8th July, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

Seven Ways To Change The World: Reviving Faith And Politics

Jim Wallis

Lion, 2008

ISBN 978 0 7459 5400 4

"While the book focuses its attention on the US and the particular (and peculiar) political situation there, the issues it addresses are broad enough to be of direct interest to any Christian today - and particularly Christians living in the West."

Get involved. That, in precis, is the message of US evangelical Christian political thinker and activist Jim Wallis in his latest book Seven Ways To Change The World: Reviving Faith And Politics.

Following on from his best-selling God’s Politics, Seven Ways To Change The World charts some of the positive moves that have been made in the US in recent years with regard to the vexed issue of religion and politics - particularly the loss of the hold of the ‘Religious Right’ as the only voice for Christianity in the US political sphere - and posits the idea of the political position of ‘conservative radical’ as an alternative to the left and right partisan politics currently on offer in the States.

Wallis then turns to seven major arenas in which Christians can make an impact and, in doing so, change the world for the better. These subjects he covers under the banner of his seven themes, such as 'Life and Dignity' and 'Equality and Diversity,' are broad and include everything from poverty to caring for the environment and tackling racism and sexism, through to human trafficking, slavery, abortion and the Iraq war.

Like all Wallis’ works, this book brings together his passion for God and the saving grace of Jesus Christ with his passion for social change and making the world a better place and contains many anecdotes about his personal encounters with people, like Bono, whom he sees as leading the charge in many of the fields talked about.

Seven Ways To Change The World is not a detailed ‘how to’ guide in the sense of a series of step-by-step instructions but more of a point of inspiration from which the reader can leap off. At the end of each chapter is a ‘commitment’ which paints in broad strokes how governments, churches and, indeed, individuals can help to change the big picture of the societies in which we live through attitude and action.

While the book focuses its attention on the US and the particular (and peculiar) political situation there, the issues it addresses are broad enough to be of direct interest to any Christian today - and particularly Christians living in the West. Each of us is called to wrestle with the issues Wallis writes about.

He finishes with a simple, yet compelling, commission:

“No longer accept the unacceptable.
Change what is believed to be possible.
And always make the choice for hope.”

Amen.

Jim Wallis is conducting a book tour in Australia in late July. For details, visit http://www.worldvision.com.au/learn/conferences/JimWallis/booktour.asp.

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