Tuesday night Jim Wallis injected religion into St. Louis’
political body.

The editor of the liberal, evangelical Sojourners Magazine,
Wallis was the keynote speaker for Saint Louis University’s Center
for Social Justice Education and Research’s fifth-annual social
justice night, discussing “Faith and Social Justice Work.”

“The privatization of our faith has been the great heresy of our
time,” Wallis said, noting that liberal movements in which he has
been involved over the last four decades have made the mistake of
construing personal religion as private. “Where would we be if
Martin King kept his faith to himself?” he asked.

“Tonight we talk about public religion in an election year,” he
said as he began his lecture in the Busch Student Center
Multipurpose Room. “I want to give you enough stuff tonight to
break up any dinner party you go to in the next six weeks,” he
joked.

Wallis prefaced his lecture with the title of his forthcoming
book, “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left
Doesn’t Get It,” explaining that the right has been plagued by
religious fundamentalism and the left by secular
fundamentalism.

He also criticized politically motivated religious leaders for
focusing their efforts on sex-related issues and ignoring issues
like poverty, war, racism, nuclear weapons and environmental
destruction– which he said should be equally important problems
for Christians.

“How can all Christian values and ethics be reduced to two
hot-button social issues called abortion and gay marriage?” he
asked. “How did the faith of Jesus somehow become pro-Bush, pro-war
and only pro-American?”

Noting that in meetings with Democratic leaders he had expressed
his opposition to abortion, Wallis added, “God’s politics call us
to a consistent ethic of life–one that resists selective morality
that would place one set of lives over another.”

Wallis also spoke about Christianity’s historical relationship
with the powerful and the elite, noting, “Christianity has always
been uneasy with empire, and American empire is no exception.”

He also criticized the way President George W. Bush has handled
his foreign affairs, noting that every major Christian denomination
except the American Southern Baptists condemned the March 2003
invasion of Iraq.

“A Christian president has ignored the consensus of the world’s
Christians,” Wallis said. “I’m an Evangelical Christian, and it is
a fact that the Christian right doesn’t speak for most Evangelical
Christians, not to mention Catholics and [African-American
Christian churches].”

He said he refused to harbor a “Michael Moore hatred” for Bush,
though, adding that he had conversed with the president on
religious issues and “[doesn’t] believe [Bush’s] faith is
hypocritical or fake. I believe his faith is very personal and very
real. I just think he has some bad theology.”

“To say that they are evil and we are good is bad theology,”
Wallis said, “and leads to bad foreign policy. We remember that
faith hates violence and tries to reduce it…and exerts a
fundamental presumption against war, instead of justifying it in
God’s name.”

On the topic of the election itself, Wallis pointed out that
there is no absolutely pro-life candidate running for president but
said that citizens should still resist single-issue voting.

“Vote your values but vote all your values and not just one,” he
said.

Wallis concluded by encouraging registered voters to take an
active stance on Nov. 2 but urged that they continue to work for
issues that were greater than any single election.

“I’m less concerned how young people vote than with how they
invest their lives,” he said. “I’m for banning career counseling at
most colleges–I’d rather think about vocation.

“You are the [leaders] we’ve been waiting for,” he said.

Dan Grandone, of the Metro Congregations United for St. Louis,
and Orvin Kimbrough, of Faith Beyond Walls, also spoke briefly
after Wallis.

Kimbrough emphasized the importance of neighboring religious
groups to look beyond their differences and begin working together
toward common goals. Grandone spoke about the importance of
registered voters going to the polls and casting their ballots on
Election Day.

A Vigil for the Dead

Later in the evening, around 8:30 p.m., Pax Christi held a
candlelight vigil for everyone who has died as a result of the
invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Students gathered north of the BSC: Figures circled, faces began
to glow as small, white candles were lit, hand to hand, and the
circle warmed as a silence fell over the vigilant, despite the cars
rushing past on nearby Grand Boulevard.

“We hold in our hearts and prayers all of the men, women and
children who have been killed and injured over the past two years
as a result of the war and occupation, and all those who continue
to live a precarious and uncertain existence in post-war Iraq,” Pax
Christi organizer Megan Heeney said in an opening prayer.

The invocation recalled soldiers and civilians who had died
since the beginning of the war, those who suffered under Saddam’s
regime and “the millions of people around the world whose lives
have been diminished by the Iraq War, but who are not included in
any official accounts of casualties,” Heeney said.

A group of about 30 walked from the Grand crossing and headed
west along West Pine Mall, stopping five times–twice to pray and
three times to recall soldiers who had died, two Marines and one
Briton.

The vigil concluded at an obelisk located just east of the
Clocktower on which is engraved, in different languages, “May Peace
Prevail on Earth.” Leading toward the monument were signs listing
the number of dead from different nations: including 1,046
Americans, and as many as 14,997 Iraqis.

Next to the obelisk a sign reminded that, “Each day brings new
numbers.”

The group, which swelled to about 50, shared a sign of peace
before departing.