The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America

With the success of his God's Politics national tour — where book signings turned into large town meetings — Jim Wallis started a nationwide movement that ended the Religious Right's monologue on faith and politics. After speaking with people across the country as well as with political leaders and presidential candidates in Washington, DC, Wallis brings us The Great Awakening — a plan forward for reviving the heart and soul of our nation.

Here, Wallis not only chronicles the demise of the Religious Right and the changes in DC's rarefied air, but summarizes America's legacy of combining personal faith and political justice that inspired such changes as the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, and the anti-war movement. The Great Awakening offers "rules of engagement" for a politics that transcends partisanship embracing common values for the common good. Wallis offers seven personal, communal, and political commitments that are beginning to gain popularity among Americans of faith:

• Integrity & Accountability for our politicians
• Opportunity & Inclusion for the working poor
• Stewardship & Renewal for our decaying environment
• Life & Dignity for global suffering and skyrocketing healthcare
• Family & Community in the face of disturbing trends like the "me" generation's online alienation
• Equality & Diversity to think clearly about immigration concerns and a shrinking world
• Peace & Justice for a globe racked with wars over resources and religions

These commitments are beginning to bring about a resurgence of personal faith and social justice to make this country stronger. With The Great Awakening, Wallis beats the drum calling the entire nation to rediscover our moral center, and provides the reader with a concrete plan forward and the inspiration to build the kind of movement that has saved our country in the past and can do so today.

"First, the good news: according to Wallis, founder of Sojourners and author of the bestseller God's Politics, the era of the religious right is over, and a new crop of under-30 progressives may well be taking American religion — and American politics — by storm. The bad news: people of faith need to get to work to further this grassroots support for social justice. Wallis draws on lively stories from his speaking engagements and world travels to discuss how the silent majority of religious Americans who don't feel represented by the religious right's agenda can first take comfort in their sheer numbers and then take action in their communities to fight poverty, clean up the environment and eradicate disease. The book is as passionate, engaging and emotionally moving as readers have come to expect from Wallis, who comes across as a Rauschenbuschian teddy bear, alternately stumping for justice and proclaiming God's love. As a cohesive book, however, this has a rough and clunky sensibility, with considerable repetition of ideas, examples and even phrasing. It has the feel of discrete essays and speeches that have been knocked together and too lightly edited. Still, fans of God's Politics who are eager to learn of the next step will find compelling ideas and stories. (Jan. 22)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The New York Times bestselling author of Gods Politics reinvigorates Americans hope, offering a roadmap to rediscover the nations moral center and providing the inspiration and a concrete plan to change todays politics.

What will it take to solve the biggest issues of our time: extreme and needless poverty, global warming and environmental degradation, terrorism and the endless cycle of violence, racism, human trafficking, health care and education, and other pressing problems? While Washington offers only the politics of blame and fear, Jim Wallis, the man who changed the conversation about faith and politics, has traveled the country and found a nation hungry for a politics of solutions and hope. He shows us that a revival is happening, as people of faith and moral conviction seek common ground for change.

Wallis also reminds us that religious faith was a driving force behind our greatest national reforms, such as the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. These "great awakenings" happened periodically at crucial times in our nation's history to propel us toward the common good. The time is ripe for another movement that will transform this country. With The Great Awakening, Wallis helps us rediscover our moral center and provides both the needed inspiration and a concrete plan to hold politics accountable and find solutions to our greatest challenges.

Jim Wallis is the author of the New York Times bestseller God's Politics, which electrified Americans disenchanted with how the Right had co-opted all talk about integrating religious values into our politics by offering an alternative voice. Wallis is a leading figure at the crossroads of religion and politics in America today, the author of eight books, and the founder of Sojourners, a global faith and justice network. He is a public theologian, an internationally renowned speaker and preacher, a faith-based activist, husband, and father to two young boys, and a Little League baseball coach.