Top 15 Jim Wallis Quotes

Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed.

You can’t be evangelical and associate yourself with Jesus and what he says about the poor and just have no other domestic concerns than tax cuts for wealthy people.

But when one believes that you‘ve been appointed by God for a particular mission in history, you have to be very careful about that, how you speak about that. Where is the self-reflection in that? Where is the humility in that?

What is my calling? What am I supposed to do? I think running for office, public office, can be a divine calling. I mean, I’ve wrestled with that very question myself.

The left and right are not religious categories. They’re often not even value categories.

So when the only domestic social policy is tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest Americans, we say, ‘Where is faith being put into action here?’

No, we are not the master of the state, said King. We are not the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. The churches or the religious community should be, I think, the conscience of the state. We’re not just service providers.

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?

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.

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.

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.

If the president is going to use so much language of theology and the Bible, then let’s use that language for a serious discussion about the war in Iraq. And that was never done.

I believe in the separation of church and state, absolutely. But I don’t believe in the separation of public life from our values, our basic values, and for many of us, our religious values.