{"id":1276,"date":"2007-09-05T10:24:56","date_gmt":"2007-09-05T10:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html"},"modified":"2007-09-05T10:24:56","modified_gmt":"2007-09-05T10:24:56","slug":"jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html","title":{"rendered":"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I had the great blessing of participating in World Vision\u2019s Triennial Council held in Singapore. It drew together almost 500 people\u2014World Vision\u2019s country directors and many staff, board chairs, and members from every region of the world, as well as the international board of directors who will guide and govern what has become the largest relief and development organization in the world. World Vision has grown enormously, especially in the last several years, and is seeking to determine its future direction. The organization serves 100 million people in almost 100 countries, with 23,000 staff members and an annual budget of $2 billion. It was indeed a privilege to deliver the opening and closing addresses and to have many opportunities to interact with this extraordinary and significant group of people each day of the conference.
\nI saw an organization in the dynamic process of moving from alleviation <\/em>to transformation<\/em>. I felt the passion of an international community of humanitarian faith-based workers who care deeply about the poorest children of the world, and who clearly yearn to embrace a God of justice, not merely a God of charity. That was the call they responded to in Singapore. The response was especially powerful from those from the global South, where the churches are growing dramatically and the conditions of life for so many have forced the people of God to address the issues of global justice.
\nThe response of World Vision to the Asian tsunami was especially impressive, along with so many other places where natural disasters and human conflicts have caused so much suffering over the last three years. But we talked about how the greatest \u201cdisaster\u201d in the world today is the very structure of the global order itself, and how disasters such as the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina only serve to reveal these underlying injustices. If we are to be faithful to the biblical vision, we must judge those global structures to be unjust.
\nOrganizations such as World Vision have the choice of merely being the beneficiaries of the guilt of the developed world in serving the victims of an unjust global order, or they can serve the poor in a way that shines a spotlight on global injustice and the moral imperative for transformation. It is more and more clear that World Vision desires to make the second choice. Many from the global South told me they had never heard an American speak this way, but the Americans at Singapore were also clearly in sync with the need for World Vision\u2019s prophetic vocation.
\nWe must be Christians first, the World Vision delegates strongly affirmed, and citizens of nations and members of tribes second. Today, globalization seems to have an inevitable logic<\/em>, but no comparable ethic<\/em>. But international bodies such as World Vision, which know no geopolitical boundaries, could help create the ethics and values <\/em>that globalization now lacks.
\nWorld Vision now has three organizational pillars: relief, development, and advocacy. Advocacy is the newest and most controversial pillar, but the imperative to deal with the root causes of human suffering, with the injustice that leads to disaster for so many, and with the policies of nations and international organizations that obstruct real solutions to poverty, has developed a real momentum within the organization. And rather than just becoming another lobby group, their deepest response was to the vocation of \u201cchanging the wind\u201d of international politics and priorities.
\n\u201cWorld Vision changed this week,\u201d many people said to me as I departed. We could all feel it. It seemed that what has been growing within the organization for some time took a great leap forward during those days in Singapore, and there is no turning back. World Vision will not just be a collector <\/em>of a guilty, affluent world\u2019s donations to sponsor poor children, but rather a catalyst <\/em>to help build a global movement for spiritual and social transformation. World Vision\u2019s size, influence, and credibility positions the organization very well to be a prophetic leader in that movement <\/em>for justice on the global stage that speaks truth to power\u2014not just as a service provider when disaster strikes.
\nOn the last day we spoke about a biblical theology of hope in a world of pain, and how hope, backed by faith, was the key to bringing about the global sea changes we desperately need. The choice today is less between belief and secularism, but between hope and cynicism. The theme of the final day was \u201cA World of Hope,\u201d and what I saw and felt at World Vision\u2019s Singapore Triennial Council made me very hopeful indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I had the great blessing of participating in World Vision\u2019s Triennial Council held in Singapore. It drew together almost 500 people\u2014World Vision\u2019s country directors and many staff, board chairs, and members from every region of the world, as well as the international board of directors who will guide and govern what has become…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA World of Hope (by Jim Wallis) - God's Politics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis) - God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week I had the great blessing of participating in World Vision\u2019s Triennial Council held in Singapore. It drew together almost 500 people\u2014World Vision\u2019s country directors and many staff, board chairs, and members from every region of the world, as well as the international board of directors who will guide and govern what has become…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-05T10:24:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"gp_editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis) - God's Politics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis) - God's Politics","og_description":"Last week I had the great blessing of participating in World Vision\u2019s Triennial Council held in Singapore. It drew together almost 500 people\u2014World Vision\u2019s country directors and many staff, board chairs, and members from every region of the world, as well as the international board of directors who will guide and govern what has become…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html","og_site_name":"God's Politics","article_published_time":"2007-09-05T10:24:56+00:00","author":"gp_editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html","name":"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis) - God's Politics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-09-05T10:24:56+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-05T10:24:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/f481faae3483af034a212612ca158dd2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/09\/jim-wallis-a-world-of-hope.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A World of Hope (by Jim Wallis)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/","name":"God's Politics","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/f481faae3483af034a212612ca158dd2","name":"gp_editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"gp_editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/author\/gp_editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}