I want to introduce you to someone I briefly mentioned in 2 earlier prophecy updates, regarding trends today in the evangelical church. I would say that this person is one of the top “change agents” today, and the timing of his surge in popularity is very interesting, considering
1) the ideology of our current administration, 2) the advance of liberal theology via the emerging church and church growth movements, and 3)the current state of doctrinal apostasy the church finds itself in today. Are all these connected? Through this man, they are indeed.
Now, I take no pleasure in going after the rising stars of the church movement of the hour, and to be honest, just reading about their exploits and agenda tends to steal my peace. My experience has been, however, that unbiblical trends in the church tend to snowball, producing even worse trends; that each heretical book or teaching that comes along seems to lead to a worse one down the road; the bible says in 2Timothy 3:13 that in the last days, “evil men and seducers (imposters) shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived”, suggesting to me a progressive pattern of deception that we really need to stay on top of.
So, I feel compelled to bring you this information so that you will be better equipped to discern and observe a progression that I have been following for a long time, and that you would understand how people like this man want to influence your kids and your thinking about what our worldview as believers should be.
There is so much information overload out there, that unless you knew the proverbial frog before he jumped into the proverbial pot, you might be overwhelmed in keeping up, and so I am going to take a few minutes to help you sort out the latest trend blowing through the church.
For those who remember the old “Dragnet” TV show, allow me to “reinvent” Joe Friday: “The story you are about to hear is true. None of the names have been changed – and the only thing I’m interested in protecting is the gospel of Jesus Christ”. Let’s dive in.
I am speaking of Jim Wallis, who will be one of the keynote speakers at Lifest this July. (Lifest is a large music fest that takes place in Oshkosh, Wisconsin every summer, featuring the latest artists from the Christian community, as well as various speakers. On it’s own website, it says it expects up to 70,000 attendees over the course of the weekend, which in this area, covers a considerable section of the population.)
If we are going to do any critical thinking at all on this subject, we really need to get a kodak moment of “the big picture”.
So, in my desire to be thorough on this subject, I read nearly 50 different articles about him and his activities over the last 4 decades, by many different writers -some by himself and his associates, others by both Christian and secular observers. I also read his book, The Great Awakening, because I don’t want anyone who might be in the sound of my voice to think that I have not taken the time myself to get inside our subject’s head. In reality, anyone with internet access could probably have all the info they need on him within 10 minutes – he is not shy about his agenda.
So who is Jim Wallis?
For nearly 40 years, he has expressed himself through an organization called, “Sojourners”. He was raised in an evangelical family in Detroit, and attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity school, but his radical political views made it impossible for him to finish there. [1]
At that time, he also founded an anti-capitalist magazine called, “The Post-American” in which he called for the redistribution of wealth and an economy managed by the government. He also experimented for a season with communal living in search of a utopian lifestyle.
In 1975, he moved his work to Washington DC and renamed it Sojourners. He wasn’t just against the Vietnam war, he rejoiced in America’s defeat there – there is a big difference – showing his leftist sympathies by publicly criticizing the Vietnamese and Hmong refugees who fled that communist regime (we called them “boat people” back then), by claiming they were leaving to support their consumer habit in other lands…that being greedy capitalists made it just too hard to live under a dictatorship. [2] Where is the “liberal compassion” in those sentiments?
He supported the Sandinista Communists in their attempt to take over Nicaragua in the 80s, actively participating in resistance against the American military – AND working side by side in this cause with none other than Jeremiah Wright, the radical anti-American Chicago preacher who was our president’s pastor for 20 years.
Wallis also supported the FMLN, a communist terror group from El Salvador itching to spread their Marxist revolution throughout South America. The word “traitor” does come to mind at this point. [3]
In 1983, the organization, “Accuracy in Media” published a lengthy book on the far left policies of Wallis and his organization, documenting 53 political positions of Sojourners on such issues as Israel’s right to exist, terrorism, socialism, capitalism, human rights, etc – and compared their positions on these subjects with those of the Soviet Union. In all 53 position statements, it was found that Sojourners’ views were completely in line with the views of hardline Soviets.
Joan Harris, who did the reporting on this, observed, “Sojourners never criticizes a Marxist state. The US and the West are the only violators of human rights to them because they are capitalist. Marxists, by Sojourners’ own definition, cannot violate human rights.” Wallis calls himself a “Progressive” – but keep in mind that “progressive” is as far left as you can go politically without actually taking a right turn in the process.[4]
Wallis believes that Castro’s Cuba, Chavez’s Venezuela, and Ortega’s Nicaragua are the Marxist paradises the US should emulate. It is not extreme at all to say, that one of his goals is the end of the US as we have known it — “Post-Americanism” finally realized. So, after being arrested by the US government 22 times in 40 years, where has he soft-landed? As spiritual advisor to President Obama.[5] Now, with the help of our own government, he hopes to turn mere ideology into policy. He is a living, breathing advocate for total government control, complete socialism, or “totalitarian socialism”.
Wallis has known Obama for over 20 years, and during the “Reverend Wright” damage control days, he was right there advising him on how to spin it, and helping him draft many “faith based initiatives”, to make the far left appear to have some form of religion, to sell the church the idea that here is a spiritual alternative to the now defunct Religious Right, which Wallis eulogizes endlessly in his book.
So, in light of all this, allow me to ask a question at this point: why is this man speaking at a local Christian festival aimed primarily at our youth?
In their own words, Sojourners’ Mission statement is this: “founded in 1971, our mission is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church and the world.”
What this is Social Justice that is supposed to transform our churches, even us as individuals? Doesn’t the Holy Spirit do the transforming work in all things? The dictionary defines it as, “The equitable distribution of advantages, assets, and benefits among all members of a society.” Without turning this into political science 101, I’ll keep it simple by saying that this is also the definition for “social-ism”: a government-controlled economy and the redistribution of wealth.
[1] http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/Jim_Wallis
[2] http://www.traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/jim_wallis.pdf
[3] ibid
[4] ibid
[5] Frontpage Magazine, March 17, 2009. http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=34385
