Understanding Jim Wallis

In April of 2008 I attended what was called a “Justice Revival.” With my wife, we attended all three nights, plus the special workshop on justice on Friday. Before attending, I read Wallis’s book, “The Great Awakening” twice. I then began reading Wallis’s blog, as well as his other books. The following is my response to the “Revival” and Wallis’s theology.

There are a lot of us evangelicals who have found ourselves increasingly uncomfortable with the media’s selection of a few people of decidedly conservative politics who are regularly called our spokespeople. Whenever I hear this handful of people talk, I think: This person doesn’t speak for me…Don’t you hate it when someone’s views are 180 degrees out of sync with yours and yet they are called your spokesperson? You say, “When did I vote for them?” (The Great Awakening, Rich Nathan, Sr. Pastor of the Vineyard Church of Columbus)

I could not agree with him more. Yet, in April of 2008, The Columbus Vineyard, sponsored a conference called a, “Justice Revival”. The main speaker was Jim Wallis of the Sojourners Community. During the “Revival”, Bishop Timothy Clark is quoted as saying on two separate nights that Jim Wallis was a prophet.

The first night: “A theologian and I think the outspoken and I would even dare to say, the most powerful prophet for Justice in this nation.”

The third night: Bishop was comparing Wallis with John the Baptist in regards to Jesus’ word concerning John. Clark then said, “I don’t know what you came to this Justice Revival expecting, but there is no doubt in my mind we are in the presence of a prophet, a man of God, with a word from God.”

Who is Jim Wallis? What are his ideologies, and theologies? This writing will explore these questions. Then, you decide for yourself if Jim Wallis speaks for you? Is he a true prophetic voice for the church or does he speak just for himself?

This is the first installment regarding Jim Wallis and his theology. I do this due to the length of the theological questions involved as to get a better understanding of Wallis’s theology, and ideologies. I resourced quotes from Wallis’ recent book, “The Great Awakening”, his other books, his writings, and from “The Red Letter Christians”, by Tony Campolo. Other research will be quoted from additional sources in order to get a better understanding of Jim Wallis.

Who is Jim Wallis?

Jim Wallis’s bio as it appears on the Sojourners web site sates:

Jim Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, preacher, and international commentator on religion and public life, faith and politics. His latest book is The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post–Religious Right America (HarperOne, 2008). His previous book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Harper Collins, 2005), was on the New York Times bestseller list for 4 months. He is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sojourners; where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, whose combined print and electronic media have a readership of more than 250,000 people. Wallis speaks at more than 200 events a year and his columns appear in major newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and both Time and Newsweek online. He regularly appears on radio and television, including shows like Meet the Press, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the O'Reilly Factor, and is a frequent guest on the news programs of CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and National Public Radio. He has taught at Harvard's Divinity School and Kennedy School of Government on "Faith, Politics, and Society." He has written eight books, including: Faith Works, The Soul of Politics, Who Speaks for God? and The Call to Conversion.

Jim Wallis was raised in a Midwest evangelical family. As a teenager, his questioning of the racial segregation in his church and community led him to the black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University. While at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Jim and several other students started a small magazine and community with a Christian commitment to social justice, which has now grown into a national faith-based organization. In 1979, Time magazine named Wallis one of the "50 Faces for America's Future."

Jim lives in inner-city Washington, D.C. with his wife, Joy Carroll, one of the first women ordained in the Church of England and author of Beneath the Cassock: The Real-life Vicar of Dibley; and their sons, Luke (9) and Jack (4). He is a Little League baseball coach.

There is additional information regarding Wallis’ life that his bio failed to mention. Wallis protested the Vietnam War (no big deal, a lot of us baby boomers did, even me), but he did a lot more than just protest. In my opinion, Wallis became the “Jane Fonda” of the Christian Left.

After South Vietnam fell to the communist Wallis “criticized” those who were fleeing the country. He believed that those fleeing the new regime were “to support their consumer habits in other lands.” (www.traditionalvalues.org/print.php?sid=2664)

In addition, Traditional Values Coalition states:

In 1983, Joan Harris with Accuracy in Media published a lengthy book on the far-left policies of Sojourners and Jim Wallis.

In The Sojourners File, Harris took 53 political positions of Sojourners on such issues as the right of Israel to exist, human rights, terrorism, socialism, capitalism, etc., and compared those positions to the official positions of the Soviet Union.

In all 53 position statements, Sojourners’ views were in line with the positions of the Soviet Union.

This is an amazing discovery. Yet, it is not so surprising given Jim Wallis’ consistent support for socialism and against capitalism or the American way of life throughout his writings. In fact, in 1979, the journal Mission Tracks published an interview with Wallis. He told the reporter it was his hope that “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.” (www.traditionalvalues.org/print.php?sid=2664)

Jan Harris, who wrote “The Sojourners File,” writes on page 43:

“Sojourners never criticizes a Marxist state. … The United States and the West are the only violators of human rights to Sojourners because they are the capitalists. Marxists, by Sojourners definition, cannot violate human rights.”

Discover the Networks web site reports that Wallis backed the Sandinista regime in Central America:

Wallis published bitter denunciations of the American government’s sponsorship of anti-Communist Contra rebels against Nicaragua’s Sandinista dictatorship. After visiting Nicaragua in 1983, in the company of the pro-Sandinista group Witness for Peace, Wallis and then-Sojourners associate editor Joyce Hollyday co-authored several articles in which they whitewashed the brutality of the Sandinista government while condemning the United States for waging an “undeclared war” against “the people of Nicaragua.” One representative issue of Sojourners from the time condemned the “suffering created by U.S. policy against Nicaragua,” and urged the “U.S. government to re-examine and change its policy toward Nicaragua, and establish a relationship of trust and friendship between the people of Nicaragua and the people of the United States.”

In keeping with his enthusiasm for Nicaragua’s Communist regime, Wallis also criticized conservative evangelical leaders such as Pat Robertson for siding with the rebel opposition. “To allow political ideology to overshadow human needs and fundamental issues of life and death is to go seriously astray,” Wallis self-righteously remarked in one such attack. (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/articles/jimwallisexpanded.html)

Wallis was also influenced by the writings of Karl Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, Che Guevara, Castro right hand man who went into the Congo and Bolivia to spread communism into these countries, and Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam. These men influenced Wallis’s philosophies and beliefs for his life’s work as a social activist.

Additional information that his bio did not address:

He is the co-founder of the Red Letter Christians, along with Tony Campolo, a political action group who is dedicated to social activism to bring God’s Kingdom to the earth by influencing political action and social justice.

He is a follower of the Social Gospel based in Liberation Theology ideology. On liberationtheology.org web site, Sojourners has a direct link and is listed under Organizations and Advocates.

Wallis is also quoted as saying:

“As more Christians become influenced by liberation theology, finding themselves increasingly rejecting the values and institutions of capitalism, they will also be drawn to the Marxist analysis and praxis that is so central to the movement. That more Christians will come to view the world through Marist eyes is therefore predictable.” (Mission Trends No. 4, 1979, “Liberation Theologies in North America,” pp.54-55)

What movement is Wallis speaking about? Social Justice.

This list is far from being exhaustive. As you read this paper you will begin to understand that his values and beliefs are not only in conflict to Biblical concepts, but they are in direct conflict to the values and beliefs of the Vineyard Church.

The next part of this paper is exploring Wallis’s theologies. I will look at four areas, but this may expand to additional ones if needed. The first is the Kingdom of God. Second: Jubilee Year, the third: Christ’s Mission, and the fourth: Justice.

The Kingdom of God

The very first area I want to write about is the Kingdom of God. It is the very heart of the message of Christ. Plus, the Vineyard Church bases its foundation on the Kingdom of God theology as espoused by George Ladd.

What is definition of the Kingdom of God? It basically means the rule or reign of God. Jesus inaugurated it at His first coming, and will bring the kingdom to its fullness when He returns.

As Ladd and others have defined it is that Jesus is the king, and His kingdom is now here in Jesus. It is present with Him, but not fully realized, “The here but not yet,” kingdom. God’s kingdom is demonstrated in Jesus by His words and His power. In fact Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with careful observation, nor will people say ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within (or among, or in your midst) you.” (Lk 17:20-21).

We will see the fullness of God’s Kingdom when Jesus comes again. In Revelation 11:15, “The kingdom of this world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ…”.

This kingdom is a kingdom that is not of this world. We can only experience God’s kingdom when He breaks into this world and reveals what His kingdom is, no sickness, pain, sorrow, and oppression of any kind. Until then we are to preach and demonstrate God’s kingdom with Jesus’ words and His power. This is not a political or social kingdom.

According to the New Dictionary of Theology,

“The kingdom proclaimed by Jesus is not an ideal moral order”

Wallis' view of the Kingdom of God is different.

“Jesus’ kingdom is not like the other kingdoms of the world, and that’s the point. It’s a different kind of kingdom than the worldly kingdoms based on money, power, violence, and sex. The Kingdom of God, which Jesus came to inaugurate, is meant to create an alternative reality in this world and, ultimately, to transform the kingdoms of this world.” (Page 56)

Also,

Wallis believes that Jesus had various political options to follow, but decided to inaugurate a political one himself.

“Jesus clearly rejected all the main political options of his time and inaugurated one that was completely new-called the kingdom of God, which brings a different kind of revolution, one of both love and justice.” (Great Awakening, page 58)

“In Mathew 5,6, and 7, Jesus offers the Sermon on the Mount, which serves as the manifesto of his new order, the Magna Carta of the new age, the constitution of the kingdom. It utterly reverses the logic of this world, all its earthly kingdoms, and its political options.” (Page 62)

Wallis continues:

“In the end, Jesus clearly rejected all the main political options of his time and inaugurated one that was completely new – called the kingdom of God, which brings a different kind of revolution, one of both love and justice.” (Page 58)

Campolo’s agrees with Wallis. From the “Red Letter Christians”:

“First-century Jews, to whom Jesus initially addressed His message of the Kingdom, had a firm grasp on what He was talking about…(Then he went into a quote from Isaiah), The Jews knew that it was not about some ‘”pie in the sky by and by”’ escape from the bad old world. Instead, the Kingdom was to be a new kind of society, wherein the effects of poverty and physical suffering would be no more.” (Pages 31-32) and

“The Kingdom of God is transformed people living in a transformed society, and when we preach this message to people in our day, we are preaching the gospel, the Good News. This hope for God’s Kingdom on earth has been, since Christ, in the process of being actualized.” (Page 33, emphasis mine)

God’s kingdom is not of this world. Jesus Himself proclaimed this at His trial:

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36)

If Jesus were trying to establish an earthly kingdom, as Wallis and Campolo state, why would Jesus say His kingdom is not from or of this world? After all the Jews were expecting a political kingdom. This is seen even after Jesus’ resurrection:

“… but we hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel…” (Luke 24:21a)

“So when they met together, they asked him, ‘”Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”’ (Acts 1:6)

The IVP Bible Background Commentary states,

“The idea that Jesus’ kingdom is not based on military or political force is repeated throughout the Gospel, but Jesus’ Jewish hearers never grasp the meaning in his words (after all, why call it a ‘”kingdom”’ if it was nonpolitical?).” (Page 309)

Then in New Testament Theology, by Donald Guthrie states:

“…it is advisable before considering the evidence to bear in mind that the term does not refer to the establishment of a messianic political kingdom on earth.” (Page 410)

Whatever Wallis, Campolo and Sojourners are preaching is not the true Gospel of Christ’s Kingdom, but the social gospel, and the social gospel is not what Jesus presented. It is all through his book, as well as Campolo’s book. But what is the social gospel?

“This is one point at which the social gospel differs from the traditional gospel of the New Testament. The social gospel concentrates not so much on individual salvation of one’s own soul, but rather on the “evangelization” and “conversion” of social structures and institutions to a “Christian” form, culminating in the promised kingdom of God.” (A Brief History of the Social Gospel, Dr. John Battle, Professor of NT and Theology, Western Reform Seminary)

“…Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918), whose major work was A Theology for the Social Gospel (1919). He claimed that all theology must stem from the central idea of the kingdom of God, believing that when Jesus spoke about the kingdom this meant, not the community of the redeemed, but the transformation of society on earth. It meant social and political action.” (Page 594, Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity)

Historically, the social gospel is a much-weakened movement. Those churches and/or denominations that embrace this theology have seen a marked decline in membership.

“Since the 1930s the Social Gospel has disappeared as a movement in its own right, but its influence remains, both in the more liberal, mainline denominations and in the renewed social concern displayed by American evangelicals since the 1960s.” (New Dictionary of Theology, Page 647, 2^nd column)

Finally, pastor, preacher, and theologian D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, from his study, “Studies in the Sermon on the Mount”, which is Jim Wallis motivation for social justice.

There was once the so-called ‘social gospel’ view of the Sermon on the Mount. What it comes to is this, that the Sermon is in reality the only thing that matters in the New Testament, that there, in it, is the basis of the so-called social gospel. The principles, it was said, were there laid down as to how life should be lived by men, and all we have to do is to apply the Sermon on the Mount. We can thereby produce the kingdom of God on earth, war will be banished and all our troubles will be ended. That is the typical social gospel view, but we do not need to waste time with it. It has already become outmoded; it is found only amongst certain people whom I can describe as remnants and relics of the mentality of thirty years ago (that would be around 1929 when this was written). The two world wars have shaken that view to its very foundation. Critical as we may be in many respects of the Barthian movement in theology, let us pay it this tribute: it has once and for ever made the social gospel look utterly ridiculous. (Page 9)

In summary, the Kingdom of God according to Jim Wallis is a social/political kingdom. Wallis’s view of God kingdom, is a new order or “an alternative reality in this world and, ultimately, to transform the kingdoms of this world.” Wallis believes that Jesus rejected all other political options and set up a new political force of His own, God’s Kingdom. The scriptures fully demonstrate that God’s Kingdom is not a political kingdom, but a spiritual one. It is the here and not yet, to be fully entered into when Jesus comes again. According to the scriptures God’s kingdom is not of this world, but one-day God’s Kingdom will be manifested when God’s proclaims it so, not man.

Submitted by Colen