Quotes from Jim Wallis

The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time worrying about not having enough.

Anyone can love peace, but Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are the peace-lovers." He says ?peacemakers.? He is referring to a life vocation, not a hobby on the sidelines of life.

I don't think we should discriminate against an organization or congregation because they're religious, if they're doing good work. But government can't subsidize proselytizing or worship or religious activity. It can't.

Pat Robertson is an embarrassment to the church and a danger to American politics, .. It's time for Christian leaders of all stripes to call on Robertson not just to apologize but to retire.

I'm often asked what I think about the faith of the President George W. Bush. I think it is sincere. I think it's very real. I think it's deeply held.

We are prophetic interrogators. Why are so many people hungry? Why are so many people and families in our shelters? Why do we have one of six of our children poor, and one of three of these are children of color? 'Why?' is the prophetic question.

If you are asking the wrong question, it doesn't matter how good the answer is, you aren't going to get where you want to go.

I met the president when he was president-elect at a meeting in Austin. He spoke of his faith. He spoke of his desire for a compassionate conservatism, for a faith-based initiative that would do something for poor people.

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

But when we place God on our side of things, that we are now ridding the world of evil - that's very dangerous, that one nation has this role to rid the world of evil. What about the evil we have committed, that we are complicit in?

I think it's a good thing for a president or political leaders to want to put their values or their faith into action. Desmond Tutu did that in South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. did that here. This is a good thing.

Cynicism really comes out of despair, but the antidote to cynicism is not optimism but action.

Couldn't both pro-life and pro-choice political leaders agree to common ground actions that would actually reduce the abortion rate, rather than continue to use abortion mostly as a political symbol?

The story about race that was embedded into America at the founding of our nation was a lie; it is time to change that story and discover a new one.

The religious Right went wrong by forgetting its religious and moral roots and going for political power; the civil rights movement was proven right in operating out of its spiritual strength and letting its political influence flow from its moral influence.

In one of his most famous quotations, King sadly said, "I am [ashamed] and appalled that eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in Christian America.

If evil in this world is deeply human and very real, and religious people believe it is, it just doesn't make spiritual sense to suggest that the evil all lies "out there" with our adversaries and enemies, and none of it is "in here" with us—embedded in our own attitudes, behaviors, and policies.

The most controversial sentence I ever wrote was not about abortion, gay marriage, the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, elections, or anything to do with national or church politics. It was a statement about the founding of the United States. Here's the sentence: "The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.

Racism is rooted in sin—or evil, as nonreligious people might prefer—which goes deeper than politics, pointing fingers, partisan maneuvers, blaming, or name calling. We can get to a better place only if we go to that morally deeper place. There will be no superficial or merely political overcoming of our racial sins—that will take a spiritual and moral transformation as well. Sin must be named, exposed, and understood before it can be repented of.

Pastors should preach truth from the pulpit. Teachers and parents should clearly point out when the president is lying and teach children what the truth is. We can all use social media to confront lies with facts. The truth will indeed set us free, but the unwillingness of the faith community to speak truth to power could push us toward political bondage.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the antidote to religious fundamentalism is more secularism. But that is a very big mistake. The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism.

you have substituted your nation and your army for God, your faith is more American than Christian, the Jesus you claim is not the Jesus of the New Testament and his kingdom will not be ushered in by the U.S. military.

For people of faith and conscience, these issues about implicit racial bias and the realities of white privilege in our society are not just political matters; they are moral and religious questions.

And when it comes to the dangers of political autocracy and the rise of authoritarian behavior, people in the faith community must be among the first to raise the challenge. Our "Reclaiming Jesus" declaration concludes its proposition on our commitment to "Christ's way of leadership" with this commitment: "We believe authoritarian political leadership is a theological danger threatening democracy and the common good—and we will resist it.