{"id":877,"date":"2007-05-14T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-14T16:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/jim-wallis-ever-widening-evangelical.html"},"modified":"2007-05-14T16:43:00","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T16:43:00","slug":"jim-wallis-ever-widening-evangelical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2007\/05\/jim-wallis-ever-widening-evangelical.html","title":{"rendered":"Jim Wallis: The Ever-Widening Evangelical Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article in Sunday’s LA Times<\/em><\/a> caught my attention:<\/p>\n

\n

Evangelical leader Rick Warren came to the heart of the religious right movement last week to criticize a narrow focus on abortion, homosexuality and pornography as un-Christian.<\/p>\n

Strikingly, top Christian conservatives agreed.<\/p>\n

During a three-day summit here, members of Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade for Christ joined Warren and dozens of other pastors from across the nation in a pledge to devote more of their resources and clout to helping children in need.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got some people who only focus on moral purity and couldn’t care less about the poor, the sick, the uneducated. And they haven’t done zip for those people,” said Warren, a mega-church pastor in California and author of the best-selling “The Purpose-Driven Life.”<\/p>\n

Warren hastened to say that he also opposed abortion and gay marriage. But too often, he said, Christians these days are defined by their “big mouth” – what they argue against, not what they embrace. He pointed to a verse from the Book of James that calls caring for orphans an essential element of a “pure and undefiled” faith.<\/p>\n

“It’s time for the church to stop debating the Bible and start doing it,” Warren said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’ve had some good conversations with Rick Warren about his deep passion to serve the poor. He’s helping to guide a shift among religious conservatives that should not go without notice or welcome. I pray that this movement keeps moving – beyond personal changes that produce acts of charity (where it always begins) to structural changes that bring about social justice. The criticism Warren alludes to – that conservative activists seem to care more about unborn children than about those living and suffering in poverty – has often been accurate. So when they begin to talk about moving from a narrow focus to a broader agenda that includes loving and sacrificial action for the poor, it feels like a movement of the spirit; one that shows there’s hope for the church, and hope for the poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article in Sunday’s LA Times caught my attention: Evangelical leader Rick Warren came to the heart of the religious right movement last week to criticize a narrow focus on abortion, homosexuality and pornography as un-Christian. Strikingly, top Christian conservatives agreed. During a three-day summit here, members of Focus on the Family and Campus Crusade…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nJim Wallis: The Ever-Widening Evangelical Agenda - 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\/05\/jim-wallis-ever-widening-evangelical.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Wallis: The Ever-Widening Evangelical Agenda - God's Politics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This article in Sunday’s LA Times caught my attention: Evangelical leader Rick Warren came to the heart of the religious right movement last week to criticize a narrow focus on abortion, homosexuality and pornography as un-Christian. 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