Jim Wallis is a preacher, activist and author. He is a commentator on religion, ethics and public life and a spokesperson for faith-based initiatives. He is the editor of Sojourners magazine, covering faith, politics and culture for thirty years. He is also the convener of Call to Renewal, a national federation of churches, denominations and faith-based organizations working to overcome poverty and revitalize American politics.

Jim Wallis speaks nearly 175 times a year across the United States and around the world. His columns appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other publications; as well as MSNBC and Beliefnet. His most recent book is FAITH WORKS: How Faith-Based Organizations are Changing Lives, Neighborhoods and America (Page Mill Press, 2001/Random House, 2000). He regularly offers commentary and analysis for radio and television and has taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Jim lives in inner city Washington, D.C. with his wife Joy and their son Luke.

In the last several years, Jim Wallis has led more than 250 town meetings, bringing together pastors, civic and business leaders, and elected officials in the cause of social justice and moral politics. The Call to Renewal network that he convenes brings together people from African-American, Evangelical, Catholic, Pentecostal, and mainline Protestant churches to work on poverty. Under his leadership, Call to Renewal has convened five National Roundtables on Churches and Poverty for religious leaders, held five successful National Summits and mobilized hundreds of faith-based leaders to address public policy issues with members of Congress and the White House. Seventy national churches and organizations have endorsed Call to Renewal’s “Covenant and Ten Year Campaign to Overcome Poverty.”

Jim Wallis was raised in a Midwest evangelical family. As a teenager, he questioned the racial segregation in his church and community, which led him to the black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights movement and protesting the Vietnam War. While at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Jim and several other students started the magazine and community with a Christian commitment to social justice. In 1975, Sojourners moved to the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC.

Time magazine has named him one of the “50 Faces for America’s Future.” His other books include The Soul of Politics (1994), Who Speaks for God? A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility (1996), Call to Conversion (1992), Agenda for Biblical People (1984), and Revive Us Again (1983).