

So I'm looking forward to learning concrete ways that I can live out a radical, inclusive economy of God's kingdom. I'm looking forward to the joyful accountability that comes from an earnest, Spirit-led desire to be in communion with God, God's people, and God's creation.
I hope that this weekend I will engage in meaningful dialogue with others who can help me grow through reflection and can challenge me to deepen my commitments to creating justice.

Sarah Campbell is finishing her time as a volunteer in the Discipleship Year service corps in Washington, D.C., where she has been learning to break her cultural addictions through simplicity and intentional community. She is planning to study in a dual-degree program for a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Social Work.

I feel like I try so hard and I'm not sure what I'm actually doing. That is one reason why I wanted to go to Pentecost 2008: Training for Change. I want to be part of something bigger and know that we as a larger group have the passion to really do something. I've been sick of the way things are going and how, it seems, the church is growing cold in many ways. It makes my stomach sick to think that I would leave my children this world the way it is. How can I make a difference?

I've grown this conscience that is unrelenting. I can't just throw that piece of paper away, I have to wonder what would happen if everyone threw away that piece of paper. I can't just fill my styrofoam cup with coffee, I have to wonder how many times I can use it before throwing it away. I can't stand that a television is plugged in all day, but that I didn't use it once. I've got to unplug it. I can't just walk by a homeless person and not give them something. I can't hear a baby cry without feeling an aching, wondering if they are being loved. I can't just assume people will do what the Bible says. I feel pressure to yell at people who don't care, and I feel like I don't know where to start doing something that will turn things around. I want to scream: "Move, people, move! Do something! Quit being so comfortable."

I heard a Christian say to me a few years ago, "Who cares? This is why God gave us the planet -- [God] is going to come back soon anyway." I can't stand that kind of thinking anymore, and I've got to be a part of the change I want to see. I'm starting with this conference.

Jessica Culp is a wife and mother, as well as a fundraiser for Cunningham Children's Home in Urbana, Illinois.

Dear Zack,

First of all, let me say thanks. I’m so grateful for the honest questioning of a convert to Christianity who seems to intuit Jesus’ radical politics. Your story is such good news to me. I grew up among good Christian people who put our hope in Ronald Reagan while we prayed for the souls of atheists like you. It’s so refreshing to know that God opened your eyes to the kingdom movement despite our wayward piety.

Second, let me try to correct a misunderstanding that was probably the result of my poor communication. I did not mean to say, “No, I think we’ll stay local now” when I wrote that the authenticity of our public witness, which must be transnational, depends on our faith that God has already given us a new way of life in local, everyday practices. I only wanted to say that I’ve learned we can’t really say much to the state house or the White House if we’re not repenting of the evil in our own house. Jesus said it like this: Before you try to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye, take the log out of your own.

Realists and radical democrats have criticized the “resident alienation” of intentional communities that separate themselves from society to maintain their own purity apart from the world. I think they’re right, and I pray that new monasticism will never fall into this temptation. We cannot get away from this world’s systems to carve out a utopia. But God has interrupted history to make a new creation possible right in the midst of the old. We’re called to interrupt the world with signs of a new humanity right where we are.

You are right to say that the gospel has leavened society to some degree by democratizing it. This is a result of radical Christian witness. Though it has not ushered in the kingdom, democracy is better than its alternatives. But we are always susceptible to self-deception. And we can easily confuse the pursuit of happiness with the desire for God’s beloved community.

This is, I’m afraid, the failure of the success of the civil rights movement. A movement that was inspired by a vision of beloved community where all people have dignity because they are children of God was “democratized” into a civil rights movement that promised the American Dream to the "talented tenth" of the black community. This meant that most of those who could leave black communities did, leaving neighborhoods without the resources of educated and professional people. Without any connection to the local community, the young men and women who gained access through the movement achieved some political power but effected little change.

People like John Perkins of the Christian Community Development Association have helped me to see that the political hope of the God movement is both more radical and more effective when it stays committed to the grassroots and to the practice of entrusting everyday people with the tactics of Jesus. You’re right: We ought not let the empire hold our imaginations captive by believing that the gospel is only personal. But neither should we imagine that we can jump to good national and global policy without being transformed ourselves. The call to conversion is total. We desperately need new imaginations as well as a whole new world. The good news is that God has already made all of this possible in Jesus. I hope we can struggle to live into it together.

Peace to you,
Jonathan

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church (Baker).

Sojourners’ June issue features a cover story by Amy Green and a column by Jim Wallis about the new paths of Christians in their 20s and 30s, plus a set of mini-interviews with 10 next-gen Christian leaders. Here’s a taste: part of Sojourners’ interview with Mariama White-Hammond, the 29-year-old executive director of Project HIP-HOP (Highways Into the Past—History, Organizing and Power), a youth-led, secular, nonprofit organization.

Sojourners: What's the biggest challenge you see facing young Christians/the church now? In the years to come?

I think we basically always face the same problems: 1. Can we shut up long enough to hear God? 2. When God speaks, can we be obedient? 3. Can we be loving enough to non-believers that they will ever believe that our God is love?

I believe that the world knows that things are bad and they are searching for a prophetic voice, but even more they are searching for people who believe so much that they are willing to put their own comfort on the line. If we could do that, we could take the world by storm.

We hear often that young Christians'—particularly evangelicals'—perceptions of Christianity are changing, that their concerns are broadening to encompass more social justice issues. Do you see this happening in your own experience?

I do see that young Christians are beginning to shift. I think that, particularly around the issue of the environment or issues of war, it is clear to my generation that the way we are living is unsustainable. We are faced with the reality that we are going to pay for some of the short-sightedness of our parents. I think that many of us have never wanted for anything and we see that consumption is not just killing our planet, but that it often creates emptiness.

We want to be more connected to each other—that's why we all live on Facebook. So I know we don't have all the answers, but I think we are beginning to ask the right questions.

What one thing would you most like to tell Christians?

The same thing that I am always needing to tell myself: The God that we serve is so big that we don't have to be limited by the world that we now see. We serve a God who parted the Red Sea, brought my ancestors out of slavery, and was willing to give the ultimate sacrifice. If we could remember that—we would have the kind of hope that would allow us to live boldly for Christ. Not just trying to get other people to accept Christ, but being willing to live our lives like we really trust him to do what he has said that he will do—to change us and this world.

What gives you hope?

The young people that I work with in my organization and in my church give me hope. When I see them stepping out of faith to achieve things that other people don't believe they can do, then I know that God is good.

My niece, who was born at 24 weeks at 1 pound, 8 ounces. They were going to pronounce her stillborn when one nurse believed that he could save her. She has defied all the predictions and, every time I see her running or hear her speak, I remember what the doctors said, and I am reminded that God is still performing miracles every day. I want her and the teens that I work with to see that I am working hard to make the world better for them so that they too can have hope.

Jim Wallis and the progressive shift within the evangelical community just got a little shout-out on a Daily Kos diary—which is great:

... this conservative Christian college is showing signs of a real shift in perspective.  Being overtly Christian is no longer linked to Republican policies.  In fact a real re-alignment is, I think, taking place.

So what does this mean?

First, it is important for liberals to be open to the "conservative" Christians -- their political alignment may not be conservative or Republican, but rather may be very progressive, idealistic.  This is a time for openness, for creating new alliances, new linkages.

But almost more fascinating were the reader comments. Compared with the criticism from our more conservative reader comments on this site (that claim Jim is pro-abortion, etc.), these snippets are a fascinating journey through the looking glass to a place where people think Jim is too conservative:

... So when he calls for a "post-religious right," let's bear in mind that he is not a progressive. For example, he is anti-choice ....

... When we look to Jim Wallis as a progressive leader (when he is in fact a conservative) we disempower ourselves ....

... we should simply learn to recognize that he is a leader of the religious right ....

... Wallis is a flaming anti-abortion zealot ...

What would be really fun is to get their commenters and our commenters in a room together, and let them have a moderated debate about which side is "right"—or rather, correct.

Personally, I think it only helps our credibility when criticism from both Left and Right is equally vociferous, and demonstrates that we're more interested in finding new -- and more nuanced -- positions and common ground rather than adhering to ideological litmus tests from either side. Jim and Sojourners simply don't fit those tired categories, no matter how hard our critics try to mash us into them. It's also nice to know that we have friends on all sides as well.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.

Over the last few years, I've gotten acquainted with a movement of Christians that is vibrant, enormous, and yet refuses to let itself be named or to take credit for any of its accomplishments. Some have named subsets or aspects of the movement -- for example, "The New Monastics," "The Emergent Church," "Ordinary Radicals," and even "Revolutionaries." But there are millions of people swept up into this movement who have never even heard those phrases.

I grew up an atheist and a left-wing activist/organizer. I got a view into this movement only when I married a Christian and started going to church (the only way it was ever going to happen) a few years ago. When I first saw thousands of upper-middle-class, white, Southern suburbanites respond passionately to a sermon titled "Two Fists in the Face of Empire," I knew that something incredible must be going on. Afterward, a minute of Googling revealed that the U.S. was already full of churches preaching that same "anti-empire" gospel -- both mega- and mini-churches, suburban, rural, and urban. The movement is invisible to people outside the church (and to liberal mainline Christians) because it is strongest among "born-again" Christians -- the kind who believe Jesus is really coming back, raise their hands in the air, weep in worship, and study the Bible every day because they believe it's true. These folks have learned that most of their coworkers and classmates think all that stuff is bizarre, and so they keep it to themselves. In some ways, born-again Christians are as different from mainstream America as the Amish, but there are 100 million of them and they're almost totally invisible.

I started weeping in worship services myself when I started to see what this movement was actually doing in people's lives. It was taking very isolated, individualistic middle-class suburban people like me and breaking them open in all kinds of ways. Even though I had spent a lot of time working as a community and union organizer, I had always been careful to keep my life totally unentangled by the immediate needs and troubles of the people I was organizing -- that's what I was most comfortable with, and it's also what I was taught to do by all my mentors.

I was organizing for "big" solutions and staying away from all the "little" stuff that to me just seemed too messy and complicated to ever solve anyway. But these young Christians I was meeting were "falling in love with each other across class and racial lines," and wrestling with demons of poverty, addiction, community violence, family violence, sexual abuse, depression, hopeless schools, and all the other troubles that plague American life. They were "making redemptive history" by healing wounds and repairing families and communities one at a time. It's really the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I've had the opportunity to witness it up close in a dozen states and scores of giant mega-churches and tiny house groups.

And so it is with great hesitation that I have been trying to make a suggestion for an amendment to this movement.

As this movement has radically embraced "relational" one-on-one or neighborhood-level social change, it has just as radically shunned any kind of big-picture national and global collective social change. I've been arguing in a series of posts at my blog Revolution in Jesusland that the movement should not limit its imagination to only small and local modes of change, but should allow God to work through them at a national and global level too.

A few days ago, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove answered me very graciously here, but, in effect, said, "No, I think we'll stay local for now":

For many of us young evangelicals, the Moral Majority and its demise unveiled for us the deceptions of power. We walked away from politics as we knew it because we didn't like who it made us. But we believe there is a better way, and we've tried to learn that Way from Jesus.

As I understand it, new monasticism is trying to learn what it means to live by the power of the Spirit in a world of competing powers. This means, first of all, that we give ourselves to prayer, trusting that there's time to listen in a world of urgent needs. The most radical thing we can do in a world wrecked by injustice is to open our imaginations to prayer. If we want to transform the world, we have to begin with our own conversions. As Gandhi said, "We must be the change we seek."

... New monasticism is not against political organizing, or, as Dr. King said in 1968, "taking the nonviolent movement international." ... But our witness there will only be credible if we've taken the time to be converted ourselves and to build communities of justice and peace where it is easier to be good. We won't end global poverty until we learn to care for the poor in our communities. Our cries for world peace will fall on deaf ears until we learn to live peaceably as Christians.

But when I read the story of the Way of Jesus in the Bible, I don't see him or his disciples limiting themselves only to prayer. I don't see them waiting to perfect themselves before engaging their national community politically. The Jesus movement as presented in the Bible did live differently, but it didn't set itself aside separately and neatly to live only as an example. Jesus didn't lead his followers to form an intentional community set apart; he sent waves of disciples strategically all around the country to deliberately ignite a national movement -- of highly imperfect people -- that shook the foundation of empire. He didn't only walk around saying profound things and hoping that people would get the point; he created intolerable confrontations with authority.

After Jesus, the Bible records the disciples organizing a networked movement of insurgent communities spanning the empire. In some ways, that movement was the inverse of the empire that it was trying to subvert: e.g., practicing enemy love in the face of state terror. But it also was a mirror image of the global reach of empire: e.g., it organized itself at lightning speed and on a global scale using the communication and transportation networks of the empire. (The New Testament itself is mostly made up of the equivalent of interoffice organizational e-mails written by first-century jet-set Christian organizers, constantly pushing, pulling, and teaching far-flung communities.)

On those points, the movement answers: "Okay, maybe, but Jesus never taught us to 'take power.' And so we must limit ourselves to witnessing from the 'bottom' and never try to put ourselves on 'top' in positions of power."

In college, I had friends who went off to join a weird little secretive Maoist party that was active on campus. It was a crazy thing to watch as they transported themselves back in time to the China of the 1940s. All their calculations about making social change here in America were messed up because their paradigm was based on the regime that Mao Zedong's communists lived under as young persecuted revolutionaries. I think there's a bit of that going on with this movement of Christian revolutionaries today. Too often, they're applying the Way of Jesus to our modern-day world as though nothing has changed since the first-century Roman Empire.

But haven't 2,000 years of redemptive history taken place since then? Yes, many places in our societies still look a lot like Rome and many people still suffer violence at the hands of the state on a regular basis -- and we can't forget that. But thousands of years of resistance and subversion has borne fruit. There is something new. Most Christians today live in societies where we can remove, replace, and even become our own political leaders in peaceful elections. Is that an accident? Is it to be ignored? How tragic would it be if the body of Christ opened up new ways for humanity to work together, but Christians were too discouraged to try them? Yes, our democracies are flawed. But maybe the biggest problem with them is our lack of imagination in using them, and our lack of faith in ourselves as leaders. What if the disciples had approached Rome with a similar lack of imagination and faith in themselves? Reading the story of Jesus and the disciples, how often do you hear God telling us, "Hold back! Watch out! Be careful!" I don't hear that at all. I hear instead, "Have faith in me, allow me to work through you, and go for it!"

Jesus lived under an empire that ruled primarily by the cross and the sword. Today we live under an empire that also tortures and kills -- but that is not its primary mode. Our empire neutralizes its citizens with an idea -- one so fundamental to our thinking that we often mistake it for a law of nature: that any attempt by humanity to determine its future intentionally and collectively will always result in failure. Of all people, Christians should not allow that modern ideology of empire to limit their imagination.

Zack Exley is a writer, organizer and recovering political consultant. He blogs at RevolutionInJesusland.com.

Zack Exley over at Revolution in Jesusland has been offering some careful thought and excellent questions about Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw's new book Jesus for President. His questions are well worth reading in depth, but for the sake of this short response, I'll summarize his concern as this: If new monastics focus on the small and local, how are we ever going to achieve large-scale social and political change? If people with power make the rules, why would Christians of goodwill give up power? Why not organize for shared power so that no one gets left out?

If there is a new monastic movement in North America, then I'm convinced that we can only understand it in the context of America becoming the world's "last remaining superpower" following World War II. For many of us young evangelicals, the Moral Majority and its demise unveiled for us the deceptions of power. We walked away from politics as we knew it because we didn't like who it made us. But we believe there is a better way, and we've tried to learn that Way from Jesus.

As I understand it, new monasticism is trying to learn what it means to live by the power of the Spirit in a world of competing powers. This means, first of all, that we give ourselves to prayer, trusting that there's time to listen in a world of urgent needs. The most radical thing we can do in a world wrecked by injustice is to open our imaginations to prayer. If we want to transform the world, we have to begin with our own conversions. As Gandhi said, "We must be the change we seek."

If there's time to listen to God, then there's also time to listen to our neighbors. I agree wholeheartedly with Exley that Jesus was an organizer, building a movement in first-century Palestine. His organizing philosophy, so far as I can tell, was the same the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) employed in Mississippi during the early 1960s. It consisted of sitting on porches, listening to people, becoming the beloved community with them, and helping all people to know that God loved them. The real power of Jesus' tactic was that it transformed rich and poor alike, setting them free for life together in a new community. It made possible a community that no one could have imagined before.

When we read the gospels closely, Jesus is obviously concerned with timing. Though he does not lay out a grand strategy for social change, he is a master tactician who obviously knows when to wait in Bethany and when to march on Jerusalem. There is a time for the beloved community to take its message to Washington. But you have to get the timing right, Jesus seems to say. The public witness is always dependent on the existence of a new community that points to another way.

New monasticism is not against political organizing or, as Dr. King said in 1968, "taking the nonviolent movement international." In an age of increasing globalization, it is more important than ever that we witness Christ's way to nation-states, corporations, and international organizations. But our witness there will only be credible if we've taken the time to be converted ourselves and to build communities of justice and peace where it is easier to be good. We won't end global poverty until we learn to care for the poor in our communities. Our cries for world peace will fall on deaf ears until we learn to live peaceably as Christians.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today's Church (Baker).

Christine Haider, 25, is preparing for her confirmation to the Roman Catholic Church. When asked about her confirmation name, she smiles broadly and says, "Dorothy." Seventy-five years since the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin continue to call a new generation of the faithful to a radical gospel of nonviolent resistance to evil and hospitality to the poor.

Started in New York City with a one-penny paper called The Catholic Worker, and eventually two houses of hospitality for homeless women and men, the Catholic Worker Movement has bloomed to at least one house of hospitality and war resistance in most states, along with houses in Canada, Mexico, England, Sweden, Germany, and New Zealand. Working both against the institutional evil of the state -- named once by Martin Luther King Jr. as the triple evils of racism, militarism, and materialism -- and for the victims of the state, the houses spring up in an organic meeting between the unique charism of the Catholic Workers involved and the needs of the community. There are Catholic Worker farms as well, according to Maurin's determination to give the poor an opportunity to work and live in dignity and find their sustenance in community and in communion with the land. There are no requirements for calling a project a Catholic Worker, no board or standards committee, and no fees. The Catholic Worker is not a franchise but always a labor of faith and love, a home built without walls.

Somehow in making room for the marginal in society, those at times marginalized in the church also found a home. When Haider, who struggled with a call to priesthood as a teenager, is asked what Dorothy's example is to women today, she says, "The way I identify myself as a woman and the way Dorothy identified herself as a woman is very different, but, nonetheless, for me as a woman in a very patriarchal religion Dorothy is a role model of both a strong female character in the church and a way to live out the Catholic faith outside of the institution in a way that is freeing to women but also a whole host of other people." And so in its 75 years, those who found no place to minister within the church as it stood -- women, married people, persons of different races and sexualities, and those who longed to build the simple communal apostolic church recorded in the Acts of the apostles -- have often been able to contribute their gifts to the Catholic Worker. In fact, there are even Catholic Workers who are not Roman Catholic.

Perhaps the requirement to being a Catholic Worker begins with a call to prophetic presence with the poor on the breadlines and those under the hail of fire brought down by military power. In the heart of this call is God's dangerous command to love one another, a call made dangerous by a world with casual and rampant individual and institutional violence against both neighbor and enemy. Dorothy reflected on the lack of this love present in the world when she said, "We have not yet loved our neighbor with the kind of love that is a precept to the extent of laying down our life for him. And our life very often means our money ... it means our daily bread, our daily living, our rent, our clothes ...." In such a world, loving one anther can have some uncomfortable consequences, both in loss of privilege and in loss of freedom. Dorothy said herself that, "Love is indeed a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, of each of us, but it is the only answer."

Eda Uca-Dorn is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., which is a house of war resistance and hospitality to five formerly homeless families. She and her husband, Mike, are currently organizing around the issues of peak oil, climate change, and the impending resource wars. She may be reached at eda.uca.dorn@gmail.com. If you would like to learn more about the Catholic Worker Movement, check out www.catholicworker.org.

Last evening, I spoke at the Belmont Heights Baptist Church, just off the campus of Belmont University in Nashville. It was a good event, with the always-inspiring music of Ashley Cleveland, Kenny Greenberg, and Marcus Hammond. As is usually the case, there were a large number of young people in attendance. This morning I saw a blog post by someone who was there that I thought I'd share. He wrote:

I was skeptical, but after hearing Jim Wallis speak tonight … I'm very much on board with what he and Sojourners (his social justice organization) are doing.

And in the news this morning, an AP story titled "Some young religious voters focus on social justice":

They are trying to expand the focus of faith-based politics beyond the religious right's hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage. And they are placing social justice issues, like poverty and war, at the intersection of their moral and political decision making.

Just some more signs of how the religious and political winds are changing.

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 their gifts, talents, and lives in a new spiritual movement for social justice.

Imagine disillusioned believers coming back to faith after many years of alienation, while other seekers discover the power of faith for the first time.

Imagine politics being unable to co-opt such a spiritual revival but being held accountable to its moral imperatives.

Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of both our culture and our politics.

Last week in Columbus, Ohio, that vision came to life. The first night, as I stood on the stage looking out over a church filled with 3,500 people inspired by Matt Redman's opening worship music, I felt a sense of amazing grace. Over the next three evenings, more than 10,000 people attended. There would have been more if they could have gotten into the Vineyard Church -- this largest church in Columbus seats 3,500 people, but it turned out to be too small for the crowd. Pastor Rich Nathan of Vineyard and Bishop Timothy Clarke of the First Church of God, the co-chairs of the revival, led the services. My three sermons focused on the call to conversion, the call to community, and the call to justice.

Hundreds of people came forward to commit their lives to Christ for the first time, and thousands came down the aisle to commit themselves to the social justice that is core to the kingdom of God, to the "least of these" whom Jesus calls us to care for. The Columbus Dispatch headlined a story, "The Justice Revival: Faithful aim to aid poor, as Jesus did", and wrote:

The revival … is a call to walk the walk and dig into issues about which Jesus preached, such as helping the poor.

Our call to the churches was to make the city of Columbus their "parish" – that the churches of the city together take responsibility for what happens in their city. The whole spectrum of the churches, from the most conservative to the most liberal, supported the revival. On Thursday evening, 50 pastors from those churches joined on the stage for an altar call to make Columbus the parish of the churches in the city.

Friday evening, an inspiring challenge by Dr. Gene Harris, superintendent of Columbus Public Schools, for mentors who would develop relationships with the city's children led to hundreds of responses. On Saturday following the revival, the Dispatch wrote that the "Revival's faithful take good will onto streets":

About 2,000 people -- many of them teenagers, college students, and young adults -- took to the streets of Columbus yesterday for community-service projects that put their Christian faith into action.

Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio came to our "City Leaders Lunch," as did Mayor Michael Coleman of Columbus, city council members, many nonprofit organizations, and many more pastors. They spoke together about communication and collaboration, and the partnerships among them that could change the city.

Billboards announcing the Justice Revival were all over town and simply said, "Love God? End Poverty." By the end of the week, the stories of how people wanted to follow Jesus into relationship with the poor of Columbus were changing the image of Christianity in the city. And that change will continue, as one local pastor said in the press:

Bethany Christian Church's co-pastor, Elaine Fennell, reminded the volunteers that their mission didn't end yesterday. "We cannot sleep, not until poverty is no more and no child is hungry and they all have shelter and clothing," Fennell said. "You are the beginning of a revived movement. We are going back up the mountain, and we cannot rest."

It was an extraordinary week, even more than I had hoped. As we discern how to move forward, many other cities now want Justice Revivals in their communities. Just imagine!

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 attacked the terrified mother. She flew off. Then, to my horror, the grackle plucked one of the babies out of the nest. Still in my pajamas, I ran outside with a broom yelling at the blackbird, hoping to frighten it and rescue the chick. But the grackle escaped with his prey. For a couple of hours, it circled around trying to collect the other chick. I stayed by the nest, however, waving the broom to save the remaining baby bird until its parents returned. Eventually, the much-calmer mother dove came back to one tiny offspring. When I called wildlife rescue, the volunteer told me that, "the days before a bird learns to fly are the most dangerous in their lives." Standing guard with the broom saved the other young bird's life.

This episode reminded me how fragile new life is—and that it needs to be protected by someone willing to wave around a broom to scare off predators who wish to destroy it before it can even fly.

New movements have the same need. Right now, as my friend Jim Wallis points out, a new religious movement for justice has emerged among evangelicals. Not only is this true, but parallel movements have birthed in other religious communities, too—among mainline and liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims. Some are not even faith voices, as new political, social, and broadly spiritual movements coalesce across racial, class, and religious divisions as many people are speaking out on behalf of God, the human future, and transformation. The movements for change are varied—and include politicians, artists, philosophers, scientists, activists, pastors, teachers, business leaders, students, and writers—and people are forming new communities, networks, and organizations to create paths toward global flourishing.

Because my work as a speaker takes me around North America, I am well aware of the voices for change, their longings and passions, and their increasing self-awareness of being part of something larger that is coming into being, of a cultural yearning for a new day. Like Jim, I am also convinced a new awakening has birthed in our time—a movement for justice and change that probably surpasses any that history has known, and whose inclusive scope can only be surmised.

But all this is new, very young, and still fragile—it does not yet know how to fly. For many people, the idea of a new movement will be exciting. For others, however, it will be threatening, and they will resist change with all their power.

During such days, leadership calls for many capacities: inspiration, imagination, risk, marshalling new resources, and reorganizing communities. But leaders must also be willing to wave the broom—to ward off dangers while the chicks are learning to fly.

Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) is the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (HarperOne).

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 cities’ great convention centers, but resulting in thousands of small groups for ongoing discipleship, training, and action in every neighborhood of those cities. Imagine disillusioned believers coming back to faith after many years of alienation, while other seekers discover the power of faith for the first time. Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of both our culture and our politics. Imagine a fulfillment in our time of the words of the prophet Amos: ‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ Just imagine.

We plan on three nights of preaching and worship. Tonight, Wednesday, April 16, we will call people to make a commitment to Christ. Matt Redman, the writer of many of our worship songs, and his band will join us for worship. On Thursday night, we will call people to work for justice in the Central Ohio community and we will host the Raymond Wise Gospel Choir as our worship leaders. And on Friday night, we will focus on issues of global justice. Worship we will be led by Vineyard Columbus’ new worship pastor, Clarence Church, together with some worship leaders from other churches in Central Ohio.

Then on Saturday, thousands of members of Central Ohio churches will fan out into our community and to dozens of servant evangelism projects such as fixing up local schools, visiting nursing homes, and working on homes for Habitat for Humanity.

We have several goals that we hope to accomplish through the Justice Revival. First of all, we want to transform the public face of Christianity here in Central Ohio. I want our city to know that we followers of Jesus are not at war with our city. I want Christians to be Jeremiah 29:7 people, who “seek the peace and prosperity of the city [where we live] and pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, [we] too will prosper.”

I want hundreds of people to be saved through this Justice Revival and to come into fellowship with local churches throughout our community. I want to see churches across Central Ohio united in the practical service of our city and in reaching our city for Christ. Many of Columbus’ largest churches are already involved in helping to host this Justice Revival including First Church of God, Grove City Nazarene, Faith Ministries, Reynoldsburg United Methodist Church, First Community Church, Rhema Christian Center, and New Salem Baptist. We also have several other Vineyards involved.

We particularly want to call attention to the condition of children in our city by having local churches adopt local public schools for the purpose of mentoring kids. And we want to call attention to global issues of justice especially the Darfur, the tragedy of global sex trafficking, the 30,000 children a day who die of malnutrition and preventable diseases, and the billion people on our planet who live on less than $1 a day.

Through the Justice Revival we want to help redefine what it means to be a Christian disciple so that thousands of Christians will understand that they can’t be good followers of Jesus without also committing to Jesus’ agenda, which includes feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, giving care to the sick, and visiting the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-36).

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

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, the goal of our Vote Out Poverty campaign.

We've heard from many of you that rather than a conventional conference, you want to go deeper in learning real skills to take back to your local communities and congregations as advocates for social and economic justice. So, we are offering in-depth, practical training from Sojourners' staff and other experienced organizers (including Jennifer Kottler of Let Justice Roll, Rachel Anderson of the Boston Faith and Justice Network, Peggy Flanagan of Wellstone Action, and Lisa Sharon Harper of New York Faith and Justice, among others) who will facilitate small group workshops that teach practical skills. Following each group learning experience, participants will engage in facilitated small group discussions to take the learning to the next level.

Of course, we'll still have some of our traditional things. We'll have worship services (I will preach on Friday evening) with great music – Derek Webb will join us both Friday and Saturday evenings.

We will also be hearing from our seventh annual Amos and Joseph Award recipients. This year's "Joseph" - a person who faithfully uses a position of influence to benefit those in poverty - is one of our nation's great civil rights and economic justice leaders, Rev. James Lawson. Our "Amos" - a person who comes from a humble background to serve God and community - is Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, from Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles.

And, for the fifth year, our Emerging Leaders program (for faith-inspired activists younger than 30) will include Brian McLaren, author of Everything Must Change, musician Derek Webb, and myself. A special campus organizing workshop will help you be an effective advocate and faithful leader on your campus, and there will be networking opportunities to build and strengthen the growing numbers of emerging leaders across the country.

Click here to learn more about Pentecost 2008, June 13 through 16 in Washington, D.C.!

Pentecost 2008 is the next step in a movement to really make a difference in overcoming poverty in our nation. It's an occasion to learn new skills and strengthen ones you already have to show that the faith community cares about our neighbors in poverty. The election campaign this year, in combination with our Vote Out Poverty campaign, offers us the opportunity to change the political wind on poverty.

I hope to see you in Washington in June.

Click here to register for Pentecost 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 party. As a citizen who values justice, my commitment is to justice first and not any political party. In the mosaic revival, we reserve the right to criticize any party that violates and oppresses the least of these. That list is a long one (not exhaustive):

· people oppressed by poverty all over the world,
· the educationally deprived,
· unborn babies,
· mothers who are left without quality care for newborns,
· victims in Darfur, Rwanda,
· those who are impacted by AIDS/HIV,
· a planet with ecological challenges,
· abused woman and children,
· victims of violence in urban centers and college campuses,
· indigenous and immigrant groups that are displaced or marginalized.

The mosaic revival says this is beyond the Republicans, Democrats, or Independents. The kaleidoscope convention says, "How can we respond in ethical and nuanced ways to these global crises?"

Before I was a pastor, I was a Pentecostal evangelist that spoke to thousands of young people in revivals across the U.S. and Latin America. I think I hear them more clearly now than I ever did before. They're saying what I heard Jim Wallis say a month ago in New York: "How do we speak to two great hungers, spiritual revival and social justice?" The mosaic revival, or "awakening" as Jim may say it, says we understand Wilberforce, Charles Finney, Mother Teresa and Marting Luther King Jr., just to name a few heroes. Our commitment is to speak pastorally and prophetically to our nation and the world. We also recognize, as Christians, that we cannot do it alone. There is a deep mystical and spiritual element to this work.

On Tuesday, Feb. 12, Bishop John Gimenez left to be with the Lord. He was the pastor of the Rock Church in Virginia and a respected leader in the Latino evangelical community. Like my father, he was a former heroin junkie who had a radical conversion experience. I met Bishop John several years ago in New York at Bishop Luciano Padilla Jr.'s church. Although ideologically we were not always in 100 percent agreement, the bishop said to me something I'll never forget: "Believe the gospel can transform and let God work through it and you to change the world."

So when I'm asked, "What gives you the right to speak as a Latino evangelical? My response is, "The gospel mandate and the call of Jesus in Luke 4 as he quoted from the prophet Isaiah." The mosaic revival is not about blue or red states or liberal or conservative. It is, in the words of Gandhi, "Being the change you want to see in the world." Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish poet said it best, "If not you, who? If not now, when?" The mosaic revival says always put the gospel (as a Christian) and your fundamental commitments to justice (as a citizen, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, secular, etc.,) ahead of partisanship.

Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City, a Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and the director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a Sojourners board member.

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 vulnerable in our world, those suffering people whom they think Jesus would care about. The sense of history and the possibilities of this moment were palpable. Several other constituencies were also there—and you could feel the energy of a movement.

That's what this Great Awakening book tour has been like. It's a book for a movement. Many of you have supported the new book and, by doing so, are supporting a movement. Enough of you bought The Great Awakening in the first two weeks to put us on The New York Times Best Seller List. This puts the book in the front of book stores across the country where, of course, more people see it, buy it, and read it. Thank you. This is a book that is helping to spark and support a revival movement that could change big things.

When you buy your own copy of The Great Awakening in these first few weeks, and then buy it for friends and family, fellow church members and neighbors, you literally help spread the message and the movement. Go to Amazon and see part of the proceeds from your book purchase go to Sojourners or to your local Barnes and Noble, Borders, or your favorite local independent book store.

Several people have already told me that they are starting book studies in their congregations and communities. They asked me if there was a downloadable study guide for small groups. I told them that we already have one—a free study guide for book study groups. Take the book to your congregation or meet up with others in your community to begin a Great Awakening Study Group. Make it a Lenten study book, or an Easter book study, or a discussion group focused on what people can practically do in their own families or congregations to influence public policy.

And while you're at it, support the other "movement books" that are out now—Tony Campolo's Red Letter Christians, Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change, Amy Sullivan's The Party Faithful, E.J. Dionne's Souled Out, and Shane Claiborne's Jesus for President (coming soon). These are all progressive Christian "movement books," and we are blessed to have so many out there now. What a change from just a few years ago! I've read them all and can heartily recommend them as very important books for a movement. Please support them all.

We see the conservative movement strategically support their movement books all the time and put their spokespeople on the best-seller lists and onto the talk shows non-stop. There is no other way to explain how people like Ann Coulter keep getting the microphone to say such outrageous things. A string of six bestsellers that all spew venom against liberals keeps Coulter on the air. So it's a good thing to see progressive Christians supporting our own movement books.

I am on the road now, visiting 22 cities in six weeks. And our Sojourners staff told me yesterday that I had just completed my 80^th media interview in the past three weeks. I wasn't really tired until I heard that! So please keep me in your prayers.

Reporters used to say to me, "So you are a progressive evangelical; isn't that a misnomer?" Now the misnomer has become a movement. And just this morning, a highly rated drive-time talk show host on the East Coast asked me to tell him about this new progressive Christian movement.

Something is clearly happening across this nation and it is very exciting indeed. But your support for this new book and for these book events when we come to your city is absolutely critical. Go to the Great Awakening Web site that our staff has prepared to see what other people are saying about the book, or to download the study guide for your book study group. And follow the hopeful stories from our book tour and reports from the road on our God's Politics blog. It's a great time to start a Great Awakening study group in your church or community and bring the movement home.

I believe that a genuine revival is coming and a that new great awakening may soon be here. God is good.

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, Minnesota. From the conversations he and I have been having with those in attendance at book events, churches, and evangelical college campuses, it’s clear that churchgoers growing up in conservative pews are finally coming of age.

Last week at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, they packed the venue, with some sitting on the floor. Many of these students are disillusioned with the models of engaging the faith with which they were raised. This emerging generation of evangelical pastors and theologians realize that Christianity has an image problem: it is seen as hypocritical, judgmental, too focused on the afterlife, and too political. They desire something radically new and different, yet still solidly rooted in Jesus.

The quantitative picture painted by Barna pollster David Kinnaman in his recently released book, unChristian, is qualitatively borne out in this group of Generation Y "insiders"—those raised inside the church but frustrated with the status quo. They will shake things up in the years ahead, both politically and theologically.

Politically, these 20-somethings are less likely to associate with the Republican Party than ever before, as discovered by a recent Pew Research Center poll. It showed that party identification among white evangelicals ages 18-29 decreased from 55% to 40% between 2005 and 2007. That’s 15 points in just two years.

This doesn’t mean young evangelicals are automatically becoming Democrats (and I don’t think they should). It does mean that their agenda is broader and deeper, no longer beholden to a single partisan ideology – more concerned with 30,000 children dying daily of poverty and disease than with gay marriage amendments in Ohio.

Theologically, these 20-somethings are abandoning a worldview that reduces the gospel of Jesus Christ to an afterlife-oriented, fire-insurance, salvation pitch. These are Matthew 25, Luke 4, and “Sermon on the Mount” Christians. They really believe that the kingdom of God represents God’s best hopes and dreams for this present age, not only for the life to come.

From coffee-infused, late-night seminary conversations to missions trips bringing them into relationship with single mothers living in the crumbling remains of America’s inner cities, with children living on garbage dumps in Mexico, with teenage girls rescued out of Southeast Asia’s sex industry, and with the boy soldiers of sub-Saharan Africa – the 20-something evangelical worldview is being disciplined by a new global context.

This new generation—the Fuller Seminary Generation—isn’t responding to The Great Awakening message because of what we’re doing; they’re responding because of what they already see happening all around them. They are summoning the confidence to articulate a new vision for Christianity for the 21st century, rooted in the timeless orthodoxy of a first-century rabbi. And once it emerges, it could change everything.

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 was an absolute delight.

Dressed head to foot in flowing clerical robes, a religious train of participants processed in, calling the congregation to worship. While my uniform of choice while preaching is usually limited to dark jacket and black turtleneck, this day I threw on the robes and joined in the pomp and circumstance. My wife Joy, formerly an Anglican vicar, would have loved to see me all dressed up like that.

In a surprisingly similar experience, I was a guest at the State of the Union address the other week for the very first time, sitting up in the gallery. What I saw unfold below almost rivaled the pageantry of Grace Cathedral with everybody processing in.

First came the representatives. Then the senators. Then the Supreme Court justices. Then the military brass of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And finally, with that now famous call to worship, "Madame Speaker, the president of the United States!"

Everyone stood up to give the president a standing ovation, then sat down, only to stand up again when the Republican commander in chief was introduced by the Democratic speaker of the house. It's a time-honored ritual in the best traditions of high-church Washington politics.

Of course, the air was full of murmuring political expectations and questions. Would Barack and Hillary shake hands? (They didn't.) Would either shake hands with President Bush? (Barack did, but Hillary had her back turned as the president passed by.)

I know many of the legislators who were down on the floor and like many of them. But watching them scurrying around below, a realization hit me. "These people often think they are at the center of the universe; they think they are the most powerful, important, people in the world."

But history offers a different perspective.

History suggests that change doesn't start inside the beltway, inside our chambers of power, inside the heads of politicians. Change begins outside Washington, D.C., in the hearts and minds of those who first experience society's brokenness, envision a different future, and then bet their lives on a new vision. That's how social movements begin.

The wind generated by these movements changes politics, rushing into places like the U.S. Capitol where politicians throughout the United States' history have always held wet fingers in the air, gauging its direction. Our leaders often respond long after the country does, and they are usually the last to change.

That's what we are talking about every night on the Great Awakening book tour—how change begins with us, all of us, and that betting our lives on new visions is always what changes the big things.

And from the response we are getting on the road, something new has already begun.

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 – complete with a retro, neon-lit marquee. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the theater to find my name up in lights immediately above the name of the feature film screening later that evening. It read…

AMERICAN GANGSTER
JIM WALLIS

Talk about kicking off the book tour in style.

Earlier that same day, Donald Miller, the author of runaway best-seller Blue Like Jazz, had me over to his home along with several dozen local evangelical leaders.

I told him, "I meet a number of young people for whom your books have been faith-saving." He smiled humbly, "that's huge."

It would prove to be an intimate discussion about authentically pursuing our faith while engaging movements for social justice – a conversation all seemed hungry for. It's certainly the beginning of a new friendship between Don and me that I'm encouraged to continue.

More to come...

[Correction: With the arrival of the photo, we realized that we had the correct order of Jim's name and the movie title on the sign transposed in the original post. We've corrected this in the text and title above.]

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, and a Third World desperately in need of attention, the Millennials are demanding change. It's no coincidence that the word has become the rallying cry of those seeking the presidency.

In the February issue of Sojourners, I discuss how the Millennials are reviving the environmental movement through creative means such as the National Campus Energy Challenge (you can follow the February 2008 contest here). At PowerShift, a youth conference confronting climate crisis, I was amazed by the energy and enthusiasm that surrounded me.

In Sunday's Washington Post, Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais cite the energy evidenced by "thousands of young people filling an arena" last week at American University, when Senator Edward M. Kennedy offered his endorsement of Barack Obama. They describe "civic-minded millenials," as coming of age. "Civic generations," they wrote, "react against the idealist generations' efforts to use politics to advance their own moral causes and focus instead on reenergizing social, political, and government institutions to solve pressing national issues." It would seem—borrowing terminology from Jim Wallis—that my generation is finally waking up. And it's high time.

Instead of using the political system to advance key moral issues, let us use those moral motivations to re-energize the system. Concern for the environment is a moral issue—let's demand of our political leaders that action be taken. If we want to reduce the number of abortions, let's fund systems that help low-income mothers and mothers unprepared to deal with unexpected pregnancy. If we want this war to stop claiming lives—and we're not just talking about U.S. soldiers here, Christ weeps for the countless Iraqi civilians, too—let's work to confront our elected officials, demanding they take concrete steps to bring us home.

It's an exciting time, a time filled with the hope of change. I'm proud to be part of a generation that's demanding it. Let's keep it up.

Cara Boekeloo is an editorial assistant for Sojourners.

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 people, serving the poor, learning the language, etc., and sought to found a new religious order, which became The Little Brothers of Jesus. His is a compelling story about how "great awakenings" begin with faithful journeys of discipleship. Charles de Foucauld lived from 1858 to 1916, a Catholic contemplative at the time of the 19^th century revivals.

Here is his prayer that I will be using during the book tour. It's called The Prayer of Abandonment—something that I am not particularly good at. Maybe his prayer might also be helpful to you, and perhaps we could pray it together during these important days for this movement of faith justice. Thank you all. I hope and pray that it will further the mission that draws together all among you who consider yourselves Sojourners.

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

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 (multicultural), the missional, and the emergent. I want to share snapshots of these four streams, starting with the new monastics.

Shane Claiborne will be at our gathering sharing about the new monasticism movement and from his new book, Jesus For President. Over the past two decades, a new Protestant movement very much like the Franciscan order has emerged. Like many in the traditional Franciscan order, they have moved into the poorest urban communities in our world, live in community as families and singles, and care for the poor, often living at the same lifestyle level of the poor around them. A number of them have even developed a rule of life. These include groups like Word Made Flesh, InnerCHANGE, Servant Partners, Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, and Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH).

In 2005, a group of several hundred primarily younger people convened in Raleigh-Durham to discuss the need for a New Monasticism movement to more faithfully live out the gospel of Christ in our troubled world. As we met together, I was impressed by the desire of these young people to give more authentic expression to their faith.

Their communities include Rutba House in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Communality in Lexington, Kentucky; Camden House in New Jersey; and the Simple Way in Philadelphia. They are also connected to older intentional Christian communities, including Reba Place in Chicago and the Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco. Together, they have published a book, School(s) for Conversion: Twelve Marks of a New Monasticism, and they run Schools of Conversion for those who want to find their own way forward.

What makes the new monastics distinct from the other four streams is that they have no interest in planting new expressions of church; rather, they are creating new forms of community in which they seek to embody the gospel and reach out to those in need. Shane says, "Our deserts are the inner city and the abandoned places of the empire." This stream offers the most robust critique of modern culture, but also has the strongest voice for social justice and the care of God's creation.

Tom Sine founded Mustard Seed Associates in 1989. He has worked as a consultant in futures research and planning for numerous nonprofit organizations and speaks at gatherings all over the world with his wife, Christine. His newest book, The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, comes out next month.

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, pastors' lunches, student groups, and, of course, lots of bookstores.

Already, I am being reminded of the God's Politics book tour three years ago. So many people have told me how depressed they were after the 2004 election, and how the appearance of God's Politics gave them real hope again about the possibility of an alternative to the Religious Right, or, even more personally, how that promise actually brought them back to faith. I can't tell you how much that encourages me. Last time we were really stunned by the size of the turnout at all the book events and also at how young the audiences were. And Tuesday night, at the opening book event for The Great Awakening at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the hall was filled with students.

I've been doing lots of radio interviews in the last few days and have found the comments and questions very interesting. Two stand out.

First, several interviewers have suggested that God's Politics and now The Great Awakening are giving Christian faith a different image than the one that has dominated for several years now. They say these books are helping to "re-brand" Christian commitment away from the divisive, partisan, political, and top-down agenda of the Religious Right to a new image of faith that is much more welcoming, open, inclusive, and focused on both compassion and social justice. I really hope that is true and that's part of the reason I write these books.

The second question I am asked is even more important, it seems to me. The Great Awakening is a very hopeful book, several of the interviewers have told me. But then they ask, "Do you think we really can be hopeful about real change in this country and the world?" They ask me to forgive them for their cynicism and then ask, almost longingly, if hope is really possible. That is exactly the question this book tries to deal with, and I am sure it will be the hot topic of conversation at every stop along this book tour.

Along the way, I'll be blogging about the people I meet and what they have to say. Keep up with us at the God's Politics Blog. And do visit the Great Awakening Web site our terrific staff has created for the book tour. It is full of good resources, including a downloadable study guide for those who want to start Great Awakening study groups in their church or community. (I heard a lot about those during the God's Politics book tour—including when I was in Dallas last year and a man whispered subversively in my ear that they had two God's Politics book study groups in George Bush's home church!)

The Great Awakening also has a cool little video about what inspired me to write this book, put together by some of our most talented young staffers (I am so lucky to have these people). You can also see the schedule for when we will be coming to a city near you! So come on out, bring your friends and bring your kids. We're going to have a whole lot of fun.

Learn more about The Great Awakening at www.sojo.net/greatawakening. There you'll find more videos, book excerpts, a free study guide, screensavers, and other downloads - including mp3s from Derek Webb. Plus, book tour dates and the opportunity to create or join book groups in your community.

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 New York Theological Seminary and New York Faith & Justice to kick off Jim Wallis' book tour for The Great Awakening. As I looked around the room, I was pleasantly surprised that the ecumenical spirit I observed at the launch of NY Faith & Justice was proving to be the real deal. My prediction that this was not another PC peace and justice group proved to be right on target. Here in New York City, representatives from Union Theological Seminary and Campus Crusade for Christ seldom come together and break bread. Yet they were present in this room together.

I'll defer to Wallis and the Sojourners staff to fill in the details of the book's content and upcoming revivals. Suffice it to say, when Wallis preached about the need for us to put Matthew 25 into action and several African-American clergy began to chant "Preach it, brother," I started getting chills down my spine. I can't remember the last time I felt this moved by a room full of clergy and lay leaders.

While this particular gathering has a Christian focus, Wallis relayed his hope for interfaith cooperation on areas of mutual concern by relaying his experiences with Muslim and Jewish groups. What binds these religious leaders together is hope, which Wallis defines as "believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change." While "change" and "hope" have become the latest buzz words in the 2008 election, the conversation I heard in this room reminded me how Christians can be prophetic agents of social change without becoming pawns to a particular candidate.

I was further inspired when I trekked down to Trinity Church, Wall Street. Leading Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians gathered to explore the conference theme: "Religion and Violence: Untangling the Roots of Conflict." During these three days of dialogue and discussion, clergy and lay leaders began exploring the resources within each of their respective traditions that could promote peaceful co-existence without losing the unique identities of each faith. In particular, check out Constantine's Sword, a film that captured the essence of this gathering. This story of James Carroll, a former Catholic priest on a journey to confront his past and uncover the roots of religiously inspired violence and war, opens in New York City this April.

I also was encouraged by James H. Cone's appeal to his fellow academics to do theology that moves out of the academy and impacts the person in the pew. (Those who would like to explore this theme further can order the DVD or CD from the Trinity Institute's Web site).

Some church practitioners have been taking Cone's counsel to heart for some time. Thanks to Jonny Baker and Andrew Jones, I'm being kept abreast of some truly amazing social justice actions being undertaken by religious groups that employ both their head and their heart in the U.K. and elsewhere. Also, I'm inspired by the ongoing work of Karen Ward and her band of Apostles over in Seattle. I can't wait for Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change tour to hit New York City May 2-3, not to mention the Jesus for President Tour, hosted by Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, and friends, and the upcoming documentary The Ordinary Radicals, directed by Jamie Moffett, co-founder of The Simple Way.

My New Year's resolution for 2008 is to "focus on what works." So what's working in your community?

Becky Garrison talks with worship leaders who are reaching those for whom church is not in their vocabulary in her book Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church.

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 participate in some popular education on the van ride home yesterday, observing the occasion by playing two of the three MLK speeches I've been able to find for free online. I skipped ubiquitous and well-known "I Have a Dream" speech. We did listen to his "Mountaintop" speech, given the night before he was assassinated. Though it's more popularly known for the haunting forshadowings of this death—"I may not get there with you ..."—we were struck by its connection of economic to racial justice.

But "Beyond Vietnam" is worth a listen as a history lesson, as a challenge to the more domesticated gloss that gets applied to MLK's legacy every January, and perhaps most importantly as a continuing challenge to society and the church to take seriously the imperative of nonviolence: "We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation." A few passages are familiar to me by now since they're the kind of things that we at Sojourners frequently quote. There's the painfully relevant assertion that:

America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.

And this warning:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

But those passages are primarily political. Listening yesterday, another passage jumped out that I was less familiar with—one that rooted King's nonviolence in his faith, and an important reminder to Christians that allegiances to political movements and divisions must fall beneath our allegiance to Christ:

This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all [people]—for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.

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 universal education, universal health care, and affordable housing.

King called for a revolution of values from racism, materialism, and militarism. Little has changed in 40 years for people in my low-income community. Racism still dominates. It is less overt now, but has expanded from divisions of black—white to Latino, Asian, Arab Muslim, and immigrants. Katrina pictures reminded us of how little progress we've made on economic disparity. Economic progress is measured by consumer spending. Environmental issues threaten our future. King ended his speech saying, " Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world."

My Sojourners Sweatshirt says, "HOPE is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change." Despite the evidence, I am strangely hopeful. I see young people wanting a better world, working for candidates, working in community and on environmental issues. I know generous people who share resources and skills to forge new opportunities for jobs. Economist Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (Creating a World without Poverty) outline specific ways to change the disparities. Now let us dedicate ourselves to the long yet beautiful struggle for a new world.

Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.

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 words (with operatives on both sides doing their political jobs of trying to gain from the controversy). Both of these candidates have records on civil rights and racial justice that deserve to be trusted. The truly historic significance of an African American and a woman emerging as leading candidates for president should not be diminished by bad campaign exchanges over race and gender. In last night's debate, they returned to higher ground.

The real issue here is the more complicated relationship between social movements and national politics; between moral leaders and elected officials in bringing about social and political change.

The great practitioners of social change - like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi - understood something very important. They knew that you don't change a society by merely replacing one politician with another. You change a society by changing the political wind. Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political decisions are being made, and you will change the outcomes. Move the conversation around a crucial issue to a whole new place, and you will open up possibilities for change never dreamed of before. And you will be surprised at how fast the politicians adjust to the change in the wind.

The story of the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 is a good historical example.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just won the Nobel Peace Prize and was ready to come home from Norway. The freedom movement had achieved a great victory in securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and King was honored as the newest Nobel laureate. But the civil rights leader decided to stop by Washington, D.C., before heading back home to Atlanta—because he needed to meet with the president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson.

King told Johnson that the next step on the road to freedom was a voting rights act, without which black Americans in the South would never be able to really change their communities. But the nation's master of realpolitik told the U.S.'s moral leader that he couldn't deliver a voting rights act. Johnson said he had cashed in all his "chits" with the southern senators to get the civil rights law passed and that he had no political capital left. It would be five or 10 years, the president told King, before a voting rights act would be politically possible. But we can't wait that long, said King. Without voting rights, civil rights couldn't be fully realized. I'm sorry, Johnson reportedly told King, but a voting rights law just wasn't politically realistic. They would have to wait.

But Martin Luther King Jr. was not one to simply complain, withdraw, or give up. Instead, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began organizing—in a little town nobody had ever heard of called Selma, Alabama.

On one fateful day, SCLC leaders marched right across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, alongside the people of Selma, to face the notorious Sheriff Jim Clark and his virtual army of angry white police. On what would be called Bloody Sunday, a young man (and now congressman from Atlanta) named John Lewis was beaten almost to death, and many others were injured or jailed.

Two weeks later, in response to that brutal event, hundreds of clergy from all across the nation and from every denomination came to Selma and joined in the Selma to Montgomery march. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel came down from New York to march beside the black Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr.

The whole nation was watching. The eyes of the U.S. were focused on Selma, as they had been on Birmingham before the civil rights law was passed. And after the historic Selma to Montgomery march for freedom, it took only five months, not five years or 10, to pass a new voting rights act: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King had changed the wind.

It was a great thing that Johnson responded to the challenge as he did (other presidents might not have), but it was King, not Johnson, who had painted a vivid picture for the world to see that changed the winds of public opinion and made a voting rights act now possible. The Selma campaign had transfixed the nation, dramatically shifted the public debate, and fundamentally altered the political context to make a new voting rights law politically realistic.

It is a good lesson for this year's presidential race. Change must go deeper than politics. In fact, unless change goes deeper, politics won't really change. No matter which candidate finally wins this presidential election, he or she will not be able to really change the big things in the U.S. and the world that must be changed, unless and until there are social movements pushing for those changes from outside of politics. Because when politics fails to resolve or even address the most significant moral issues, what often occurs is that social movements rise up to change politics; and the best social movements always have spiritual foundations.

Even a candidate who runs on change, really wants it, and goes to Washington to make it, will confront a vast array of powerful forces which will do everything possible to prevent real change. Politics is unlikely to be changed merely from within - no matter who wins, and no matter how sincere they are, we will not see significant change unless, and until, the pressure increases from the outside. Remember, President Lyndon Johnson didn't become a civil rights leader until Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks made him one.

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 most hopeful political leader of his time and the most important movement leader of the century were both struck down, and 1968 was the turning point when everything began to go wrong in America. I remember my feelings at the time vividly. King had been the leader of the movements that had captured my imagination and commitment as a young activist; and Kennedy was the only politician who won my political trust. I was getting ready to take a break from college to work on his presidential campaign when he was killed.

Ever since 1968, the door has been closed to real social change in the U.S. Since 1968, we have been wandering in the wilderness. The coming New Year - 2008 - marks 40 years of that wandering, a passage of time I have been pondering as we enter into it.

I taught my last class for the fall semester at Harvard this week. The title of the course was "Faith and Politics: Should They Mix and How?" In the midst of a final class discussion of the central role faith is playing in this election season, a student abruptly asked me a personal question: "How many times have you been arrested?" I thought for a moment and replied, "Twenty two times." I told them that's what happens when social movements confront closed political doors. I said I was willing to do civil disobedience again, if it was called for, but that I was now hoping there might be a significant paradigm shift about to occur. I explained how social change seems to most readily occur when social movements push against open doors. Real social progress seems to require that combination - strong social movements and open political doors.

I believe we may be approaching just such a time. I have written before that we now have open political doors to the fundamental issues of social justice both in London, with the election of Gordon Brown, and in Australia, with the recent election of Kevin Rudd. Both understand the power of social movements and seem to be inviting them to push against the reluctance of political power to make real changes. In the U.S.'s election season this time, the operative word is now "change." The Democratic frontrunners are now mostly debating how real change can best occur, not whether it should. And the Republicans are distancing themselves from their own president, who has led the nation to a place that both alienates and embarrasses most U.S. citizens of both parties. The wrong direction didn't begin with George W. Bush, but he has certainly demonstrated how absolutely wrong the direction of the U.S. now is.

The people of the U.S. are very unhappy with the direction our nation has taken, and the polling about that is consistent. There will definitely be a snap back after the extreme and disastrous policies of the Bush administration. The Democrats hope the snap back will result in their victory; the Republicans hope they can still retain power by offering a change in direction themselves. But we must hope and work for a snap back that goes much further than either a Democratic or Republican victory. Indeed, whoever your favorite candidate is, he or she will not be able to really change the biggest and most significant issues at stake in the U.S. and the world without a social movement that pushes them to make those changes. Remember that Lyndon Johnson did not become a civil rights leader until Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks made him one. It was a social movement pressing on an open door.

That will be the vision and strategy of Sojourners in this crucial year of 2008 and beyond. We are in the business of building movments, not winning elections. This election is vitally important and we will be working hard to put the most important issues on the agenda. But we are already looking past the election to the kind of organizing and movement building that will have to be done. And the good news is that we see that movement already growing, more that I ever have since the fateful year of 1968.

Everywhere I go, something is happening. My new book, out on Jan. 22, profiles an emerging spiritual movement with a social agenda. It's called The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. The book charts how "great awakenings" in the past have featured a "revival" of faith that also changes society. It describes how we may well be on the verge of another such movement to make dramatic change on issues like poverty, pandemic diseases, climate change, human rights, and war and peace.

During my work on the book this year, the writing, praying, and vocational discernment got all nicely tangled up together. The "book tour," which will take us to many cities in early 2008, may feel more like a series of mini-revivals, and, this spring, we will begin a series of "justice revivals" that will last for many days in cities around the country over the next few years.

The dramatic changes occurring in many of our faith communities and constituencies, the energy and commitment of a new generation, and the openness of politics for change may indicate the beginning of a new and more hopeful period in the life of this country and the world. It may even be that after 40 years, we might finally be ready to come out of the wilderness. That is my hope and prayer as we enter the New Year of 2008. But it is a hope and prayer that will require, from all of us, the work of faith.

While volunteering in a legal clinic in my sophomore year of college, interviewing people applying for political asylum in the U.S., I heard a lot of people describe how they had had to leave everything behind and flee into the jungle, carrying children on their backs.

I interviewed lots of people and read the personal statements of cases already filed, and all the stories were sickeningly similar. The basic skeleton of their stories was this: one day, a group of "communist/insurgent/fill in the blank" guerillas passed by my village begging for food. A few weeks later, a military group from the national army stormed the community, accusing us of being part of a rebellion. After enduring the military's accusations/threats/rapes/beatings/murder attempts, we survivors melted into the surrounding mountains and jungles. We walked for weeks, living like fugitives in foreign countries until we finally collapsed within the border of California.

It was always the same story, the same timeline of events. The only deviations from the testimony were in those grisly details: "all the men in my village were shot in the head," or "all teens were forced to join the army," or "all the ladies and girls were violated." Once I interviewed a client who remembers soldiers kicking his pregnant mother in the abdomen. She gave birth in the jungle, three days later, to a stillborn baby. Another time a child returned from farming to find his entire community shot dead in the center of the village. Once, a man came into our clinic seeking help on his asylum case, and when he told about how he had helped the army gather up all the leaders of the village into a church and set it on fire, we turned him away.

It wasn't even until a few weeks into the volunteer work that someone told me about the United States' involvement in the massacres. The military dictators and officers that created the structures and protocols for combating "communism" in the 1980s and 1990s attended military training programs in the United States. Their armies are funded generously by our government. Some were politically supported in the world arena when they staged their coup d'etats against democratically elected administrations. I know that if the people of the United States heard even a few of the stories from people that had miraculously survived village massacres, they would be in Fort Benning every year en masse, protesting the School of Americas with us.

Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.

In the spirit of tradition and solidarity, the Sojourners interns once again traveled to the annual SOA Watch protest and vigil this past weekend to close the U.S. Army School of the Americas. Officially named the "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation", the school provides combat training for Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning in Columbus, Georgia. Graduates of the school have committed atrocities against their own people in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, and others. This year, more than 25,000 people made the trek to the gates of the SOA/WHISC to call for the complete closure of the school and an end to the repressive policies it embodies. Two busy days of uplifting music, speakers, teach-ins, and activist networking ended with a solemn mock funeral procession honoring by name the thousands of victims who died at the hands of SOA-trained military personnel. White wooden crosses inscribed with the names and ages of martyrs were placed at the heavily secured gate on the base. The atmosphere of the vigil was saturated with holy respect for those who had gone before us in the work of peace and justice. Although the school still remains open, the ongoing work of raising awareness and political pressure are complimented by this large-scale demonstration of defiance and dissent.

The majority of our group had never attended an SOA protest, and experiencing a powerful event of this size and intensity was a bonding experience for us. In our many hours in the van, we debated issues of U.S. militarism, our nation's corrupt foreign policy with regard to Latin America, and the very nature of democracy. We also spent time evaluating what it meant for us, individually and collectively, to be present at such an event. As Sojourners, we are called to do direct social justice work from a perspective of faith, even if results are difficult to see. As Christians, we stand in solidarity with fellow believers in Latin America who were and continue to be persecuted because of their beliefs in a gospel of liberation, justice, and freedom from direct violence and structural poverty. As people of faith, we stand with the rest of the world in calling for peaceful solutions and an end to the violence taught by our military institutions. As individuals, however, we vary in our own religious traditions and perspectives.

Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.

New York Faith and Justice was inspired into being by Sojourners/Call to Renewal during their annual Pentecost Conference in 2006. It started with just a handful of committed Christians in New York who were focused on discovering how God was leading them to respond to the issue of poverty in their city.

As Becky Garrison reported last week, their mission is simple but profound: "Following Christ, Uniting the Church, Ending Poverty." The leaders of NY Faith and Justice are examples of people who understand that to be radically committed to Christ ALSO means to be radically committed to the poor. They show that these two commitments should no longer be mutually exclusive in the church in America.

Lisa Sharon Harper, co-founder and executive director of NY Faith and Justice, began her remarks with the words "The time is now." The worship was passionate, and there was no mistake that the Holy Spirit was alive and at work. One of our board members, Rev. Gabriel Selguero, praying in both English and Spanish, offered a blessing to begin the night. The event gathered people across every racial, socioeconomic, and denominational line, and was not afraid to give all the glory to God.

Approximately 300 people attended the event, and 72 people said, "sign me up" to be a member of NY Faith and Justice! While this may not seem like a historic event in terms of numbers, it is still very significant. Rather than just doing an event that excites people for one night but leaves little behind, we're developing leaders to build a movement.

NY Faith and Justice is proof that such a movement is really happening. Rachel Anderson from the Boston Faith and Justice Network shared her story of how a similar group in Boston was also inspired more than two years ago by Sojourners/Call to Renewal and began meeting as a small group to unite the church in Boston to address issues of poverty. You know it's a movement when local groups take ownership of the mission and do not wait for permission from some national group to send them a full time organizer or for permission to act.

Please pray that God would continue to inspire similar endeavors and raise up new leaders across the country. If you live in New York City (www.nyfaithjustice.org) or Boston (www.bostonfaithjustice.org) then get plugged into each of these groups. If you do not, then get together with some other passionate Christ followers who are interested in living out the gospel as it relates to addressing issues of poverty and injustice. Do not worry about getting massive numbers at first. Movements start with small groups of highly committed people.

Aaron Graham is the national field organizer for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

A Baptist church rooted deep in the heart of Red-State, Bible-Belt America might not be the place you’d expect to see people of faith rallying behind a Christian social justice agenda.

Last week I spoke at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, just miles from President Bush’s home congregation, Highland Park Methodist Church. More than 1,000 faith-inspired activists filled the pews.

I spoke to the group at the invitation of the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), an organization offering an alternative voice to the Religious Right since 1995 in a state where conservative religious operatives have dominated the public square for decades. In 12 short years, TFN’s membership has grown to include 26,000 religious and community leaders.

Often my most encouraging moments on the road take place at the book-signing table immediately following my speaking engagements. That’s when I get to meet people who most deeply resonate with the message. Among them:

• A young hipster in beat-up jeans and a white V-neck T-shirt approached me after the event. He explained how he abandoned his faith while coming to grips with his fundamentalist Southern Baptist upbringing. “Something just didn’t ring true about all that,” he said, “but your book helped bring me back to faith.”

• A beaming middle-aged man with a cadenced Texan twang thanked me for “getting him off of his retired butt” to embrace involvement in the movement.

• A 15-passenger van of 20-something Baylor University students - who drove more than 100 miles for the event - included two impressive Latino women who really inspired me with their passion and vision to transform their communities from the ground up.

Events like these continue to show how much has changed in just a few years. It’s no longer presumed that when Christians speak publicly about moral values, they’re mainly trumpeting two hot-button issues that once defined evangelical involvement in politics. Instead, overcoming poverty, challenging the logic of endless war for purposes of national security, and responsibly stewarding God’s creation are becoming foundational moral commitments to a whole new generation.

Something is happening in the heartland. The spirit is moving. A movement is growing. People are increasingly pursuing social justice as an authentic expression of their faith. I believe that a new “Great Awakening” is close at hand. Even deep in the heart of Texas.

This bathroom evangelism clip is from the January/February 2007 issue of Outreach magazine. This material is better than any religious satire I could pen - sometimes truth is funnier than fiction.

On a slightly more serious note, in this same issue, they published their list of the 25 most innovative churches in the U.S. Mostly all-white clergy, all male-led, and mostly megachurches. Is this the church of the 21st century? If so, what makes these churches innovative? If not, then what are some examples of innovative churches you've found?


Becky Garrison is Senior Contributing Editor of The Wittenburg Door and author of the Amazon Short My Memorial, a creative non-fiction piece based on those 9/11 volunteers who find they are unable to move forward.