| “We’re not afraid of death because Jesus died for us. Of course we cry, but they’re tears of happiness, because we die for God.” - Sama Wadie, 32, his hand wrapped in a bandage, after attending Mass at Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, where 51 people were killed last Sunday. (Source: New York Times) + Sign up to receive "Verse and Voice" - our daily quote and Bible verse e-mail 
It Takes A Movement: The Next Steps It is always appropriate and necessary for the faith community to question and challenge political leadership on the biggest moral issues -- indeed it is our prophetic vocation to do so. That means lifting up the now growing rates of poverty in America and around the world, even when both parties only want to talk about the middle class. The plight of undocumented immigrants and their families unites almost all sectors of the faith community. The younger generation of the faithful is insisting on the urgency of "creation care" of the environment and the threat of climate change, especially to the poorest people around the globe. People of faith across the political spectrum also want to make serious progress on reducing the number of abortions in America -- not with symbolic amendments or criminalizing desperate and tragic choices -- but by preventing unwanted pregnancies and supporting low-income women. There is much work to be done in promoting healthy families; not by scapegoating gays and lesbians or bullying gay teens, but by creating policies that build a culture of support for families. Increased numbers of religious leaders are also ready to challenge the ethics of endless and failed wars of occupation, which have yet to seriously reduce the real threats of terrorism but have killed too many people.
It is not enough to talk about what President Obama should be doing; but instead we should be talking about what a movement can be doing to clear the space for change and provide energy and pressure on both the Congress and the White House. Only serious public education and mobilization will move the country forward on the "big vision" above. The "outside strategy" must be strong for the "inside strategy " to finally be successful -- and only then will access give way to influence. Learning the lessons of the midterm elections means not just wondering what Obama will do next; but also asking what we will do.
I have learned in the last two years that changes in Washington, Wall Street, and the country, are indeed much harder to accomplish than anyone expects. The combination of entrenched politics (on both sides); hugely influential special interests; the growing power of money in politics; the 24/7 assault of ideologically driven media machines; and a still-passive electorate that believes voting is the only requirement of citizenship -- all have contributed to where we now find ourselves.
Instead of just sitting back and watching how things go, an empowered new electorate must push the country deeper into our best shared values, understand the need for social movements in making social change, and act to hold both political sides accountable to trying to actually solve the country's greatest challenges, instead of just winning and keeping power.
We need to construct a new "moral center" in American politics. Yes, the rising deficit is a moral issue, but dealing with it in a moral way is also important. We cannot cut the deficit using methods that would hurt our most vulnerable and least powerful people. Yes, defeating terrorism is also a noble cause, but being willing to challenge the enormous human and financial costs of failed military solutions is also a just cause. And the faith community will always be lifting up the biblical priority of the poor, the weak, the sick, the oppressed, the left out and left behind, and always the children; and we will look for allies on both sides of the political aisle wherever we can find them.
Real social change depends more on a return to core values than a partisan victory by either political side. It means lifting up the fundamental personal and social virtues in our individual choices, family lives, community involvement, and engaged citizenship. For people of faith, it means leading by example from our congregations and actually doing the things we say we believe in.
Neither the left nor the right has the answers now, though both will continue to say that it does. So we have to focus on the spiritual and moral values that bring us together; that choose the common good over private gain, inclusiveness over intolerance, civility over shouting, long term over short term, integrity over celebrity, justice over excuses, morality over expediency, stewardship over consumption, truth over spin, patient persistence over immediate results, and finally, right over wrong.
These are the values that work for our personal lives, for teaching our children, for leading our congregations, for changing our communities, for holding politicians accountable, and for creating the social movements that make a difference.
We've learned that making change is harder than we think; now it's time to go deeper.
[Sojourners is building a movement to inspire hope, over fear. That's the message that must echo in 2010. Help us make it happen.] F.B.I. Busts Child Prostitution Rings. You Can Help.
On Monday, a U.S. federal crackdown on prostitution resulted in 884 arrests and the emancipation of 69 children who were forced to work in sex trafficking. Of the estimated 27 million people in modern slavery worldwide, more than half are women or children. At least 2 million children are trafficked into sexual servitude or bonded labor every year.
We are not powerless to fight human trafficking -- you can help make a difference by supporting the Child Protection Compact Act (H.R.2737; S.3184), which was specifically written to combat child slavery.
+Ask your member of Congress to combat child trafficking around the world by supporting this legislation.
| | Inside Sojourners Magazine | The Politics of Birthing
 The process of childbirth for many has been wrenched away from the woman at the center and the community surrounding her, and into the hands of institutions and establishments.
But that is changing, as women across the country are building a spiritual movement for justice that recognizes the intrinsic sacredness of childbirth.
+ Read more about the politics of birthing in the December, 2010 issue of Sojourners magazine!
| | ON THE GOD'S POLITICS BLOG | + See what's new on the blog of Jim Wallis and friends This Veterans Day, Honor the Consciences of Our Veterans
by Rose Marie Berger
Today, on Armistice Day, 18 American military vets will commit suicide.
+ Click to continue This Christmas, Do We Go Local, Fair Trade, or Make Our Own?
by Christine Sine
Christmas is a month away and Christmas music is already playing, guaranteeing that by the time the season actually arrives, we will be so heartily sick of it that we take no notice -- and in the process miss much of the richness of the real season.
+ Click to continue Truth Commission on Conscience in War Gathers in D.C.
by Claire Lorentzen
This week, the Truth Commission on Conscience in War, a coalition of 60 army veterans and anti-war groups, are meeting in Washington, D.C., in hopes of gathering support in Congress for legislation that would provide the legal right to selective conscientious objection, in which soldiers who object to particular wars are recognized.
+ Click to continue Pastors: God Calls us to Cross-Cultural Ministry
by Efrem Smith
As we continue to live within the ever-increasing multi-ethnic and multicultural reality, it is more and more obvious that the "black and white" matrix of the American Christian church is outdated.
+ Click to continue It Takes a Movement: Moral Centering and Political Recalibration
by Jim Wallis
An election like this one always calls for both moral centering and political recalibration. Leaders of both parties were talking the morning after the election about cooperation to solve the nation's problems.
+ Click to continue Waging Peace During Threats of Terrorism
by Lynne Hybels
We've all heard the horrible news of the threatening packages sent from Yemen and reportedly addressed to Jewish synagogues in Chicago.
+ Click to continue California Teachers Cut Their Commodities Gamble
by Elizabeth Palmberg
California's teachers are helping lead the way in recognizing that gambling on hunger is a way to lose your money -- and to hurt the world's poorest people.
+ Click to continue Update from Haiti: Flooding, Cholera, and Local Action
by John Engle
There's been considerable rain where we live in Haiti, and there are also wind gusts. I fear for folks in Leogane and elsewhere who are vulnerable to flooding.
+ Click to continue It Takes a Movement: How Access to Power can be Dangerous
by Jim Wallis
The power of an inside/outside strategy has been compromised by the problem of access which many leaders from social movements got after the election of Barack Obama.
+ Click to continue 'Daisy Girl' is Still Counting: A Push for START Ratification
by Hannah Lythe
As someone who watched Lyndon Johnson's 1964 original "Daisy Girl" campaign ad in her high school history class, the reappearance of this motif in the American Values Network newly produced commercial is a jarring reminder that history repeats itself.
+ Click to continue Despite Genocide, I See Hope for Sudan
by Beny Ngor Chol
The events that I saw in my childhood during the war in Sudan are called genocide today.
+ Click to continue Veterans' Suicides and Selective Conscientious Objection
by Logan Mehl-Laituri
This week we celebrate Veterans Day. For me, it is a tragic holiday. I know many do not share that perspective.
+ Click to continue It Takes a Movement: Why a 'Movement' is Necessary
by Jim Wallis
There are endless comparisons made between Obama, Clinton, and Reagan -- how badly each did in their first midterm elections, and how to recover and not be a one-term president like Jimmy Carter.
+ Click to continue Friday Links Round Up: Dead Coral in the Gulf. Rubik's Cubes. Election Results
by Jeannie Choi
Dead Coral in the Gulf. Rubik's Cubes. Election Results. Here's a little round up of links from around the web you may have missed this week.
+ Click to continue The Upcoming Vote in South Sudan: Just the Facts
by Amir Osman
On January 9, South Sudan will vote on whether to secede from the North and form a new nation. This vote was promised in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005, which ended a brutal 22-year civil war between the Sudanese Government and groups in South Sudan that claimed more than two million lives.
+ Click to continue A House of Prayer for All Races
by Rt. Rev. James Jones
The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops took a group down to the border with Mexico, to look at the issue of migration. I was very touched by the stories that we heard; one migrant herself came and spoke with us.
+ Click to continue Looking Towards South Sudan's Referendum
by Rev. Sam Kobia
The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement was successful because there was a concerted effort by the governments within what is called the IGAD region (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development), and the host, the government of Kenya.
+ Click to continue It Takes a Movement: Why Politics is Frozen Solid
by Jim Wallis
Scriptures say, "Without a vision the people perish," and soon after he was elected, the president let the vision perish and the people soon followed.
+ Click to continue Recipes for Resistance: Cooking With GMOs
by Bryan Farrell
As genetically modified organisms (GMOs) become more prevalent, so do protests against them. In just the past few months, French activists have uprooted GM vines at a research center, Spanish activists have destroyed experimental GM Maize crops, and Haitian farmers have burned Monsanto seeds.
+ Click to continue Who Will Speak for Our Nation's Soul?
by Margaret Benefiel
Abraham Lincoln said, "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
+ Click to continue + Sign up to receive our "Daily Digest" e-mail - the latest headlines on critical issues Top Stories:
Building Bridges Symposium to mix politics and religion
Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.)
Jennifer Kottler, director of public policy for Sojourners, a social justice advocacy group in Washington, D.C., will be the symposium's featured speaker.
+Click to continue
Christians again swing U.S. mid-term elections. Find out how
The Vancouver Sun
Christian Rev. Jim Wallis, the influential spiritual advisor to Obama and author of the groundbreaking book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, reflects on how and why Democrats have lost the headway they made in past years in Christian circles.
+Click to continue
Are there limits on the gospel of Christ?
Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman
In the November edition of Sojourners magazine, editor Jim Wallis penned an article that analyzes the Tea Party in America ... I have been mulling over the significance of the Tea Party impact. Wallis does not see the Tea Party as having a religious base, and I agree.
+Click to continue
White Christians strongly favored GOP in election
The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Exit poll: God vote followed faithful pattern
USA Today Blog "Sojourners in the news" articles are the most recent news clippings that mention Sojourners in any way - whether favorably or unfavorably. Though we provide the text on our site for your convenience, we do not necessarily endorse the views of these articles or their source publications. | 
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