Jim Wallis Quotes

#1. Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet would cost about $20 billion. Let's just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season.

Jim Wallis

#2. The kingdom of God, which Jesus came to inaugurate, is meant to create an alternate reality in this world, and ultimately to transform the kingdoms of this world.

Jim Wallis

#3. When religion is manipulated for political gain, faith loses its prophetic stance.

Jim Wallis

#4. 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.

Jim Wallis

#5. 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.

Jim Wallis

#6. The lack of vision in public life and the emptying out of values that visionless leadership creates lead to a politics of complaint.

Jim Wallis

#7. 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.

Jim Wallis

#8. 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.

Jim Wallis

#9. 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.

Jim Wallis

#10. 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?

Jim Wallis

#11. This year - today - I am repenting of my dependence on fossil fuels.

Jim Wallis

#12. Some people believe the alternative to bad religion is secularism, but that's wrong ... The answer to bad religion is better religion
prophetic rather than partisan, broad and deep instead of narrow, and based on values as opposed to ideology.

Jim Wallis

#13. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change.

Jim Wallis

#14. Spirituality becomes a commodity to be bought and sold. So spirituality has to be disciplined by social justice.

Jim Wallis

#15. 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.

Jim Wallis

#16. To dig our heels in and say no to a present madness is a good thing, but to walk a new path and say yes is a better thing.

Jim Wallis

#17. Trade is now clearly designed to favor the wealthiest and most powerful corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The three wealthiest people on earth now control more assets than the combined incomes of 600 million people in the world's 48 poorest countries.

Jim Wallis

#18. 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.

Jim Wallis

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

Jim Wallis

#20. 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.

Jim Wallis

#21. Two of the greatest hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social change. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for, especially the new generation. And the first hunger will empower the second.

Jim Wallis

#22. He doesn't agree with the conventional wisdom that says, "The world changed on September 11." Hauerwas says, "No, the world changed in 33 A.D. The question is how to narrate what happened on September 11 in light of what happened in 33 A.D.

Jim Wallis

#23. 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.

Jim Wallis

#24. 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?

Jim Wallis

#25. A billion dollars every week for Iraq, $87 billion for Iraq. We can't get $5 billion for childcare over five years in welfare reform.

Jim Wallis

#26. It's time for white Christians to be more Christian than white.

Jim Wallis

#27. The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism.

Jim Wallis

#28. 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.

Jim Wallis

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

Jim Wallis

#30. The failure of political leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failure.

Jim Wallis

#31. 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.

Jim Wallis

#32. The principle of always seeking an alternative applies to nonviolence as well. It is this: If nonviolence is to be credible, it must answer the questions that violence purports to answer, but in a better way.

Jim Wallis

#33. Religion is often used as a sword to divide, rather than as a balm to heal.

Jim Wallis

#34. 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.

Jim Wallis

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

Jim Wallis

#36. Why?' is the prophetic question.

Jim Wallis

#37. We have got some mountains to move. Three billion people - half of God's children - are living on less than $2 a day.

Jim Wallis

#38. The left and right are not religious categories. They're often not even value categories.

Jim Wallis

#39. Healthcare should be a human right and not a commodity for sale.

Jim Wallis

#40. We can find common ground only by moving to higher ground.

Jim Wallis

#41. The world will not change until we do

Jim Wallis

#42. Once you open that door to a values conversation, it's going to undercut a right-wing economic agenda, which values wealth over work and favors the rich over the poor, or resorts to war as the first resort and not the last.

Jim Wallis

#43. 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.

Jim Wallis

#44. 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.

Jim Wallis

#45. When evangelical leaders can persuade the president to be concerned about what's happening in Sudan, or sex trafficking around the world, or HIV-AIDS, that's a very good thing. I am completely supportive of that.

Jim Wallis

#46. 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?'

Jim Wallis

#47. Our choice is between cynicism and hope.

Jim Wallis

#48. The Christian doctrine is one that is both about individual spirituality and a parallel commitment to social justice.

Jim Wallis

#49. Faith reminds us that change is always possible.

Jim Wallis

#50. The media seems to think only abortion and gay marriage are religious issues. Poverty is a moral issue, it's a faith issue, it's a religious issue.

Jim Wallis

#51. It's hope as a decision that makes change possible.

Jim Wallis

#52. You change society by changing the wind. Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political discussions are being made, and you will change the outcomes ... You will be surprised at how fast the politicians adjust to the change in the wind.

Jim Wallis

#53. How do we nurture both families and communities, promote a civil discourse, and approach problems with solutions and hope instead of fear and blame?

Jim Wallis

#54. Our calling is not only to pull people out of the river, but to go upstream to find out what or who is pushing them in.

Jim Wallis

#55. 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.

Jim Wallis