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

The Next Chapter by Brian McLaren


In two weeks, you will have your first chance to read Jim Wallis' latest book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. You'll soon hear about the upcoming book tour, a new website featuring the book and a slate of other activities planned around the launch.

I had the chance to read the manuscript a few months ago, and I feel real excitement about what this book can mean to our personal lives as sojourners, to our faith communities seeking justice and peace, and to our nation and world that stand at a real crossroads.

Three years ago, when God's Politics first came out, it took everyone by surprise. God's Politics struck a nerve – it diagnosed a nation that was polarized and a faith that had been hijacked. No one expected it to make the bestsellers lists. But because so many of us read the book with enthusiasm and encouraged others to do so, a new national conversation about faith and politics opened up. Sojourners' message and visibility reached a new level as many of us said, "At last someone is speaking up for the kind of faith I actually believe in. At last there's a Christian leader articulating a message that isn't an embarrassment to me." God's Politics proclaimed a faith that can and should change the big things – like poverty and war. As Jim was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The O'Reilly Factor, Meet the Press, CNN, NPR, and other high-profile places, we saw a new kind of Christianity become part of the national dialogue. As Jim often says, the monologue of a polarizing, combative, and narrow version of Christian faith was over, and a new dialogue had begun.

Now it's time for the next chapter. When The Great Awakening arrives in bookstores on Jan. 22, the conversation will get more practical as Jim explains how we can turn this new dialogue into action. Thousands of us will be reading stories of how spiritually-driven movements have led the charge for change in the past and why we're on the cusp of another such awakening right now. It's a book meant to equip everyday Christians with ways to talk about our deepest values and highest hopes for a better world, and then to translate our values and hopes into action.

We'll need your help, again. Our hope is that like God's Politics, this book will inspire another wave of commitment, and the tide of justice will continue to rise. We'll soon be inviting you to check out the book and to tell others about it, too. As an author and an avid reader, I have a feeling for how important a book release can be. On behalf of the whole Sojourners board and staff, I want to thank you for your support, prayers, and involvement around the release of The Great Awakening.