CHICAGO, IL (October 27, 2006) \u2013 Jim Wallis exhorted North Park University students to continue to choose hope over cynicism when he spoke at the campus chapel service on Wednesday morning.
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\n\u201c(Hope is) a choice you make because of a thing called faith,\u201d Wallis said. \u201cFaith is for the big stuff. Faith is for the big things, the things that seem impossible\u2014they\u2019re too much for us, it\u2019s too big. The odds are against us, they say. That\u2019s why they call it faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best social movements always have spiritual foundations,\u201d Wallis said. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wallis is the president and executive director of Sojourners\/Call to Renewal and the author of numerous books, including God\u2019s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong, and the Left Doesn\u2019t Get It.<\/em> He spoke Tuesday in a packed Anderson Chapel that included a film crew from ABC\u2019s Good Morning America,<\/em> which will feature him in an upcoming series on \u201cThe Evangelical Vote.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallis exhorted the crowd that evangelical students are making a difference. \u201cThings are changing. You\u2019re breaking up the categories, you\u2019re changing the stereotypes. And you are becoming what this nation needs.\u201d<\/p>\n The students are not all located on the campuses of evangelical schools, he said. \u201cAt Harvard, it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n That faith means having a consistent ethic of life that transcends political parties and labels, Wallis said. \u201cOur faith should be fiercely independent and a thorn in the side for all the politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallis stated that \u201cNeither party has a pro-family agenda. One doesn\u2019t talk about it, and the other only talks about gay marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re doing is you\u2019re broadening the agenda,\u201d Wallis said. \u201cYou\u2019re broadening and deepening the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n He recalled speaking to Christian students about the intersection of faith and politics and that \u201cA young woman stood and said 4,000 lives were lost today because of abortion. How can I vote on any other issue than that?\u201d Another student responded, \u201cFair 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallis continued, \u201cWe decided there wasn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n He called abortion \u201ca moral crisis,\u201d but decried what said was a narrow view of what it meant to be pro-life. \u201cIf 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\u2019m born, I\u2019m off the radar screen. No healthcare, no childcare, no nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Wallis cautioned against substituting one form of one religious fundamentalism for another. \u201cThe country doesn\u2019t need a religious left to replace a religious right,\u201d he said. \u201cThe country is hungry for what I call a new moral center. Don\u2019t go left. Don\u2019t go right. Go deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n