'So dreadful did the slave trade's wickedness appear that, let the consequences be what they would, I determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.'
William Wilberforce
Fighting global poverty takes time and perseverance, but that’s no reason not to. US campaigner Jim Wallis is convinced that faith and concern for social justice are as intertwined as the fibres of the heart of God. Here he explains why.
William Wilberforce
Wilberforce ended the slave trade. It took him 30 years and he lost 20 times before he won.
The gospel is not just for Christians; it’s for the world. It’s meant not just to change our lives, but the world. God is personal, but never private.
Jesus didn’t come just to save our souls. He came to bring a new order of things. You will be born again so you can be quick to participate in a whole new order of things. Then he gives the Sermon on the Mount that tells us how we behave in the kingdom. This is the Magna Carta of the kingdom. It’s about changing individual lives so that we can participate in the changing of the world.
I want to take our faith public; then you take on, you confront, you transform the messy compromise of politics.
Micah says in chapter 4, ‘they will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.’ Then it follows, ‘and everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.’ Micah makes the connection between security, and poverty, resentment and anger.
That doesn’t mean that poverty causes terrorism in a simplistic way. There are legitimate grievances that lead to inexcusable terrorism. But how do we deal with those to cut down on the terrorism? That is an insight that I wish more political leaders would make.
I want you to realise how important Jubilee 2000 was for the rest of us. Here was a faith-inspired movement from Britain about debt cancellation that changed the whole global poverty debate. And Gordon Brown says we wouldn’t have cancelled this debt without the influence of that church-based and inspired movement. He says Jubilee 2000 was the most important movement in Britain since Wilberforce and the slave trade.
In terms of global poverty we’ve got a mountain to move. Can we do it? My faith tells me yes. Is it going to be easy? My history tells me no. That’s why we need social movements that can move mountains.
I never want to say that any problem is too big. There are mountains, but my Bible says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain. We don’t give up. God hasn’t given up on his world and neither should we.
The two hungers in the world today are for spirituality and social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for.
Jim Wallis is the founder and executive director of Sojourners, a US Christian initiative that calls for the integration of spiritual renewal and social justice.