JourneyOnline
Lion Books
RRP $24.95
When you get former President Jimmy Carter to write the foreword of your new book you’ve got connections – and connections with all manner of politicians, church leaders and political activists is just the name-dropping aspect of Jim Wallis’s significant new book.
I admit to a dislike of the “ten tips”, “six secrets” and “eight opportunities” type of book, but in Seven Ways to Change the World Wallis effectively argues that politics has failed to solve the biggest issues of our time and identifies seven basic commitments for political involvement which are: inclusion and opportunity, stewardship and renewal, equality and diversity, life and dignity, family and community, non-violent realism, and integrity and accountability.
With a focus on what he calls “the common good”, Wallis helps the reader rediscover the Christian calling to social and political action and offers inspiration and challenge to chart a new course and build the kind of movement that changes the world. He calls the reader to “no longer accept the unacceptable” and to always make the choice for hope.
If you are patient enough to wade through the endless examples of faithful and famous people Wallis names as friends, you will find Seven Ways to Change the World an outstanding read.
In his foreword to the Australian edition Tim Costello describes Wallis’ remarkable ability to bridge the gap between faith and politics.
Wallis has “walked the talk” (he’s been arrested many times) and talks about a deep hunger he has encountered among people, especially the young, for serious public engagement with the issues that stir their deepest values and convictions.
Wallis believes we are at a tipping point of history and confidently claims “the era of the Religious Right it now past and it’s up to all of us to create a new day.”
Seven Ways to Change the World will help that to happen.
Reviewed by Bruce Mullan, editor of Journey
