“(Hope is) a choice you make because of a thing called faith,” Wallis said. “Faith is for the big stuff. Faith is for the big things, the things that seem impossible—they’re too much for us, it’s too big. The odds are against us, they say. That’s why they call it faith.”
He noted that English Parliament member and reformer William Wilberforce introduced anti-slavery legislation for 30 years before it finally passed. Wilberforce, he added, was inspired and counseled by John Newton, the former slave trader who repented and subsequently wrote “Amazing Grace.”
“The best social movements always have spiritual foundations,” Wallis said. “The two great hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and . . . the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world awaits.”
Wallis is the president and executive director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal and the author of numerous books, including God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong, and the Left Doesn’t Get It. He spoke Tuesday in a packed Anderson Chapel that included a film crew from ABC’s Good Morning America, which will feature him in an upcoming series on “The Evangelical Vote.”
The preacher and long-time activist said cynicism is a buffer against having to take action, and the result of people having tried but given up, some of whom would rather party, Wallis said. “I see in some of these politically correct left-wing schools a whole lot of politically correct students who are against all the right stuff. I know a lot of politically correct drunks on college campuses.”
Wallis exhorted the crowd that evangelical students are making a difference. “Things are changing. You’re breaking up the categories, you’re changing the stereotypes. And you are becoming what this nation needs.”
The students are not all located on the campuses of evangelical schools, he said. “At Harvard, it’s the Christian students who are leading battles about Darfur, against HIV/AIDS and about homelessness. Something is happening where students are energized by their faith.”
That faith means having a consistent ethic of life that transcends political parties and labels, Wallis said. “Our faith should be fiercely independent and a thorn in the side for all the politicians.”
Wallis stated that “Neither party has a pro-family agenda. One doesn’t talk about it, and the other only talks about gay marriage.”
“What you’re doing is you’re broadening the agenda,” Wallis said. “You’re broadening and deepening the conversation.”
He recalled speaking to Christian students about the intersection of faith and politics and that “A young woman stood and said 4,000 lives were lost today because of abortion. How can I vote on any other issue than that?” Another student responded, “Fair enough, but 9,000 lives were lost because of HIV/AIDS. What about them? And a third said 30,000 children died today because of needless disease and poverty.”
Wallis continued, “We decided there wasn’t any candidate running on either side that has a consistent ethic of life. We have selected ethics on the right and on the left. Who will challenge both sides and hold them accountable.”
He called abortion “a moral crisis,” but decried what said was a narrow view of what it meant to be pro-life. “If I am an unborn child, then I want the support of the Religious Right; I want to stay unborn for as long as possible because once I’m born, I’m off the radar screen. No healthcare, no childcare, no nothing.”
Still, Wallis cautioned against substituting one form of one religious fundamentalism for another. “The country doesn’t need a religious left to replace a religious right,” he said. “The country is hungry for what I call a new moral center. Don’t go left. Don’t go right. Go deeper.”
