Jim Wallis famous quotes

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

#Years #Water #Cost

We can find common ground only by moving to higher ground.
-- Jim Wallis

#God #Moving #Spirituality

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

#Wind #Political #Outcomes

Faith reminds us that change is always possible.
-- Jim Wallis

#Inspiration

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

#Inspiration #Two #Our World

The Christian doctrine is one that is both about individual spirituality and a parallel commitment to social justice.
-- Jim Wallis

#Christian #Commitment #Justice

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed.
-- Jim Wallis

#Nonsense #Process #Changed

At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. The mothers show us that it is the experience of touching the pain of others that is the key to change.
-- Jim Wallis

#Mother #Pain #Children

Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.
-- Jim Wallis

#Sometimes #Natural #Social

Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change.
-- Jim Wallis

#Believe #Spite #Evidence

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

#Years #Iraq #Reform

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

#Evil #Roles #World

The world will not change until we do
-- Jim Wallis

#World

Healthcare should be a human right and not a commodity for sale.
-- Jim Wallis

#Healthcare #Commodity #Should

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

#People #Worry #World

Our choice is between cynicism and hope.
-- Jim Wallis

#Choices #Cynicism

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

#Cutting #Benefits #Action

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

#Kings #Thinking #Leader

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

#People #Desire #President

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

#Christian #Leader #Stripes

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

#Faith #Real #Thinking

But here is the heart of the moral issue for many of us. Simply put, those around the world who have contributed least to global warming and climate change will be the most and first to be impacted by the consequences of it all. Sadly, it's an old story. We, the affluent, create the problem, and the poor pay the price for our sins. It is wrong, and it is a sin-ours.
-- Jim Wallis

#Heart #Issues #Climate

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

#Jesus #Cutting #People

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

#Kings #Power #Government

This year - today - I am repenting of my dependence on fossil fuels.
-- Jim Wallis

#Years #Fuel #Today

Anyone can love peace, but Jesus didn't say, "Blessed are the peace-lovers." He says �peacemakers.� He is referring to a life vocation, not a hobby on the sidelines of life.
-- Jim Wallis

#Jesus #Peace #Blessed

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

#Believe #People #Alternatives

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

#Faith #Religious #Gay

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

#Believe #Humility #Reflection

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

#Country #Powerful #Thought Provoking

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

#Simple #Path #Madness

The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism.
-- Jim Wallis

#Secularism #Response

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

#Religious #Believe #Church

What is my calling? What am I supposed to do? I think running for office, public office, can be a divine calling. I mean, Ive wrestled with that very question myself.
-- Jim Wallis

#Running #Mean #Thinking

It's hope as a decision that makes change possible.
-- Jim Wallis

#Hopeful #Decision

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

#Children #Moving #People

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

#War #Iraq #President

The failure of political leaders to help uplift the poor will be judged a moral failure.
-- Jim Wallis

#Uplifting #Political #Leader

Why?' is the prophetic question.
-- Jim Wallis

#Prophetic

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

#Sex #Leader #Supportive

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

#Religious #Thinking #Government

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.
-- Jim Wallis

#Movement #Social #Great Things

More than just a moral issue, hope is a spiritual and even religious choice.  Hope is not a feeling; it is a decision.  And the decision for hope is based on what you believe at the deepest levels - what your most basic convictions are about the world and what the future holds - all based on your faith.  You choose hope, not as a naive wish, but as a choice, with your eyes wide open to the reality of the world - just like the cynics who have not made the decision for hope.
-- Jim Wallis

#Spiritual #Religious #Believe