Modern Day Prophet: Jim Wallis Talks About God, Non-religious Folks Listen. Why?

Jim Wallis was like me. He was born in a mostly all-white neighborhood in the Midwest. Growing up in a fairly all-white neighborhood in the strictly segregated city of Detroit, at the age of 14, he began seeing things that troubled him. He asked his pastor about these questions. “How come,” he’d ask, “The people who live in that zip code seem to have a hard time finding work when the people in this zip code don’t?”

Or

“How come the people in that zip code are all one color, mostly, and the places where they live are so much more broken down than the places where people of another color live?”

or

“How come so much crime is in that zip code?”

He was asked to stop asking those kinds of questions. He didn’t. Finally, his white pastor pulled him aside and said words that would change his life. The white pastor said these words:

“Jim. Listen. Racism is a political issue. It deals with politics. Religion is private. It’s between you and God. Racism has nothing to do with Religion.”

And that’s when Jim Wallis left the church.

I guess you can’t blame him. Who wants to be a part of a church or any organization that basically says, “You see that giant problem over there? Yeah, God doesn’t really care about that.”

God wasn’t done with Jim Wallis, however. He went across the tracks to another church. Sat in the same kind of pews. Read the same Bible. Sang the same songs (though made them sound so much better). And there, he began to learn that God indeed was very concerned about his life. God wanted to be more than just Savior to Jim, God wanted to be Savior to the World, and He wanted to use Jim and his talents and passions.

Jim had his second conversion listening to a pastor read these words from Jesus.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? hen did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

I listened to Jim Wallis tell his story last night at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He has been touring around the nation, stopping at any church that will have him, attempting to have a dialogue about religion and its place in America.

Jim Wallis is one of the more misunderstood Christians around. You can tell almost by looking at him. People, desperate for an easy label for him, have said that Wallis is a Democratic, left-leaning liberal member of the “Religious Left.”

You can use that label, but Wallis doesn’t want it, and I think people have the right to label themselves. People assume he’s a workhorse for the Democratic party. A reporter called the day after the 2004 election and said, “You must be disappointed that your candidate lost,” assuming that Wallis voted for Kerry, to which Wallis replied, “Not really. I didn’t have a candidate in this election.”

In his book “God’s Politics” Wallis has been screaming that message – that neither the Republicans or the Democrats get it entirely right, or entirely wrong. He has toured telling this message, and yet still he gets labeled unfairly. His words get twisted. His message convoluted. I know. I’ve read the blogs. And when you have to write letters to Christian leaders defending things you’ve never even said, like Wallis recently had to do with Chuck Colson in this letter, you know you’re being misunderstood.

I wish Mr. Colson would listen before he reacted. I can’t imagine what would make him lash out without understanding or taking the time to understand Mr. Wallis. Even a cursory read of Wallis’ writings would have corrected Mr. Colson. I guess he was too busy to bother with the facts.

I saw Wallis speak last night. He spoke in a strange crowd in San Francisco. The pews of this gorgeous old Episcopalian church were filled with people wearing yamakas, men with their arms around each other, a woman in dreadlocks who was passing out leaflets to become a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Typical San Francisco crowd. I also saw a bunch of young black kids wearing matching bracelets and necklaces. They were from a church’s youth group.

And sitting next to me was my father-in-law. He had actually invited me to go to this event. He’s not afraid of spiritual topics, but he tells me that he doesn’t believe in God and can’t honestly come to have a faith like my wife and I talk about. I wish he could, for reasons that people who have come to personally know Jesus understand.

Bob has hinted that his experiences in the Catholic church led him away from God, but somehow Wallis’ words resonate with him in such a powerful way, he’s willing to sit down and listen to this preacher for a solid hour and a half. He bought Wallis’ book, which is number 5 on the New York Times Bestseller List. I looked at it. He wrote more words in the margins of that book than the author did on the page. He nodded his head fervently during the speech. And after the speech, he stood in line to talk to Wallis and get him to sign his book.

Jim Wallis is somehow connecting with my father-in-law, and I wanted to know what Wallis was saying that was impacting him so much. I wanted to know that because I want to learn to talk to him in similar ways, to learn how to bridge the gap between he and I. I want to talk to him about the faith he left behind in the old Catholic Church he was raised in, but found no answers in, no truth in. I want him to get that faith back.

Regardless, whatever Wallis is selling, it’s striking a real chord among people I love. So I wanted to see what it was.

Want to know what Wallis said?

The Bible.

He quoted Amos, Micah, Isaiah and Jesus. He also quoted the Book of Hebrews. He basically said this message:

“God has a plan for you. Inside you, you have a deep burning passion. In the world, there is a deep crushing need. Find where those two intersect, link up with God, and go do that thing.”

He was speaking in code, at times, to people who don’t speak religious talk, or who aren’t familiar with the Bible.

But his message was markedly Christian.

Two Stories
There were two things that he said that really stuck with me. Wallis was at a Catholic school, and a young lady said, “I am a single-issue voter. I vote on abortion and the candidate that takes the strongest stance against abortion. Everyday, 4000 children are killed because of abortion. How can I vote any other way?”

Wallis didn’t say anything. He just waited to see what her peers would say. A voice sprang up.

“Everyday, 9,000 children under the age of three die because of AIDS,” a voice said. “How can you vote any other way?”

Another voice.

“Every day, 30,000 children die from preventable causes, like lack of proper nutrition, clean drinking water or basic medicine. How can you vote any other way?”

This story struck me. It’s not that Wallis is pro-abortion. My goodness. How can you be? What Wallis is saying is that if you’re going to be pro-life, you have to be pro-life everywhere you find life threatened. And the unborn aren’t the only children whose lives are being destroyed.

That's his point. If you're going to call yourself pro-life, you better look to protect all life.

Wallis told that a story about how he was at a conference held by President Bush. Bono, the lead singer of the rock band “U2” got up on stage in front of all these politicians and began stammering.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I’m not used to speaking to audiences of less than 20,000.”

That broke the ice. Bono regained his composure.

“I believe that God himself is here, right here in this room. And he is down on his knees. And he is begging you, begging you to care about the people dying of AIDS in Africa. Begging you to do something.”

This is Wallis’ message. God is begging us to do something. He quotes the prophets and Jesus. He shares his testimony, he uses language that even non-religious people understand. He invites people along to solve a giant problem, and in the course of events, while solving that problem, he talks to them about God. He hopes they’ll change their mind, or find something real they can begin to link up to God about.

Second Story
Another story Wallis told also stuck with me. Wallis went to Colorado Springs to meet with James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family.

“I understand your organization,” Wallis said. “Everywhere I go, I tell folks that parenting has now become a second-class job, and parents everywhere nod. Parenting is the most difficult job in the entire world and the most crucial. My community, the community I live in Washington D.C. has 80 percent single parents. You just can’t escape poverty, or raise a child right, with 80 percent single parents. You need a whole group of people from a whole bunch of places, teachers, grandparents, youth group leaders, mentors, a whole slew of people to hang onto that child, and hold on tight to keep them from slipping down in between the cracks.”

Dobson nodded his head, fervently.

“I understand family. It’s crucial. Crucial, crucial. But can you explain to me how gay people are causing this problem?”

Wallis said that Dobson tried for an hour. He and his people finally said this to him,

“You know what, we know that heterosexual dysfunction is far and away a much larger cause of the breakdown of the family. But we can’t tell that to our fund-raising department.”

A young man who was gay asked a question at the end of the session. He said, “I understand what you’re saying about gays not being the primary cause of the breakdown of the family, but what I’m not hearing from you, and what I need, is unconditional acceptance for gay people and their lifestyle.”

Wallis was in a corner. No matter what he said, he was going to offend someone.

Wallis dodged the question deftly, refusing to give unconditional acceptance to a way of living that he knows is wrong, but equally unwilling to tell the guy in front of him that he’s not welcome to God. Saying that the gay lifestyle is wrong, in that setting, would have shut this man down.

“I am glad you are here, and I’m glad you said that,” Wallis said. “We need to have that kind of conversation. We need to talk about the ways that gay people are treated terribly, and how that has to stop.”

I understood what Wallis was doing a bait and switch.

“Just come with me, we’ll do God’s work and you can meet Jesus face-to-face,” Wallis seemed to be saying. “Those other issues will work themselves out.”