Jim Wallis does not look like much of a prophet. In appearance, he does not remind anyone of Jeremiah, Amos, or John the Baptist. No beard, no special clothing and no fire in the eyes mark his looks. To all appearances, he is an ordinary middle-aged fellow of medium height, genial and approachable.

But, still, this man feels himself to be on a serious spiritual mission. Like the prophets of biblical times, he has a vision of things as God wants them to be. Following their model, he has dedicated himself to changing people’s hearts so that all of God’s children may share in the common wealth of American society.

Jim Wallis directs “Call to Renewal,” the Washington, D.C.-based movement among the Christian churches and other faith-based organizations pledged to overcome poverty in America. Though it may seem like just another effort by left-leaning liberals to redirect social priorities, this new network does not accept the label of either liberal or conservative. Rather “Call to Renewal” takes as inspiration a religious rather than a political vision.

Jim Wallis foresees important changes happening soon across this nation. “I can feel something coming,” he says. What he envisions is “a morally-based movement for economic justice.”

Among the economic issues around which change can occur, Wallis singles out  four. He considers that campaigns which have already started on these issues may soon achieve breakthroughs.

First, the Living Wage campaign that wants to win for all employees the right to make enough money to support themselves and their families. Among the 22 cities in the United States that have adopted the living wage standard are two in Massachusetts. In the last two years, Boston and Cambridge have led the way with each city council legislating a living wage for all municipal employees and employees of companies with which the city does business. The minimum amount set in Cambridge is ten dollars an hour.

Second, the campaign to reform sweatshops. Those businesses that pay workers very low wages and subject them to repressive working conditions offend human dignity and often blatantly violate labor laws. An estimated 4,500 such businesses exist in Los Angeles alone. In the Dominican Republic, sweatshop workers receive as little as eight cents of the twenty dollars paid for college baseball caps sold in this country.

The third issue is international debt relief. Currently the religiously-based Jubilee 2000 movement, established in over forty countries, is advocating a debt-free start to the millennium for as many as a billion people. Groups in the United States have joined this effort to persuade the debtor nations to forgive loans made to countries so poor that they do not have the resources for repayment.

These three campaigns seek above all to raise the economic floor for poor people in America and elsewhere. A fourth campaign tries to lower the ceiling. It advocates fairer tax burdens through expansion of the Earned Income Credit, raising of the personal exemption, and other such measures.

Success for this ambitious four-part agenda is based, not on human expectation, but on religious hope. “Hope in the face of impossible odds is what we are used to,” says Jim Wallis cheerfully.

He quotes Rev. Ralph David Abernathy who was present on the Memphis balcony when Martin Luther King was fatally shot. “It’s not over, it will never be over,” affirmed Rev. Abernathy about the struggle for civil rights, even as he saw his leader die.

As Jim Wallis sees it, the most important first step for a social movement is to get a conversation going, to set people to talking about important issues. Next come critical moments, times when many people see dramatized before them what is at stake. Such a moment came in the civil rights movement when the Birmingham, Alabama sheriff Bull Connor set dogs on people peacefully demonstrating for their rights.

A quotation from Jesus, “The poor you have always with you,” is often used to justify the status quo. Far from feeling deterred by this saying, Jim Wallis uses it to strengthen his case. In his view, it means that the followers of Jesus will always be associated with the poor and others who have been pushed out to the margins of society.

Richard Griffin