I’ve been reading Revive Us Again by Jim Wallis (1983), and realizing I didn’t read much of this book when I got it about 20 years ago. I started subscribing to Sojourners in 1984 after I heard Wallis speak to the Lutheran Church in America’s meetings of the Pacific synod , which were held at a church where I was the fulltime Youth minister. Wallis was returning from a trek to Tuscon, where the “Sanctuary Movement” trials had been held (there was a prominent Prebyterian minister , (or who became prominent because of his involvement) with providing “illegal” snactuary to refugees from Central America, fleeing the death squads that the US government said were not endangering them (the refugees). The US was denying these people legal refugee status, so “helping them avoid deportation back to El Salvador or Niaragua was against the law. And so this minister, John Fife, was in the limelight for doing so and speaking up about it. Of course, this was the topic of much discussion and coverage and advocacy on the part of Sojourners.

Revive Us Again has been amazing to read. It took me back (although Wallis is about 8 years older than me, judging by when we went to college), I always seemed to be anticipating my copy of Sojourners (this was all pre-Web, so the magazine was an ven more important conduit to read a perspective that was the RadOX of its day. From racism, to Vietnam, to Central America, to Nuclear disarmament (the era covered in Revive Us Again, and the Sojo community journey during that time), the book is an early example of Wallis’ story telling prowess. I was especially touched by the parts of the story that directly mentioned one of the original Sojourners community, Bob Sabath, a friend whom I met via online connversing and spent a week with his family in 1995 when Ecunet had their 1995 conference in Baltimore. (I also did one of my visits to Church of the Saviour that trip).

Wallis’ and Sojourners’ message has not changed much at all (and why should it? It’s a “chronic national sin” problem , this country of ours, imposing its interests globally (since its inception, with the virtual elimination of an entire continent’s native population, and then importing a siginificant number of natives of another continent, Africa, and then as soon as worldwide travel became commonplace, no place was safe from the “business interests” of the American aristocracy) Wallis tells of his disillusionment with the Church over racism, and then the deceptions of Vietnam (and a close parallel in many ways to the present day occupation of Iraq (and yet again played as a “fight for freedom”, while massive oppression and genocides take place alongside, but with somehow much less of a “sense of call to freedom” for the selective “causes” of the United States.

The book also tells several stories of the Sojourners community’s living with the poor (literally— sometimes at “their place” and sometimes having them over for extended stays and communal living, as children were tutored, housing battles fought for, and years of simply living amongst them, and working to alleviate whatever problems that arose; and the stories are filled with the experiences of the disappointments along with the renewed strength they found in the community that had not only within the Sojourners community, but also with those amongst whom they lived and organized to help them on several fronts (jobs, housing, childcare, etc.)

More in a bit.